Pages

17 October 2022

Adventures in my Kitchen


This post comes to you from my kitchen.  I had every intention of posting from my kitchen each season but that hasn't quite happened, the summer was a rather busy time and I hardly posted at all, ironic really when I had so much to write about.

The salve that I mentioned I had steeping the last time I posted from my kitchen sadly went mouldy.  That is the first time that has happened to me, the leaves were not all in the oil they were steeping in, their contact with the air, I think that is what caused it.  I threw it all in the compost bin and have started again, I hope this batch is good enough to make a salve with.  I need to buy some more jars for when the steeping is done.

I have been soaking and cooking pulses in industrial quantities periodically over the past months.  I buy my pulses dried mostly in 3kg bags, so that I didn't always have to remember to soak and cook them each time I needed them and to save energy by doing it with a larger batch every few months. I soak around half of the bag in a large bowl before cooking them all up.  I then freeze them in 250g quantities which is the approximate amount that you get in a can of pulses if you buy them that way.  I don't have to remember to get them out of the freezer hours before as most of the time I am throwing them into what I am cooking so they defrost in the heat of the food.  I am lucky to have a very large chest freezer in my garage which has plenty of space.  I always aim to have four or five different pulses out there and if they have just all been replenished there can be thirty or forty bags.  When I am down to the last one I will soak and cook some more to make sure I have a constant supply.  I got a bit out of this habit and have started it up again.  Now that it getting darker earlier I need to make sure that I get the right thing out, some of them look very similar in the dark!

I have mentioned in several posts recently about all the fundraising that we are currently doing to support Alice getting to South Korea next year.  We have been doing a lot of fundraising which has involved baking.  We have tried various recipes and how now settled on four cakes that we can make really quickly as we have done it so often.   It works best if Alice does most of the making and I do the clearing and washing up in between each cake and any of the prep that she finds hard or slows her down.  We have become a good team, the kitchen still ooks like a whirlwind has been through it by the time we have finished.  We make two gluten free cakes, a lemon drizzle and an almond and coconut traybake, and two gluten cakes, gingerbread and orange and poppyseed.  These were the ones that sold the best and we rarely come home with any much to the disappointment of my husband and Cameron.  We have had a bit of break from baking this month as none of the fundraising we have done has needed baking which has been really welcome.  We have plenty in the freezer now so next time we need cake we are good to go.

We had a good crop of edibles from the garden this year.  We are never going to reach a place where we are growing all our own food our tiny garden is way too small to reach that but we grow what we can.  We picked and froze 10lbs each of blackcurrants and whitecurrants.  I usually make these into a coulis type sauce over the winter months to give us all a good dose of vitamin C in the months when we need the most as there are so many more colds and the like around.  The rhubarb plants were less productive this year although they gave us a good crop, I have made huge amounts of rhubarb and orange sauce which is now in the freezer, I love having this on pancakes at breakfast time.  I need to split the rhubarb this autumn to encourage it to be a little more productive next year.  I have lots of friends who would like a plant for their gardens, rhubarb does well round here nearly every garden in my village seems to have a rhubarb plant although not all are being harvested from judging by the huge flower heads some display.

We have had an abundance of salad leaves, edible flowers and lettuce.  I didn't buy any of these for months.  I grow several different types of salad leaves, wild rocket being one of them it grows like a weed in my garden.  I tend to grow lettuce where you just pick the leaves, I can make them last for months if I water them well, they have finally gone to seed over the past couple of weeks.  My cucumbers, gherkins, tomatoes and courgettes did really well.  I managed to pickle one jar of gherkins this year as I discovered that I could add them as they are ready, it remains to be seen whether that works.  I have made several batches of courgette and brie soup which are now in the freezer to use up the last of the courgettes. I don't freeze it with the brie in it, I add this once it is defrosted.  Now that it has turned colder my leeks are doing well, I am picking chard and kale which I have in abundance, my cabbages are slowly growing and the purple sprouting broccoli has lasted another year and will hopefully flower again in the spring.  I have winter lettuces and salad leaves in the polytunnel which I hope will provided for us for a few more months before going dormant over the cold of winter.

