Monday, December 14

Not so glorious mud!

What a dreary week it has been weatherwise! I don't think it has really been light all week and  it has continued to be wet and miserable.

Other than our usual walks with Ruby and one necessary quick visit to the allotment we have been stuck indoors.

Our week indoors has however been productive. Our wallpaper arrived early and although it isn't quite what I expected - the pattern is larger than I imagined - I do like it which is a relief. The pattern was tricky to match up until we managed to get our eye in but we managed to finish the wallpapering in a day. Now we just need to wait until we feel safe enough to go shopping for curtains and carpet.
It's difficult to photograph the pattern as it looks different in differing light conditions. 

Our visit to the allotment was primarily to collect some vegetables. Everywhere is now wet and squelchy.
Some well used paths are slippery and care needs to be taken when walking along them.

The dahlias are now well and truly blackened so we are hoping for a reasonable day when we can lift the tubers for storage.
The cardoons are shrugging off the miserable weather and have already put on quite  lot of new growth.
We just spent sufficient time at the plot to gather together the vegetables that we needed for the week.
9 December - Flakee carrots, mixed leeks, 2 Kalibro cabbages & a Cordesa savoy cabbage

The vegetables are suffering from the weather. This is partly due to the wet conditions providing the ideal environment for slug foraging. Both carrots and cabbages bear the scars of their activity. This means there is quite a lot of waste when it comes to preparing the vegetables for cooking. Both the cabbages and the leeks are suffering from being constantly wet. Both need to have lots of leaves stripped off before parts of the vegetables that are good for using are reached. It makes meal preparation a longer task.
So onto last week's meals where our vegetables played a major role. 

Monday was chicken pilaf into which went onions and, from the freezer, green beans, sweet corn and peas. I used brown rice.

Tuesday's vegetable curry was cooked in a slow cooker and made use of our onion, carrot, green beans and potatoes.
Thursday, I used our, potato, leeks, onion, carrot, squash, sage and parsley in, what the recipe calls, a Vegan Shepherd's Pie.
I think that this is a misnomer as in my book a shepherd's pie contains lamb, so by definition, a shepherd's pie can't be vegan. I guess if we were to be  totally pedantic we could argue that it isn't even a pie. Anyway I'm going to call my version an allotment pie. I used Osprey potatoes which tend to break up when cooking. The recipe calls for half of the potatoes to be mashed and mixed into the vegetable mixture and half to be cut up a popped on top of the 'pie'. The Ospreys mashed well but crumbled when I tried to cut them up so my end product wasn't as it should have been and I also forgot the spinach. Still we enjoyed it.

Then Sunday I used  carrots, leeks and parsley in a turkey pasta and leek crisp.
Looking back, over the weeks,  at my photos of the dishes that I have made, I was struck by how similar they look but honestly they don't all taste the same.

By the way one of my visitors has told me that she can't access the web links to the recipes that I have used, is anyone else having a problem?

Now I wonder what this week will bring? Let's hope more vaccines are approved and they start to beat Covid into submission. Until such a time as always keep well and safe.

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

14 comments:

  1. So pleased the wallpaper is fine! Always such a worry buying things online, but needs must these days.
    To answer your previous question, I use a laptop with {I think} Windows. The multiple blue circle that looks like a breaking wave.

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    1. So am I Deborah.

      Are you right clicking on the links? - see CJs comment below - if so try left mouse click.

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    2. I don't use a mouse, the laptop has a touchpad, maybe that's the problem?

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    3. There’ll be a touchpad equivalent to a Right mouse click, Deborah. I think when I used a touchpad there were two little buttons that operated as a right and the left mouse button. It may be that it depends on where you tap on the touchpad. The trouble is that different makes of laptop sometimes operate differently.

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  2. Lovely new wallpaper, and you've made a beautiful job of hanging it. Your food for the week all looks delicious. I have no problem accessing your recipes, but I do notice if I right-click on your links, which I have a habit of doing so that I can open a new window, then that function is disabled. With your website, your links open in a new window anyway, but some people don't have that, so then I've lost the original page, hence the habit of right-clicking.

    I grew some artichokes from seed this year as I'd been missing the fabulous allotment artichokes (also grown from seed) and I just noticed this morning that they're still doing quite well. Not sure if I'll get flowers next year, but hopefully the year after.

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    1. It's a pity that we can't finish it off, CJ

      I disabled the right click feature as I found some of my content had been copied and pasted elsewhere so I did this to stop them. If a click makes you lose the original page you can use the back button on your browser to go back to it but I usually set my links to open in a new page as you have found.
      It amazed me how such a huge plant can grow from such a small seed.

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  3. The wallpaper looks lovely, you were brave ordering it online, I'm pleased you liked it when it arrived as so many things look totally different in the flesh. Yes, it's very muddy out there at the moment, we had so much rain yesterday.

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  4. Your new wall paper looks beautiful. I love the floral pattern.
    The weeks meals look yummy any way you look at them. Just knowing you grew most of the veggies would be inspiring for cooking and eating. The mud you have to deal with is awful. Yuck. I feel for you having to muck around in that.

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    1. I love floral patterns too Lisa - must be a gardening thing. Although I do like damasks too. It is satisfying to cook knowing most of the ingredients were homegrown

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  5. No problems with links here Sue. Oh it's the same here, dark almost all day and endless rain! Good to hear your wallpaper arrived, it looks lovely. Oh...those cardoons are thriving! Wonderful harvest despite the slugs, a curse on the! I do love that curry and your allotment pie, I always replace meat with vegan versions so use vegan mince in cottage pie.xxx

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    1. I’ve never tried meat substitutes, Dina. I tend to use pulses in cottage pies. Thecardoons will turn into monsters but the bees adore them. I think the decorating got me onto the mood to do more!

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  6. I see Sue your renovation is going well, I love the color of your wallpapers. You have harvest till now, that's great. I made some dishes from vegetables and sure they all taste different.

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