We're still getting battered by wind and rain most days so I've only made one short trip to the allotment this week, to pick a tiny harvest of chard plus some lambs lettuce.
Nice to have some greenery in egg sarnies (These were really huge sandwiches actually!)
I've made yet another spiced apple cake (well, it is yummy) using liz's mum's windfalls
The recipe I've been using is here But instead of oil I use room temperature butter, and only half the sugar and add a bit of nutmeg too. I was going to add chopped dates as an extra too but forgot. I actually did the whole recipe x1.5 this time so I had this big one plus a loaf tin-sized cake.
The Christmas activities are hotting up so I took one cake round a friend's yesterday and the other into work today for our 'Christmas food day', where everyone brings something in to share, which usually ends up lasting the whole week. As you can imagine, a lot of calories are consumed! I try to restrict myself to things that have been homemade and had a couple of nice carrot and caramelised red onion pastry whirls, mmm (plus some of my cake of course, It has apples in so im sure it must be healthy).
Tonight I felt the need for something that was actually healthy (rather than just pretending it is), so made a pan of butternut squash stew- thing with spices, tomatoes and chickpeas. I'm hoping it might help stave off the sore throat that's come on this afternoon too, booo. The squash, onion and garlic were all mine....it's nice to have stored goodies to dip into.
So, on to the beet. It must have been a few weeks ago that I lifted this beet but only got round to using it now (I've kept it in a plastic bag in the fridge). It's one of those chioggia varities so I was interested to see what it would be like inside....
Not quite the circles of colour expected but pretty nonetheless
We've had it thinly chopped and sliced raw, yum
Usually beets are quite juicy but this one wasn't - I don't know if that's just the variety? I was also worried it might be a bit woody as it had got quite large but although it has a bit of crunch it's still good.
I'd sown the beets in spring inbetween my autumn-sown broad beans - the beet plants were teeny for a long time after they germinated but then grew away nicely once the bean plants were cut down, so I might do that again this spring. It means I can sow the beets and forget about them for a while, and then have a follow-on crop already in place after the beans. I've still got a few more beets to harvest this winter but they're not as big as this one. I mustn't forget to harvest them!
(Umm, does anyone else have Beat It in their heads now? Good song though)
Thanks for reading this week. Linking in with Harvest Monday hosted by Dave at Our Happy Acres
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