Borage: Excellent Culinary Herb – Tried and tested recipes
Borage biscuits
Borage is an excellent culinary herb and can be used in a variety of ways. Borage is far better used fresh, as the flavour and colour deteriorate when dried and some essential oils lost.
The leaves taste of oil and cucumber and together with the flowers (say three leaves and three flowers) can be added to 500ml (1pt) of homemade lemonade.
To make lemonade combine the juice of a lemon with 30ml (2 tbsp) of sugar or honey dissolved in 500ml (1pt) of boiling water, and then chill. For a different refreshing drink, add borage flowers and lemon balm leaves to apple or pear juice.
Borage seed packet Thompson & Morgan
Young leaves can be boiled as a spinach substitute or cooked with cabbage (two parts cabbage to one part borage). Chopped leaves can be added, for the last few minutes of cooking, to pea or bean soup and to stews, or finely shredded in salads (before the hairs on the leaves become stiff with age).
Traditional recipes recommend borage leaves and seeds, together with fennel in salads for increasing the milk supply in nursing mothers. The leaves and flowers are still added for flavour and garnish to wine cups, Pimms and gin-based summer cocktails and the flowers are still candied for confectionary as cake and ice cream decorations.
Borage seed packet Thompson & Morgan
A delicious herb butter can be made by finely chopping young borage leaves, parsley and dill, producing one 15ml (1 tbsp) of each herb, blending them into 150g (5oz) of butter and then adding a little lemon juice, one 5ml spoon (1tsp) of chopped onion plus salt and pepper. For a sandwich filling or party dip, try blending 15ml (1tbsp) of finely chopped young leaves into 100g (4oz) of cream or cottage cheese and a squeeze of lemon juice.
Here is a recipe for biscuits, adding the flowers for decoration.
VANILLA BISCUITS
225g (8oz) self-raising flour
110g (4oz) sugar
160g (6oz) butter or margarine
Pinch of salt
One beaten egg
12 drops vanilla essence
Runny preserve for brushing eg homemade redcurrant, apple or raspberry jelly.
Sift the flour into a bowl, add the salt and then rub in the fat until the mixture is like breadcrumbs. Stir in the sugar. Add the beaten egg and the vanilla essence and mix to a stiff paste. Roll out, cut into shapes and place onto a greased baking sheet. Brush the tops with jelly. Place a borage flower on top of each biscuit, pressing down the petals so they adhere to the jelly. Gently drizzle and brush jelly onto the flowers. Bake in an oven preheated to 190C (375F) Gas mark 5 for about 20 minutes, until the biscuits have a good warm colour. Remove from the oven but leave on the tray for a few minutes before transferring them to a wire rack to cool.
Alternatively, for a darker, crisper effect, bake the biscuits without the flowers. Once removed from the oven, brush over more jelly, add the flowers as before and then, instead of jelly, sieve icing sugar over the flowers and biscuits. Place them on the wire rack of a grill pan and grill for one minute.
For a good all-round read about herbs, try Leslie Kenton’s Healing Herbs: Transform Your Life with Plant Power. You have only to look at the front cover of the dust jacket to know the author acknowledges the beauty of the borage flower. It has some excellent reviews.
Photography Sine Chesterman ®
Sine Chesterman, Contributing author
NB At this time of year it’s possible to sow some seeds that will still give flowers and seeds for cooking in about two months. You can freeze the flowers in an ice tray and use them to brighten up drinks in the winter months. Thompson & Morgan sell an excellent variety. Editor
www.ourfrontgarden.com is the website we write about the ongoing renovation and care of a front garden in a garden city
Puppy Training Problems Solved 2: Winnie Chews a Shoe …
Winnie
Winnie’s Woes: The diary of a golden retriever learning about life
A Seven Part Series with a bittersweet final episode
What a lovely walk that was, I feel quite worn out. I’ll just flop here on the kitchen floor, it’s so lovely and cool.
