I'm touched!

Lovely Jo of The Good Life has given me an award for my blog. It is a 'Best Blog Award' and I am so pleased she fancied passing it on to me. Many, many thanks. I hope others, as well as Jo, enjoy my ramblings. I need to pass it on so here are the rules.

"Post the award on your blog along with the name of the person who passed it on to you and link to their blog. Choose 15 blogs which you have recently discovered and you think are great and pass it on to them. Don't forget to leave a comment on their blog to let them know they have been chosen for this award."

In no particular order, here are some of my fave blogs...

Beads By Laura
The Glass Slipper
Cake Wrecks
Inside the lines
Chloe's Designs
Applique
The Linen Cupboard
Jane Foster
Wooden Donkey
Decor8
Print & Pattern
Kella's Musings
Rebecca Frere Flowers
That Crafty Fish
The Cotton Monster

Shock horror!

Yes, I actually went to the allotment yesterday! It's been about 3 weeks. Finding the time to go is getting difficult now, what with evenings being too dark to go up there. I don't get home from work until 6.30pm so can't see a thing! Well, I got quite a bit sorted out. Attacking things with secateurs and putting raspberry nets and bean canes away. I need to go back up there to continue cutting back/burning. I am going to trim the soft fruit back hard as it hasn't been done for a while, I think. During the summer it was almost impossible to walk through the bushes to harvest so I am trying to make things easier for next year. I also still need to dig over the ground and get some bulbs in. I'm mulling over just keeping the 'shed end' for next year and letting someone else take on the 'road end'. 50x7m is a lot of land to tend for one person!! I picked up some pumpkins from the plot and my chilli plants is still covered in chillis, the aubergine still has lots on too. There are potatoes still in the ground which I am wondering if they will still be there or will have been eaten away. Only one way to find out! I did cull the kiwi plant yesterday - it didn't fruit and I hear without another plant it probably won't. I'll find something else I'd like to grow up the shed next year. It was nice to see the Lady's Mantle I thought had died after I moved it perking up again. It has produced some new growth so that is good to see. I find them very pretty plants. Especially when water droplets get trapped in the fan-like leaves :)

Harvest

Hello! More or less everything has finished on the allotment now. All I need to do next is dig and put in bulbs I have bought - flowers (narcissi, irises and tulips), and some onions and garlic. I also need to cut back the soft fruit. I'll post about that when I do it!

I did harvest some veggies though - peppers and sweetcorn...

The larger pepper was the only one on the plant. It was really sweet and tasty though. The little ones are in my freezer.

The sweetcorn I grew was SO delicious with some butter and simply steamed in the microwave. It wasn't much of a harvest from 12 plants though. Most of the cobs weren't fully formed so I only really got to eat a few. One cob per plant, most failures. However, I think I will still try it again next year, just a little earlier.


On a random note I got this book recently from a charity shop. Loving the cover! "We've got this book on biscuits. Hmm, what should we put on the cover...?" "I know, a MASSIVE biscuit" hehe!

Yummy yummy onion marmalade & time away

Look at this cute cottage :) How sweet is that?! I went away for a holiday to Dorset last week (hence the blog silence!) and stayed here. Very nice too. Had a really nice time relaxing and even had some pretty good weather. I now have more silly tan lines to go with the others I have accumulated this year!

When I got home I got around to making my 'famous' onion marmalade. My flat now stinks of vinegar but it is worth putting up with for a few days as this stuff is SO delicious. It doesn't last very long - it gets eaten super-quick as it goes with everything. I love it with cheese in particular, however I think my favourite is with lamb burgers. I wonder how long this batch will last...

Here's the recipe if you fancy making it yourself:

1.5kg onions (red onions work very well), chopped
1kg sugar
500ml red wine vinegar
a sprinkle of salt
2-3 teaspoons caraway seeds

• sprinkle the onions with a little salt in a large bowl. set aside.
• in a heavy based pan, add sugar, vinegar and caraway seeds. boil for 5 minutes.
• add the onions - i don't bother to wash off the salt - and cook on a low heat for at least 2 hours. sometimes i leave it on the low heat for about 4 hours, until it no longer tastes overly vinegary and has thickened.
• put into sterilised jars. as soon as it is cool you can eat it. yummy!
• keep opened jars in the fridge, unopened ones in a dark cupboard.
  

