Tonight, Tonight

I couldn't find a song titled 'cheesy, sprouty nosh' so... can you guess what we're having for dinner tonight, tonight?

Lovely Brussels sprouts straight from the plot, mixed with fried Quorn lardons. We've had some frosty weather, even some snow, so the flavour should have been enhanced by that.

Covered in cheese sauce and topped with grated cheddar and chopped nuts - mmm, yum.

We aren't going to get a chance to work on the plot this weekend, but I'm hoping that by next weekend a raised bed will be ready for garlic planting. We haven't planned this year's seeds yet but these were delivered this week...

Here's the lovely Smashing Pumpkins video from the title...

Stop Me...

...from eating all the delicious soup!

We've visited the plot both days this weekend. Yesterday I showed a new plotholder around and then we did a bit of clearing of Plot7 and also weeded and dug a bit of 6x fertiliser around the rhubarb. The plants look like piles of burned debris, but there are signs of life in there.

Today we only walked up to pick some ingredients for my soup: parsnip and carrot. Some of the parsnips have rotted right through, but the one I took home was a lovely big one with only a small bit of canker near the top. It was such a big parsnip that I only pulled one carrot.

Two cloves of garlic, some paprika, cumin, salt & pepper were added to olive oil and butter to heat up.

Then the carrots and parsnips for about 15 minutes before the stock was added and it was all boiled/simmered for another 30minutes.

And then I tasted it - yum, it's so tasty but I must save it for my lunches next week!
So, The Smiths song seemed an appropriate title ,but here's the Mark Ronson version (because he doesn't include the 'if you've heard this song before' phrase in the title!). Enjoy!

Five Years

At last! The news we've been waiting for... Hungerford Town Council and the housing developer (on behalf of the landowner) have confirmed ("in principle" - well, nothing's signed yet) that we can have a further five year lease extension - yay!

Our changing plot over the last few years

We can do a lot with 5 years and actually plan a bit. Of course, we are still hoping that permanence is on the cards in the future, but let's not be greedy at this point! Now, where did we put those seed catalogues?!

And, this post's music is provided by the lovely David Bowie, such a sad loss last year...

On a Day Like Today...

... you don't feel like leaving the flat. However, it's the new year!  

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Good luck and good wishes for the next 365 days and beyond...

So, although it was rainy and rather cold, with no risk of snow (shame), we ventured to the plot to pick some sprouts.

We're pleased that they've grown, though the stalk is shorter than the advertised 1m; we think they are a bit stunted because we didn't plant them out till the end of July. We don't need many for our chestnut, sprout and (Quorn) chorizo stir-fry tonight and there should be enough for another 3-4 meals at least.

The top dish is roasted, chopped/mashed potato, carrot, parsnip which we re-baked and had with vegetarian haggis for our New Year's Eve meal. I prefer the Stahly haggis rather than the Waitrose, but it's hard (expensive) to track down. The soup is parsnip and carrot with garlic - really tasty - it was just two carrots and the two legs of that parsnip with about 1pint of stock and a bit of paprika. It's probably the first soup I've made where I haven't added an onion, just garlic. I think I'll try that again.

This year I'm going to attempt to use a song title as the title of each post. It's tricky thinking of new titles for each post anyway, so this is only going to make it harder, but I'll see how I get on... I hope this isn't the last song title I think of!!

I was thinking of the Keane song and someone's helpfully added the lyrics in Spanish to this video - enjoy!

Glistening Droplets

Well, I was meant to have finished blogging for the year, but can't resist after a short visit to the plot to pick parsnips and carrots.

The frost and fog had cleared and the dipping sun was just at the right angle.

All the netting was glistening like diamonds.

Just beautiful!

And we got our veg, after a bit of a fight!