Worms! and Giant Beetroot

With April just a matter of hours away we discovered that there was rather a lot to be done on the allotment. Much as we try to keep on top of everything; work and a constant stream of social commitments (the latter more for the girls than ourselves!) invariably tends to get in the way. Before we know it seed packets are claiming that they should have been sown yesterday and our ground preparation is far from complete.  

With heavy rain predicted for the whole day, the weather forecast was far from ideal for a day at the allotment but needs must. It actually turned out just to be heavy showers and with 'the smallest shed on the allotment' to shelter in we managed to make pretty good headway with our digging, weeding and sowing. Some of us got plenty of rest as well!

We have finally relocated our old wormery to the allotment and are hoping that we can kick start it again, without the cost of purchasing speciality worms. Apparently Tiger worms are the best species for the job but they are fairly costly (£20 for 1/2 a kilo from worms direct). Unfortunately our history of worm survival is rather poor. Over the last couple of years we have invested three times in this particular species of worms and only succeeded in killing them.
We are convinced that this is partly owing to the poor design of the wormery. The worms are able to wriggle through the holes in the bottom and then drown in the sump of liquid worm juice/fertiliser that is stored underneath.

Our alternative to this rather costly (and cruel) method is to collect our own. The girls have become our designated worm collectors. The bigger and juicier the better and with a bit of luck they will be too fat to wriggle to their deaths. 

At best our wonderful peelings will become fabulous worm juice (rather than soup!) and help us to grow enviable vegetables. At worst, the peelings will just compost away in a bin and we won't have killed half a kilo of worms and wasted another £20.

On the subject of enviable vegetables, it turns out that, what I had thought last year, was chard, and merrily cropped the leaves accordingly, was in actual fact a beetroot. A beetroot of enormous dimensions!

The girls enlisted their knowledge of 'The Enormous Turnip' story and pulled and pulled and pulled! Until...........

Just like the story, we roasted it to eat with our dinner and whilst it was definitely rather woody in places, that one enormous beetroot was big enough to share between 8 of us. A far cry from our dismal attempt at cauliflower growing!!

Yummy! Nettle and Bacon Flan

My bike is in need of repair at the moment (something to do with a cotter pin needing replacing ). It is just about holding out for short trips to and from school but I doubt if it would make it to the market and back in one piece. This has put a bit of a strain on my shopping habits and forced me to shop and forage closer to home. Luckily nettles are a little more abundant than a couple of weeks ago so I have been arming myself with my trusty, yellow, rubber gloves, to take the girls to and from school, and gathering fresh nettles daily!

The smell of nettles is really rather wonderful - all, sort of, green and peppery, much like their taste. Texturally they worked brilliantly in the flan that I made yesterday. I have made similar ones using either Kale or watercress but I think that the nettles actually worked better than either of  those.

Unlike when you use them in soup, you do need to blanch the stingers before hand. Simply plunge them into a pan of  boiling water, for all of two minutes, and then quickly refresh under the cold tap. This should ensure that they keep their fabulous, vibrant green colour.

Because the nettles are so young at the moment they are nearly all just 'nettle tip' anyway so I haven't had to throw much in the way if stalk away or even do much chopping. For the flan, I gave the blanched nettles a few quick slices with the knife before adding them but it probably wasn't necessary.

The actual flavour of the nettles was rather overpowered by the cheese and bacon but the texture that they provided was absolutely fabulous. Watercress can be stringy, unless finely chopped, and kale might be considered a bit tough. The nettles, however, were soft yet had some fibre to them and worked just perfectly with the smooth cheesy custard and the crisp salty bacon.
 

We ate this warm with baked potatoes and salad but I actually think that it was even nicer the next day when it was cold! I have only given it a score of 4/5 Clean Plates because two of the tasters are not so keen on flans in general. They did however agree that using nettles was infinitely better than my kale version and both made a good effort at eating it!