Pumpkin purée

Well, the 1st batch of the pumpkin is now purée :) I needed 850g for my pumpkin pie recipe so I cooked that much 1st - baked on a low oven shelf at gas 4/180c covered tightly with foil to steam/roast. I was meant to cook it for 30mins but it wasn't totally soft so I gave it another 20mins. Once it was cool I blitzed it in the food processor. Now it is ready for pie making! I won't be making the pie until later in the week so I am going to pop it in the freezer for now, then defrost it over a sieve so it is not too watery. I love the colour of it!

I still have loads of pumpkin flesh left so I am going to steam/roast the rest of it and save it in batches of 500g. I will then decide what to make with it. :)

Some clearing, rearranging and harvesting

Managed a few hours down the lottie and mainly did weeding. I also moved some stuff around too that was getting swamped by my enormous cosmos and rudbeckia plants. Remembered the camera so a photo-tastic post for you!

spinach is doing well but it has been seriously nibbled! picked loads for my spinach and ricotta lasagne. there is lots left. yummy :)

weeded beds - flowers, herbs and butternut squash. i moved the lady's mantle out from under the cosmos to give it a better chance. i also moved the tree onions and dug out the golden courgettes as they were pretty much done for. i'm pleased the butternut squash pulled through though :)

hooray! the verbena my friend gave me is starting to flower. love these :)

cosmos. just look at it!!

butternut squash starting to perk up and form some fruits :)

the white dry stalks are from the tree onions i have already harvested. it is good to see they are still growing. not tried the onions yet. i was told they are HOT! i moved them out from under the shadow of the cosmos/rudbeckia giants so hopefully they do ok.

pretty rudbeckia. i picked some more for the flat :)

spotted this busy bee on the globe artichoke flower. i love bumblebees, me!

the blueberry still has a few berries on it but the leaves are turning lovely colours so i took this snap.

the sweetcorn is tempting me every time i go to the lottie! not quite ready yet. the taller ones are the babycorn!! the aubergines are still flowering and fruiting.

i dug some leftover spuds out of this patch last weekend. the courgettes are still going strong and the pumpkins are ok. they were looking a bit yellow and sad so i gave them a good water in the hope they perk up. there are still some pumpkins forming.

runner/french/dwarf beans harvested. these are so delish eaten as is :) so sweet!

there are so many runner beans on this frame that they are pulling it over! this is only a few plants too. i will not need more than this next year!!

I also picked some aubergines, some courgettes and the remaining green tomatoes from the shed toms which FINALLY got chucked out! Hooray - I feel liberated.

Prepared pumpkin

So, I managed to harvest one of my pumpkins for me! The other 2 I've harvested so far have gone to a friend and my big bro. I've spent time cutting up the flesh and now I need to cook it to make myself some pumpkin puree. There is a lot of it from just one pumpkin - that is a big pan! I am thinking of making some pumpkin pie, just becasue I've never had it and it sounds good! I hear you can freeze the puree once cooked so I think I will probably do that as I am away Sunday/Monday on a jolly! Maybe I will cook me up a pie next week. The flesh is very pale and smells a little like melon. I will take pics of the mush once it is cooked. Oh, I added a link to my recipes list for pumpkin-related things - prep and recipes.

I am off to the allotment later to see how things are getting on and to do more work. I am going to chuck out the tomatoes in the shed as I have had enough of looking after them and they're not really behaving. A girl can only take so much! I will try to remember the camera this time for more progress photos.

Oh, my spinach is ready to harvest so I think I am going to make a spinach and ricotta lasagne. Found this easy-looking video recipe - also added to my recipe list. I have grown basil from seed so I have that, and I have bay and thyme at the allotment. I will also be able to use the few tommies I have managed to harvest from the shed plants.