Free Lunch - over Christmas

apple, carrot, beetroot, pickled onion, radish

I just realised I hadn't updated this since December 7th - so over a month! Oops. To be honest the 'free lunch' idea of only eating home-produce for lunch as dropped a bit, or a lot, over the Christmas holidays. It's not so easy to keep it up with other folk around and wanting different things to eat.

same old but no beetroot this time

Anyway, till about New Year I still had small home-grown tomatoes and onions to add to salads and sandwiches, but these have reached an end, though I've still a few small onions to pickle.  I still have stored beetroot, parsnips, tiny green peppers, turnips, squash/pumpkin and winter radish, carrots and apples that were given to us, occasional spinach, cabbage and salad leaves from the garden, and of course a freezer full of tomatoes, courgettes, runner beans and such. Lots of these go in 'mixed' evening meals or lunch time soups with other bought veg, but I want to change my thinking and make them the focus of lunch - not an addition.


So I'm back to veg-based soups - curried parsnip, which is nothing but parsnips boiled and mashed and flavoured with curry, and chillied pumpkin, with tomatoes, tiny green home-grown peppers and chillies - making sure I always have beetroot ready-cooked in case it's wanted.

last of the tomatoes and 'normal' radish

curried parsnip

chilli pumpkin

Free lunch - 2 weeks to 7th December

 I'm actually surprised how well I've managed to find my own ingredients for lunch these past couple of weeks. OK it's mainly been a re-hash of the cabbage/carrot/ tomato salad but at least it's home-produced food, or gifts from other allotment holders.

Occasionally I've added beetroot or apples from store, pickled onions and courgette chutney from the cupboard, or even fresh spinach from the garden. The slowly-ripening tomatoes are coming to an end though; the remaining one don't look so appealing and may end up in the compost bin.

 As the weather turns colder, I'm moving on to making soups - we've a lot of small 'gifted' squashes and still some home grown peppers ripening in the fridge so one day we had this one pot pasta chill, with all home grown veg, and another a squash and carrot soup with added (bought) baked beans - a bit of a cheat.

...and of course there's been quite a few dinners when all the veg has been home grown - roast potatoes, carrots and parsnips here, but we've also frozen broad and runner beans to use.

Free Lunch - 2 weeks to 9th November

 The weather may be dropping colder but I'm still sticking with salads most of the time for lunch - the ingredients have changed a bit though. There's a lot of crisp cabbage ready now and still the occasional picking of spinach or indoor-grown baby lettuce; plenty of indoor-ripening tomatoes, even the sweet yellow plum ones; no more fresh cucumbers so on to the bright yellow bread and butter pickles I made from the earlier glut; probably the last of the 'normal' radish and I've also started the blue 'Herbst und Winter' variety which look like a purple parsnip, though have to be peeled most of the time; our allotment neighbour's gift of carrots is proving useful for coleslaw and I also add chopped up apples from one of our garden trees; corn cobs from the freezer which handily cook in the same time as sausage rolls; and there's beetroot for a splash of colour. With chutney and pickled onions these have made up the bulk of my lunches whether as salads, or sandwich/wrap/pitta fillings, but one day (while making passata) I couldn't resist minestrone soup.

I haven't managed to keep to the 'free lunch' every day because I've been out and about a lot, but I'll console myself with the thought that I could have found something free for lunch if I'd been in!

Passata, Minestrone and Buttons

 On a damp dreary day it's nice to have something bubbling away in the kitchen so today seemed like a good day to clear out all the tiny cherry tomatoes and pop them in a pan. We've been picking ripe ones from the allotment greenhouse until this week, and as it's not really salad weather supply has outstripped demand. There's really too high a percentage of skins and seeds for my normal 'lazy' passata, so today's version had to be sieved.
Part way through cooking, and loving the tomatoey aromas, I decided to turn half into minestrone for lunch.An excellent plan for a miserable day.

 After lunch I settled to a quiet afternoon of sorting out buttons. I'm at the point in my knitting where I need to decide how many buttonholes to make  - and as I have lots of buttons, I wanted to find some out of the stash rather than buy more. The orangey-brown ones, centre front, would have been fine but there wasn't enough of them. In fact I couldn't find 7 or 8 matching, or even suitable to mix, buttons anywhere. So.... after all the playing and sorting, I've decided to move some from a denim shirt and replace those with blue buttons. Not the simplest solution but at least I won't be acquiring more!

Free lunch - 2 weeks to 26th October

 This past couple of weeks have seen family celebrations and quite a bit of lunching out - so no chance of a free lunch every day. Still, the rest of the time I've managed to find plenty homegrown stuff to make lunch with. The weather's been a bit unpredictable too, so some days we've had soup (curried parsnip and pumpkin, and leek and potato), others it's been warm enough for salads. Very lucky with spinach and american land cress for leaves, lots of tomatoes and a huge bunch of radish. Carrots, apples and cabbage for coleslaw style salad a couple of days but almost at the end of my cucumbers so I've been adding the pickled ones rather liberally to anything and everything, and almost always a dollop of chutney made from summer's courgettes.

..and one of those evening meals with totally from home grown veg - peppers,courgettes and beans  ready to be added to tomatoes for goulash-style stew, topped with potatoes.

Free lunch - 12th October

It's been colder this week - which leads to more interesting and varied lunches.
Ok, I still started the week with all-the-salad-possible wraps; cucumber, tomatoes, homegrown chutney, onion, beetroot, and a bit of cheese (not home grown!)






Tuesday, I tried something slightly different - popping a mini sweetcorn cob from the freezer in the oven to warm through while sausage rolls cooked, all with one of my coleslaw salads of tomatoes, cucumber, beetroot and cabbage.






Wednesday - proper cold weather food - leek and potato soup.










Back to the wraps but this time with the yellowy bread and butter pickle made from our cucumbers





Friday - Salad to use the spinach and radishes picked that morning at the allotment

Sandwiches and salad for the weekend

One 'free' evening meal this week - goulash with homegrown tomatoes, onions, peppers, potatoes and beans.