Hazy Shade of Winter

Look how colourful my dinner is! That's carrot, beetroot, onion and chestnuts to stuff a Honey Boat squash. It's in the oven now...

We had a couple of hours on the allotment this afternoon - it wasn't too cold, it wasn't raining or windy but it was such a grey day. What a mess Plot46A looks - we're going to take the structures apart for next year and have it as a straightforward plot for growing - it's our only plot which isn't near the hedge, so it will be novel for us to dig somewhere which isn't invaded by tree roots!

I cleared some of the awful weed from around the kohl rabi - this chickweed (I think) is a pain, it's all over the plot. I'm hoping it'll die off if there's a frost, but I'm not so sure that it will. In the meantime I cleared enough so that I could put some covering over the kohl rabi to keep the pigeons off.

We did what we needed to do, which was to clear all the remains of tomato, pepper and aubergine plants from the greenhouse. There are still squashes stored in there and a few more onions hanging in the roof netting - still bumping our heads on them every time we move! While Jamie finished off in the greenhouse I did a little bit of weeding around our leeks. Really wish we had more leeks! We were too slow to sow them this year.

We were pleased to see that our garlic has sprouted - just a few tips poking through the soil at the moment, but it gives us hope!

Then back home to cook with the ingredients I picked - one of our two celeriacs, carrots, beetroot and a few more onions and shallots.

I've never grown a giant celeriac like they sell in supermarkets, but this is plenty to make a soup with.

Celeriac and chestnut soup - mmm, the celeriac has such a lovely pungent smell and the chestnuts make it a nice creamy soup, but it's not very attractive is it?! But then, the prettiest soup I've ever made was borscht and that tasted nasty.

While that was simmering I was cooking the stuffing for the squash - it looks like a dessert doesn't it! This is the first Honey Boat squash I've eaten. It seems to be very similar to a Cornell's Bush Delicata, so I'm hoping it'll be delicious...

And of course today's song is by the lovely Simon & Garfunkel - aaah.

Golden Brown

What a lovely Autumn weekend we had. It was a bit fresh, but very pleasant in the sunshine.

Saturday was a quick visit to pick some veg. Mainly for soup - I have some chestnuts left over after making the most delicious chestnut and pumpkin stew last week..

Onions/shallots are being steadily eaten, they're surviving pretty well in their netting suspended from the greenhouse roof - some are attempting to re-grow as it's been warm. The beetroot and small carrot were grated for a salad - though the purple radish had been nibbled by something, I only needed a few bits (luckily). The HoneyBoat squash will be stuffed for a meal during the week.

A beautiful calendula which has survived the cold weather and the hot sun has drawn it back into flower. So pretty. But the cold weather coming up will probably stop them in their tracks. Unlike the Californian poppies which seem to be indestructible and have almost covered the plot where we had our sweetcorn. Oh well, they are beautiful and if they pop up between some veg I won't be too upset.

There is still more to harvest - the kohl rabi have recovered after the pigeons pecked most of the leaves - they have more growing to do before we will pick them and there are nice florets on the purple sprouting broccoli, although there are a lot of whitefly. We need a harsh frost to kill them off I think!

Something large has visited our garlic bed, but no sign of garlic appearing yet - I think this is probably a cat, I'm pleased it didn't leave a 'gift' behind :-}

I'm at work, eating my delicious chunky carrot and chestnut soup while there's a very cold wind and rain hitting the window - but I don't mind too much as Jamie and I are going to Oxford this week for a bit of Christmas shopping - I'm feeling quite Christmassy already after seeing the Newbury lights at the weekend.

And, I can't believe I haven't already used this Stranglers song on my blog - this was the second single I bought, such a great song. Enjoy.

Looking for the Rain

We didn't have to look far yesterday, this is our front window. Torrential downpours in between drizzle was all we had for most of the day.

We were so pleased that it stayed away during the evening while we were at Newbury Racecourse for the fireworks - what a great display! The beginning was particularly amazing with the loudest bangs I've ever heard - it made the ground shake - and the soundtrack for the evening was the ending of the First World War 100 years ago today, so there were lots of red fireworks to represent poppies - it was actually really good (much better than this photo).

Today, Jamie is feeling very painful because of the Twister fairground ride that we went on last night - he was in the seat that gets crushed and has bruised his ribs (or maybe cracked one, as he heard a 'pop' - eurgh). So while he's resting up I made some pumpkin soup. I'm sorry to say that last week's roasted Crown Prince soup went in the bin - it was vile! So I didn't roast the pumpkin today.

And I peeled most of the skin off as this type of pumpkin tends to have rather hard skin. I fried two shallots with turmeric, paprika, cumin and a bit of curry powder, then added the pumpkin and some stock.

Mmm, that smelt so delicious

While that was simmering, I mixed up the pumpkin seeds in a bag with melted butter, salt and smoked paprika before putting in the oven on 150 for 45 minutes.

