Preparing for Winter
Life on Thrift Street is a little chaotic at present with clouds of brick dust, missing walls and doors and a garden covered in building rubble. Not the best time of year to be extending but with luck (fingers crossed!) we will be water tight, wind proof and frost protected before the snow comes. The building costs are eating into the household budget at an alarming rate and as the house is a little drafty at present (to say the least) so weekly menus are having to be both thrifty and warming. Food to fill the belly of my hungry worker who has been spending hours cramped outside repairing brickwork or swinging precariously of ladders in storm force winds.
Luckily my food friendly family provided some additional and very appreciated help. My father turned up with carrots, beetroots, pink fir apple potatoes and two incredibly large marrows (to be accurate these are actually extremely overgrown courgettes). As a size guide, my rather large size 9 feet are dwarfed by these monsters. My mother provided a Sunday lunch of stew and dumplings which was exactly the sort of medicine required for aching muscles (and yes, that's my portion below) and packed us off with additional treats of wine and German lebkuchen.
Oh and Christmas too! I haven't forgotten and have been busy turning the marrows into a marrow and ginger jam from an old war time recipe to be given as Christmas gifts. The jam needs to mature for at least three months but the last jar was designated as a sample and tastes amazingly like a candied ginger marmalade. Far from a useful recipe to use up surplus veg, this is one you will actually grow marrows for and I'm seriously thinking on keeping some back for the larder myself!
Luckily my food friendly family provided some additional and very appreciated help. My father turned up with carrots, beetroots, pink fir apple potatoes and two incredibly large marrows (to be accurate these are actually extremely overgrown courgettes). As a size guide, my rather large size 9 feet are dwarfed by these monsters. My mother provided a Sunday lunch of stew and dumplings which was exactly the sort of medicine required for aching muscles (and yes, that's my portion below) and packed us off with additional treats of wine and German lebkuchen.
Oh and Christmas too! I haven't forgotten and have been busy turning the marrows into a marrow and ginger jam from an old war time recipe to be given as Christmas gifts. The jam needs to mature for at least three months but the last jar was designated as a sample and tastes amazingly like a candied ginger marmalade. Far from a useful recipe to use up surplus veg, this is one you will actually grow marrows for and I'm seriously thinking on keeping some back for the larder myself!
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