I’d better have a drink. Oh great, Claire’s topped it up for me. What is she doing anyway? She’s going into the pantry, perhaps for some doggie treats …
Winnie, shoo.
Oh, I don’t think I’m supposed to go in there. And she doesn’t have any treats either. Although she has left some toys out for me. I’ll have a sleep and then play.
Yaaaawwn. The house in quiet. I wonder where Claire is?
She’s shut me in the kitchen. That means she’s gone out. I think I’ll play with those toys she left out. Oh, hang on. What’s this?
Oh, my, it smells amazing. It’s all chewy and leathery. What are these dangly things for? They chew up really well. And this bit at the bottom has mud and stuff on. It must be a new kind of toy – thank you Claire!
I’ll just chuck it around the kitchen a bit, this is so much fun!
What happens if I growl at it and pretend it’s an animal? Ha! this is brilliant. Grrr, gotcha.
Wo-ow, I-I-f I sh-sh-ake my he-ad li-ke th-thi-is it starts to fall apart … !
I’m taking this to my bed to give it a proper good chew. Now that the stringy bits have come out and the bottom is hanging off I can really get at it properly…
What’s that noise? Is Claire home? Yay! I’ll meet her at the back door and show her what I’ve done with the lovely new toy she gave me – she’ll be so proud of me!
Look Claire – I’ve chewed it all up!
WINNIE!!! Blah blah blah, naughty girl.
Oh no, I’m being told off again … she didn’t want me to eat that toy after all … why did she leave it in the kitchen for me then? And what’s a shoe…?
Claire Price, Winnie’s owner
Breeder’s advice:
The obvious comment is don’t leave anything that you don’t want chewed within reach of a puppy. Slippers, shoes and underwear smell strongly of YOU and will be very enticing to a little one. Be sure to provide toys which can be safely chewed and never chastise the puppy for something he did earlier. He can only associate the present moment, not the past.
Winnie’s Woes Part 7 – Winnie Moves On
Winnie’s Woes Part 6 – Winnie Learns about Children
Winnie’s Woes Part 5 – Winnie’s friend Henry learns not to eat stones
Winnie’s Woes Part 4 – Winnie learns about other dogs
Winnie’s Woes Part 3 – Winnie Eats too much
Winnie’s Woes Part 2 – Winnie eats a shoe
Winnie’s Woes Part 1 – Winnie finds digging is not a popular activity!
Have you read the bestseller The Puppy that came for Christmas … A true story that has appealed to dog lovers and non-dog owners alike – it is both truly heart warming and heart wrenching.
Recommended Links:
Anythingdogz – an excellent website owned and run by Lisa Evans, an In Balance reader
Helpful Holidays offer holiday cottages in the West Country that welcome dogs. See their Helpful Holidays website.
Need Ideas Where to Go for a Day Out?
South bank London
How’s it going? The school holidays I mean! Run out of ideas of what to do, where to go? Then do have a look at this websitewhere all the attractions and venues included have been chosen for accessibility features such as disabled parking and their family appeal. You can download more than 75 reviews venues and attractions that contain all the information you need to enjoy a great family day out.
The UK’s top accessible attractions have received awards which might influence where you decide to go, see the details here.
A copy of updated The Rough Guide to Accessible Britain would a good starting point for anyone who has a less able member family.
We’ll be writing more about this publication when we have used it for a little while.
Let me know if you use either of these websites and whether they were useful. Feedback is always useful. Thanks.
Val Reynolds, Editor
All photography © Pintail Media
Interested in Gardening? Like some seeds?
Gazania Tiger Stripes
I attended the annual Thompson & Morgan press event this week when we were shown 33 new flower seeds, 54 new vegetable seed introductions, many new young plants – including a massively flowered dahlia ideal for both borders and patio pots – and fruit plants … 2012 is going to be a great year!
I was impressed by the vegetable planting in containers, it’s amazing what they have grown in pouches – imagine a full grown courgette plant hanging on a wall or a post! Dwarf beans, the list goes on and all so easy to harvest. You can have a kitchen garden on your patio! There were good frame supports for patio containers so you could grow peas, mangetout, beans, whatever … Very exciting.