Nettle and Bacon Flan (4/5 Clean Plates)

220g Plain Flour

30g Polenta

140g Cold Butter

50g Parmesan

1 Egg

2 Eggs

300ml Double Cream

150g Smoked Streaky Bacon

2 Garlic Cloves

1 Red Onion

80g Nettles (blanched)

100g Mature Cheddar

Nutmeg

1. Place the flour, polenta and butter into a food processor and whizz until the mixture resembles bread crumbs.

2. Add the Parmesan and the egg and pulse until the pastry comes together. Add a small amount of cold water if needed.

3. Wrap in cling film and chill for 30 minutes.

1. On a lightly floured surface roll out the pastry so that it is about the thickness of a pound coin and big enough to line a 26cm tart case.

2. Line the tart case, leaving some overhang to allow for shrinkage and chill for another 30 minutes.

3. Pre-heat the oven to 200ºC/Gas 6 and blind bake for 15 minutes, continue to bake for another 5 – 10 minutes until the pastry is golden.

4. Remove from the oven and reduce the temperature to 170C/Gas 4. Trim off the overhanging pastry.

5. In a large jug whisk together the eggs, yolk and the cream and season with salt, pepper and nutmeg.

6. Remove the rind from the bacon and chop into 2cm pieces, dry fry until lightly browned and set aside. Chop the onion and crush the garlic. Add a splash of oil to the frying pan that you have just cooked the bacon in and soften the onion and garlic.

7. Arrange the bacon, onion, garlic and blanched nettles in the tart case and sprinkle over the grated cheese. Pour in the egg mixture and cook for 30 -40 minutes until the egg has set and the top is golden.

 

The Cost of Green

Rather sad that our 'green' food week has cost us more than our 'white' one but at least the nettle, tagiltelle dreds suited Fred!

Despite making use of some early Spring foraged ingredients (nettles); this week has been our most expensive. By the time we reached Saturday I ended up having to withdraw the money for next week and then swiftly spent £22.35 on food for the weekend. Except for some leftover roast chicken for tomorrow nights risotto, we have managed to eat everything and I very much doubt we will be able to make it through next week on just £57.65!

The situation has not been helped by the girls taking it upon themselves to generously feed their guinea pig handfuls of the salad that I had kept to one side to accompany tomorrow nights meal. I now wish that I hadn't pointed out, that he would be dead by now, if I hadn't been feeding him!

Seeing our lovely salad leaves strewn across the grass in the run was quite traumatic. Particularly, as Marcus had only agreed to them having him on the assumption that a guinea pigs grass consumption would save him having to mow the lawn!

I can't really blame the guinea pig though as a good two thirds of the over spend was actually spent at the Butchers. The girls had a friend over for a sleepover so I went wild and bought sausages for their tea, a couple of chicken legs for Marcus and myself, to eat later in the evening and a small chicken to roast for Sunday; spending £15.90 in total. Pretty much the amount that we have allocated to meat for an entire week covered just two days and it was ridiculously easy to do as well!

Having now completed four weeks of trying to feed five for £80 (with varying degrees of success!) these are some of my my top tips.

Buy really strong flavoured cheese to use in sauces and for general cooking. You will need to use less!

A surprising number of meal leftovers make fantastic soups when blended with stock and perhaps an extra onion or leek. A word of warning though - unless you are particularly keen on cabbage soup I reccomend not including leftover sprouts or cabbage as their flavour can mask all others. Having said that, finely shredded greens are good in an 'un-blended' soup

Any mince based dishes, such as bolognaise, chilli, shepherds pie, mousaka etc. don't suffer from the addition of lentils. Where I would previously have used 500g of mince I now use 300g with 100g of lentils.

Lamb has a particularly strong flavour and whilst it may be one of the more expensive meats to use as a joint, a small quantity will impart big lamb flavour on a casserole or a curry.  A large shank or some shoulder cooked in a slowcooker with plenty of vegetables, lentils and pulses will stretch the meat to feed 5 or 6 easily. 

Blitz up stale bread into breadcrumbs and freeze. I have a bag in the freezer that I top up continuously. They can be used straight from the freezer to add to meatballs and burgers.
Dipping chunks of chicken or fish into flour, then egg, then breadcrumbs and baking them in the oven bulks them out far more than I expected - it works for Captain Birdseye, it can work for you!. A few chopped herbs, lemon zest or some spices mixed with the breadcrumbs makes it taste more interesting too.

