Journal

The joy of a sitooterie

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There is a thing in Scotland called 'a sitooterie' and I have always wanted one. If you look in the dictionary it is defined as a 'summer house or gazebo', "somewhere for the rare warm summer evenings" but that is far too fancy a definition. Far too posh and neat. A sitooterie isn't smart.

For the sitooteries I have long admired are ones tacked on or improvised, a lean to off the side of a shed with a wicker chair and a candle; a repurposed greenhouse gently dripping, but set up with a stove and proper coffee; an abandoned horse box overlooking the hills. It is somehow the way that the outside comes in that is the point.

And I would also argue with the idea that they are for languid summer evenings - no, for me the whole point is prolonging the time that you can be outside in Scotland - they are for Autumn and Spring and sometimes, if you are very lucky, for Winter.

The rain and wind threatening to come in, the dripping in the corners, the spiders and seed pods - this is somehow the point. They are somewhere to be both inside and outside, hands around a cup of tea, taking it all in.

I am a great reader of novels by Anne Tyler - they are set in Baltimore and the characters seem to spend much of their time putting up or taking down porch screens. The porches feature so much that they are almost a character themselves. I have never spent time in Baltimore or on a screened porch but it occurred to me that these may well be a type of sitooterie - a space thinly divided from outside, .

I may well be wrong about this - they may indeed be very spruced up indeed - but it gave me an idea and I asked Euan how difficult it would be to tack temporary screens on the deck that is at the back door. Moveable screens that could be stored over the summer.

And now they are up - and I can write outside, sitting at a little table, sheltered from the worst of the wind but still able to smell the rain. There is even a wood burner in the open side and at night we can wrap up in sleeping bags and watch the stars.

It also turned out to be a great place to overwinter plants and store the pumpkin harvest.

Pickled garlic scape recipe

Garlic scapes are one of those ingredients that you really only get if you garden. You can buy scapes from businesses that specifically grow garlic, and in the US they seem to be a regular short season crop available at farmers markets but they are certainly not something you are going to see in every supermarket.

The scape is the flowering shoot of hard necked garlic - they appear, spiralling up like serpents, about two weeks before harvest time. They need to be removed for growing reasons - the shoot takes energy that you want to go into the bulb - so it is a great added boon that they also taste amazing.

My go to way of using scapes is to chop finely, gently cook them in butter and mix with just cooked new potatoes. It is the simplest, most delicious and most obvious way of using them - I mean otherwise why would garlic scapes and the first potatoes be ready at the same time?

But that uses up about 1/10 of my crop so here is another very delicious way to use them up.

Broad beans and garlic scapes on toast

In the height of summer there is something wonderful about being able to go out into the garden, pick some ingredients and put together a simple and healthy lunch. It is even better if the ingredients are things that you can't get in the shops and if they are things that are often thought of as 'waste products.

In summer I often put together a version of this dish. It is really just 'something green on toast' and changes according to the week - this week it is a couple of handfuls of broad beans, 3 of the flowering shoots from the hard necked garlic, a tiny onion that won't store and some lettuce leaves that were a bit too battered to make the cut for a green salad.

Gently cooked and piled onto a creamy whipped feta spread they are worthy of any fancy cafe lunch.

You can buy garlic scapes from here if you don't grow them yourself - if this is too many for you they do freeze extremely well - just blanch for a minute of so and then freeze on a flat tray before transferring into a box. They are wonderful mixed with green beans in a tomato sauce.

If you would like a printable PDF version of the recipe, get free access to the Recipe library here

Rose and honeysuckle syrup

This drink is the taste of high summer for me. A bright floral scent that fills your mouth, yet it has none of the slightly 'soapy' taste that some floral things can have. The recipe gives you a bottle of syrup which can be mixed with water, tonic water or added to gin and tonics. It can also be used to marinate strawberries - layer them up in a pavlova with rose petals and cream and you will have the summeriest of puddings possible.

You do need lots of flower petals - grown without sprays - so this recipe is something for someone with access to a garden really or it could be expensive to make. The flowers don't have to be perfect, I collected the damaged heads after a rain shower - great blotches on their petals but still otherwise perfect.

I love the way the syrup changes from dull beige to jewel pink when you add the lemon juice.