Growing beans in a pouch!
We were given numerous packets of seeds of the new introductions and as I have many duplicates I am happy to send them to our readers free of charge. Just send a stamped addressed envelope to
In Balance Magazine, 50 Parkway, Welwyn Garden City, Herts AL8 6HH
with either Veg or Flower, or both if you would like either, written on the back and we’ll forward them on a first come first served basis. You’ll have to be quick though!
Here are just some of the new flower and vegetable seeds that caught my eye and I will be trying next year. They will all be available online from September and in the Thompson & Morgan 2012 Autumn catalogue.
Lettuce Lettony – a ball of a lettuce, mildew resistant, sweet tasting
Herb Basil Crimson King, special trial price 99p a packet
Cucumber Crystal Apple – incredible taste, golfball size, absolutely no bitterness
Swiss Chard Fantasy F1 Hybrid – excellent taste, spring and summer harvesting
Tomato Bajaja – this is prolific plant, capable of producing up to 700 fruits! Small juicy red fruit 8-10 grams in weight No sideshoots Broad bean de Monica – looked fab and gives high yield
Courgette Sunstripe F1 Hybrid, eager to try this, has a good pedigree
Dwarf french bean Laguna – a new one to try, we love these beans
Calendula Fruit Twist
Calendula Fruit Twist – a range of citrus colours
Hollyhock Halo Mixed good against a wall
Poppy Pink Fizz – this is so pretty with its frilled petals and seeds are edible
Chrysanthemum Polar Star – strikingly attractive
Californian Poppy Peach Sorbet – gorgeous
Phlox Moody Blues
Phlox Moody Blues – this will be a good filler for the borders
Some of the plants available include two really stunning verbascums, blue lagoon and Clementine – a gold blossom, they will look fabulous together. Do explore the plants T&M offer, there will be some real stunners for next year.
And the fruit … We were knocked out by the apricot and patio trees, and dare I say a new strawberry – Sweetheart. I tasted the fruit – excellent … Will have to have some of those. And the raspberry Valentina – unusual apricot pink coloured – heavy cropper, upright canes, virtually spinefree, again must have some!
If you are keen on gardening and want some inspiration do try to get to the Open Days this weekend – open 10 to 4pm both Saturday and Sunday – I’m certain you will not be disappointed.
Val Reynolds Brown Editor
www.ourfrontgarden.com is the website we write about the ongoing renovation and care of a front garden in a garden city
Lost in the Forest of my Garden
Bronze fennel, mallow, lavender
Every winter I study gardening books and magazines, determined that the coming summer will be different from previous ones. The area which I like to think of as my herb garden will be recognisable as such, and the remainder of the garden will be in cunningly designed drifts of planting, colours and shapes artfully selected so as to complement each other. While still maintaining the unstructured look that I prefer, I’ll ensure that each plant knows its place and stays there, leaving me room to get between them for essential weeding and maintenance. This year, I’ll be in charge.
Fennel, eryngium and verbascum
And every year the same thing happens all over again. In March, desperate for spring to begin, I stand outside staring at the ground, brown, bare and depressing – even worse than usual this time due to the extreme cold of last winter. I remind myself that nature will perform its usual tricks and perennials will appear as if by magic out of nowhere, while other plants will suddenly double in volume. But even so, there needs to be some selective new planting to fill these huge gaps. So, very disciplined, I plant just a few small plants and sigh when I see how large the gaps around them are still. In April, seeing that not much appears to have grown, I conclude that my memory has played me false, and desperately move clumps of the tougher perennials from elsewhere to hide the gaps.
But then when I pay my usual early morning trip to inspect the garden, I see that at last things are happening; plants which I’d thought had died off during the winter are putting out new growth. Amazingly, a couple of things which had “died” two years ago have been reincarnated with amazing vigour, and I spot several plants which have just arrived, apparently overnight and by their own volition; I certainly didn’t plant them as I haven’t a clue what they are! And a few days later there are more, and then even more.
