As it stopped raining for a couple of hours this afternoon, I headed up to the plot to see how things were. The runner beans and french beans had come on in abundance, so I picked these. I noticed the potatoes were suffering from blight so removed the haulms and emptied out the worst affected which proved to be Red Duke of York.

I always find harvesting potatoes very exciting as you never know just what to expect and when these brilliant crimson jewels revealed themselves from their surrounding compost, I became giddy with excitement.

I then harvested one of our cabbages, it all made a fine dinner for Tuesday. Whilst preparing dinner I blanched five pound of runner beans before heading off to knitting.

This evening hubby and I have been processing more of our produce. I have finally used up the courgette, runner and french bean glut, although I fully expect for that situation to have reversed within a few days.

We made a sweet piccalilli, which hubby loves and has been known to hide the last jar so that he can eat it as secretly as possible and not have to share with his pickle loving wife!

I would like to say that I grew those cauliflowers, sadly I did not, cauliflowers seem to be a bit of a problem, its something I am going to concentrate on during my winter reading, I aim to have nice big cauliflowers next year.

There was a lot of fiddling and faffing of the recipe with last minute adjustments but it seems to have worked out nicely, we made about 12 pounds. I shall write it out and put it on Utterly Good Grub.

Then we needed a recipe that wasn’t too labour intensive and having found a 2 pound bag of frozen tomatoes from last years crop, we settled on a bean and tomato stew with plenty of olive oil and garlic which made six containers. It was a joint decision to mix the runner and french beans together, its probably something I would not present to guests, but for us lot, its going to be absolutely fine with a pork chop and plenty of mashed potatoes.

And then the shallots and button onions were calling to us, so I mixed up a sweet and spicy white wine vinegar mix and prepared a few shallots and onions for Christmas. I don’t bother with brining, I have done this before and every time I have the onions have gone soft, so I don’t bother now.

There are two traits that are very useful when dealing with this time of year as an allotment holder. Tenacity and inventiveness, I think both are required in equal measure just to keep up with the onslaught of a huge amount of produce maturing at the same time. After all, we all want something delicious to eat in the middle of a cold, dark and damp winter. The freezer is a wonderful tool, one I made good use of last year, mostly just blanching and freezing, but this year I’m trying to aim to have something a little more tempting at my fingertips than blanched runner beans, as tender and tasty as they were.

I am still working hard on my Courgette glut, from only two plants!

Today I thought of goats cheese, young and fresh with an acidic bite which might work with lovely homegrown sweet onions and courgettes. And then, Soup, flew to mind, I love homemade soup, in any guise, I may have mentioned this before!

Courgette and Goats Cheese Soup

(makes rather a lot, a dinner party for sixteen would not be out of the question!)

2 kg Courgettes, diced
750 g Onions, peeled and sliced.
750 g Potatoes, peeled and diced.
300g of a young goats cheese, crumbled.
90g of butter.
20 g or 6 cloves of garlic, sliced.
1 heaped tsp dried oregano
1500 ml of chicken stock
750 ml of milk (in this case skimmed)
284 ml double cream
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp of freshly ground black pepper

Melt the butter gently in a large pan, add onions, gently sweat them until translucent, add garlic and cook for another minute, then add courgettes, potatoes, milk, chicken stock, cream, oregano, salt and pepper.

Simmer until cooked. Blend soup with a hand blender, add cheese and stir well. Check for seasoning and serve.

It is a success, (would I publish it, if it wasn’t!) It has just the right bite of acidity against the fresh sweetness of the courgettes and onions, with just a hint of garlic which allows the true flavours of the ingredients to shine through. Its only fault, which may not be a fault to some is it is perhaps a little rich, I think I will try it with half the amount of double cream next time.

On a damp and dreary Saturday when there is no possibility of doing anything constructive up the plot and along with having a glut of courgettes, my attention turns to chutney. Being gluten free these days, it is nearly impossible to be able to find ready prepared pickles that are made with something other than malt vinegar.

One of the recipes that I came across on the net was Glutney Chutney written by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. Having made Chutney before, I knew how to alter this recipe to suit my own tastes, Cloves… Yuck.. Cumin,, yum. That’s the beauty of Chutney recipes, most of them, are not written in stone and you can add and subtract as you wish.

Mandy’s Spicy Courgette Chutney.

1500 g Courgettes, diced into small pieces
750 g Onions, peeled and diced
1350 g Tomatoes, both green and red., diced into small pieces (you may skin as well if you wish)
1000 g Cooking apples, peeled, cored and diced.
1500 ml White wine vinegar
750 g Light brown muscovado sugar
750 g Sultanas
4 inch piece of fresh ginger, finely chopped
3 heaped tsp Dried chilli flakes
3 heaped tsp ground Cumin
2 heaped tsp Coriander seeds, which you then crush.
1 1/2 tsp black pepper, which you then crush.
1/2 a freshly grated nutmeg.
1 1/2 tsp Salt.

