Quince Jelly, Pumpkin curry and flat bread

Yesterday I went to Paola to help her pick her amazing quinces. Just on time as over night we had lots of wind and rain and decided to make some jelly and pectin.  When I looked back when I last made some was exactly 3 years ago (31/10/2018) so funny how nature look so unpredictable but always seems to have a similar time to harvest. 

So here is the post from 2018. Yesterday Tina Alexander offered me a large bag of quinces so this morning, it was time to turn them into some amazing quince jelly.
 

By the time we had prepared our pumpkin curry with chickpeas, the jelly had set and we enjoyed a delicious meal with rice and flat bread

When we cut open the pumpkins it turned out they were the Akai Pumpkins, which meant that all the seeds we cut out, we can dry to eat raw without any husks

For the flat bread  the ingredients were.

2 cups of plain flour
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup of milk
3 1/2 tbs butter

Warm the milk and melt the butter in it.
Add to the flour and salt and mix thoroughly and knead into a ball.
Leave to rest for 10 mins, then cut in 4 and roll out thinly
In a dry frying pan, put in the flat dough and leave it until it shows bubbles, then turn for another minute or so (make sure it does not burn). Et Voilà! Delicious flat bread to go with your curry

Pancakes, Spinach and sweet potato curry

I ran out of eggs, milkman was late and 9 friends were about to arrive for this mornings session. So what did we do?

 Made oat milk for the pancake mix,
   

vanilla extract for the oat milk. 
Used the orange and lemon juice for the crepe suzette sauce, the peel for orange and lemon extract. We used rum instead of vodka as we had a bottle we would otherwise never us.


   

We mixed Meghan Holmes wild rice that she gave to us as a Christmas present with some basmati rice and then topped it with spinach, sweet potato and coconut curry..


 

he vegan pancakes were delicious especially with the orange topping.

Butternut Squash Curry with flat bread

Due to illness only 2 members turned up today,  so as a matter of precaution, I chose a menu full of vitamin C, anti oxidants and antibiotic properties,  Garlic, Nasturtiums, Tomatoes, Onions to name but a few.

We turned a lovely Butternut squash and the kale (well massaged with oil) into a curry which we had with rice and a flat bread (as per my 2nd cookery book)
   

All the vegetables from the allotment that we harvested and were left, were turned into a salad. Cucumbers, Tomatoes, Carrots, Dill, lettuces, edible flowers borage, cornflowers, marigold and to top it up nasturtium leaves and the flowers stuffed with cream cheese.  Yumm!


     

From Spade to Plate: Parsnip, Potato and peas

Although we have been trying to plant potatoes for a couple of weeks now, the weather has not been very favourable.  Frost is not good for our new potatoes (Charlottes) so they have been nicely chitting  inside. (we had the first harvest of these Monday 28th May)

sowing peas in the raised beds at home

potatoes chitting

In the previous years I grew a row of Early Onward Peas between the rows of potatoes and this worked very well. The peas don't grow very high and are propped up by the potato leaves. so no need for more support. They should be ready to harvest in June at the same time as the potatoes. I tend to harvest the whole bed in one go at the end of in June so it is ready to transplant the Beetroot and leeks and sow the Fennel in between.

Ingredients for the curry

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As we still have some parsnips in the allotment, we will be making a Parsnip and Chickpea curry with rice to have as our lunch.

Digging up the parsnips with Raymond

Bringing back the harvest to turn into a lovely lunch

As we had a rainy day the Wednesday group did not go  to the allotment to harvest parsnips, I harvested some this morning so we used them for the curry and the  Sweet potato and parsnip soup with some scones.  We also made another batch of parsnip and chick pea curry

As the weather was so horrible, we decided to sow  various types of french beans, mixed lettuce, beetroot and mini cucumbers  in the warmth of our kitchen.