I decided to sieve the soup after I'd blitzed it, there were still some bits of skin which seemed a bit hard, and now it's a delicious smooth pumpkin curry soup. And more than half a pumpkin left...

The songtitle is by Unkle - it's part of the soundtrack to a Danish TV series we watched recently, The Rain. Tonight I'm off to the ballet to see Swan Lake, with my sister - my first ever ballet! I'm looking forward to it.

Missing

Jamie carved a fab pumpkin for the Marsh Lane gate and also one for us on Halloween.

We had a lovely meal of roasted squash on black rice with black truffle grated on top. We bought the truffle home from holiday, but were disappointed that it didn't seem to have any of the flavour we expected - never mind, at least we know not to spend a lot of money on it in the future! The squash was our Crown Prince and that has lovely flavour - even better (not so sweet) than the Festival I would say.

Now it's November and we achieved a few things on the plot yesterday. It was reasonably warm and quite a few plotholders were on site. We planted up our flower bulbs in big pots

I bought some wallflowers which were on sale, so I got about 30 for £4, I thought that was a bargain, so planted them up along the edge of the plot to cheer it up from March - May (well, that's what the labels say).

I also planted some by the pond at the same time as doing some weeding and getting rid of some of the Californian Poppies which are everywhere!

Jamie dug through the raised bed so that we could plant garlic in it. I left it late to buy it and ended up buying these ones from Waitrose. I think it's a bit naughty to plant shop-bought but hope that because they're from Scotland they'll grow ok. I managed to get 15 good cloves with a few left over to eat too.

The broad beans have grown well, we don't really want them much taller than that.  They're under the cloche net to protect them from the worst of the weather. It'll be nice if we actually get to eat some early broad beans next year!

This is my two celeriac - they've grown well in the old recycle bin. I want to make soup with them, but have to finish off the Crown Prince squash first.

I'm roasting the Crown Prince with sage at the moment, with the skin on. The skin definitely provides most of the flavour and is perfectly soft enough to eat. Look at how pretty it looked in the roasting tray. I've added a bit of chilli powder now it's on the hob. (I've just remembered I meant to add an onion, but I don't think it will be missed as the squash is so tasty)

So this is the last month of Autumn and there are masses of berries on the hedge - does it mean it'll be a hard Winter?

 

We always used to say that, but we'll see... We've already had a week or frosty cold weather, but it's warmed up again now and just a bit wet.

We found one last interesting thing before we left the allotment - a bagful of 10p pieces for my "10 Year Transplant Anniversary Fund" for the Six Counties Kidney Patients Association. People are so generous! Thank you to whoever left it for me! I look forward to doing the big count-up in April!

So today's song...is about the fact that garlic was missing from the garden centres, Wilkos and even Marks & Spencer. But I really hope it's not missing from our plot next year!

Clocks

Yesterday was the first time I've visited the allotment in 3 weeks! It was a good visit because we had a really good Autumn Workday to clear up the site and, although it was really cold, it was a bright sunny start to the day and we had a big bonfire to get rid of all the broken/rotten wood and hedge clippings.

With lots of helpful volunteers ...

Clearing...

Tidying...

Burning...

They're staring at the sky because there were lots of red kites and buzzards swooping over the site.
Very impressive to see

Eating...

A little more eating...courtesy of Richard's master BBQ-ing skills.

And a bit of drinking - Ivan brought some of his Apple and Blackberry & Apple wine along.

We achieved plenty and were so pleased that it was dry, as we needed the warmth of the fire when the sun went in.And I think the phrase 'Work Party' is very appropriate :-)

The previous weekend we had the HAHA versus Hungerford Twinning Association skittles match. The HTA organised the event last year, so we hosted this year. All the attendees brought food for the buffet - what a lovely spread!

There was a good turnout and it was a lot of fun. The raffle meant that we also managed a bit of fundraising for HAHA. We won the cup, so HTA will have to try again next year.

Jamie has been visiting the plot occasionally to pick some veg - we've had the last of the peppers and tomatoes. We pulled Pentland Javelin from one of the potato bags - a good amount of tubers, but they weren't that tasty. The Nicola that we had recently were much tastier.

Oops, there's that cup again :-)

Squashes have provided me with some nice meals including this one stuffed with marinated tofu and black rice.

I'm currently making Festival squash soup for next week's lunches. We saw a good Japanese TV programme about squashes the other day; I'm roughly copying one of their recipes - I've removed the seeds but left the skin on: the squash, garlic, fried onion, salt and pepper are all in the pan with some water bubbling away. The skin has completely softened and I've just tasted it..mmm

No need for any additional flavouring - just a quick blitz and a little more water, - so sweet and smooth, perfect! The skin adds to the aroma (apparently) so it's best to leave it on.

The title is provided by Coldplay - the clocks have gone back today and it's beginning to feel a lot like Winter...