Harvest Monday - overnight pickle, an allotment update and a trip to RSPB Strumpshaw

I didn't do much during the first part of the week as I was still feeling unwell with a virus, but Jan got busy making an overnight pickle. The beetroot came from our back garden - I'd sown some under the runnerbean wigwam as a bit of an experiment....they turned out quite small but still not bad being in a spot that wouldn't have been used for anything else.

The pickle also had an orange rind, celeriac, apple, spices and cider vinegar (which Jan bought, as I didn't want our homemade vinegar to be used....the recipe needs the vinegar to be boiled, which would kill off all the friendly bacteria )

You then just stick it in the fridge overnight and it's ready (And looks pretty)

I spent some time on the allotment yesterday...the weather was absolutely lovely and sunny. I still have a handful of small leeks, so brought a few home

I softened them in goats butter with onion and garlic, then added tinned tomatoes, some chard and chickpeas (plus a bit of extra water), which we had with quinoa. The butter really did make a difference, and it was yummy for lunch today.

We have lots of potatoes in storage still, so tonight Jan made a veggie shepherdess pie topped with mash and a sprinkle of cheese. The filling had more chickpeas....we'd cooked up a load in the slow cooker which needed using up! We'll need to be using up more potatoes soon too as they'll start to sprout...and Jan said she let out a little yelp when she felt inside the sack of potatoes only to discover a soggy one, yuk! The rest are ok though, hehe.

Down on the allotment yesterday it was lovely with birds singing all around. The mild winter has meant the garlic I planted in autumn is pretty big already. I'll have to cover it at some point to protect from leek moth caterpillars. I'll also need to weed it a bit but the weeds have little blue flowers on that I'll leave for a while for the insects to enjoy.

This is from a few weeks ago when I was in the middle of redoing my two old 'U' shaped beds

And the same area yesterday, tahdah!

In the middle bed I've put out some onion sets (covered to protect from birds and cats) and the bed on the left will have spring sown broad beans. The bed on the right will be squashes but it still has corn salad in for now. The beds are holding their shape quite nicely at the moment because the soil is damp but the sides might fall away bit when it dries out.

Back at home in the lean-to I spotted this thing.... cute Minxie enjoying the sun too. On the bench next to her is one of the tomato plants which germinated in late summer that I thought I'd leave to see what happened. Well, it looks pretty sickly now so I'll probably just compost it as my new tomatoes are much healthier.

 

A train trip to Buckenham and Strumpshaw

After a bit of a rubbish week feeling unwell with a virus most of the time, we decided to get a bit of nature therapy on Saturday. A mere 13 minutes away from Norwich by train is Buckenham Station, a request stop on the way through to Lowestoft. Trains only call there on weekends and on Saturday there's only one service which stops...the 10.05, so we had to make sure we got that one. The conductor was really pleased as he said he'd never dropped anyone off there in 11 years! The driver of the two-carriage train also waved us goodbye as he pulled away, ah.

 

The main reason to explore this remote area is RSPB Buckenham marshes, an extensive network of marshes and ditches next to the River Yare. The sound of all the waders, ducks and warblers calling was amazing....lapwings 'peewitting', widgeon 'weeooing', Cetti's warbler's ultra-loud singing and the lovely skylarks trilling their hearts out...beautiful. I don't have a good enough camera to get pictures of the birds but you get the idea

The rooks were cawing so loudly from this copse...almost deafening....interspersed with the high-pitched barking of Chinese water deer, who we also glimpsed through our binoculars

The River Yare...not many boats around on Saturday, nice and tranquil

After a walk along the track around the marshes we headed back past the station up the lane to Buckenham church. It has an unusual octagonal* tower and we knew there was a geocache nearby too.

*corrected, I made a deliberate mistake calling it a hexagonal tower previously, ahem

A Norman door apparently. A lot of churches in Norfolk are open and you can pop in for a look around, so we peeked inside and made a donation to the church's upkeep. The acoustics were incredible so we had a bit of a sing too, hehe.

One of the nearby geocaches, in a tree stump

I wonder how many people pass it without knowing its there

This was a nice one, attached to an ornamental metal ant, hidden in a hedge!

We passed a pillbox too

I spied an owl box in the churchyard

There weren't any owl pellets on the ground under it though so it might not be used at the moment

We then walked along a quiet lane to reach RSPB Strumpshaw marshes, which has a proper visitor hut (and toilets, yippee). Marsh harriers were gliding around and a three-bird kingfisher chase took place at one point. Since I got rid of my car a few years ago we haven't visited this reserve, (apart from one short trip with a friend), so it was really nice to spend some quality time there.

And if there was only one train a day, how did we get home? Well, a mile or two in the other direction is the village of Brundall, which has regular trains to and from Norwich, so it didn't take long to get home (and we picked up another new geocache find on the way too). The train was full of people heading for a night out in Norwich, whereas we were getting set to put our feet up!

Thanks for reading this week, a bit of a long post. I'm linking in as usual with Harvest Monday hosted by Dave at Our Happy acres

 

 

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Harvest Monday - 24 hour beetroot pickle

Winter has finally arrived and we've had several frosts and even some snow. The snow didn't hang around but the pavements have been very slippy to walk along, I had a very interesting (slow) walk to work the other day. But before that, on my non working day (weds) I had a nice three hours on the plot in the sun, carrying on with the weeding. I'm leaving the weeds on the soil surface to protect it against all the rain we'll no doubt continue to get. When I'm ready to use the bed I can just rake them off, easy peasy. I have to say, I did spend quite a few minutes just standing, facing the sun and enjoying the warmth, and listening to the birds, lovely.

 

This week my seed order arrived, yippee. There's still a few more to come plus some red onion sets

A few of the potatoes had already started to shoot so I've set them out to chit in the lean-to where they're in a light frost-free place. If you leave them in the dark they develop pale gangly shoots rather than the short, dark green shoots which grow in lighter conditions. When planted out, the shoots then continue to grow up through the soil and then turn into leaves above ground. One of the potatoes was a bit manky though, so I've thrown that one away.

I brought a few things home from the plot - beetroot, parsnips and a red onion from the shed. Plus quite a bit more corn salad that I didn't photograph

Jan wanted to make a 24hour pickle recipe which she saw in the paper recently - it has apple cider vinegar, a bay leaf and beetroot (all our own), celeriac (not our own as I'm rubbish at growing it), orange rind, coriander seed.

Simmer the vinegar, spices and orange rind for a few minutes, leave to cool and then pour over the chopped veg. Leave in the fridge overnight and voila!

We've had some lovely salads this week with the pickle - the orange zest (organic of course) adds a really special quality. I've made more hummus and red cabbage coleslaw to go with it plus we've had the gorgeous green corn salad leaves. No photos though.

 

Jan's also been busy making a pie which included our own parsnip and some more dried chickpeas we cooked from scratch this weekend, yummy

And to finish, we had a spooky surprise in the sourdough bread, wooooh (bought from the artisan baker on Norwich Market)

That's me for the week, linking in with Harvest Monday, hosted this month by Michelle at From Seed to Table

 

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Harvest Monday - beet it

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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Home made...

borscht.....

From these beauties

Yum

Improvised jelly straining set-up.

We now have many jars of redcurrant jelly (with a hint of cinnamon). Really easy recipe from Deila Smith's website originally I think. Basically, equivalant amount of berries and sugar, cook the berries first, add the sugar and disolve, (at this point I also added in cinnamon) then boil for 8-10 mins .....except I forgot the boiling bit and hence they are a bit runny but I have decided to call it redcurrant syrup ;o)

bird's eye view


How colorful is that? Loverly rainbow chard.