Sour milk is great for making scones.

Check out the over ripe fruit at the market - it will be going cheap and can be whizzed up into fab smoothies, coulis and fruit leather. Bananas are particularly handy as they are great for sweetening cakes and ices. The older they get, the sweeter they taste and the less refined sugar you need. 

Foraging for Purest Green (Nettles)

Percy: "Oh, Edmund! Can it be true? That I hold here, in my mortal hands, a nugget of purest green!"
Edmund: "Yes, well, it's more of a splat, isn't it?"
Blackadder Series 2

In my quest for 'green' and our eagerness to enjoy our first bowl of nettle soup of the Spring, we were actually rather premature in our foraging. Over the last few days I have spotted a promising number of young nettles on the edges of pathways  but when we arrived at the Orchard on Mothering Sunday (armed with gloves and carrier bags) they were in surprisingly short array.

The girls were as keen as I to be tucking into nettle soup on 'soup night', so I set them the task of scouring the ground for signs of green. Positive sightings led to a bit of a 'whoop' and me running in from the side in my yellow marigolds (necessary nettling attire) armed with a carrier bag to fill. 

It was fun, and despite my initial misgivings, we did manage to collect a fair amount. Although, as the nettles were very young and the tip so close to the root, they tended to come up 'root and all' so there was a fair amoubt of sorting needed. After washing and sorting we have ended up with around 300g. Just enough for soup but another foraging trip will be required if we are to make the nettle gnocchi and nettle bread that we also have planned for our 'green week'

And so to the soup! Once the nettles were washed and sorted they were kept to the side until the last minute (adding them too early can render your, 'green', a more murky brown). The carrot, onion, garlic, potato and celery were left to sweat in (an un-healthy amount of) butter and then simmered in stock until soft. 

The soup base was blended until smooth before piling in the nettles.
NB.Either use tongs or pop your 'marigolds' back on! This may sound obvious but in the midst of all this culinary excitement, it is actually quite east to forget that, stinging nettles, sting

Turn off the heat and blend again, until the wonderful, buttery, yellow soup base, becomes, 'green'! A generous grating of nutmeg and perhaps, some salt and pepper and you are done.

Stinging nettles are incredibly high in vitamins C, D, iron, potassium, manganese, and calcium. They are also unusually high in protein for a green plant. As we were eating this as our main meal of the day (and I hadn't snuck any lentils or pulses in anywhere!) I topped it off with a poached egg for an extra protein boost.

Nettle Soup (clean plates 5/5)

250g Prepared Nettles (tops or young leaves)

55g Butter

2 Onions

1 Carrot

2 Celery Sticks

1 Garlic clove

1 Medium Potato

1.5 Litres Chicken/Vegetable Stock

Nutmeg

Finely chop the onions, garlic and celery. Grate the carrot and potato. 

Gently melt the butter in a large saucepan, tip in the vegetables and gently sweat for around ten minutes.

Add the stock and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat and allow to simmer until the vegetables are completely soft (about 20 minutes). Blend the soup base until smooth.

Pile in the nettles, simmer for another 2 minutes, until the nettles are tender and then blend the soup until smooth.

Season with salt, pepper and nutmeg and enjoy! 

To make it more of a meal, serve with a poached egg floating on top.

£80 Feeds 5 Challenge

We are now 3 weeks on in our £80 feeds 5 challenge and it seems like a good time to assess how we are managing.

I have managed my money by keeping my weekly budget of £80 cash in a separate 'housekeeping' purse; along with my shopping list and weekly meal plan. This has helped me to keep a track of my spending and panic accordingly as I see it rapidly disappear!

Shopping locally and food provenance is of immense importance to our family and we have had to make quite a few changes to the meals that we eat in order to maintain these values and keep within budget. But it has been possible!

