Z likes greens

I was planning to take a year off from vegetable gardening. The kitchen garden is rather choked with bindweed and I wanted to smother it. I also wanted to grow lots of flowers. But hey, it seems the chin-up thing to do this year, growing your own veggies and so I’m back in business.

I think this must be somewhere in my genes or psyche or whatever deeply meaningful buzzword is current nowadays. I am practical by nature, love eating veggies and I know that what you pick yourself and eat the same day is more delicious than anything you can buy. I’m also very much into preserving food now – back in the day, I used to freeze the surplus. Yeah, right. You spend hours, in the heat of August, cutting and blanching beans and, the next year, you throw most of them away to make room for the next lot. Because, if you mostly eat seasonally, there is no time for green beans.

It’s all different now with chutneys and relishes. There’s no season for them – you make them when you have a glut and they usually are best a month or three later. Which reminds me, I made some quince vodka last October and we haven’t sampled it yet.

Having put in an order at the deli last week, I wanted to make it worth their while and I didn’t want to have to go to the supermarket. So I asked for posh crisps and posh mayonnaise. Usually, it’s the brand leader or I make my own, in both cases. But we like both of them enough to buy them again. I have no idea of the relative cost and it doesn’t matter – just how much mayo does one eat, after all? I reserve the possibility that, when the grandchildren finally come to visit again, I might buy the standard stuff. Though I’d buy whatever they want, frankly, because when they can finally visit after a gap of months, the culinary sky is the limit. Nutella pancakes at the very least.

When I say posh, I just mean it has the ingredients you’d use if you were making the same thing at home, of course. That shouldn’t be a luxury, but it often is. I read labels every time I buy something new and, as my local supermarket is the Co op, I’ve often found that their own brand stuff is surprisingly high quality.

Anyway, I’ve sent an order in to Simon Greens today and I’ll send one to Little Green Shop and the deli tomorrow. Paul the Fish called this morning and I made enough dal yesterday to last forever. Though Boy just returned the cat and I offered some of it to him. His other half is vegan, so it’s spot on.

3 comments on “Z likes greens

  1. Blue Witch

    Let us know how the quince vodka turns out – there are never enough things to do with a large quince harvest.

    Reply
  2. Z Post author

    We made some before and it was very good. Eloise gave me the recipe, which is this one. It doesn’t use a great deal of sugar and may need a little more to be added when it’s bottled up. Eloise also, I see, thought some orange zest would be a good addition but I didn’t do that this time. http://joannasfood.blogspot.com/2007/09/quince-liqueur.html?m=1

    At least the useful thing about quince jelly is that it can be eaten with savoury foods as well as sweet, we just don’t really eat cakes and things like that very much. But a few quinces go quite a long way.

    Reply

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