Harvest Monday, mushrooms and a glean

Whilst I was at a carrot glean on Saturday, Jan made us some tasty falafels, using dried split fava beans as a base, plus our own (small) red onions, some slightly weary-looking mint from the front yard and chillis that were originally in the lean-to but now are in the lounge near the window. (She used a lot more beans than in this photo!).

Yummy. There were even a few lettuce leaves from the lean-to, and a sweet pepper left from last week.

The beans and recipe were from Hodmedod's, a local company selling British-grown pulses and beans, a great company to support.

Jan's look a bit like this I think!

This week I also harvested a few veggies from the allotment....some Brussels sprouts tops, chard and these leeks. They're a bit small but I dib the seedlings out quite late in the season, where I've had early potatoes, to avoid the leek moth caterpillars. Actually I wouldn't have had many leeks at all this year if my allotment neighbour hadn't given me some spare seedlings, 'cause I didn't get very good germination with mine.

For my birthday I was kindly given a grow-your-own mushroom kit, which uses spent coffee ground spores as the growing medium.

You make a cut in the bag (on the already-marked cross), soak it for 12 hours (it needs weighing down), and then spray the opening twice a day. (You get a spray nozzle in the kit too).

After just a few days the 'shrooms are starting to grow, ooh. Should be another week or so before we can start harvesting.

So, on Saturday we had probably the last glean of this season, rescuing organic carrots graded-out mainly because they're not the 'right' size or shape.

I may have climbed to the top of the carrot mountain, hehe.

We saved just under a tonne of carrots (which have gone off to various charities via Fareshare) but only nibbled around the edge of the heap. Blimey. And to end the day, we were treated to a huge skein of pink-footed geese flying over at dusk, heading from the sugar beet fields where they feed, out to The Wash for the night. I've really enjoyed the gleaning this year and hopefully there'll be more opportunities to be involved in the future. If you'd like to get involved in the gleaning network, check out the Feedback website to sign-up.

 

Thanks for reading this week, I'm linking in with Harvest Monday kindly hosted by Dave at Our Happy Acres.

 

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Harvest Monday - appley

I haven't done too much harvesting this week, but there's been a bit of an apple theme....

First appley thing was bottling up a batch of homemade apple cider vinegar. It's really easy to make....put a load of apple scraps like peels and cores into a jar or whatever (don't include any 'off' bits though). Fill the container with water and add a few spoonfuls of honey (this helps to speed up the ferment) and give it a stir. Cover it over with muslin or similar (so air can flow but flies are kept out) and leave for a couple of weeks to ferment (keep an eye on it for mould on top). Then strain off the liquid, compost the appley bits, and pour the liquid back in your container for another couple of weeks or longer depending on the flavour you like. Here's my latest batch, ready for bottling....

Then simply pour it into a bottle or two for storage...

Cider vinegar can be made without adding the honey, but it takes a lot longer.

 

Veggie-wise we've made a few meals with home grown produce, like this stir fry with the last courgettes, some chard and one of the peppers from last week.

I've made another sweet chestnut terrine, using our own kale and chard instead of broccoli, and chestnuts that I'd prepared last week.

Err I forgot to take a 'baked' photo though...here's one before they went in.

I also roasted some chestnuts at the bottom of the oven...they came out of their skins quite easily this way...tasty too.

Jan made a roasted butternut squash and rice dish, with some beans and courgettes from the freezer and drizzled with some of that cider vinegar, mmm. I now have three butternuts left - this dish can make a came back for sure.

And lastly, more apples, this time from a glean at an organic orchard...here's just some of them...look at them alllll! We had a fantastic turn out of volunteers this time, who really got stuck in, despite the rain. Well done everyone for a great day, harvesting apples that have gone to good use at various charities.

That's me this week, thanks for reading. I'm linking in with Harvest Monday hosted by Dave at Our Happy Acres.

 

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Harvest Monday, foraging and a glean

After being away for a few days, I've had a very foodie week. I got back to find a couple of ripe tomatoes and a little cucumber in the lean-to. The tomatoes are in a tray, ripening slowly.

There were a couple of ripe peppers ready too.

On the allotment there were a couple of teeny courgettes and a handful of beans. I spotted some in the back garden aswell today but forgot to pick them.

I helped in my friend's mum's garden again this week and came away with some very tasty eating apples. The skin is a bit rough in places but the flavour is lovely.

On Friday I helped chop veggies with Norwich Foodcycle, in readiness for the Norwich Pumpkin Rescue event on Saturday in the city centre....the aim being to encourage people to cook-up their pumpkins, not just carve them up and chuck away the innards. A couple of local supermarkets had donated some spare pumpkins, potatoes, onions, garlic, celery etc, which we chopped-up into a humongous soup (four massive pans on the go) which was being given away free the next day. Unfortunately I didn't get any photos of that but it was fun to be involved in mass catering for the morning. I didn't get chance to taste the soup either but it smelled lovely.

