April brings a bit more focus to our lives, helped along by planting seeds and tending the kitchen gardens of our French lives. Seeds are planted, tended, germinated under some shelter, and then planted out as the days lengthen and the nights grow warmer. Kate always makes a plan, mostly because she likes to draw on scraps of paper, and looking back at 20 years worth of garden plans is always as interesting as it is fun.
Patience is a key to planting out; too soon and everything seizes and waits; too many seedlings is a waste of energy. Planting trees and letting things go a little wilder is Kate’s new project in the Forest Garden, inspired by Robert A. de J. Hart's lovely old book Forest Gardening and Patrick Whitefield’s How to Make a Forest Garden and executed by Working Resident Harriet Davidson. Tamsin has her garden room full of seedslings already.
Recipe:
We made a little buckwheat flour (ble de sarrasin) pastry papered with a thin translucent layer of confiture de melon or any other thick tasty jam and dusted with some dried coconut which browns up nicely in a hot oven. Kate’s basic pastry recipe is simple and means you can play around with different flours and fats; she uses an egg to help bind the flour and fat together.
Tarte au Confiture
Basic Pastry
200 g flour (a mix of buckwheat 50%, rice 25% and corn flour 25% this time)
100g fat (I used home-rendered lard this time but butter would be tasty)
a pinch of salt
one egg
a tablespoon or 2 of water as needed.
Filling
1 cup or more of homemade confiture or jam. enough to make a thin layer as thick as the pastry bottom
1/2 cup of dried shredded coconut
Make the pastry by mixing all the ingredients together roughly and rolling out or pressing into a shallow tart pan, barely forming an edge. Layer the jam evenly over the pastry bottom, then sprinkle with the coconut. Bake in the hot oven 200’C/ 420’F for 25 minutes or so. Serve warm with tea or coffee!
What’s Next?
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Links:
Hungry for more? Don’t forget to read our substacks:
Tamsin’s Unfolding Conversations here
and Kate’s Camont Journals here.
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Episode #4 How does Your Garden Grow