Harvest Monday - extending the stored goodies & a freezer peek

I often find that around mid-January to February the stored veggies start needing a bit of attention (especially as we've had a lot of mild weather again this winter....despite a bit of snow this week).

 

I store my potatoes in thick paper sacks in a brick shed in the front yard, which faces north, so they keep pretty well in there. But they started sprouting recently, so we decided to use some in a big pot of mashed potato, to then freeze in portions.

 

Similarly, the carrots (stored in plastic mesh trays lined and covered in newspaper) have started shooting too. For these I prepped a whole load of them and am storing in a big jug of water in the fridge. (These were reject carrots saved at one of the gleans back in November).

And with another batch I'm having a go at fermenting in a brine solution. They've been going a few days so far and the bubbling has eased off, but they haven't developed a sour taste yet, so I guess I'll just leave them longer and see what happens.

I've continued to sprout seeds this week, which go nicely in sandwiches and added to noodle soups right at the end of cooking. These are alfalfa on the left and green lentils on the right.

And a mixture including mung beans and chick peas. They have a really good crunch. Sprouting your own beans etc is way cheaper than buying sprouts from a shop, and it's easy too. There are expensive kits you can get for sprouting seeds but actually just an old jar will do, as long as you can rinse the seeds out effectively.

Before Christmas I grew mushrooms from a gift kit which uses spent coffee grounds as the growing medium. They produced a lovely crop and were tasty too. The instructions said it's sometimes possible to get another crop from the same kit, so after leaving the grounds to rest for a couple of weeks I got them going again recently....ta dah....not as many as the first time but they were very tasty again.

I thought we'd have a quick peep in the freezer to see what's left. I've been using up bags of frozen sliced green beans, chopped courgettes, tubs of stewed fruit and tubs of partially cooked greens (chard and kale). Here on the top shelf are some glass tubs of mashed potato plus leftovers and green beans. I'm trying to use less plastic and was kindly given the tubs for my birthday (just the sort of pressie I like). They have a glass base with plastic top.

Second shelf - mainly tubs of greens and leftovers.

Third shelf (drawer) - mainly bags of fruit plus a big tub of stewed fruit. When I've used up all the tubs of stewed fruit I'll make up some more batches using a mixture of berries plus apples that I've got left in the storage shed.

Bottom shelf (drawer) - more fruit.

Hmm it's not a bad little stash altogether. Plus on the plot I still have kale, chard, corn salad, with purple sprouting broccoli to come too. I'll try and get down the plot tomorrow to harvest some more goodies.

 

Thanks for reading, I'm linking in with Harvest Monday kindly hosted at the moment by Michelle at From Seed to Table.

 

 

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