Thursday, August 26, 2010
Baskets
Harvesting preparing freezing storing eating..
These past few weeks I’ve been eating the fruits of my labour and very lapse on taking photos of what I’ve grown..
Most of my beetroot has been harvested – A favourite of mine is to roast it and have with goats cheese.
The cauliflowers are now blanched and in the freezer..
I’m cutting Swiss chard “yellow lights” weekly and and using this as an alternative to stuffed vine leaves.
Broad beans – of which I have plenty still in the freezer make a delicious Moroccan stir fry..
Marrow – will have to post my north African stuffed veg recipe!
Swede – now all eaten along with my carrots and sante potatoes. I still have rooster and golden wonder..
Fennel – will grow more next year as 5 was not enough..
Tomatoes – we’ve been picking the cherry toms for a few weeks now and the plum toms are ripening nicely..
I’ve been trying to come up with some different ideas for cooking my mini pumpkins ” savoury fillings” not sweet Any ideas?
Finally… I’ve been busy knitting
And
Visiting here here and here
With
She’s back to school next week.The following week I’m away for a short holiday.. Yeah
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Looking forward to sampling my first attempt at wine making!
I’ve racked it for the second time, its clearing well and should be ready in around 5 months time..
Note to self
Store somewhere other than bedroom when making wine in future..
After 3 sleepiness nights thinking I had a leaky tap in bathroom. I realised at 3 in the morning it was the air lock bubbling away keeping me awake! Doh… drove me mad!
Rhubarb Wine
1 Chop up your rhubarb stalks and freeze them in plastic bags for a few days before you make the wine. I really don’t understand why. Apparently it does make a difference…
2 You have to have patience. Rhubarb wine can taste pretty unappetising at eight months and really good at ten months. You have to let it mellow.
Ingredients:
3 pounds rhubarb
3 pounds white granulated sugar
1 tsp. yeast nutrient
4.55 litres /1 gallon hot water (doesn’t have to be boiling) that’s uk gallon
wine yeast
1 can of white grape concentrate
Procedure:
Using the frozen cut up rhubarb. Put it in the fermenting bucket along with the sugar. Cover and let stand for 24 hours. Add the hot water, mix everything together and then strain out the rhubarb . Put the liquid back in the fermenting bucket and when the liquid has cooled and is luke-warm add the rest of the ingredients. Cover and leave it to ferment for three or four days. Then syphon the liquid into demi-johns with fermentation locks and let it bubble away There will be a fair amount of sediment at the bottom of the demi-john, so when the wine settles a bit (about a month) you will want to rack it. Using a syphon, syphon the wine into another demi-john making sure you keep the tube above the sediment- you don’t want to transfer that. If some of the sediment gets through you can rack again in a few weeks time when it has settled again.
Then leave in a cool room to clear
Thursday, August 19, 2010
I’ve only managed a few fleeting online visits these past few weeks and I’m about to pop off again..
Before I do though, I thought I would post a couple of pics of what I’m harvesting.These were taken with my phone.. so.. not brilliant..
My cauliflowers have now all been harvested and soon I’ll be planting out some spring cauliflowers / cabbage that I sowed a few weeks back..
Mini pumpkins have gone mad this year. I’ve had 11 so far with more to follow from two plants.
Runner beans are driving me nuts. I cant pick um/eat um quick enough! Chutney me thinks!
A few of my Roma toms had blossom end rot due to the lack of rain along with irregular watering from me. They seem to be fine now after i cut back on their feed,watered more and put more compost around their roots they are looking really healthy and are starting to ripen nicely.
The potatoes in the photo are sante and are delish, definitely growing these next year and I’ve still got a row to dig up along with 2 rows of rooster and 2 of golden wonder..
Failures so far have been my…
Celeriac – about the size of golf balls
Aubergines-they haven’t even flowered yet ” Unbelievable” you would think they would be thriving with the summer we’ve had..
And my red onions – again the size of golf balls. The brown and white onions are great and are hanging up in my kitchen..
