Ate my first squash of the year and it officially feels like autumn! I bought an acorn squash hybrid called “Mashed Potato” squash, drizzled it with a little olive oil and baked it with flesh side down in the oven for 30 minutes or so until soft. Sprinkled it with salt and pepper and ate it just like that, scooping it away from the skin. It tasted so buttery and decadent, so comforting….love it!!
I grew nothing in my garden this year apart from herbs and a little garlic but I still have a few pots of jam, piccalilli, bread and butter pickles and beetroot left which should be still OK. My main under-stairs “prepper pantry” now has basic supplies of canned tomatoes, beans, baked beans etc and staples such as pasta, rice, flour and various other things such as a years supply of soya mince set aside for the winter. I’ve got stuff stashed away in an unplugged fridge and in other boxes and tubs too. For some strange reason it gives me some comfort knowing that stuff like that is there. Maybe it was the years living so rurally in Wales and Canada and trying to be self-sufficient to a degree that still impacts me. We all have our strange ways though don’t we!
C xxxx
I need to sort my tins efficiently. I love our little retirement bungalow – but I really miss having a cupboard under the stairs!
Well My wife thinks I’m a bit weird – and I think Carolyn can vouch for my wife’s’ accuracy.
Since having our new kitchen fitted I have been putting the tins and such like in the cupboards, with their labels facing us. This is so that I know what I am picking up immediately. The tins are always replaced on our shopping trip, and I also make a point of removing the older tins, puttin ghte new tins in first, before replacing the older tins. Also each tin HAS it’s own place in the cupboard, and each tin is IN it’s own place.
Morning Carolyn,
As you state you haven’t grown any major vegetables this year. I presume that this is to allow the ground to fallow. Do you add anything to the soil during this fallow time. Our Runner beans have had a reduced yield this year, and I am thinking of following this patch next year. The French beans have been incredible, we could of picked enough to have beans every day since mid July. This is on a frame 6ft wide, by about 4ft high, and also on our new raised plot (two railway sleepers tall). We have had a great crop of beetroot, from a woopsies tray of beetroot plants from Asda. 6 pots for £2. This yielded about 150- 200 plants. We are inundated with Tomatoes, from cutting “wrinkly” tomatoes in the fridge, in half and putting them face down in pots full of compost. Cover them with cellophane and watch the seedings grow. We still have hundreds of tomatoes, and many still on the plants. The other success this year is the spring onions. It the past couple of years it has taken about 12 months to get the onions to a usable size. This year Wendy sprinkled the whole pack of seeds in a large trough, and let them get on with it. We harvested them early last month, and are still using them for most of our pasta, tikka and other dishes.
On another point, the Hedgehog picture has gone to the person who handles the auctions. I’ll let you know what it fetches. It looks amazing, so hopefully it raises quite a bit for the hedgehog rescue centre near us.
It really is Autumnal now isn’t it. I love it, it’s my favourite season of the year. I love squirreling away the things that I have grown and especially this year now that I have finally started living on wartime rations, well my modern vegan version of them.
I have managed to grow enough tomatoes to still be eating them red from the garden and have just picked off all the green ones to turn into Green Tomato Chutney for the Winter stores. I am also saving all my fruit trimmings and peelings to hopefully make a batch of Compost Jelly to stretch the jam ration that little bit further.
We are still in the process of dealing with the hurricane and the unexpected electrician bills that will need to be dealt with. I’m thankful for my food put by. There is a real sense of safety with a full pantry. I am planning on using a haybox this week. I can cook the lentil and barley veg soup on the camp stove and then tuck it into the haybox to cook for hours to save the fuel.
The silver lining after the hurricane has past (other than that my house is still standing) Is the number of trees that have laid down to be turned into next years firewood. Once I’m over this bout of covid, the chainsaw will be getting a real workout!
Not strange at all Carolyn,it gives one a feeling of safety, the strange ones are Not building a supply for winter, when prices may well go a lot higher. I am glad I cook for only one!! Ann lee s
Looks pretty god
Pantry looks pretty good
Hi Carolyn, I love your jars all lined up with the labels – but I always wonder, how do you manage the excess? If I buy a packet of something then it never seems to fit exactly in the jar and then I usually end up misplacing the rest. Do you have a system for this?
Haha usually another jar!! xxxx I do have some bags more of lentils etc but these are unopened and stored in my pantry, I try and use all the contents in the jars first before opening another packet xxx