Kale

When you have a vegetable patch in the garden or an allotment you're going, from time to time, get a surplus of something or other. Hopefully it's something that can be frozen or pickled or turned into jam, but occasionally it isn't - or, as is the case at the moment due to tomatoes and runner beans, there just isn't space in the freezer. 

So, I'm working my way through a seemingly never-ending supply of kale. I'm not fond of it just boiled, as you might cook cabbage or broccoli, which leads to some interesting experiments.

I like to add it, much the way I would spinach, to dishes with strong flavour, such as stir fries, chillies, curry, goulash, tomato dishes for pasta, with bacon chops in an apple juice sauce, and both in and shredded on top of enchiladas.  

My favourite way though is none of these but roasted - with oil and spices - to make Chinese 'crispy seaweed'.

 

How did we manage without freezers?

An allotment trip last week saw me bringing home bags and tubs filled with a variety of fruit and veg - tomatoes, runner beans, corn on the cob, peppers, beetroot, apples, raspberries, and rhubarb.

It's all good stuff, hopefully helping us eating a healthy, varied diet, and probably costs less than buying the same vegetables from a supermarket, BUT anyone with a vegetable patch, even the smallest, will know how crops always seem to arrive in a rush - one day nothing is ready to pick, the next there's a glut!

Most of our home grown crops won't be eaten fresh, so

having grown and picked it, now comes the dreaded task of preserving it somehow.

Some veg comes in handy ready-to-store packaging - one of the reasons I love pumpkins is because they store over winter with no effort; onions only have to be hung up somewhere dry and frost free; beetroot, carrots and apples will be fine in a cardboard box for a while.

There are still tricky things though - runner beans, peas, corn, any and every kind of soft fruit.
I know there are lots of clever ways involving salt, sugar and vinegar to save produce, and have something to eat in a few months time. I could make cordials, jam, chutney, passata, pickles, marmalade, fruit leather ... the list seems almost endless. But really most of that should be done within a day or so of picking, and I feel too busy at the moment to start making whatever.

Thank goodness for the freezer!

Seriously, how did people manage without one?
By late autumn my freezer will be full of home-grown fruit and veg, all stored with very little effort.
I'm definitely a lazy cook, and the quicker and easier I can get vegetables into the freezer, the better.
So, I love fruit which is just washed and drained, or tomatoes which are wiped clean, maybe chopped, then bagged and frozen, but I'm not so fond of runner beans which need preparing and blanching first!

Even so, it has to be SO much better than standing over a hot stove, stirring hot bubbling jam or chutney.
Sometime over winter, on a cold, wet day, I'll get the raspberries from the freezer and make jam, or tomatoes and prepare passata, and it's like the return of summer.

But for now, everything surplus to dinner is going in the freezer!

Time for jam-making

 With masses of rhubarb down at the allotment this year, I thought I'd bring a couple of pounds home and start jam-making season.

I usually add orange and perhaps some ginger but, as I have a lot of left-over lemons in the freezer, I thought I'd try using them. It may turn out a little nearer to marmalade than jam but hopefully will still be tasty.