Fireworks

Mmm, these were my Gigantes beans marinading to have with dinner. They're so tasty. After soaking them overnight they get huge (I know, the clue's in the name!)

I ate them re-heated with these celeriac 'steaks' for dinner - this was an expensive way to buy celeriac, though the seasoning was nice it wasn't nice enough to warrant the price!

I decided to use the remaining celeriac with chestnut puree to make soup. I ground the cardamom this time, to remove the seeds from their pods. I also added an onion, cumin and lots of pepper.

The soup looked nasty and the cumin overpowered the rest of the flavours, so I still haven't successfully experienced the cardamom flavour....

Oh well, try and try again...

On Wednesday afternoon we visited the soggy plot - we've had a couple of cold nights, as you can see from the state of the beans...

and the begonia!

We pulled our last bag of potatoes - Dido. They look good and slug-free. Apparently they should have a 'floury to waxy texture'.

At the back of the polytunnel I can see that our buddleia and bay leaf cuttings are looking pretty happy. They must have some quite healthy roots in the bottom of their pots - the buddleia will be potted on next year

We were saddened that the crowds weren't so big at the Newbury Racecourse Fireworks this year; hopefully it was the weather that put people off rather than the event, which was excellent. I love fireworks but they're getting such bad press at the moment.

The post title is courtesy of First Aid Kit (hooray, I didn't have to use Katy Perry!). This is a rather  nice song, which I hadn't heard before.

Season of the Witch

I've been cooking, I always feel that's worth a blog entry. Last week I cooked one of our spaghetti squash. We still have two left to eat, they seem to be keeping ok - one at home and one in the polytunnel.

I rather like the spaghetti squash, lots of people don't seem to (including Jamie). I only cooked it for about 40 minutes which left the strands firm rather than going smushy. Then I turned the two halves over, forked the 'spaghetti' strands out, added the chopped nuts, cheese and tomatoes and popped them back into the oven for about 15minutes.

Nothing has happened on the plot apart from rain, rain, rain, although when we visited at the weekend, to pick some more dry-ish Gigantes bean pods and drop off some kitchen waste, we saw that the garlic has sprouted already! The weather must have been just right.

And then on Sunday evening I did some more cooking - just soup this time and I actually used a recipe because I wanted to use the cardamom seeds that my friend gave me (Thanks David) and I used half of one of our medium-sized pumpkins.

I made this delicious pumpkin soup - I have to be honest that I'm not sure the cardamom added much flavour. I put 7 pods in, I will try more another time. I did enjoy it for lunches at work this week and I've been snacking on the roasted pumpkin seeds (with paprika) during the evenings - so more-ish even if they are rather woody!

Halloween Night gave us an opportunity for a bit of fun - I do enjoy a wig :-) And we had bloody beetroot & potato mash with a Stahly's veggie haggis for our Halloween meal - lovely.

Song title courtesy of Donovan - Happy Halloween!

Fire

These pictures are from last weekend's Fire Garden event in Newbury, hosted by the Corn Exchange.

 

It attracted a good crowd and the live music was great.

Lots of flaming structures and mechanical items spotted round the town centre and along the canal.

We went on Sunday evening as the previous two days had torrential rain, as has much of the last week. We only made it to the plot last weekend to pick a few bits.

The tomato plants in the polytunnel have finally succumbed to blight and Jamie cleared them out yesterday. It's quite nice having a polytunnel that we can get into again, though the ripped cover won't provide us with much protection from wind and rain this Winter!

I actually used some of the borlotti beans that we grew and dried last year. I soaked them overnight and then, after cooking, I marinaded them with soy sauce, smoked paprika and some olive oil. Warmed up with a few tomatoes and some of the Gigantes beans made for a couple of very tasty lunches.

Yesterday was actually a pretty warm day with plenty of sunshine so while Jamie worked (and disturbed a few mouse nests) in the polytunnel I did some planting - Cristo garlic is in the raised bed. We got about 20 cloves from these two bulbs.

And then I planted 3 rows of onions - we bought this mixed pack from Thompson & Morgan.

And I sowed two rows of Aquadulce Claudia broad beans. The rows should be close enough so we can use a net cloche if we get any heavy snow this Winter.

Our leeks alongside are the skinniest on site, so I think we'll be eating baby leeks next Spring at this rate!

Over the last couple of weeks we've been eating Erika potatoes - a really tasty white variety. We need to remember to grow them again next year - they were planted in a bag and had no slug damage or scab. And  yesterday Jamie emptied the bag of Estima potatoes - they look good, but we haven't eaten any yet.

