eating from the garden

Well, I have to say, the garden's carrying on pretty well without me these days. Yes, it could do with some weeding, and a bit of tidying up, and yes, the cabbages on the windowsill could probably do with planting in the ground, but other than that, it's all going to plan.

Not that we've been able to give up food shopping or anything! I'm sure our garden could be far more productive given the time and energy on my part - which I just don't have right now. So for the time being, it's just ticking along nicely, and every so often we get a cheery little surprise for dinner.

These peppers have been growing on the living room windowsill. I bought the plant for 50p a couple of years ago, and last year got one small pepper. Then it looked like it had died, but I carried on watering it, because you just never know. This year we've had three peppers! It doesn't look like there'll be any more, and again, the plant looks like it's on its last legs, but I'll keep watering it, and who knows what will happen next year!

Anyway, we ate these all in one go, with some tasty cheese, and home grown rocket, all rolled up in, er, pancakes, which must be on the list of most-often-eaten food in this house.

I'll pop out into the garden later today to investigate what other edible treats are in the making... Hope you're getting something tasty from the garden too!

eating from the garden

the first proper strawberry harvest

and there's still some left!

lettuce, mint, and rocket

Things have been getting rather exciting in the garden round here lately. All the lettuce planted in the ground was eaten by slugs, of course, but the ones I sensibly planted in pots are pretty much ready to harvest, and in fact I did just that at the weekend. The mint, as predicted, is overtaking everywhere, and I'm trying to overcome my general dislike of anything minty to invent a variety of things to do with it (not that I invented the idea of having mint with new potatoes, mind you!).

And the strawberries! Last year I only got a couple of measly, half munched ones, but this year, they've blossomed and taken over half of the front garden. I picked a good handful on Sunday, and there's plenty still ripening. I don't think we'll have enough for jam, but we'll certainly have enough for a bowlful to share at the weekend. And I'm starting to think I wouldn't mind if they *did* take over the entire garden - they've been so easy to grow, even for me, and just *so* tasty, that maybe I'd be happy if that was all I ever grew....

There are a few courgettes ripening, the rocket's starting to take off, and the broad beans are showing some signs of enthusiasm (although admittedly not many). I don't think we'll be harvesting rhubarb this year, tempting though it is, I think it needs to settle (although maybe just one or two sticks...). The peas have succumbed to the slugs, more's the pity. But the rainbow chard is doing well, I've got far too many cabbages for the space available, the sage is nearly as big as me, and there are aphids taking over my orange blossom that will just *have* to be dealt with before they start infesting the things I actually want to eat.

All in all, the garden's a little bit of a handful at the minute!

But I'm pretty adept at ignoring its protestations, of course.

(and as an aside, in case you were wondering, the knitting is continuing, it came away with me at the weekend, and travels backwards and forwards on the train each day I go to work. A few more inches to go on the body, then we start grappling with double pointed needles to make the sleeves...)

food, glorious food

the bandstand

in the shadow of the war memorial

operation pea harvest

After my last day at work on Tuesday I was feeling a little glum, walking home, and found myself in the park by the museum.

This isn't unusual, I walk through this park most days on the way to work, or to the university, or town, and it really is beautiful. They run quite a lot of events in this park too.

But on Tuesday, I found myself wandering into the museum. I've probably mentioned this museum before, it's ever such fun. My eldest nephew loved it when he visited, and is now convinced I live there. Not quite, but it's a close thing sometimes.

There's a new exhibition I hadn't visited yet, all about food - how we grow it, prepare it and eat it. One of the things I love about this museum is its kid friendliness, there's plenty of dressing up, poking and prodding to be done, and even if you go in without kids, nobody minds if you pick things up and have a play.

But this week, I found myself drawn to the sofa, where they were showing a series of old short films about food production. The one above shows part of Operation Pea Harvest, a 1968 film about frozen peas. There was a film about a spaghetti eating race, a mobile fish and chip shop, and people taste testing dehydrated foods. A nicely varied mix!

