Harvest Monday - bit of a mix

It feels like I haven't had a majorly productive week, in allotmenty terms but there's been some bits and bobs. The weather's still surprising us with lots of rain and wind but we're lucky not to have had those terrible floods which northern England are suffering.

 

Okay, so I made another slow cooker squash stew, with chick peas and kidney beans. There was something not quite as nice as the last one - it might be because previously I used a butternut squash but this time round chose a muscade de Provence which seemed a bit watery.

I also made another spiced apple cake to take round to a friend's 50th and decided to use a lot less sugar (half the amount in the recipe). But I added a few chopped dates to increase the sweetness a bit.

I'm still sprouting seeds, which make a healthy crunchy addition to our lunches. They do seem to have slowed a bit now so I keep them on the kitchen window sill to maximise the light they get.

First soak your seeds in water overnight, then rinse them every day until they've sprouted enough. We're enjoying this particular mix, it has sunflower, Chickpeas, green, speckled green and brown lentils, mong and aduki beans

I've picked more lambs lettuce too, there's enough on the plot that's self-seeded to keep us going quite a while hopefully.

My friend Liz has very kindly given me some windfall apples from her mum's garden (where I grew some squashes this summer),so I'll have to process them all soon, they're a bit bashed and won't keep for long

She also gave me a jar of chutney made from her mum's apples too, bonus! (Her mum is Pat)

And finally, a work friend told me about some sweet chestnut trees on a bit of common land a few miles out of Norwich. I thought I might as well go and have a look and so yesterday headed out on my bike, cycling up and down hills against the wind. Rummaging around in the leaves under the trees I made a huge collection....

Tah Dah!

Yes, I was probably a bit late for these! The trees are quite prominent and it's a popular spot for walking so I expect the nuts were all harvested a long while back. Nevermind, I had a nice cycle ride and walk through the woods (and will try and remember to go there earlier next year)

That's me for now, linking in with Harvest Monday hosted by Dave at Our Happy Acres

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Harvest Monday -elderberry and apple jelly

We've had a few lovely sunny days recently, (chilly in the shade and at night though), which is keeping the harvests coming along, albeit a bit slower this week. I haven't got photos of everything but you get the idea -

Blackberries, chard and Dwarf beans and courgettes, all from the plot

Tomatoes from the lean-to at home. I picked a few more too,and took them round to our neighbour when we popped in to meet their 2 day old baby girl.....eep, so cute. I will be popping round a lot!

Runner beans in the back garden still coming,

A couple of different pickings

The bean plant that over-wintered in the soil hasn't produced any pickable beans yet but it has some teeny ones that might grow big enough (actually you can see some of the flowers from it in the bottom left of the pic above)

Meals have included, poached eggs and veggies on toast

Veggies with spicy bean pie (a quick meal last night after a day out at the beach with Jan's young nephews who were visiting with her sister)

This week I also decided to start sprouting beans again (after a break of several months....the seeds I had before were really old and lots of them didn't sprout and just went mushy). So, we bought a new pack of mixed beans for sprouting, which have sprouted really quickly, I've done two jars in a row in less than a week! Sprouted beans are meant to be good for helping with thyroid conditions too, so good for Jan.

Nice with noodles

And with quinoa. I also made a lovely salad for lunch today, with toms, dwarf beans, courgette etc) but no photo, just tasty memories ;)

So on to the jelly.....last week I picked elderberries and froze them for when I could get hold of some apples. Luckily for me, one the other allotment holders has a big apple tree in her garden nearby and has lots of spare windfalls, thank you Carly.

So I decided to make elderberry and apple jelly, using the hedgerow jelly recipe from The River Cottage Handbook 'Preserves' as a base.

The rough quantities are:

1kg crab apples or cooking apples (I used sharp eaters, which seemed to have ok pectin)

1kg berries (blackberries, elderberries, Rowan berries etc) I used mainly elderberries from the freezer plus a few blackberries I'd picked that day

Lots of granulated sugar (I use organic Demerara)

First of all, give the apples a wash and then chop them up, including all the cores etc (these contain the pectin) and add the berries (the elderberries are in the bottom of the pan under the apples). I also added some spices at this point (ginger and cinnamon)

Add 1.2 litres of water and then cook them all for a while until soft. I then mush them up with the back of a spoon to get more juice out.