Put all the ingredients into a preserving pan, bring to the boil then simmer very gently, uncovered, for several hours stirring from time to time. You will need to stir more frequently towards the end of cooking time as this is when it is most likely to stick. It is ready when the mixture is thick and when a wooden spoon is dragged through it should form a channel which doesn’t immediately fill with liquid.

Pot into warm sterilised jars, making sure if they are recycled jars that the inside of the lids are plastic coated, otherwise the vinegar will react with the metal. Label when cold and best left for two weeks to mature.

Nearly ready to start, all vegetables prepped.

Added Sugar, vinegar, spices etc.

Vegetables start to reduce. Still a very long way to go.

And whilst we are waiting, here is a quick masterclass on how to peel ginger.

With the edge of a teaspoon, it really works, try it.

See…

Back to the Chutney, over halfway, (I hope!) If you look really carefully, you will see that we have just slightly caught the bottom of it, thats the little black bit, on the left hand side. Which is rather annoying but these things happen, it still tastes good, which is the main thing.

Another hour later, you can just see that when I draw a wooden spoon through the mixture it does not immediately fill with liquid. I’m afraid to take it any further as although it might be nicer to have it a little thicker, I decide to play safe and pot it on at this point.

Six and a half hours later, you have this. We have tasted it and it still has a little crunch from the ginger, a kick of chilli that wakes you up with a Wow but not enough to blow your head off and the warmth of Cumin. In other words, its good, very good.

Our lovely ‘puter arrived this morning.  🙂

hums scarecrows song from The Wizard of Oz.

Scratches head, senses the echos from an empty space.

In a few years, when I have more knitting experience I will, (hopefully) look back on this adventure and laugh. At the moment I’m viewing it as a learning curve and I will hopefully move on sooner rather than later or, as may be the case, (because I can be a stubborn old fox or should I say vixen) stay with it for longer than I should.

Yesterday I had a plan, to find a pattern, Oh how I love Ravelry, in my size, which is no mean feat, that I love, ’cause you do have to love what you want to knit, for a 4ply cardigan in RYC cashcotton, which I had acquired, otherwise known as got my grubby mitts on in a sale for a ridiculous price.

I searched and searched, I just didn’t find anything I loved,,, but then… Tussie Mussie appeared before my very eyes. I looked at it, admired other peoples work, noticed One person, did I say One, had knitted it in a 4ply, printed off the pattern, looked at it again, saw the problems, added length in my minds eye, etc etc..

And started to swatch, did I know it was meant to be knit up in a DK, it didn’t even register.

Actually I got gauge on 3.75 AND 4.00 mm, depending on which way the swatch was pulled!

Looked at my swatch again this morning, pondered about it, PM’d a lovely knitting friend from Tuesday night knitters, (D) without waiting for an answer. Later, we popped over to my LYS only to find D ensconced, how we laughed. She had read my PM and came up with some lovely ideas, mostly too small, but lovely.

During this time D told me my pattern was for a DK not a 4ply. “Oh B….” I thought, quickly followed by another thought of “Oh no, I’ve done it again!” Which is why ladies and gentlemen I am very lucky to be part of a knitting group, otherwise known as The Tuesday Night Knitters (TNK)

(A) asked me what I thought about the fabric, thats the killer question for me, because I just don’t know what a good fabric is and what a bad fabric is and what to look for etc, how dense things should be, how loose things should be, how things would wear and hang, I really am still trying to understand things such as negative and positive ease. Perhaps I should stick to socks!

Anyways, A said I should knit the bobble section of the pattern, repeating three times, which as a good student that always did her homework I have almost finished. A said, this would give me a true idea of what is going to happen. And it has… But because I’ve never knitted bobbles before.. I don’t know if their good bobbles or bad bobbles, and if they are a little bit droopy, will they not match their owner! And is that a bad thing! And.. will the bobbles droop even more when they are washed..

This was meant to be a relaxing hobby, I do so love it really.

I shall continue to swatch and present the TNK, with my swatches, it will be absolutely fine to say, Don’t Do It. I shall respect all of you for that, I may need chocolate though, I shall bring some…

Onto other news,

I’m teaching son no.1’s girlfriend now known on my blog and this is her idea.. Juicy Lucy, to knit socks! Much to the embarrassment of son no.1 Juicy Lucy is as excited as I am, she is excited about being able to knit such wonderful socks, me, well, did you notice I had boys… its so nice to be able to share my new found knitting skills. I gave her a sock kit, showed her how to cast on, then knitted the rib as she had never knitted purl, then we had a little session earlier today, she did exceptionally well knitting in the round, considering she is left handed, and I don’t know how to teach someone left handed knitting so taught her what I know. I have a sock on standby to go through all the different parts of sock knitting with her.

and yet more news..

