A bit of brightness in the midst of the gloom

I'm having some difficulty getting my head round this second lockdown here in England. I understand what I have to do or not do, but the decisions as to what can open and which businesses remain shut seem rather confusing. We can only hope that we achieve some benefits from these latest rulings.

Onto more cheerful topics, we had a couple of rather pleasant days last week. Although it was cold, we were treated to some sunny and dry periods. As these types of day have been in short supply, on Thursday we went for a walk around the grounds of Nostell Priory. Our booking was for two in the afternoon. We were, at first, a bit concerned by the number of parked cars but the grounds are fairly extensive so it was easy to remain socially distanced.

I wanted to try for some better photographs as potential prints for the dining room but the conditions were tricky. There was a great contrast between the brightness of the sky and the dark shadows being cast.

The sun cast really long shadows. Ruby has long legs but not as long as her shadow.

I did manage to take a few photos but still haven't mastered my camera settings and had to rely on post processing to sort out the contrast.

Many of the trees had lost most of their leaves ...

... however, there was still some colour which was reflected in the lake.

By the time we were leaving the sky was darkening and conditions were even trickier and the colours faded.

On Friday we made the most of the second, pleasant day and had an afternoon at the allotment.

Martyn, tidied one of our rhubarb beds, which I forgot to take a photo of, whilst I made a start on the chive border. For those of you who think our plot is tidy, look at this!

At the end of last year when I would have tidied the chive border, the weather kept us away from the allotment and this border was, therefore, neglected. I'm trying to bring the area back under control and made a start.

Unfortunately for me, the border is in a shaded area so I didn't enjoy any benefit from the sun and also after a while my kneeling pad had acted like a sponge and was soaking wet. I need to pop it on a plastic sheet in future.

13 November - Autumn Giant cauliflower, Kalibro cabbages, Sungold tomatoes,  leeks and chrysanthemums

As  usual we managed to gather the vegetables needed for this week's menus. We picked the third of out four Autumn Giant cauliflowers. Hopefully the last one will be OK for next week.

Martyn, cleared the tomato plants from the greenhouse and the few Sungold were those left hanging on the plants.

Although the dahlias still haven't been cut down by a frost, the remaining flowers were very bedraggled so I didn't cut any.

We dug the first leeks of the season. We sowed Below Zero, Musselburgh and Porbella but unfortunately the labels were lost before the young plants were planted out so we have no idea which are which.

There are still plenty to use over winter.

So how did we use some of last week's harvest?

Some of the cauliflower and onions  were cooked with chicken in an Indian Spiced dish. This was cooked in a slow cooker and the recipe was followed exactly, other than I mixed my own curry spices. My version looked nothing like the photo on the internet.

I'm not sure how cauliflower can cook in a slow cooker and keep it's shape - mine didn't, however, the resulting meal tasted fine.

I then used some Crown Prince squash, onion and carrot in a tagine based on this recipe.

Instead of the spices I used ras el hanout and unfortunately had to buy the courgette.

Our third vegetable based meal was Curried Cabbage which used cabbage, carrot, peas and coriander. I added a few cubes of our potatoes to make a more substantial meal and a few cauliflower florets that were left over in the fridge.

I used a tablespoon of tikka masala paste instead of the curry powder. As I felt that the curry was too dry I added a little vegetable stock too. This was served with one of Martyn's homemade naans.

As always stay safe and well

As usual, I'm linking to Harvest Monday on Dave's blog

Our Happy Acres,

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Copyright: Original post from Our Plot at Green Lane Allotments http://glallotments.blogspot.co.uk/ author S Garrett