My kitchen is the heart of my home. My friends all like to hang out in there instead of in my more spacious living room.
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My kitchen is the heart of my home. My friends all like to hang out in there instead of in my more spacious living room.
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I grew up in the middle of Rome, in a 5th floor apartment, with only a small balcony where my mother grew marigolds. At the time I considered myself a real city girl and didn't have much of an idea about growing things. When I moved to England, I found myself the owner of a small, neglected kitchen garden. I had never owned a garden before and wondered what I could do with it. To my rescue came British TV gardening programs – it seemed the British were crazy for gardening and growing vegetables. I watched Alan Titchmarsh and became a fan of Monty Don. I became a frequent visitor of garden centres. I bought plants, bushes, bulbs and seeds. I scoured the internet looking for gardening ideas and handy hints. I was hooked! At war with pest I have to be honest – my initial attempts at growing plants were catastrophic. Many didn't grow at all, and those that did somehow didn't look quite like the healthy, vigorous specimens I had seen on TV. In my defence I have to say that in this part of the North of England the weather isn't clement, the summers are not exactly hot, and I had to deal with the gardener's worst enemy – slugs! I was more than keen to go organic if it meant no chemicals. Scouring the internet uncovered many different ways of keeping pests at bay. Used coffee grounds and crushed egg shells scattered around the plants and several slug pubs dotted here and there. To be honest the slugs weren't impressed, but I didn't give up. I was determined to find a solution. Somebody on the internet suggests using pallets to create a raised bed, but my garden isn't really big enough. I hit on the idea of using containers. I wasn't certain plants like zucchini or tomatoes could grow in such a tight space, but it turned out I was wrong. Plants are more resilient than we think! To my pride and joy my plants were growing well and I was keeping the pests under control. And I'd gone organic Memory lane is lined with zucchini flower I went to check the plants every morning. Then one morning I saw a small yellow blossom. Zucchini flowers! My mind went back to my childhood years, when my mother would come back from the market with bunches of the bright, orange-yellow flowers, and how she would use them to dress spaghetti or stuff them with cheese and anchovies and deep fry them. Forget the zucchini – all I wanted were the flowers! So I was thrilled when I managed to grow some, and although the zucchini themselves were small, and to be honest, worthless, I had a good crop of flowers. Eating Flowers Looks Odd My partner, a true Brit, thought the idea of using flowers as a cooking ingredient very odd. But when he saw me coming back from the garden triumphantly holding up a bunch of zucchini flowers, he was willing to have a go. His scepticism disappeared instantly after the first mouthful of the spaghetti I had prepared following my mother's recipe. The zucchini flowers have been a great success. Over subsequent years I have devoted all my efforts to growing as many zucchini plants as the garden will allow - with the slugs permission of course! This is how my mother prepared spaghetti with zucchini flower sauce Spaghetti with zucchini flower sauceTo serve four Ingredients
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AuthorI love cooking, and when it comes to quality I'm quite fussy. Archives
February 2018
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