Kale chips

I normally only eat kale at Christmas. I grew up eating fried kale on Christmas Eve and that tradition has stuck with me. I parboil the kale and then put it in the freezer until needed. On the day, I fry it with a bit of cream and salt and pepper. Lovely.

This year we've grown kale ourselves and have more that was needed on the Christmas table. So what do you do? Well, I searched the Internet and found this website. Oh they were delicious! It says in the recipe that kale chips are an acquired taste. Well, I acquired the taste rather quickly. I'd call them very moorish. However, next time I think I'd better go easy on the salt. I was very thirsty for the rest of the day!

Mrs. M.

Sprouts

What can I say? 

Of everything we've successfully grown (not that much really) this really must be number one. They simply tasted delicious!

Today has been a lazy day.The weather has been glorious so Little Miss M. and I went for a walk in the sunshine. She was wearing her new hiking boots and I was wearing my old ones. 

After a refreshing walk we went home and had some hot chocolate. A rather perfect Boxing Day. 

Mrs. M.

Harvest

The day Mrs. G. and I have been longing for finally arrived. Dressed in warm coats and wellies, armed with bags and a small saw, we found a gap in the rain and headed towards the allotment. Harvest time. Oh yes, the time had come to harvest our brussels sprouts. Yippee!

Don't they look great?! After recommendation we've put them in a bucket of water, ready for peeling and left in water on the 24th, ready for cooking on the 25th. I can't wait!

We took a chance on the parsnips as well. Some of them were big and some weren't. Oh well, we'll try them out anyway. There are still plenty in the ground for later. 

After the harvest it was time to light the fourth candle and have a cup of tea and a biscuit. I ended up watching a rom-com with the older Master M. and his little sister before baking tomorrow's dessert and some of the food. We're having a 'getting into the Christmas spirit' do here tomorrow evening. It's time to start the party!

Mrs. M.

Hungry

Today has been a really long day. By the time I got home it was dark and I then had to get to the post office before it closed to send off Christmas presents. What a rush! 

Luckily I didn't have to cook dinner tonight as Mr. M. had been busy making Cornish pasties. He had never made these before and they were absolutely delicious. They had just come out of the oven when I got home and the smell and sight of them made me very hungry indeed.

I wasn't the only hungry one today. While Mr. M. was busy cooking these he heard the chickens making a real racket. Fortunately they were in the run, as a fox was circling around the coop and run. Mr. M. ran outside and threw stones at the clearly hungry animal but it didn't take any notice. It wasn't until Mr. M. had run up to the chickens and shouted at the fox while waving a big stick at it that it ran off. Oh dear. Looks like the days when the chickens can wander around in the garden on their own are well and truly over. 

Mrs. M.

Yum

December certainly is a month of indulgence. In my preparation of delicious food for the Christmas period, I've made some old fashioned toffees. 

I mixed 3 dl of cream, 3 dl of sugar and 1 1/2 dl of golden syrup and cooked it until it reached 125 degrees Celsius. I then poured the toffee onto greased baking paper and let it cool before cutting up into small pieces. They were then wrapped in festive paper, put in a jar and hidden away in the cold garage. 

Hidden away? Well yes, if left in the kitchen they would all be gone within a few days. I'm able to keep things until Christmas but the two younger family members find it impossibly difficult. They will just have to wait a little while longer :).

Mrs.  M

First of Advent

Finally the official countdown to Christmas has started! Little Miss M. put the Christmas CD on before having breakfast and I can foresee myself being really sick of the songs by next weekend...

Mr. M. cleaned the chicken coop yesterday and ended up with a bucket full of ... so today we went to the allotment to empty the bucket. I hadn't been for at least 3 weeks and was slightly worried that I'd be met by beds covered in weed. Luckily that wasn't the case. It did look a bit dull but I was very happy with how well the brussel sprouts are doing. 

They're looking so lovely and I can't wait until we serve them with our Christmas meal!

The Savoy cabbage is also looking okay though slightly small. 

There wasn't much else going on up there. The garlic and onions are coming on nicely, the leek is looking great and fingers crossed that the parsnips in the ground are big. It was rather cold today so we only stayed for a short while before we headed back to light the first Advent candle and drink some hot glögg. We also had some of yesterday's gingerbread and a mince pie each. Lovely!

All in all a lovely start to December!

Mrs. M.

Roll on Christmas

So it has started. Even though we're not "allowed" to play Christmas music at home before the 1st of December, Little Miss M. and I did exactly this today. How else can you get into the spirit when baking gingerbread? The dough was mixed yesterday evening and this afternoon we spent a couple of hours singing and baking. 