We have moved to a more autumnal menu with soup, stews and bakes back on the menu.  I make full of use of my slow cooker which we purchased earlier this year.  There are a couple of days of the week when we are out in the afternoon until quite late and it is so good to come home to be able to put tea straight on the table as it has been cooking in the slow cooker.   I shared a couple of pages in my last post from a cookery book for a 'recipe' for a warm salad which is still a regular fixture on our menu.   There is also a page for a stew and also a grain bake using the same format.  I have been tried various combinations of these as I work with flavours and ingredients to find things that work, a buckwheat based bake as been the best attempt so far.

I thought I was going to lose my veg delivery box earlier this year.  The company I buy it from doesn't actually deliver to my village.  Unfortunately for us there is another company that does, it is CSA scheme from a local village, the share is small so it only does about one or two meals for us, because of that scheme this other larger company will not deliver as they would be in competition which I get.  We have been using a friend's address to bypass that but they were renting and told us at the beginning of the summer that they were having to move.  Luckily for us we have other friends in the same village so we were able to continue with our delivery.  I had hoped that a new organic veg shop was going to open in our nearest town but sadly the plug was pulled on the venture, I would have preferred to have visited a shop each week as I could buy what I wanted but the box is a good alternative to buying in the supermarket where everything is covered in plastic.  I had been finding that the box we had been having was no longer big enough for our needs so we have now increased to three boxes a week!  One is fruit which we get once a fortnight but even with three boxes it is really good value and far cheaper than buying elsewhere.  I have stopped buying any fruit and veg in the supermarket for the first time in years.  I would love to stop shopping in a supermarket completely but there are few items that I have not been able to find elsewhere so we still use it for a few things but the number of items is gradually dwindling, I hope that there will be a time when I can stop completely.  I much prefer to support local small businesses.

I dug out my elderberry syrup and the dregs of garlic syrup recently.  I made the garlic syrup years ago but it has lasted well, the elderberry was made last year and there is still plenty left.  They were so useful to have in the pantry when we all went down with some cold type virus recently.  A cup of elderberry syrup mixed with hot water is wonderful warming drink when you have a cold.  

I have been given a big bag of apples which I need to peel and do something with.  I will most probably cook some up into a chutney and make the rest into a sauce, freezing some and dehydrating the rest to make fruit leather.  I am also on the look out for some pickling onions which I also usually make at this time of year.  My husband loves pickled onions and this is lovely treat for late winter/early spring.  The last of my tomatoes have failed to ripen and probably won't now that the days are shorter and cooler.  I will be picking them soon to make some tomato ketchup with, they are mix of slightly ripened and green ones and they make a delicious ketchup despite not being ripe.  I don't have much room to store alot of food in my pantry once I have some chutney, pickled onions and ketchup the shelves will be full again.  We have run out of chilli jam so I will be making more of that once I have more chillis.

I watched a series of programmes about making sourdough bread.  It was a fascinating watch and I kept rewinding bits to watch techniques again.  I learnt so much and have been putting the various techniques into practice here.  I am now making bread rolls twice a week and they are much improved.  I think I might try making a loaf now, they have always been a bit of a disaster but I am feeling more confident with what I am doing now.  Like so many things it is not so much following a set of specific directions but having a go and getting a feel for it, I guess that is how all cooking skills would have been passed on before the days of recipe books.  There are so many factors that can effect a sourdough loaf that is easy to get disheartened, the beauty of a home made loaf is that it will not be the same each time you make it but that can make learning hard as a different thing may go wrong each time.  Those rather flat, teeth breaking loaves are not happening as often now which means I have less breadcrumbs to hand but we have more delicious bread to eat which is always a winner!

My kitchen is a busy place, I spend so much time in there so it is not surprising I have so much to write about.  Thank you for reading this long post.

26 comments:

  1. would you be able to put the recipe for the rhubarb and orange sauce please? We have a rhubarb plant but i find it a bit stringy and sour and so never really know what to do with it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wow, you have been really busy. I have just found a delicious recipe for Devon Apple Cake (it has mixed spice and cinnamon in it too), it's easy, and tastes lovely - it also makes a great pudding with custard. It can be found here - https://rosiepblog.blogspot.com/2022/10/blogtober-day-thirteen.html.
    Best wishes
    Ellie

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oooh that sounds delicious, thank you for sharing!