 

Then on Saturday I helped at another glean with Feedback (rescuing crops that the farmer doesn't want, which then get distributed to various homeless shelters etc). It was carrots this time....take a look at the huge pile of carrots that didn't meet the grade (but that we could dib into). Some were a bit manky (had a virus or something) but lots of them were just slightly bent or even just too big.

There were also carrots throughout the field which the machinery had missed or dropped. It's like hunting for treasure.

We got two pallet loads...not bad for just four people. Next up is an apple glean that I'm looking forward to. The farm is nearer to Norwich so hopefully more people will be able to make it.

Here's our co-ordinator Jannine with one of the graded-out carrots.... how cute is it?

Yesterday, Jan and I got the bus out to a village just outside Norwich to go chestnutting (Not sure if that's actually a word but anyway...). Seems like it's a really good year for chestnuts, wow there were some big ones. I think we were a bit late last year, and there weren't many left, so I'll have to make a mental note that the end of October is prime chestnut season.

We walked back into the city along Marriott's Way disused railway, like last year too. It was a gorgeous day.

And finally, today I picked another couple of peppers from the lean-to, plus a chilli from inside.

The chilli went into some cauliflower fritters and we had one of the peppers raw on the side, along with a homemade slaw. The pepper turned out to have a hot / sweet combo like one a few weeks ago..odd! It's a Quadrato variety which is meant to just be sweet. We ended up having a blob of plain yogurt on the side too, to help counteract the hotness.

Oh I forgot....finally finally, tonight I went to a talk organised by the Norfolk Organic Growers, given by one of the founders of Hodmedod's British grown pulses and grains. The business developed after it was identified that in Britain we hardly grow any of our own pulses anymore, even though we used to and the climate is good for it (apparently it went out of fashion as they were associated as peasant food). So these guys are bringing it back in fashion, and have been doing it in an ethical and sustainable manner, developing relationships with farmers and encouraging them to diversify into organic pulses ....brilliant.

I actually used to buy their products a few years back and didn't realise I was supporting their early adventures into the world of pulses. They've come a really long way by the sounds of it, so I'll look out for their new lines. There were a few free recipe cards too...the dishes look really good, mmm.

 

Okay, that's me for now, thanks for reading. I'm linking in with Harvest Monday, kindly hosted by Dave at Our Happy Acres.

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Harvest Monday and a glean

We've had a lovely sunny autumn day today....hopefully this is a trend for the rest of October (bit of wishful thinking there but you never know). The evenings are chilly, but that's what I like about this time of year, it's nice to start wrapping up. I've actually got socks on for the first time in months, gasp.

 

I've had a steady trickle of harvests this week...the summer crops are hanging on in there. We were also lucky enough to be given 10 eggs from our friends who've recently got some new hens....they're good layers (the hens that is, not my friends).

Yesterday I spotted some quite long beans in the back garden

And got a decent harvest from a quick trip to the plot too

Plus some reasonable toms from the lean-to today. It was quite warm in there with the sun out.

I've made this spiced apple cake a couple of times this week, with apples from my allotment (and in the second cake I used the gifted eggs). The recipe uses two cups of sugar, but that's way too sweet, so I actually use just-under one cup. I also replace the oil with room temperature butter, which is soft enough to mix in ok.

I didn't have chance to take any nice pictures of it dished out, but got good reports from everybody who had a slice. I expect I'll be making more because lucky me, I got this huge bag of apples this afternoon after helping in a friend's garden...

I volunteered at another gleaning day this weekend, returning to the organic farm in west Norfolk. There were only seven of us but we harvested masses of food.

 

Broccoli / calabrese field

Big ol' field - looking back the other direction

You can see the stumps where the farm workers had already been through harvesting the main crop. We were getting the smaller heads that had been left behind, but still lovely veggies. It's quite fun spotting the heads, in a sea of leaves. There must've been about 30-40 trays worth that we found.

We also harvested about 70 trays of caulis...some were too small for the farmer to harvest, or they had a slight discoloration or a spot or two of black, but nothing that couldn't be easily cut out.

The morning was beautifully sunny but then rain set in, so the afternoon turned out rather soggy, harvesting trays of Savoy cabbage and onions. Still good fun though. Goodness knows how much we saved from being wasted but it was several van loads altogether over the course of the day....and once again we could've harvested more if there'd been more of us. But word is getting round, with new people taking part each time. Hopefully I can make the next one, in a couple of weeks. The gleaning days are organised by Feedback and the food is distributed by FareShare, do get involved if you can.

 

Thanks for reading this week. I'm linking in with Harvest Monday kindly hosted by Dave at Our Happy Acres.

 

 

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