Three of the films struck a bit of a chord (I should point out these films were all about 2 minutes long, lest the rumours of me actually living in the museum become more widespread). The 1966 Children's Farm showed city children being taken for holidays on farms, feeding cows, and learning that, much to their astonishment, 'hens lay eggs!' There's much talk these days of doing similar things, and it was interesting to find out that not knowing where food comes from isn't that new an idea.

The second film showed the Women's Land Army. Now, I don't know much, but I've been reading about this recently, and it seems being in the Women's Land Army wasn't quite as cheery and exciting as it was made out to be in this little film. I was rather bemused by the narrator telling us 'they know how to keep chickens, even if they can't keep secrets!' - were the women well known for not being able to keep secrets??

The third film was from 1939, and showed the food minister speaking about rationing. It was fascinating to see how very differently he came across to politicians of today - "I am very sure that all of you will buy your fair share and no more..."

I generally think about food quite a lot, but a few things have conspired recently to make me think more about where my food is coming from. I'm trying to grow more of it, our garden's small, but I'm doing what I can. Might there be another allotment in my future?? Possibly, although certainly not just yet.

But I'm leaning more and more towards supporting local food growing and growers. I'm slowly finding my way round the farmers' markets here, sussing out who's who and what's available when. I'm planning to join in with the abundance project this year too, harvesting fruit for redistribution to community projects.

The more I look, the more is going on. And the more sensible it seems to eat as much as possible from as close to home as possible, even if it means making a few changes, embracing cabbage, and waiting for English strawberries...

What local food projects are going on where you live?

Jam and dreams

There's been rather a lot of jam making here this week. I popped round to a friend's last week, and as he wasn't in, I started poking around in the garden. The garden is tiny, probably about a third of the size of mine even, but it had so much fruit growing in it! You can see the timber framed greenhouse he's build, not a light undertaking... But it's got grapes, melons and pineapples growing in it - not a bad haul for a tiny city garden. 

After checking it was ok, we went back and raided the fruit. My friend is too busy to pick it apparently - what a shame! We got about 3lbs of gooseberries, and there were plenty more left on the bush. We also picked about 1lb of tayberries, but sadly most of them had already withered on the bush. 

Well, tayberry jam is most gorgeous indeed, rich and flowery tasting, and a beautiful deep red. Gooseberry jam is also gorgeous, although not as good a colour. We also experimented with making gooseberry fool yesterday, which was a little tart for my liking, but a lovely mix of flavours. Perhaps I should have followed a recipe? I never was much of a one for instructions... :) 

Anyway, my friend did get two pots of jam from his fruit, which were delivered to his house in exchange for him fixing my bike :) So now we all have jam, and I have a working set of wheels, and everyone's happy. 

My own garden isn't half as productive as my friend's, which just goes to prove that effort in at the beginning gives results later... I went for the bung-it-in-when-you-get-chance method, he went for an all out effort at the start. Anyway, each of my five broad bean plants currently has one pod of beans on! 

We picked this one the other day, rather too early, but we were quite excited, as with anything new that grows in the garden. We're leaving the rest to mature a bit further. 

I noticed while I was out that there's a lot of ant and aphid activity on my cardoom. I bought this last year after reading about their electric blue flowers - I've never actually seen the flowers. Mine is in a pot, and it's the only plant in the garden which is absolutely covered in aphids, and ants, which are presumably eating the aphids. Very bizarre - the plant itself seems reasonably health, and has a couple of flowers starting to grow, so I assume they're not doing too much damage. The whole thing had me rather puzzled. Can anyone shed any light? There's so much to learn about this gardening business... 

Other than gardening and jam, it's been a week of dashing about and lots of different things. The new Harry Potter film, a bit of work, a lot of PhD, and a good silly splash around down the water slides at the swimming pool with an old school friend. 

There was also a long drive to see my new nephew and his two big brothers (and most of the rest of the family too, of course). On the way back, I was awfully tired, and went on a bit of a detour to find somewhere sensible to have a nap (oh, the joys of owning a van!) I found myself tracing an old route I used to cycle a few years ago, over the Staffordshire Moorlands. This is a vastly underrated, gorgeous part of the country - and long may it stay like that. This picture doesn't do it justice at all.