Yesterday evening was our annual skittles challenge between HAHA and the Hungerford Twinning Association. There was a good turnout with plenty of food and raffle prizes included. HTA were hosting this year but HAHA won overall - 3rd year in a row, they need to get some practice in :-)

Right now I'm making butternut soup, with a huge butternut grown by our plot neighbour Kate - there's plenty left. I'm roasting the butternut in small chunks. The onion I fried in butter and have added some garlic, turmeric, cumin and soy sauce along with plenty of pepper. With all those flavours I won't need a stock cube.

Actually, right now I'm eating some of it - delicious! But I've just remembered I'm out for lunch tomorrow. Not to worry it often tastes even better a couple of days later anyway :-)

The Crazy World of Arthur Brown provides us with the songtitle. 

 

Face the Crowd

Hungerford was at its busiest and best again yesterday - for Hungerford Food Festival.

HAHA had our usual spot upstairs in the corner of the Town Hall room as well as having a display on the landing.

This year, we were offering free samples of makes & bakes containing veg - it was a great addition to the stand as visitors stayed talking for longer while they tasted things with unexpected ingredients! Examples were Chocolate Aubergine brownies, Parsnip, Carrot and Orange cake and, my favourite of the unusual bakes, the Celeriac  & Lemon flapjack. Ted, Liz and Kerry even managed to win prizes in the cookery competitions for their offerings - that's how tasty they were!

Kerry's Cheese and Chive scones and Jamie's Carrot Lox (vegan smoked salmon) provided the savoury choice and Karen's Ginger, Lemon and Marrow jam was very popular. Elderflower cordial and Rhubarb cordial provided delicious refreshment. Here we are in our fancy HAHA aprons.

Downstairs, the Corn Exchange was so busy that they had to restrict entry for a while so that people could actually move round the hall.

But there was lots going on outside too.

We had a delicious wood-fired pizza when I took a break from the stand.

Such fun seeing food stalls lining the High Street. And the smells were very tempting!

I bought some tasty cheeses, an almondy croissant and some Oak-smoked Chilli oil and then back up to our stand for a few more hours. We were giving away dried bay leaves and wildflower seeds as well as the recipes - everyone definitely likes a freebie!

And at the end of the afternoon, we accepted donations for the veg. Of course, I came home with plenty - some was ours but other stuff I swapped - hooray! Now I have a butternut squash. And I have a beautiful bunch of dahlias which have done so well on the allotment this year.

I'm on annual leave today to recover. Using Ivan's enormous celery (which is very green and full of flavour) and a few of our carrots and shallots I've just made some soup, with added turmeric. 

I blitzed the carrots after removing the celery - it would have been too stringy as well as a bit sharp.

It's very tasty and should cover a couple of lunches even though I couldn't resist a bowlful of it whilst writing this. The whole flat smells of celery - delicious!

So that's this year's events finished - just normal ones like skittles and workdays now until next year. Oh, and of course we've got the plots to look after!

The song title is provided by Beady Eye.

September

I see that my last post mentioned the arrival of some "welcome rain". We've had rather more than that over the last week, with some torrential downpours. I decided to do a bit of clearing indoors, but didn't get farther than looking up some recipes - for someone who rarely cooks I have quite a lot of recipe books!

We've been eating the Kestrel potatoes over the last week - very good for mash and also spicy potato wedges (which I'm preparing to have cold as I write this - olive oil, paprika, turmeric, chilli powder, chives, salt & pepper all mixed up in a bag before emptying onto the roasting tray) and tonight we're having them baked.

I made some more of the smokey marinade for the Gigantes beans which lasted a couple of weekday lunches - so tasty.

The weather has been sunshine and showers all week so we've been treated to some beautiful rainbows (this was from my window at work - the photo doesn't do it justice).

Today we got another soaking on the plot. This is the view from the polytunnel where we had to shelter - it's not obvious from the photo exactly how heavy the rain was. And it seems that next week is also going to be wet with some stronger winds thrown into the mix - hope those polytunnels and sweetcorn are still standing by next weekend! And I hope it's not too wet for the Food Festival next Sunday :-{
Luckily I had my fancy new boots on - a gift (thanks Alfie!) I certainly wouldn't pay that much for wellies, but they are lovely and comfy as well as looking great.

We only went up today to get rid of some kitchen waste to the compost bin and to pick more sweetcorn and beans.

Mmm, cooked sweetcorn with butter - nothing better, but you can see here that not all of the kernels formed on one of the cobs - we clearly should have done a bit more hand-pollination on these. We think the cobs on the other side of the block will have got more of the pollen because the wind more often blows that direction.

Here's something you don't normally expect to find at the end of September - the birds are certainly enjoying this unexpected treat!

My next post will be in October so I thought this song finishes off the month nicely, by Earth, Wind and Fire (don't even try not to sing-along).