Wednesday 23 January 2019

Harvest Monday

Here I am coming in a little late for Harvest Monday. This week I noticed that one of my sweet dumpling squashes was starting to go a bit soft. Jan's been doing quite a lot of cooking recently and she was in charge of roasting these up. In fact she only used two of them, they give a really decent amount of food for something that looks quite small, so still one to go. The skin is fine to eat as well, which makes prepping them easier - just give the skin a clean first, then slice down following the curves for handy sized roasting portions, and scoop out the seeds.



I haven't been to the plot much recently (cold or rainy on my free days) but got a nice little harvest a few days ago - leeks, chard, corn salad and a pointy cabbage. I'm intending to make the cabbage into a coleslaw soon, hope it's still ok in the fridge.



The corn salad was used in sandwiches and the rest of the veggies went into a soup. Here's a piccie mid-prep. I'd already added the lovely dark green leek-tops to the pan. Nice to have a splash of colour from the chard too.





I've been trying to keep up with home-sprouting pulses regularly (particularly through the winter months when there's less fresh veggie around), and add a sprinkling to soups right at the end, so they stay fresh and crunchy. Adding a spoonful of brine solution from a previous ferment gives a bit of extra goodness and flavour too. This is a different soup from earlier in the week.




In addition to the sprouted pulses, I've been trying to up our general pulse intake too, and have been buying various dried packs of Hodmedods British-grown pulses, soaking them the day before we need them to save a bit of time. The dark reddy brown peas here are called carlin peas or brown badgers. They have a nutty fulsome flavour. Plus there's a recipe to use them in chocolate brownies, so it would be rude not to try, eh. I've been using their split peas a lot too (like in the soup pictured above), plus barley and quinoa flakes (which I add to my muesli mix).




We were given a new recipe book for Christmas, The Green Roasting Tin by Rukmini Iyer, which is what's inspired Jan to do lots of cooking. So, many tasty meals, which need the oven on, perfect for these chilly evenings. She generally adapts the recipes a little bit, to make use of what we've got already. Here's a good chickpea-based one including my own grown beetroot (stored in the fridge up til now) and climbing beans from the freezer. 




Usually I write this blog in the evening but as I'm writing a day late, it's lovely and sunny out there at the moment so hopefully I'll get outside for a bit of fresh air later. 

Thanks for reading this week, I'm linking in as usual with Harvest Monday, kindly hosted this January by Michelle at From Seed to Table  Check out her blog to see what other people have been up to.

PS due to technical issues, this is now going out on weds, a mere two days late :D 


14 comments:

  1. Your still better person than me, i haven't done much harvesting in my own back garden! I saw the book at the bookshop and was tempted. Its good, but I am trying to cut down on my purchases of books and use what I have at home; or borrow from the library - I will see if they have it. I am a fan of Hodmedod. Happy Harvest Monday, yes I know its Wednesday.

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    1. Hi Shaheen, aw sometimes it's difficult to get the enthusiasm to garden at this time of year! Yeah we wouldn't have bought the book ourselves but it's proved useful for sure. We get quite a lot of books from the library but never really thought about taking out recipe books, good plan. Hodmedods grew out of an idea from Transition Norwich...it's brilliant they've proved a big success (they're now based just over the border in Suffolk). They've got a good organic range now too, hurrah.

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  2. Soups are one of my favourite things to do with veg, especially in winter when I can just grab a packet of this or that from the freezer. That's a lovely harvest from the plot for January and a lot more fresh veg than we will have going on here for at least 3 more months. Lucky you!

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    1. Hi Margaret, yeah there was a time when virtually everything I cooked was soup, somehow got out of the habit!

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    2. Hope your well Lou. Noted that you have not been blogging much. Just wanted to let you know that I was thinking of you.

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    3. Hi Shaheen, that's so nice of you to message. I'm ok thanks. From January to the end of May we were spending lots of time looking after little old lady Minxie cat - she was fairly stable as long as we could look after her (virtually 24hrs a day, taking turns around work etc) but then she got a lot more poorly and we sadly had to say bye to her. She would've been 19 soon. We really miss her! So I didn't really have the energy to keep up the blogging etc during that time. I'm now trying to at least put a few posts on Instagram every now and then (though am not very regular at that either!) I also find typing too much on the iPad sets off my RSI wrist pain, so blogging using it is tricky (plus the app I've got is not great)....Jan was trying to work out a better system for me. So hopefully I'll start blogging again but in the meantime it's just a bit of instagramming...I can see you on there :) I need to check out what everyone's been doing for Harvest Monday too, it's been far too long.

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  3. We have coleslaw most days as a side at lunchtime and its keeps covered in a bowl for about four days. I peel leaves off the cabbage as I need to use them. This way they rest of the cabbage keeps in the salad drawer of the fridge fo.r weeks

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    1. Hi sue, that's a good idea to peel off the cabbage leaves as you go. This cabbage was small enough that I could just use it all at once.

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  4. Soup is a favorite menu item here at this time of year and most of what's left in my garden now are perfect candidates for the soup pot. We also enjoy a lot of one dish dinners which my husband refers to as "bowl meals".

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    1. Hi Michelle, ah yes I love one dish dinners, the less washing up the better! We have these dishes that are a cross between a bowl and a plate that are handy. I think they originally came from a student house I lived in over 20 years ago!

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  5. I love the dumpling and delicata squashes, but sadly we have eaten all of ours. I'll bet yours were tasty! You remind me I need to start sprouting again. I quit in summer when there's lots of veggies coming in, but it's nice in winter to have them to add to dishes.

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    1. Hi Dave, we roasted up the last dumpling squash last night, mmm! Sprouting comes in really handy in winter, plus I find in summer they can go mouldy quickly in the heat so they get wasted.

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