Something Achieved

At last! I made the chive vinegar that I've been thinking about since last August when I saw it made on The Horticultural Channel.

The first jar I made up with white wine vinegar, using the chives which I picked last week and whose buds had opened in water at home. The colour had already started seeping into the water at this point and the flowers weren't so vibrant as the freshly picked ones.

Later, after a visit to the plot, I made another jar using some lovely fresh, and more richly coloured, chives and normal distilled white vinegar.

We also had some delicious stewed rhubarb, plucked from the plot today.

Lovely colourful ingredients to work with!

Try to ignore the doughnuts!!

Lunch at the Allotment

I was working from home today and it was such a hot day that we decided to go to the plot for our lunch. It was lovely; certainly could have stayed there for the afternoon!

Jamie picked some long-awaited runner beans for his dad and we picked some bits for our dinner tonight - fried marinaded tofu with veggies (tomatoes, courgettes, peppers, basil).
Our peppers are rather gnarly but they taste fabulous.

I also took some photos of the many 'beasties' and will put entries on the wildlife blog. I'm not a fan of spiders but the one I took a photo of today is quite amazing looking! It's your standard orb weaver garden spider - the type that makes a web across your porch so you walk through it in the morning <shiver>

I meant to post this photo the other day of our pickled silverskin onions, runner bean chutney and tomato & courgette chutney.

We've decided that the pickled onions will provide us with enough for next year too so we won't plant any shallots next year - will give us a bit of space on the plot for something else...

Chutney and Pickles

I know, we're a bit obsessed with preserving at the moment - I'm sure we're smelling rather sweet and vinegar-y too. I certainly know our flat is!
We picked this lot from the plot this morning - the silverskin onions are currently soaking in brine prior to being pickled tomorrow. Some of the courgettes will go to work but some are for dinner for the next two days as well as for the chutney. There are also a few leaves of perpetual spinach from fellow plotholder Geoff (Thanks Geoff).

Yesterday we made some runner bean chutney - the same recipe that we always use, as it's so delicious.
And today we've been making tomato and courgette chutney, with a different recipe - based on the one I found here, but with a few adjustments. This is the ingredients list we've used and we just put it all in the pan and cook until it thickens:

• 455g courgettes
• 284g onions
• 284g tomatoes
• 270g Demerara sugar
• ¼ pint malt vinegar
• ¼ pint pickling vinegar
• 4 cloves of garlic
• ½ tspn paprika
• ½ tspn salt

 It's smelling delicious as it simmers away so hopefully it'll taste just as good! We'll find out at Christmas.

This is the stage we figured it was ready - it's always a bit tricky; The spoon leaves a clear path through the mixture until the liquid slowly covers it again.

Here's the end result, along with the pickled silverskins and the two types of chutney. The courgette and tomato is far right, with the runner bean in the middle - mmm

We're Pickled!

That's the shallots all done. Three big jars and four smaller ones.

Two have got fresh chillies in - hot! hot! hot!

All in storage for Christmas along with the pickled beets Jamie did last week.

Plans for Pickles and Meals

It's pickling weekend so the flat smells of onions. We peeled all the shallots yesterday and they've been soaking in salt water overnight. We'll start the pickling after I've written this. We went to the allotment earlier, it's been a lovely hot day but we didn't spend as much time on the plot as we intended. Here's a photo of the asparagus pea; I felt it deserved a photo after I was recommending it yesterday. There should be enough on there to have them with a meal later in the week - they need to be eaten when smaller than 2.5cm or they are tough.

The squash are going crazy. A couple of the Uchiki Kuri really look like they're ready, but surely it's too soon..? I read somewhere that it's better to leave them to mature for longer but am a bit concerned that they'll go over if I leave them on the plant too long. The climbing frame has worked, so that can stay for next year.

Our peppers have gone red on the top side where the sun touches them - a lovely shiny red. We've had a couple in salads and they are tasty but the skins are a bit tough. I may add them to the roasting tin of veggies tomorrow. There are lots of green ones on the plants still and they're getting very big, so hopefully the sun will continue to shine for them to go red too.

We've pulled our silverskin onions and have them on the drying rack. We should be able to pickle them next weekend, although we really want to get some bean chutney done then and I want to do some tomato chutney - ooh, so much to do!!

I was hoping to make chive vinegar, as shown on the Horticultural Channel but the second lot of flowers which are now coming on our chives don't look as healthy as the flowers in Spring - looks like that plan may have to carry over till next year.

Another thing which will have to wait till next year is the fennel recipes I had planned. My florence fennel plants have gone to seed (such a shame, I should have started harvesting earlier). I've left a couple of the smaller plants in the ground but I think they've probably had their day too.

We left with our trug of goodies. That's our first Kestrel potato plant of this year - one of the tubers weighs over 600g! We hope it's ok on the inside. A lot of them are very scabby but we're hoping to bake a couple of them and scab makes the skin lovely and crispy :-)
There's also a couple of garlic; they've dried out well up the plot, even though we've had quite a lot of rain over the last few days, it's dried out in between and the garlic seem to be unaffected.
 

More pickling and picking

Jamie pickled the silverskin onions this morning in 25g of Demerara sugar dissolved in 350ml of Aspall Classic white wine vinegar.

Later we visited the plot. We were the only ones there, it's a bit of a dull day with rain threatening.
We picked salad for lunches and today had those lovely tomatoes and silverskin onions for lunch on bruschetta - such a tasty snack. We got 3 cucumbers - I think one of them will be given away at work, along with one of the courgettes.

The cabbage should serve us for at least two meals. The beets are from the raised bed and were pickled in sweetened red wine vinegar when we got home. Luckily there are a few cut-offs which can be added to my salad tomorrow!