Rosemary, lavatera, verbascum, hard geranium
And now in July you could almost get lost in my tiny garden. Self-seeded bamboos, golden angelica, bronze fennel and mauve verbena bonariensis have taken over and form a thicket standing six feet high. Marjoram and mint have grown into bushes, joining large clumps of prickly eryngium to form an almost impenetrable barrier, behind which lavender, rosemary and pink lavatera romp away. A solitary runner bean plant is growing into the overhanging ceanothus, raising the prospect of the sight of bean pods suspended among blue flowers. On a sunny day, bees are everywhere; at night it feels and smells like being in a wood.
Tidy it most certainly is not, in fact you could describe it with justification as messy. A friend kindly pronounced it “very lively”, and it’s undeniably full of life but who’s in charge this year? Not me, that’s for sure … maybe next year …
Janet Harmer Contributing author
www.ourfrontgarden.com is the website we write about the ongoing renovation and care of a front garden in a garden city
Belleville Rendezvous – A Whacky but Enchanting Tale
Belleville Rendezvous, original cover
Belleville Rendez-Vous is an animated feature film available on video. What little dialogue there is, is in French in this French/Belgian/Canadian co-production
Watching it is quite an extraordinary experience because it is like no other commercially successful animated film.
The storyline is very basic: a lonely young boy, Champion, lives with his caring, club-footed grandmother, Mme Souza, who first of all gives him a young puppy, Bruno, and then a tricycle.
Years pass (in a flash) and suddenly we find that Champion has lived up to his name and is a front rider in the annual bicycle race, the Tour de France. What follows is a breathtaking adventure as Champion is kidnapped by ‘men in black’ and Mme Souza and Bruno give chase and find themselves in an urban sprawl that just might be Manhattan. They are aided by the Triplettes de Belleville, a trio of ageing female singers à la Andrews Sisters and against all odds, of course, they rescue him – a real triumph for the little guys.
But a jumble of words tumble out when trying to describe this film: anarchic, grotesque, warped, expressionistic, surreal … And more than one reviewer has read a deeper meaning into the film by declaring it decidedly anti-American. Well, perhaps.
The inhabitants of Belleville are shown largely to be overweight, over-helpful people and the city itself is one of hectic traffic chaos. But the singing sisters, the good guys, are also are given a most bizarre characteristic, that of catching frogs and eating them stewed and kebabbed – the whole frog that is, not just the legs! So maybe looking for a deeper meaning should be given a miss and the film should just be enjoyed for what it is, an extraordinary experience from start to finish. I confess that when it was first released in cinemas I gave it a miss as I’m not a lover of cartoons. But having been persuaded to watch the video I’ve seen the error of my ways. Try to catch this one if you can – it’s unlikely you’ll ever see anything quite like it again!
Belleville-Rendezvous is available on video at Amazon
Jeannette Nelson A bit of a culture vulture, Jeannette enjoys art exhibitions, cinema and classical music, but her main interest is the theatre. For several years she ran theatre discussion groups for which her MA in Modern Drama together with teaching skills stood her in good stead. She prefers to concentrate on the many off West End and fringe productions as well as that real treasure of the London theatre scene, the National.
Keeping Wasps under Control in Your Garden
Common wasp on allium flower
It’s the season of picnics, eating outside, with jam sandwiches, lollies, ice cream … and wasps!
Now we like wasps, they do an excellent job of hunting out grubs on our garden plants, especially the cabbages. However they are a real menace by the end of July onwards. As the supply of grubs dries up when they metamorphose the wasps are suddenly are more interested in sweet things. They also forage for pollen and nectar and specially like the onion flowers.
We solved the problem with a Waspinator in our garden a couple of years ago and thought it might be useful to give the details again this summer.