It may have looked fairly tidy to start with but it didn't take long before the work top turned into a winter wonderland.

Having accumulated a good amount of shapes we made pigs, hearts, men, women, pixies, squirrels to name but a few. Having a big kitchen with good size work tops was heaven as we could really spread out and not have to move things around all the time.

For the last few years I've had problems with the gingerbread not going hard. I've had to experiment with degrees and timing and this year they started off staying soft so I had to put them in for quite a bit longer at a lower temperature to avoid them burning. It worked out alright in the end. Phew. 

We made closer to 300 gingerbreads in 17 different shapes. That'll last us to Christmas and a little beyond I hope. 

They're now stored in the usual tins ready to be eaten. I think we'll have a few tomorrow with some mulled wine as it's the first of advent. Mmm, I can't wait!

Mrs. M.

Maggie O'Farrell

Image from http://www.maggieofarrell.com

I've just finished reading Maggie O'Farrell's After You'd Gone and I absolutely loved it! It was one of those books you want to go on forever. That's not the first time I've felt like this reading Maggie O'Farrell. I read The Hand That First Held Mine a couple of years ago and thought it was wonderful. I must have lent it to somebody because I can't find it anywhere and since I keep my/our books in alphabetical order (something Mr. M. finds weird) I should have easily found it, had it been there.

I really love reading and have resisted a Kindle for a long time. However, since we have no space for any more bookshelves and the bookshelves have no more space for any books, I gave in and was given a Kindle for my birthday. The first book I downloaded was Instructions for a Heatwave by no other than... Maggie O'Farrell. What a brilliant book! Then a colleague of mine lent me My Lover's Lover and I was really excited about reading it. Hm. I didn't really like it. How disappointing. I had by then already downloaded After You'd Gone and decided to read it straight after my disappointment hoping that My Lover's Lover had been a blip. And I was right. It was just as wonderful as the other two books I had really loved. 

There are two more books by this brilliant author that I haven't read yet. I will have a little break from her so that I can look forward to two more, I hope, fantastic reading experiences. 

Mrs. M.

Another autumn Sunday

So what do I do when I don't have to go to the allotment on a Sunday? Well, there's plenty to be getting on with in the M household. I have what feels like a thousand projects going on at the same time and not enough time. Even if I woke up to a clear blue sky and sunshine, the allotment was not on my mind today. 

I downloaded a skirt pattern from here a while ago. Today was the day to copy it out. 

I don't have a big enough table so the floor had to do. Luckily, I have teenage children who don't emerge in the kitchen until half way through the day. 

I bought the fabric from C&H Fabric a while ago. It's soft and lovely and I can't wait to turn it into a skirt.

Well, that'll have to be next weekend's project as the Little Miss and her friend wanted to bake cupcakes not long after I had finished cutting out the different pieces. No problem. Mr. M. and I went shopping for some lovely toppings and voila, here is the result.

The recipe is from here and they taste divine!

That was my Sunday and it's not over yet. Mr. M. and I are meeting Mr. and Mrs. G. in the pub later on to enjoy an evening of quiz entertainment. Mr. M. is sure we'll win first prize. Who knows?

Mrs.M.

We went on a trip

Yes we did. We went on a little trip to the big shop with 4 letters in yellow and blue today. It was only Mr. M. and myself so we took the opportunity to have a coffee and cake as well. The coffee was nice but the cake was way too sweet. Never mind. It's nice to have a coffee just the two of us. 

As usual, we ended up buying more than we had set out to but everything we got was needed. I wanted some kind of basket arrangement to put on the wall just inside the garage door. I thought it would be a good idea to keep potatoes, onions, vegetables etc there as the garage is fairly cold in winter. We found exactly what we wanted and put them up more or less straight after we got home.

So far I've only put the potatoes and some broccoli and salad onions in there. The onions are in a very nice plastic tray that we picked up for nothing at the local farm shop. So far we've picked up 3. They'll be very handy next year when we, hopefully, have a lot more onions from our own plot. 

Next to the trays you can spot 15 bottles of "julmust" that we also bought today. The big shop no longer have a lot of traditional Swedish food, which I think every single Swede living abroad close to one of these big shops is hacked off about, so I was surprised to find this traditional Christmas drink. Hey ho, we are now prepared for a traditional Christmas meal as we also got some pickled herring, meatballs and crispbread.  All in all a very successful trip!

Mrs. M.

Half way

Half way through half-term and I'm so enjoying it. Not that I don't like my job. It's just that I like being off a little bit more. I still get up fairly early, which is new to me, and it's so nice to have breakfast in peace, reading the news, blogs etc without having to rush. 

