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!
Hot Sauce
Chillies are coming on well in the greenhouse, but I still had a good amount of last year’s crop in the freezer. I decided to try and use these up and made a ‘hot sauce’.
1lb of chillies! 
A few bottles of nuclear sauce!
An August weekend on the allotment
From August onwards it can be very busy both on the plot and in the kitchen as the efforts move towards cropping and storing our harvests. However, we are still thinking about second cropping and we have planted out a few of the later crops we sowed a couple of weeks ago in the greenhouse. We found the very first signs of blight on our spuds – see what we did to save the crop and keep prepare the potatoes for storage. We also harvested our onions, enjoyed the wildlife and made a few preserves – we are always busy at Don’t Crop Me Now!
Jamming!
The time has come to empty the freezer and use up the rest of last season’s fruit to make jam. I freeze the fruit because I can then make preserves at the quieter times of the year. However, this year the blackcurrant bushes are busting and I still have most of last year’s crops!
In this recipe I will show you how I used the homemade pectin to make jam.
Rainbow beetroot salad
Grated colourful veg with a light dressing.
Cheesy beans on toast ‘Allotment style’
Everyone loves beans on toast, but I have given this an allotment upgrade: Allotment beans in a garlic tomato sauce topped with a bit of cheese of your choice.
Courgette, pea & kale fritters with feta.
Courgette fritters (of variations) are one of my favourite early summer treats. However, this year I am still waiting for courgettes!! Shocking really as usually I am swimming in them by now. The cold period in the end of May/early June meant that all my squash and courgette plants have been sulking. They are just starting to pick up now (finally!); maybe in a few weeks I can join the cries of other allotmenteers of “Oh no, not another courgette!”
Making Pectin stock from apples
Pectin is a soluble carbohydrate that is found naturally in fruits. At high temperatures, combined with sugar, this forms the setting agent for jam.
Fruits have different amounts of naturally occuring pectin – apples, gooseberries, currants (red/black/white), grapes and plums have relatively high natural pectin levels. Rhubarb, blueberries, strawberries and raspberries have much lower natural pectin levels.