Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Christmas Veggies

They may have been small (and not quite perfectly formed) but I managed to harvest a few fresh carrots and sprouts for our Christmas lunch! The carrots had been got by carrot fly larvae, but I managed to cut those bits out and once I'd added some shop bought veg we had a feast (although mine definitely tasted better than those I bought!) The aim for next year - keep some parsnips and potatoes as well...

Sunday, January 20, 2013

Purple radishes

On a sunny day, way back in August, I pulled up these beauties. They didn't look much covered in mud, but just look how bright they were once I'd washed them off! The first few I harvested small, but realised that they are supposed to be this big, so left the rest to grow away and picked them when they started flowering.


They sat in the fridge for a while before I could decide what to do with them. Apparently it's a German tradition to eat this type thinly sliced and served with salt as an accompaniment to beer! As I mentioned before, the taste was more than a bit overpowering for our tastes, so I looked up some recipes for radish relish. In the end I combined a few to come up with my own, but these 2 were good sources:
www.radishgarden.com
www.food.com

What I ended up using using was:
1 1/2 lb Radish
1 1/2 large Onions
3 sticks Celery
3 tsp Salt
3/4 lb Sugar
1 1/2 tbsp Dill seed
1 1/2 tsp Celery seed
1 whole Chilli
1 1/2 tbsp Mustard seed
12 fl oz Vinegar

As yet I haven't tried the finished product, preferring to let it mature. It must be close now...