Snowed under

We don't have snow very often. Looking through my database of photographs, the last lot of snow that we had was February and March 2018.

Last Thursday, it snowed for most of the day and the low temperatures meant that the snow hung around until the weekend. As a country, England is generally unprepared for snow and we don't cope very well when we get a significant amount of the white stuff. Traffic struggles on the roads, especially where there is anything like an incline. A lorry tipped over on our closest main road which caused the road to be closed for a while. Footpaths were treacherous and people were advised not to venture out which during a lockdown they shouldn't be doing anyway. Appointments including those for Covid vaccinations were cancelled.

The snow froze and to compound matters we were treated to freezing fog. We were thankful that, other than to stock up bird feeders and thaw bird baths, we didn't have to venture outdoors.

The birds arrived in force taking advantage of anything on offer, including access to the water.

I always shudder to see birds bathing when the weather is so cold but it's at these times that it's important to keep feathers in good condition so bathing is essential.

We saw more blackbirds than we had seen for some time and it was impossible to count the number of goldfinches that were flitting about in trees until space was available on the feeders.

Apologies for the quality of the photos but it was difficult to focus on all the activity especially through leaded, murky glass. One bird table is very close to the window and the birds are not very careful feeders and spatter the glass. There was no way that I was going outside to either take photographs or clean the windows.

Due to the weather and the fact that we didn't need to harvest any vegetables, we didn't visit the allotment but we did have one gardening event.

We noticed that our local garden centre had seed potatoes for sale. As we are still avoiding doing any shopping, which includes visiting garden centres, we decided to order seed potatoes from their website and use their click and collect service. In the event, once the order was placed, we were offered free home delivery and the potatoes arrived the following day.

The varieties that we ordered were; Apache, Casablanca, Elfe, International Kidney, Nadine, Osprey and Charlotte. We had hoped to buy Ulster Prince, a variety that did well last year, but it was unavailable. We had to forego buying any individual seed potatoes, for our trial bed, as that would have required a personal visit.

We will need to try to get to the allotment this week as we have used up the last lot of vegetables that we harvested. We brought a large batch of leeks home the previous week and these were prepared and frozen. The leeks have a lot of waste as the shafts have brownish streaks meaning that quite a few outer leaves need removing. Preparing the leeks in advance means we know what we have to work with.

The first dish that I used leeks in last week was a Turkey, lemon and leek pie which seems to have disappeared off the internet but the pie is basically turkey, lemon zest and leeks in a bechamel sauce with a short pastry top. This was served with some red cabbage that I braised in my slow cooker and sautéed Apache potatoes.  The red cabbage needed cooking down a little before it would all fit in the cooker. The red cabbage was more or less this recipe although I used apple cider vinegar and added cinnamon and raisins.

For some reason I can't find the photos that I took.

Another of last week’s dishes was Coconut and squash dansak. Our vegetables that went into this were some Crown Prince squash, onions and some tomato sauce from the freezer. I used the ingredients as stated in the recipe but used a more usual cooking method. The squash was frozen, (who can use a whole Crown Prince squash in one meal?) and I find that once it is thawed it has already softened and doesn't need so much cooking. This was served with one of Martyn's homemade naans.

More of our Crown Prince squash, onion and leeks went into a pasta bake. I topped this with parmesan rather than cheddar cheese.

Finally, this week's choice of gadget is something many of you will have which is a food processor. My choice, however is a couple of attachments that go with it. The attachments were in a box that I had forgotten about only to be discovered after I had been spending ages hand grating carrots and shredding cabbage for my coleslaw. The two attachments are a grater blade and a slicing blade. I used to especially hate grating carrots - the two attachments have considerably cut down the time it takes to make a batch of coleslaw and makes it less of a chore!

That's all for this week, as always stay healthy and safe. As they are in a higher priority group, two friends of ours have had their first Covid jab which shows that progress is being made. Let's hope the supplies keep on coming. There are no mass vaccinations hubs in West Yorkshire yet so I hope that they get round to us soon.

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