      Delete
  3. It sounds like you and Alice are a good team in the kitchen getting those cakes baked for the fundraising. It's good to have things ready and to hand in the freezer when you live such busy lives, and the slow cooker is a godsend too, mine has been pressed into action again since the cooler weather arrived.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes having things in the freezer is a lifesaver for those busy moments. I am so glad I have room for a big freezer.

      Delete
  4. Your kitchen IS a busy place, indeed! How wonderful that you are able to provide so much for your family from your own garden/land. I'll bet everything is wonderfully delicious.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. There is nothing quite like home-grown for taste. It is worth all the effort.

      Delete
  5. I love reading what other people do in their kitchens! Garlic syrup sounds interesting. I going to try and make that (can't get elderberries here).
    I have always wanted to really get into bread making, but then we found out we'd better not eat too much gluten (2 of the girls have celiac, the rest of us is sensitive), so I gave up on it. Gluten free (and gluten/milk/soy free - we have a lot of allergies) is hard to do and very expensive, so rice cakes it is. But I do miss the smell of freshly baked bread...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I gave up bread for a long time, now I am careful to only buy good quality flour and I don't buy much at a time as I have come to learn that it does not keep well, not well enough for bread making.

      Delete
  6. Lots of lovely and inspiring recipes and i love the story of you and Alice in the kitchen! We too are switching to autumn fayre of nourishing soups and stews and yay for slow cookers! Your veg box scheme sounds really great. We've tried two schemes one organic and one just a regular box scheme but the amount of veg we eat it would cost too much, which is a shame :-(

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you San. Veg box schemes can be so hit and miss can't they. My boxes are cheaper than buying the veg in the supermarket and they are not all wrapped in plastic.

      Delete
  7. your kitchen sounds delicious to be in. My sister shares her garden produce with us - so generous. I drive to many stores and buy produce to make up for the week. I'm going to make a soup today, not cemented on which one yet.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. How wonderful to have a share of your sister's home grown veg.

      Delete
  8. Gosh, you have done well with baking and cooking. You have prompted me to make even more of an effort with our produce. I think it's amazing you don't buy any supermarket fruit and vegetables, that's so good.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I try and make most of our food from scratch if I can. It still feels like I buy so much in as well!

      Delete
  9. I've found that Riverford have some great slow cooker recipes, including a lovely one that uses the WHOLE of the leek, not just the tender bits (https://www.riverford.co.uk/recipes/slow-cooker-leek-lemon-spaghetti). I shall be getting mine out just to try that. It's always a relief when autumn rolls round - I know how to cook for this weather. I think you may have sent me down a sourdough rabbit hole with those videos!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Enjoy the videos, I am sure I will be watching them again. I have been using the whole of a leek for years after a friend told me the green bit is full of things that are good for you. I chuck the whole leek in everything I make with them even if it doesn't say to!

      Delete
  10. Glad you have managed to continue with your veg box, it sounds a good idea. I've just started using a milkman ( or milk woman actually) for milk, juice and eggs. I've asked for six eggs every week, which means I have had to start baking. Lol. Will have to check out your recipes. X

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I love my veg box, I don't know how I would manage without it! Sadly milk is one of the few things that I haven't found an alternative supply, we currently buy from the supermarket. We tried a milk delivery but they only visit our village twice a week and I just couldn't manage with that frequency of delivery with the amount of milk we get through. We buy eggs from a local farm, we get through 30 a week!

      Delete
  11. Please, what are pulses? That is not a term used in the US. Also, I would love to have that rhubarb orange sauce recipe, it sounds amazing.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Pulses are dried legumes such as lentils, chickpeas, dried beans etc. I will share my rhubarb and orange sauce recipe in my next post.

      Delete
  12. Meant to say first that you have been amazing gly busy in your kitchen! Absolutely amazing, and this from someone who seems to spend most of her life in that room!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Wow that is praise, thank you. You have a pantry to die for!

      Delete
  13. Lovely hearing what you have been up to in your kitchen. It all sounds wonderful and comforting. How self sufficient you are! Your garden may be small but goodness, it sure is productive! Snowbird.xxx

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you, it is a lot of work to produce the little I do, but it is wonderful to be able to go out and harvest it and use it straight away in the kitchen.

      Delete

Hello......would love to hear from you :)