Homegrown dinner

 A homegrown dinner today, rather than a lunch from the lottie!
We have such a lot of veg all ready to be eaten, and no freezer space left, that it seems only sensible to use it as much as possible.

 I was trying to use up the glut of tomatoes, runner beans, turnips and spinach, preferably in a way that could be served with our home-grown potatoes.
The nearest dish I could think of was minestrone - ok, without carrots or beans which I'd normally include, but close enough.
So I went for a sort of drier version.

Onions, tomatoes, a couple of small peppers, another which turned out to be a jalpeno chilli, chopped turnip and sliced runner beans all cooked through, then the spinach and a few leaves of red kale added at the last minute

It actually worked quite well with the potatoes - I mashed mine on my plate and soaked up the tomatoey juices with them. Next time, I'll check first for jalapenos mixed in with peppers!

Eating/testing - pickled turnips

OK, so I thought this was a strange recipe when I found it but even so thought I'd try it out.

It looks very pretty as it's fist packed into jars but after a couple of weeks all of it turns a uniform pink.

Here it is on the left-hand side of my lunch plate.

The colour didn't worry me too much, afterall it comes from the beetroot slices.

What I wasn't prepared for was the taste - very salty and flavoured mainly of celery leaves! It's definitely an acquired taste and I'm not sure I'd make it again though it did use up those small turnips I'd have 

otherwise thrown away.

For now though, I intend chopping the pieces up on my plate and mixing in with blander vegetables. 

Testing - The Country Preserves Companion #1 - Pickled Turnips

Now, pickling isn't the first thought that springs to mind when faced with too many turnips but I have a surplus of small ones from thinning the turnip row, alongside some larger ones pulled for dinner. It's not really the weather for turnips in my opinion (far too hot) so, knowing I'd seen a recipe for pickling them in one of my books, I decided to give it a go.

The book in question is a The Country Preserves Companion by Jocasta Innes - and, although small in size (4 x 6 ins) it's big on ideas and inspiration. 

Today for a change I'm following the recipe exactly as given in the book.

Basically the turnips are quartered and packed into a jar with sliced beetroot and celery leaves.

And very pretty it looks too at this stage!

The jar is filled with a mix of brine and white wine vinegar, but then came the tricky bit.

With the lid screwed on lightly, the jar was placed in a saucepan of water and boiled for 15 mins to sterilise.

Then the lid is screwed on tightly. As the jar cools the lid should seal, keeping the contents free from germs - but it didn't!

I've done this before when bottling tomato puree and in that case when the seal doesn't hold and reboil the bottle but I didn't want to keep cooking the contents so I'm risking it and hoping everything is ok.

I now should keep the jar for 10 days in a warm spot - the recipe suggests next to a radiator but I think it's warm enough at the moment to not worry with that. 

After that it should be stored in a cool place and eaten within 6 weeks.

Hopefully it will taste good.

For the actual taste test see here