Set yourself up some kind of contraption for straining out the juice (overnight if possible). I use an upturned stool - the jug needs to be quite close to the bottom of the bag so the liquid doesn't splash too much. Make sure you scold your straining bag first too, to kill any bacteria.

The morning after, lots of juice. I do then use a spoon to gently press down and get more juice out, as I'm not too worried about getting a cloudy jelly and want to maximise quantity! Straining straight into a jug means you can see straight away how much liquid you have - the next stage needs maths, yikes - for every 600ml of liquid you need 450g sugar

Add the liquid to a clean pan, bring slowly to the boil and then gradually add the sugar, stirring to dissolve the sugar. I also added a few cloves at this point (keep count of the cloves so you know how many to find. You could add them when cooking the fruit at the beginning instead, but I forgot)

The recipe says then rapid boil for 9 - 10 minutes, without stirring, until the setting point is reached (this always takes much longer for me though). I also have a tip at this point - do not get distracted and let your pan boil over...oops! For a start it wastes your precious liquid (and is also very messy). You can also scoop off any scum if you like (it's just aerated liquid)

Finally, pour your jelly into sterilised jars and seal up using your preferred method (I re-use lids if they are in good condition but otherwise use the selophane discs which shrink over the jar tops. Now, I must admit I did clean up a little bit before taking this photo, hehe. This is the point at which I scoop out any scum and the cloves, which float to the top of the jar.

So, 6 jars of yummy jelly. I will probably give these as Christmas presents.

This coming week I need to dig up my potatoes so that I can use the space for planting out garlic sets and my little brassica plants....we'll see if that actually happens!

Linking in with Harvest Monday on Daphne's Dandelions

 

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Harvest Monday - another roast (and some seed sprouting)

Wow, it's been really windy the last few days and some heavy rain too. But I did get to the plot on Saturday afternoon for a couple of hours and made a start on a hugel bed (ooh).

This is where you layer up material, starting with logs at the bottom, then smaller branches then twiggy stuff, green stuff and then top off with some soil. I've got the first two layers done. Not sure exactly what I'm going to top it off with as I don't have any spare soil, but I might be getting some horse poo soon. The idea is that over time everything breaks down, levels out, and feeds the plants grown on top. Or if you build one as a toblerone shape you can plant-up the sides and top too.

I had a spot which was in a big dip, next to a big buddliea, so thought I'd bring up the level by making one of these beds. I am taking pics which I'll share later in the process. I'm planning on growing a couple of squash plants here but I'm a bit worried that slugs and snails will find it a nice place to live too. Though I found a couple of toads which might help (I moved them somewhere safe).

On to the harvests this week...not too much!

I forgot that sprouting seeds would count as a harvest - these are alf Alfa. My pack of seeds is 2 years old! I didn't sprout seeds for ages and they went out of date. So not that many actually germinate, but enough do each time, this is about half.

This is the start of the process - put in a couple of teaspoons of seeds, add some water and let them soak overnight. Then leave them in a light place and give them a rinse twice a day. After a few days they'll have sprouted and you can enjoy in salads, sandwiches, add at the end of a stir fry etc. There's loads of different seeds you can sprout too, like mung beans, lentils, chickpeas. This container has holes in the lid for the water to drain out and the green arm thing keeps it leaning at an angle. But you can just use an old jar and make holes in the lid (best to use a plastic one).

Yesterday I thought I'd use up some of my smaller squashes, one had started to go mouldy (it was one which came late from a self sown plant from the compost and probably hadn't cured properly)

But half of it was ok

And the others in half too:

The larger squash had big enough seeds to roast, so I did some of my hazel nuts at the same time (I roasted the amount that I could crack open in the time it took the squash to roast, which wasn't too long because I'd chopped them up quite small.)This is them before roasting, all that remains is in the paper bag. I roasted on gas mark 4 for about 10 mins (after the squash was finished on gas mark 6).

The roasted squash...YUM! With some of last week's chestnut roast from the freezer. Other veggies not home grown!

And a few of the hazels (all eaten now... SO TASTY! I hope I get more this year). The skin flakes off once they're roasted, making a nicer flavour.

That's me for for the week. Linking in with Harvest Monday on Daphne's Dandelions

 

 

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