Picking and Pickling

A quick visit to the plot today to pick some bits and see what's happened over the last few days. We only visited the plot to pick runner beans during the week.
I was pleased to see there actually is evidence of a butternut or two on the bushes - they're minute but it gives me some hope...

Tiny tiny butternut

There are also about 4 little squashes on the Cornells Bush Delicata. I really hope that we get some more sunshine in September so that we get some winter squashes. A couple of the days last week felt very autumnal and days really seem to be shortening rapidly :-(


Cornells Bush Delicata

We picked over 1kg of runner beans (no shortage of those at the moment - even though they're selling for nearly £4 per kg in the shops!) and another onion. The santeror F1 which have really proved to be worth growing - a number of fellow allotment holders are trying to get a local garden centre to buy some stock for us next year. Also picked another bunch sweetpeas.

We made runner bean chutney, using our usual recipe. After topping, tailing and taking the edges off the runners we had just over the 450g (1lb) that we needed and 3 of our onions trimmed back just about reached that weight too.
It's still boiling down as I type this and it smells so delicious!


The additional ingredients

We also dealt with the silverskin onions which we've been drying out at home for over a week. They're being pickled in sweet white wine vinegar but first need soaking in brine overnight. They do look lovely - so white and shiny. We may use these for our main supply of pickled onions next year.

Plans for salad and sweet onions

We had a few hot hours on the plot this morning. Weeding, grass-cutting and dead-heading the calendula - every time you turn round another seed head appears. We really don't want them self-seeding everywhere again next year! They're beautiful but you can have too much of a good thing :-)


Silverskins

These are our roundest silverskin onions, have left loads in the ground in the hope that they will also grow more spherical. These ones are going into a little jar of sweet white pickling vinegar for Christmas martinis - haven't quite decided on the recipe yet.

The strawberries are having a second flush of fruits. Hopefully we'll get to eat some - we missed out on the first lot because the birds got them, well there were only about 5 that grew, and they weren't very good :-( Next year we plan to have a proper strawberry bed on Plot 8

Strawberries

We picked a great trugful of goodies today - the kestrel spuds look good (and no slug damage or hollow hearts in this crop so far), salad consists of lettuce, tomatoes, red spring onions, cucumber and even a little pepper. And we're going to have coleslaw made with our first cabbage - which is a bit nibbled but we can eat round that!

Pickled Beetroot

Jamie prepared and pickled the beetroot today. We always bake them wrapped in foil, with the stems still attached to prevent bleeding; this keeps as much flavour in the beet as possible.
After an hour and a half at 190° they're ready and need removing from their skins. It usually slides off pretty easily but can get a bit messy!

25g of sugar was dissolved into 350ml of slightly heated Aspall Classic Red Wine vinegar. After the beets have cooled we like to cut them with the ridge slicer and Jamie packed them into the sterilised jar and covered them with the vinegar.

 There! Ready for Christmas!

It's August already!

What on earth has happened to the year? Can't believe it's August already - having said that, the weather is feeling a bit autumnal in the mornings :-(

We popped up the plot in the evening just to pick a couple of beets for Jamie to pickle. The beets are Moneta - a monogerm variety so only one beet per seed. The skin is very dark, which we think is due to the peaty-mix that we put in the raised bed where these were plucked from. Jamie found them to be much sweeter than ones grown in the normal earth last year, so should be perfect for pickling in red wine vinegar (should be able to post some details once Jamie has done the work tomorrow!)

I picked a few bits of salad - all the lettuces in the cloches have gone to seed but some of the leaves are still edible and I chop the chard leaves up to use as salad leaf too. Also (a bit cheeky) someone had left some lettuces for planting on the freebies table - I took a few of them to eat too ;-)

The squashes as expanding but the next two courgettes aren't quite big enough for picking just yet. It's rained today and yesterday so not much watering except for the tomatoes and the cucumber. Blight is pretty much all over the site. Lots of us have chopped the haulms down - we've only done our first earlies but will have to keep an eye on the other varieties too. We put bottle-cloche protection over the broad beans which have just sprouted; but no sign of the kohl rabi or carrots yet...

Then we had a long chat with Malcolm, discussed pickling and the Olympics, among other things, then went home while it was still light and not raining.

Pickled!

We pickled the shallots. They filled two large jars and two small ones. The shallots felt quite soft when we removed them from the brine so they should soak up the vinegar nicely.

We didn't do anything fancy - just used Sarson's pickling vinegar. Though we did add some dried chillies to two of the jars. We weren't sure how hot they'd be - we were given them by my sister a couple of years ago - but judging by the pain when I touched my eye later in the evening(!) I think they may be hot hot hot!

It's pickling time!

We nipped up the plot this afternoon, managing to avoid some serious showers, just to pick some bits for tonight and tomorrow. Tonight Jamie's making mash with the chopin potatoes and we're having our first crop of french beans with some broad beans and a quorn fricasee-type thing with one of our onions - great to be using four home-grown ingredients. And tomorrow I'm making a tofu, potato, carrot and onion layered dish with 3 home-growns - yum! The other bits are for salady lunches for a couple of days.

Includes first courgette, onions, carrots and green beans

When we got back home we prepared all the shallots for pickling - we should get four small jars and two larger ones. Some of the shallots were a bit dodgy, particularly where water had gone down the stems where the shallots had flowered.

When we'd finished peeling them we put them in strong brine (using hot water dissolve the salt) and they'll stay there until tomorrow or Tuesday when they get put into their sterilised jars till Christmas. The purpose of the brine is to remove water from the onions so that there's less water to dilute the vinegar once they're pickling thus getting crunchier onions - I still don't quite get how the water is removed when they're soaked in water, but it apparently works by osmosis... fair enough!

Onions in brine to remove water