We have at least one (sometimes two) soup nights each week and soups for lunch. Some of the lunch time soups are actually just 'blends'. The leftovers from the previous nights meal blended with stock and perhaps a bit of extra leek or carrot. This works particularly well with creamy gratins, cauliflower cheese or roasted vegetables.

We buy our meat from our local Butcher and Farmers Market and so don't take advantage of supermarket deals. To accommodate this we have had to reduce the quantity that we buy and now use it more as a 'flavour' than a main component. Things like bacon have become particularly useful to add flavour and satisfy our carnivorous taste and much to Marcus' dismay, chickpeas, and beans are frequent partners to the teeny morsels of meat.

On average we seem to be spending around 
£25 on Vegetables and Fruit
£17 on Meat and Fish
£18 on Eggs and Dairy (includes cheese)
£20 on The Rest (includes flour, yeast, sugar, oil, tinned tomatoes, tea, coffee, beans, lentils, etc.)

I would be lying if I said that I was finding it easy because it's not. It is really quite tricky. We are compromising on the amount and the variety of fruit that we buy and our meals are tending to be a good deal more carbohydrate heavy than a few weeks ago. As my store cupboard, with it's array of nuts, seeds and dried fruit starts to diminish, replenishing it is putting further strain on the budget.

On the plus side, Spring is in the air and we are busy sowing our seeds for the allotment. Once they grow and we start harvesting again we should be able to allocate a good £18 - £20 a week to other food stuffs. This will definitely make the time spent weeding and watering feel worth while!



   

It's all White!

We still have £11.35 of our £80 weekly budget left. It looks like we might come in under and make up for last weeks over spend but...................... 
Its been a strangely colourless few days on the food front. This doesn't look great as far as a healthy diet goes, still, it has definitely been low cost!

Monday was a ham, leek and potato gratin to use up some of the ham hock from Sunday, very white and potatoey in colour, although I did serve it with broccoli, for a flash of green. 

Soup day, on Tuesday, was pretty tasty but as it was actually just the leftover gratin blended up with some stock and served with cheesy croutons that was also a bit 'white'.

Wednesday was Cheesy Pasta! The girls had to eat early as there was a Bed Time Read event at school so this seemed like the perfect option, I did (through fear of scurvy) throw in some broccoli but the sauce just gained a few green speckles and then covered the stalks in a white blanket. 

I get great satisfaction out of making pasta but have yet to try anything more adventurous than tagliatelle, spaghetti or lasagna sheets. It does, however, look like we should be able to collect our first nettles of the year next week (I have spotted them popping up here and there) so I plan to experiment with putting some into my pasta dough and going green! 

  

In keeping with the "white theme" we have been using up all the black skinned bananas that I picked up for 50p (the lot) from the market. As well as banana bars and banana muffins they make superb, no refined sugar, ice lolly's. They are so sweet with their own natural sugar that you really don't need any other sweetener. 

Easy Peasy Banana Ice Lollies (Clean Plates 5/5)

4 or 5 very ripe bananas (the blacker and mushier the better!)
400ml - 500ml Natural Yoghurt

You are looking at a ratio of about 100ml yoghurt : 1 Banana but this really is just a guide. 
Blend the yogurt and bananas together until smooth.
Pour into ice lolly moulds, freeze until firm and remove the plastic mould!
Eat and Enjoy.

And next week the theme will be Green!  

A New Shed and a Cauliflower

Our wigwam, lovingly created from old curtains and tablecloths in 2013 has finally rotted into a dowdy pile of moulding rags. Marcus spent Saturday constructing a replacement shed that he had bought through Gum Tree and we now are the proud owners of, "the smallest shed on the allotment". It is seriously teeny and looks amusingly like a regimental sentry post. Next job for the girls should probably be a scarecrow kitted out in a busby and a queens guard costume to keep Shirly company.

 The Wigwam 2013

The creation of Shirly

Talking of 'teeny', we have harvested our first and probably last cauliflower. We opted for a variety called Snow Ball, I actually think that Ping Pong Ball would be a better name for it. If we were in the business of micro veg we would be on to a winner but as a meal for a family of 5 it is seriously inadequate! 

