Curry, National Allotment Week, August sowings

Well the curry was good – not superb but definitely good. Since then I’ve tried the Green & Black’s courgette cake, which IS superb and been introduced to the sneaky world of ‘extending’ meat.

Sounds very dubious doesn’t it? But our grandmothers knew that meat was the most expensive part of any meal, so they worked out many sneaky ways of stretching the meat to make it seem like more to the hungry mouths around their tables. One way was to grate vegetables and mix them with minced meat … and I have discovered that if you grate some peeled overgrown courgette into beef mince, it makes a very nice moist cottage pie and nobody is any the wiser!

But back to allotmenteering – did you notice National Allotment Week? No, nor did I. It’s a shame not more is done to celebrate allotments on a national scale, I think. Perhaps next year we could have a blogfest for National Allotment Week, with each of us showcasing our allotment site – what do you think? We celebrated in style, if very locally, because Duncan’s shed arrived! It’s got to be wood-preserved before it goes up to the allotment (my job, as I love painting wood) and we’ve also got to clear the ground and put down some kind of hardstanding but it feels great to know that we’re about to set up our very own (well, Duncan’s very own) shed.

Seeds I’m planning to plant this month:

• Mustard greens – because they are hardy and keep producing new leaves, assuming you harvest them regularly, even in terrible weather
• Kale - to overwinter in a polytunnel because that way we’ll get for delicious green stuff through until next spring
• Winter radish - for soups, stews and stir-fries

Labels: allotment-august-sowings, allotment-autumn, allotment-courgettes, allotment-kale, allotment-mustard-greens, allotment-shed, allotment-winter-radish, national-allotment-week

Allotment colours

Okay, I’m showing off a bit. The last of the sweetpeas were needing to be picked and having picked them, I couldn’t resist harvesting a twilight purple kohlrabi to set alongside them and then the green table begged to be a setting … very arty, I hope you agree.

So, back to the adventures with kohlrabi – I wasn’t thrilled by the flavour in a casserole, so I tried it in a coleslaw, as suggested by plot-holder Duncan. That was better but still not exactly thrilling, so finally I cut this kohlrabi into chunks, sprinkled it with garlic, herbes de provence and salt and roasted it in olive oil with carrots, potatoes and peppers: superb! Since then we’ve also tried kohlrabi oven chips (like potato chips but oven roasted, well sprinkled with black pepper and chili flakes) which were just as good.

As I’m spending most of my weekends digging over the bottom of the allotment so that we can use it for root crops this year (we have no idea when it was last planted, it has turned into a impressive jungle of weeds and even a weekly digging only reduces it to a wasteland, rather than an outright jungle) I’ve got a healthy appetite for the vegetables we harvest. This weekend I’ve got to deal with two giant courgettes – very nearly marrow sized – and they are not my favourite vegetable but I’m determined to find a similarly superb recipe to make them a family favourite. Tonight I’m trying the first one in a coconut milk curry with chickpeas … I wonder if that is going to be the answer?

Labels: allotment-courgettes, allotment-kohlrabi, allotment-sweet-peas