I met up with Mrs. G. yesterday and when she mentioned that she really misses going up to the allotment as often as we did before, I had to disagree. I feel quite relieved that we don't need to "visit" as often. It's time to spend the time not working doing fun things like sewing, knitting, crocheting and baking. I've got lots to do and not enough time!

I always bake the Christmas cake at half-term and this year is no exception. 

I soaked the fruit mix in brandy over night and mixed it with the cake mix this morning. 

4 layers of wrapping, string and off it went into the oven. 

Four hours later it was ready. I hope it'll be moist as I'm not a fan of dry fruit cakes. I then wrapped it up again, poured in some more brandy and put it in the cake tin I especially bought 14 years ago when we had just move here and I baked my first Christmas cake. This is where it'll stay now until the week before Christmas, only being fed every second week or so. I fed it with rather a lot of brandy every week the first time I made it and the result was more or less brandy with a bit of fruit...

The recipe is one I picked up in Sainsbury's all those years ago. I scale it down to about 2/3 as we'll have Christmas cake until the summer otherwise. 

1.5 kg dried fruit mix
100g pecan nut halves
50g while blanched almonds
grated zest and juice of 1 large orange or lemon
5 tbsp brandy

Mix all of the above and leave overnight. 

325g white flour
1tbsp ground cinnamon
50g ground almonds
275g dark muscovado sugar
275g softened butter
2 level tbsp black treacle
5 medium eggs

Mix the above to a smooth and glossy mix. Fold in the fruit mixture and blend evenly. Spoon the mixture into a tin, lined with greaseproof paper. Make a depression in the centre of the mix. Wrap the tin in double layer brown paper, or newspaper. Bake in the middle of the oven at 140 degrees C for 4-5 hours. 

When the cake has cooled down, prick it with a fork, pour over some brandy, wrap it in double layer of greaseproof paper and tin foil. Store in an airtight container somewhere cool (I keep it in the garage). Feed with some brandy every two weeks. 

It's very easy and rather delicious. 

This didn't take very long so the rest of the day involved painting the landing (2 coats, one more tomorrow), walking into town with the younger Master M., drinking lots of tea and getting all excited about the parcel that the postman brought. 

I'm going to knit a cardigan for myself and the colour is even prettier than I thought. First I have to finish a hat for Mr. M. for when he's running in the cold and those legwarmers for Little Miss M. I've decided to start again as I found a prettier pattern somewhere I can no longer remember. Luckily I had copied it into a Word document so I'm now making "bubbly" legwarmers. I feel rather exhausted after this hectic day and can't wait till I can sit down and do a bit of crocheting. First though, I have to cook dinner and then paint a little bit more...

Mrs. M.

Stormy weather

Oh dear how windy it's been. I woke up at 5 this morning to gusts of wind and rain and found it difficult to get back to sleep. We had taken precautions and moved a lot of things from the garden into the garage so I wasn't too worried about anything blowing around. The cat was also indoors so no need to worry about him. 

Luckily the younger Master M's extra music class was cancelled so we didn't have to get up and go. I decided to paint the walls on the landing instead and prepared everything before I noticed that we didn't have any paint. What a shame... I didn't exactly dash off to buy any, so I spent a few hours doing school work instead. I've only got a little bit left to do now and will leave that to another day. 

Our house and garden are a bit sheltered but the allotment is very exposed, so when the rain had cleared I decided to go for a walk in the wind to see if anything had been damaged. The first thing I saw was this:

The window pane had blown down onto the ground but hadn't broken! As we don't keep a hammer and nails in the shed, I had to be a little bit inventive in order to put it back. Well, where there's a will there's a way as the saying goes. I attached the window with some bamboo sticks. Don't know how long it'll stay this way but hopefully a few days. 

The plot looked a bit tired with one of the courgette plants uprooted and several of the rhubarb stalks torn off. The kale looked great so I picked some leaves as I didn't want to risk them being eaten by slugs and therefore not having any homegrown kale on the Christmas table. 

I will blanche these curly leaves, chop them up and put them in a bag in the freezer ready for Christmas.

Even though it was really windy outside it was a refreshing walk to and from the allotment. Now it's time for Mr. M and moi to enjoy a cup of tea and a lovely creme patissiere filled bun.

I think I'll do a bit of knitting after that. I've started knitting a pair of leg warmers for Little Miss M. Her old ones are "a bit tired" and I fancy a bit of knitting after lots of crocheting lately. 

Have a good day.

Mrs. M.