Anyway, driving along my old cycling route made me think about how much I used to enjoy cycling, and how much fitter I used to be than I am now... So I came home, and now my bike's fixed, I'm looking forward to pootling about on it. It's just rather hilly round here, so I need to face up to the fact that I won't be going very fast just yet! 

My mum said the other day that she's going to start cycling more too - so here it is, in writing - have you started yet mum?? :) 

Meal planning

Pretty much everything's easier when you plan, but sometimes it's just not that easy to get round to the planning. 

Without planning of some kind, eating in this house tends to drift towards foraging, pecking at bread and jam, uncooked porridge, and fruit. For breakfast, dinner, and tea. Homemade bread, and a fair bit of fruit, but hardly what you'd call a balanced diet. 

So I've taken matters in hand and done a meal plan for the next few days. It looks like this:

I've done meal plans before, big, long, protracted affairs, with every meal plus snacks in little squares. Sometimes it works for a while, sometimes it doesn't. The beauty of this simple meal plan is that it uses what we've got in the house and allows us to improvise. It also means if we're running late for something, or if one of us fancies making a more extravagant meal, then we can switch them round and make the most suitable for that day. 

I haven't planned lunches and breakfasts right now, I'll see how the evening goes, and hopefully having a meal planned in advance will cut down a bit on the bread and jam at least.

Bread and jam IS gorgeous though... :) 

I know meal planning is good, it's one of the key things to help cut down spending, especially on quick trips to the corner shop. It also helps avoid eating nothing but bread and jam (did I mention that already?) And it takes the effort out of wondering what to make and staring at the fridge when you're hungry. But somehow I don't find it very interesting....

This is what I saw when I went to look in our fridge when thinking about this post.

Some carrots, half a courgette, some chopped onions in a bowl. A huge tub of natural yogurt (my yogurt making efforts have temporarily fallen by the wayside after two spoiled batches). Two nearly empty pots of jam, with a bit of water in each, swished round to make a sweet jammy water that will go into the next batch of bread. 

I think on tomorrow's to do list might include a clean out and clear out of the fridge :) It's easier to be enthusiastic about making food when you can see exactly what you've got. I LOVE cooking, but sometimes I forget that I do. I forget that I find it soothing and cheery, and reach instead for the bread knife.

 

Tomorrow I'll clean out the fridge, and make the tea in advance, to be heated up in the evening. And I'll try to reconnect a bit with my food, try to see meal planning as a pleasure not a chore. And try not to eat more than four or five slices of bread and jam :) 

Budgeting (again)

Today I've been food shopping at the faceless supermarket down the road. 

I can never quite figure out the best way of food shopping for us. We're lucky to have a decent fruit and veg shop 5 minutes walk away, and also a small Co-op supermarket. Our natural inclination is to pop out a few times a week to get what we need, without list or budget, and this is what we generally do. 

I'm trying to tweak this a little for now as it ends up costing quite a lot of money, as well as time! So I've started making a list, setting a budget, and for the time being heading to the supermarket once a week. I'm hoping that I'll be able to organise myself, check prices and stock, and start getting most things from the local shops fairly soon. 

I've been keeping track of what we spend on food, and it's about £160 for the two of us. We don't eat meat, I don't eat fish, but we do get through a lot of fruit, veg, tins of chick peas and other beans, and lentils, as well as jam :) 

We make our own bread (in the bread machine), and generally make pretty much everything from scratch, so surely we must be able to get that spending down a little...

I've realised that I still spend quite a lot on popping to the shops for some milk - sometimes 5 or 6 times a week! I like my tea VERY milky... So, as an experiment, I'm cutting down from about 7 cups of tea a day (sometimes more - that's surely not good?) and trying to just drink herbal tea. We have a big stock already that we've acquired, and I don't like it as much as 'normal' tea, so hopefully it'll end up cheaper. We'll see. So far it's going ok, and I'm not missing proper tea that much. 

I'm also sprouting some green lentils for salads and stir fry, and growing lettuce and tomatoes so we don't need to buy salad. I'm trying to cut down on cheese too, and having a go at making two meals at a time and freezing one. 

I might try to knock the budget down to £140 for April, and then after that see if we can get it down further. Shouldn't be too difficult, hopefully.