It all started with the Victorians who thought of hanging up a dark grey bag that wasps see as a wasp nest and they keep away – they know they will be attacked by the occupants.
Waspinator handing from pergola beam
Instead of making our own bag, we bought a Waspinator and it is now very seldom we have a wasp in the vicinity of our patio table – we hang the Waspinator in the pergola beams over the table. The manufacturer claims the Waspinator clears an area of around 6 metre radius.
When the plums and greengages are coming up for picking we hang the Waspinator nearby which seems to keep the wasps away and there is less chance of our grasping an unseen wasp on a plum, which we have done and don’t want to repeat the experience. The nearest we can come to describing the sensation is like that of having a red hot needle stuck into you. Not at all nice and worrying if you have an allergic reaction.
Honey bee on allium flower
We take the Waspinator with us when we go on picnics, holiday, anywhere we eat or drink outside. We filled it with bubble wrap to keep its shape – we could have used a balloon! Easy to put up, easy to take down and store ready for next year.
The Waspinator is available from Amazon
… And here’s a link to the Waspinator website that gives real insights into the nature and habits of wasps, very informative.
Val Reynolds Brown, Editor
www.ourfrontgarden.com is the website we write about the ongoing renovation and care of a front garden in a garden city
Blockbuster Art Exhibitions – London UK
Absinthe, Toulouse Lautrec
When it comes to art exhibitions, the term ‘blockbuster’ is somewhat overused these days, but it surely must apply to Tate Britain’s offerings
The Degas, Sickert and Toulouse-Lautrec exhibition ran until 15 January 2006 and was filled with accessible, beautifully executed paintings. It drew on works from the eponymous painters as well as gems from lesser known or even scarcely known artists such as Bonnard, Vuillard and Warrener.
Arranged more or less in chronological order, from the 1880s to the 1900s, the works on display marked the beginning of modern art, particularly in form and composition. Some are extremely well-known, such as several of the ballet scenes by Degas, but the visitor was encouraged to see the very modernist concepts that were introduced by the artist, such as the cutting off a figure at the edge of the canvas or the horse’s head divided by a pole in the foreground of his Jockeys before the Start. These innovations give an almost photographic feel and were much tut-tutted over at the time.
The subject matter too marked a move to the modern era. The centrepiece of the exhibition is undoubtedly Degas’ L’Absinthe. Incredibly this familiar work was exhibited in London for the first time since 1893 when it caused a tremendous stir, with its two main figures drawn from Parisian lowlife looking drab, despondent and decadent. A whole room was devoted to this and just one other painting, with facsimiles for the visitor to read which draw on the ‘shock-horror’ responses of the nineteenth century critics.
The exhibition also highlighted the cross-fertilization between England and France during this period, and although it seems mainly the English that have benefited from the ideas of French artists, the influence of the somewhat underrated Walter Sickert across the Channel is well illustrated. He is often criticized for his use of dark colours, but there is a wide variety of styles in evidence here and this exhibition surely enhanced his reputation.
You may well recall another ‘trio’ of painters at Tate Britain in 2005, Turner, Whistler and Monet. It seems an exhibition of more than one great master is not a pre-requisite of gallery exhibitions (there was an exhibition devoted entirely to Constable in 2007) but they have all shown successfully the influences across borders and between styles in exhibitions that are both informative and enlightening.
This exhibition really was a feast for the eyes.
Degas, Sickert and Toulouse-Lautrec, London and Paris 1870 – 1910 ran at Tate Britain and sponsored by British Land Company PLC
Review of Toulouse Lautrec and Avril: Beyond the Moulin Rouge at the Courtauld, London UK 2011
Jeannette Nelson, Art Critic
The Puppy that came for Christmas …
This true story will appeal to all dog lovers, and others, as it is truly heart warming and heart wrenching.
Megan Rix and her husband decided to take on a puppy for six months to train for people with disabilities. What Megan didn’t realise was just how deeply they would fall in love with the sweet natured puppy and how much of a wrench it was to give it back six months later. They then took on another puppy, Freddy, and fell in love again and were broken hearted when he too was moved on for further training.