Just in time

Well I did make it to the allotment today. I both got there and back home again before the rain appeared. Not that I stayed for very long. Mr. M. had a bucket full of chicken 'stuff' that we're now collecting in a little pile in a corner of the plot. This 'stuff' is supposedly way too strong to use straight away so we're piling it up ready to dig in next year. 

It's mixed in with shredded paper and straw - I'm sure that'll be ok.

A very brief inspection of the beds was very inspiring. The garlic we planted a couple of weeks ago has shot up.

 

 

The cauliflower is looking very good.

It looks like something's been eating the leaves but the actual cauliflower seems untouched. The kale is also looking good, which is good news for me as that is something the M. family eat as part of their Christmas meal. 

I also picked a few chillies to dry and put in the jar labelled ' Don't touch! Very hot!!'. 

It was all in all a very brief visit and I managed to dash home and rescue the washing before the downpour. I spent the next hour in the kitchen making creme brulee for dessert and meringue with the left over egg whites. It was rather cosy pottering about while the sky was almost black and the rain was hitting the windows. However, the sun has now come out and the rain has stopped. Fingers crossed for a sunny last week of work before half term. 

Mrs. M.

It's been a while

Long time no write. It's obvious that when autumn arrives there's less to do at the allotment. For us anyway. This suits me just fine as work kind of takes over from September onwards. I try to nip up to see the plot every weekend but there are times when I just haven't got time. Or the weather is not all that great so I don't hesitate to give it all a miss.

Anyway, Mrs. G. and I have been good and done a fair bit of weeding. We've got rid of all the broccoli plants and good riddance actually. They were rather disappointing and we won't plant any next year. It looks an awful lot neater without them.

The tomatoes are growing and much to our surprise, we've had quite a few raspberries. The brussel sprouts are also looking fabulous. We'll definitely have enough for both families to feast on at Christmas.

The courgettes seem to be never ending and I've baked many a delicious courgette cake with cardamom as well as a yummy courgette soup that little miss M. loves. I tried to freeze the courgette both cut in small pieces and grated and it worked just fine to use these in the soup.

Everything tastes so much nicer when you've grown it yourself! There are still a lot of onions and potatoes in the garage and last weekend Mrs. G. and I planted both garlic and Japanese onions. These are supposedly the ones to plant in the autumn and harvest early next summer.

Last Saturday I made a chilli con carne and used the chilli from the allotment. I had picked them ages ago and they had dried but oh my were they hot. They tasted great in the dish but I managed to put the tip of my tongue in my hand where I had held the cut up chilli and that I should never have done. My lips were burning for a good half hour!

I will definitely try to get to the plot this coming weekend. Fingers crossed for good weather.


Mrs. M.

Bed 6

Back to going through bed by bed and the time has come to bed 6. This is the least interesting one in my opinion. 

 

It looks quite impressive with the big plants but trust me, it isn't. The biggest ones are broccoli and have given us very little to harvest. To be honest, they take up more space than they're worth. 



Next to the broccoli we have savoy cabbage which is looking quite good. I have no idea when to harvest that one so will have to do some reading about that. 

 Behind the cabbage we have a long row of parsnips that are also looking rather fabulous, though it's too early to say as they won't be harvested until the winter. 

 In between the parsnip and the broccoli we have 3 chard plants that were donated by another allotmenteer. They've grown very well and we've both used them in sallads etc. 

Verdict:

Broccoli? No thank you.
Savoy cabbage? Maybe, depending on how they taste.
Parsnip? Hopefully but also depending on what's in the ground.
Chard? Already established so there to stay for a while I think.

Mrs. M.

Two Swedes and a lot of Potatoes!

Harvest day! Pay day for all the hard work (sort of anyway) for Mrs. G. and moi on the very last day of freedom.

We had decided to meet up this afternoon for some harvesting. We started off with the onions and pulled them out of the soil and placed them on top of the bed to dry out. They'll now stay there until tomorrow evening when we'll meet up again to share them out. 

 

 

Don't they look fantastic? We're planning to sow a winter variety to harvest next spring. 

After the necessary cup of coffee and homemade buns we set about digging up our potatoes. I had already got some out the other day and that had been a rather sad experience as the spuds were not too good.  Little did I expect that we would find this:

 Beautiful, perfectly shaped small and big potatoes. It didn't take long before the basked was filled.

We had to fill Mrs. G.'s trug as well and boy were they heavy. We then got some spinach and 3 chilli peppers each before heading home tremendously pleased with our allotment achievements. 

I set about putting my share of the potatoes in paper bags and surprised the whole family when I told them that I had put away 13 kilos of potatoes for future meals. Brilliant!

Mrs. M.