Market Cauli on left, Home-grown Cauli on right

Apparently our cauliflower failings our not unusual and our fellow allotmentears have had similar problems. Cauliflowers generally thrive best in damp, compact soil and as we are blessed with dry, loam soil we are probably better off concentrating on other crops and feeding our Cauli habit from the market.

Over spend of £2.44
Annoyingly I had to dig in to next weeks budget to buy lemons and coriander.

In a bid to try to justify this over spend I need to point out that my Mum has been visiting us. On Monday and Tuesday I was feeding 6 instead of 5. Viewed in this way she actually only cost £1.22 extra a day to entertain! What's more, I don't think that she realised we were spending so little on her food. Although, having said that, she did give me a £20 note and a big cuddle as she was leaving and told me to treat myself!

Something that I have found particularly interesting this week is a poster produced by Hubbub ( Hubbub website). The organisation aims to communicate environmental issues in a fresh and positive way and demonstrates some thought provoking facts and some simple changes that we can all make to the way that we shop, cook and eat.

Hubbub push pancakes as a great way of using up ingredients that might otherwise have gone to waste and their site has some great recipe ideas for pancakes from around the world.

As much as the girls like pancakes they favour them with a squeeze of lemon and some sugar so I am inclined to stand by my love of soup, as the most versatile way of using up leftovers. Many a time I have literally blended up the previous nights dinner with some stock and in next to no time we have a scrummy lunch. Brilliant for taking to the allotment or for a winter picnic.

This weeks soups were Cheesy Broccoli, a fab blend of Sundays cauliflower and broccoli cheese with some leeks and stock. Chicken Broth (for Soup Night) made from the last of Sundays roast chicken. Leek and potato soup and Tomato, parsnip and lentil soup, using tinned cherry tomatoes in place of fresh (for Soup Night 2). Its been a souper week!

Chick...en...pea Casserole

Chickpea Perfection!

My friend has lent me Ottolenghi's 'Jerusalem' and I determined to perfect my hummus making skills to compete with those of my Israeli friends. To date I have been completely unable to achieve the fabulously creamy texture and taste that sets their hummus over and above your average shop bought version. This is no more! It seems that the secret to success is bicarbonate if soda. Once the chick peas have been soaked over night, drain them and put them into a saucepan over a high heat. Add bicarbonate of soda (1 tsp : 250g dried chickpeas) and cook for about 3 minutes, stirring constantly before adding the water and bringing to the boil. Once the chick peas have boiled for about 40 minutes they should be wonderfully soft and the skins will have separated from the pea.

Having cooked up a mass of chickpeas yesterday I decided to use the rest of them in tonight's casserole. I love chickpeas, Marcus, however, considers chickpeas 'evil'. Unfortunately for him I see it as a challenge to try to persuade him otherwise and like to sneak them into dishes where he might least expect them. Surely these wonderfully soft Ottolenghi style chickpeas will convert him.

Spiced with cumin, coriander, sumac and cinnamon this was a real "chuck it all in and boil it up" style of meal. No sweating of vegetables or browning of meat, I literally popped all the ingredients into the pan (except for the chickpeas as they were soft enough already) and let it simmer away until the chicken was falling off the carcass.

Once cooked, the chicken was stripped off the carcass and the chickpeas were added, along with some lemon juice and chopped coriander.

We ate this delicious chick...en...pea casserole with couscous to soak up the lovely sweet fragrant juices. To be honest there was a good deal more 'pea' than 'en'. For the girls and I this was not an issue but for Marcus, the chickpea hater, it was a little weighted in the wrong direction. His face was a picture when he spotted a morsel of chicken escape between a fork and a mouth and land on the floor! 

Chick...en...pea Casserole (Clean Plates 4/5)

1 Chicken Carcass

500ml Chicken Stock

2 Onions

3 Tbsp Olive Oil

1 Tbsp Clear Honey

1 Tsp Coriander Seeds

1 Tsp Cumin Seeds

1 Tsp Sumac

3cm Piece of Cinnamon Stick

1/2 tsp Harrisa Paste

300g Squash

300g Chickpeas (cooked weight)

1 Lemon

1Tbsp Chopped Fresh Coriander

Lightly toast the cumin and coriander seeds until fragrant and then grind to a fine powder.

