Cooking
Rachel has always had an interest in cooking. Producing meals from scratch to utilise our home grown produce has become an integral part of our lives. Preserving and canning enables us to store many of our crops and reducing food waste is a key part of making sustainable changes to our lifestyle. The kitchen isn’t completely Rachel’s domain – Anthony can make a mean flapjack too!
Corned beef hash with potatoes and root vegetables.
Winter is such a fab time for tasty veg on the allotment. One of my favourite winter vegetables are parsnips. Easy to grow (once you get them germinated!) and they can be stored in the ground right through till early Spring which means easy access to a great ingredient for winter cooking!
Last week I dug up this rather large parsnip. The variety is Gladiator which is very reliable. Grown in a ‘no dig’ bed, started in toilet rolls and transplanted – all the ‘no goes’ of traditional gardening methods! Another blog post maybe?
After a Sunday roast, and leftovers made into soup, I still had 3/4 of the beast left so I have a few meals planned this week to use the rest!
Firstly we have a corned beef hash with potatoes and root vegetables.Brussel Sprout Pate
Brussel Sprout Pate Recently on the ‘Feed Yourself for £1 a day’ Facebook group there was a conversation about ‘Brussel Sprout Pate’. I do love sprouts, especially homegrown ones, so I thought I would have a go at making my own version.
Piri-piri cauliflower with lemon-parsley cous cous
I have an abundance of parsley. When I say an abundance, I could literally have picked about 80 bunches this size! I am planning to freeze alot for use within the winter months, but I thought it was time to start adding large quantities to most meals for the next month! I had planned to serve this with halloumi, but I forgot to get it out of the freezer!
Piri piri cauliflower with lemon-parsley cous cous 
One of 80 possible bunches of parsley!
Creamy Garlic Courgette & Cucumber Soup
Courgette and Cucumber may not be your first thought when thinking about making soup, but they have a great texture and absorb other flavours well.
Online communities to share recipes
We can all pick up a cook book or google a recipe, but there is something nice about finding (and sharing) those prized ideas that work for real people. Groups that share recipes online are everywhere. In many respects there are just too many to choose from!
Here are my top five Facebook groups where you can share your wonderful home cooking recipes.Chilli & Garlic Jam
Yesterday I recieved a lovely email from a fellow plotholder who had been sampling one of my preserves.
Obviously I replied with the recipe, but after posting on our Facebook group I had further requests to share the details.
A Cauliflower shortage? Cauliflower ‘steaks’ for dinner it is!
According to the BBC, Britain is experiencing a shortage of cauliflower due to extreme weather. “Heavy rainfall in June destroyed crops in Lincolnshire, and alternative European supplies wilted in July’s heatwave”
I have to say my cauliflowers have been very slow this year. The plants themselves looked well, but not much was happening in the development of the curds themselves. Then this weekend this beauty appeared (no, I mean the cauliflower…)
For dinner we cooked up a roasted cauliflower ‘steak’ with courgette, tomato & garlic cous cous and our fiery hot sauce as a dressing and roasted cashew nuts.a perfect specimen Potato croquettes
Mash potatoes often don’t freeze too well, but these simple croquettes will! Mash potato (allotment grown of course), butter, bit of cheese then shaped, rolled in breadcrumbs and baked. Batch make and cook from frozen!
An allotment Open Day and Show
At our allotment there is an annual Family Open Day and Show. The event helps fundraise towards the running of the ground, supports local charities with food donations and gives all members of the allotment community the chance to showcase their hobby and beautiful plots
Have a look at this video about the event!Chilli Cheese Balls
We are not self-sufficient, but we do pretty well! One of the key ways to make your harvests last is to make items you can store that you can call on in the winter months. When we first started growing, I found myself freezing bags and bags of veg and then still having alot of this left in the spring. Obviously I do freeze and can veg – being able to pull out some carrots and beans to steam in January is super, but having food stuffs you can pop into the oven from frozen means quick suppers, snacks and even food for parties! Chilli cheese balls are my most favourite party food: easy to make, taste great cold or hot and uses up all the odds and ends of bread too!