Then, one Christmas, little Traffy came along …
This is a book we couldn’t put down and are sure it will be a bestseller in no time.
Published by Michael Joseph/Penguin, paperback £6.99, available from Amazon
You may be interested in our new seven part series about training Winnie by her owner Claire.
Step Families – The Trials & Tribulations of Stepparenting
Families are rarely easy. Parenting, as we all know, does not come with a comprehensive User Guide to cover all eventualities. And life moves on – “It wasn’t like this in my day”, we cry (a bit too often in my case!). Put all those factors together – plus add a big dollop of self-sacrifice, resentment and frustration – and ‘VOILA’, welcome to the world of Step-Parenting …
Okay, it’s not entirely doom and gloom. There are moments of loveliness, of joy even, times when the step-parent and the step-child(ren) are happy together, bonded. 
But too often it feels like an impossible undertaking for all involved. I speak for myself, of course, and I’m sure there are plenty of Step-Mum’s and Step-Dad’s out there who skip through it all with relative ease. But I’ve read enough on the subject to know I’m not alone in my struggles. There are many (Step) voices in the wilderness, equally anguished. I’m also very aware that plenty have it far far tougher than I do; more complex family units, more animosity between ex-partners, etc, and so maybe I should stop the whingeing … but then this would be a very short article!
I have a son from a previous relationship who is almost six years old, and my husband has a daughter from his previous relationship, nine months younger than my son, who spends five days/nights out of every fortnight with us. We have been together since the children were very young, so they don’t remember the situation being any different. From what I’ve read, this all helps enormously. Our situation is ‘normal’ to the kids, they know no different. Yet, despite this, we struggle. Here are some of the classic battle scenes other stepfamilies may recognise:
“You’re not my real mummy”: I had hoped this would be reserved for The Teenage Years, but sadly not. I think it was first uttered (well, screamed) when my step-daughter was about 3. A whole decade early! That’s really bad form; I wasn’t prepared. She used to call me ‘Mummy Lisa’, but suddenly I was cruelly demoted to ‘Not My Real Mummy’. It shouldn’t hurt, but sometimes it just does… Needless to say, I avoid any fairy tales that have the archetypal Wicked Stepmother in – no need to fuel the fires!
“I don’t want you, I want my daddy”: Typically, this one stings when it’s spat out amidst angry tears when my step-daughter has woken up in the early hours crying after a bad dream or suchlike. When ‘daddy’ is asleep. When ‘Not My Real Mummy’ is the only one available (though a bit bleary-eyed). I’m afraid I am guilty of replying ‘Well, tough, you’ve got me’ on occasion – I’m sure Supernanny would be appalled.
“I’m going to tell my mummy/daddy about you”: This one usually follows a telling off. It sometimes appears in its extended form ‘I’m going to tell my mummy/daddy about you being so horrible to me all the time’. Nothing shocking, but when you’ve picked said child up from school, played with her, fed and watered her, and have only told her off when she’d been incredibly rude/kicked the dog/thrown her jelly across the table (delete as appropriate) it does grate. Just a little.
Step-parenting can put even the strongest relationship under a huge amount of strain, and I’ve read of many step families that have fallen by the wayside when the tensions became unbearable. But I’ve also been cheered by the number of step families that have risen to the various challenges and stayed the course. With a bit of luck (and a lot of patience and devotion), we’ll be one of those!
Some of the resources that have kept me sane (ish) as a step-parent are:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/health/physical_health/family/stepfamilies/step_becoming.shtml
The Step-Parents Parachute – Flora McEvedy
How To Be A Happy Step Mum – Dr Lisa Doodson
Forums can be good too – some of the discussions on Mumsnet were useful to me in the earlier stages
The author’s name has been withheld to protect the identities of the children. Any correspondence from readers will be forwarded via the editor.
Val Reynolds Brown, Editor
In Balance 