Finely chop the onion and peel and dice the squash into 3cm chunks

Put the chicken carcass, onion, squash, oil, honey and spices together into a large pan. Pour over the stock and bring to the boil.

Cover with a lid, reduce the heat and simmer for 30 minutes.

Add the chickpeas and continue to cook for a further 25 – 30 minutes until the chicken is tender and falling off the carcass. Allow to cool.

Remove the carcass from the pan and take the meat off the bones.

Put the chicken back into the pan, squeeze in the juice from the lemon, stir through the fresh coriander and season to taste.

Round Up and a Carcass for £2.00

62p, a squash and 2 Cauli's to spare!

Well we did it, we completed our first week with 62p and some vegetables to spare. I have to admit that, had posted a couple of days ago I would have said that it was not going to happen and we were going to have to dig into next weeks budget.

So what saved the week? 

In short, I was struck down on Thursday evening with a vomiting virus. 

Unable to eat anything myself, or cook for the family our costs plummeted! As I wasn't baking there wasn't even a dry crust in the bread bin so Marcus made do with handfuls of seeds, some fruit from the fruit bowl and a leftover moussaka from the freezer. The girls fared far better, thanks to my lovely friend Annie who fed and entertained them while I hung out in the loo!

Obviously this is not a method that I can, or want to, employ for the forthcoming week so the next seven days will provide a much more realistic view of managing on a budget of £80. I am also aware that my store cupboard items such as olive oil, dried fruit and sugar need replenishing, costs that I didn't have last week.

Shelford Farmers Market Meat Spend £15.85 

Mixed Game Sausages £5.50, Chicken Carcass £2.00, Ham Hocks £3.20 each, Bacon £2.45

  

I am starting the second week with a slightly larger spend on meat than last week but at least £5.50 of  that (for the mixed game sausages) will be going into the following weeks meal plan. They were purchased in a moment of madness when the wonderful lady from the Radwinter Wild Game Company  http://www.radwinterwildgame.com, plied me with sausage tasters! Despite them not being part of my weekly meal plan they really were to delicious to pass up so I made an "advance purchase". 

My most exciting purchase was a free range chicken carcass for just £2.00 from the Hawthorn Farm stall. There is a really good amount of meat still on the bones so I intend to use it for a casserole on Thursday. I have bought them in the past and used them for soup but needs must and I do believe that with plenty of vegetables (and some lentils!) their will be plenty for everyone.

The Ham Hocks and bacon were from Priors Hall Farm  http://www.priorshallfarm.co.uk I have bought two hocks for next Sundays roast but may end up only using one if there looks to be enough meat. As they are cured and vacuum packed they will keep for a couple of weeks so it seemed worth getting more than one as a "just in case".    

   

The sowing starts with....

Tomatoes!

As the March winds whipped up around us we made a start on this years sowing.
First up are tomatoes. These need to be started off inside rather than sown directly into the ground

Grubby Knees Tip
If you plan to start your tomato seedlings off in the house, rather than a greenhouse, use containers without holes in the bottom instead of traditional seed trays. This will prevent muddy water dribbling over your window ledge, and will also mean that the seedlings will require less watering. It is also a great way of recycling your old vegetable containers, large milk cartons (just cut the top half off to the required depth)etc. 

This year we are trialing two new varieties; a large Beefsteake tomato, Tomato Cuore Di Bue and a Cherry tomato, Santa Small Cherry Plum.

The first packet of seeds (the Beefsteak) contained a huge number of seeds, requiring liberal sprinkling over the surface of the compost.

 
The second seed packet contained just two, teeny, tiny little seeds. Time will tell whether the packet was opened upside down (a jungle of tomato plants popping up in the lawn) or whether we have two premium tomato plants (they were sold to us as F1 seeds)

We have wrapped the seed trays in clingfilm, so that they feel like they are in a greenhouse, labelled them, in case we forget what we have planted and now we wait!