Son no.1 came home in his first car yesterday. New to him, it really is quite nice for a first car, he took me out, was I nervous? abso bleeding lootly, we went to see his gran and granddad (mum and dad) who because of a wedding today, had two aunties and two uncles enjoying tea. Did they, as proud grandparents, aunties and uncles come out and admire his car.. They did 🙂
My Dad, as did Uncle W, each hobbled out on two sturdy sticks apiece, stood and admired his car whilst cracking jokes, it was lovely.

Hi again,

Because of other reasons I decide to take myself down to my local doctors, generally doctors and I don’t mix well.. Its not them, its me, I’m the same with dentists, I tend to shake. During my consultation I show the doc my insect wound, he looks at it…. and then is quite interested, so I tell him the story. He tells me it was most probably a Tick.. “A tick”, I say.. “Yes a tick”,,.”Oh” I reply. Then he explains, that insects don’t leave body parts in the wound, and from my explanation of it all (remember the removal of the body part that was causing the infection) it was most probably a tick. I’m sure its going to be just fine… 🙂 Unless,….

On Sunday at the plot I was bitten by an insect on my leg. I didn’t think anything off it, later that night I take a couple of ibuprofen as I’ve found in the past that they can bring swelling from insect bites down and carry on.

Come Monday, there is a continous but very small stream of clear serum trickling down my leg. I look at the bump again, decide it is getting bigger but soon my body would take care of things..

Very early Tuesday morning, about 3 a.m. I’m woken because the bite is now starting to feel quite painful and is enough of a worry that action must be taken. I pad downstairs and look at my leg. “Oh, right!” I think. The area is now an infected, rock hard and becoming rather egg like in a Four to Five inch circle, the streaming of gunk has increased and I realise that there is a tiny black area right in the middle. It must be a body part of the insect left in it.

Hubby pads downstairs at 6 a.m. and looks at me in slightly worried tones. “My leg hurts”, I tell him. He looks, then dismantles a pair of binoculars to get at the eyepiece and looks again and tells me that there does look like there is something left in it. I scrub up and try to remove the offending body part. I succeed.

I sleep alot on Tuesday and last night I slept for a solid 13 hours. Which even for me who likes her bed is unheard off. I feel much better for it, the area is now soft again, the infected area is only an inch across and the scab is dry.

It must be the weekend for insect bites, two of hubby’s colleagues have suffered from insect bites this weekend, one of which, his leg has swelled so much he was unable to use it and has ended up in hospital!

Its our beautiful first born sons 19th birthday today. Doesn’t time fly! He has spent it with friends at The Motor show in London, which from various mobile phone conversations, he has thoroughly enjoyed. I’m hoping to spend some time with him tomorrow, although as he has gone public about his new girlfriend, who is lovely, I now have (and quite properly so) competition for his affections.

What a scorcher today was. The weather person has been promising me (I take this very personally!) rain since Friday. The plot is very dry and we are desperate for a good downpour. Which as it happens is promised on Tuesday.

Fingers Crossed.

We harvested the shallots today, along with the first of the runner beans, and some very nice looking beetroot. We ate the first of our courgettes yesterday which were very tasty and our tomatoes are just starting to ripen. We were given two lovely globe artichokes which made a fine addition to this evenings meal and I also have some french beans just coming to perfection which will be part of tomorrows supper.

I’m on a borrowed laptop from a good friend of mine. Thanks R. 🙂

I was starting to hyperventilate about being computer less for a whole week. I hadn’t realised quite how bad my addiction had become. But R quickly came to my rescue and I only had to do my damsel in distress routine a tiny bit, before he quickly offered me the loan of his laptop.

On a positive note, this little laptop is soooooo speedy compared to my ten year old mac. Its a joy. Which means,, that my lovely, being made to my specifications, soon to be mine, can’t wait to get my grubby little mits on, mac, will be Woooondeeerfuuul. “Sighs, with Bliss”

On a negative note, I will have lost just a little bit of stuff, the one thing I will have lost is a little video that I took of my Dad acting the fool 😦 Fortunately I had backed up just a few days ago, so its not as bad as it could be.

So, I’m just about to go and have a look around R’s harddrive and see what he “Really” gets up to….. LOL..

Only Joking R… honest!