Week 43: What's happening
Wow, we are normally used to the wind living in Prion but it's been a pretty calm summer and so we've forgotten what it's like to be battered! Getting used to it again now, ready for winter!
If you've not got yourself a pumpkin and want one for this weekend - get a locally grown from Cae Derw (Llanrhaedr), also being sold at Y Ty Gwrydd on Back Row.
Chris has done a video update this week from the relative shelter of the polytunnel - here it is if you want to watch.
As any of you who grow yourselves will know, we're already thinking ahead to next year whilst trying to make the most of a little bit of downtime (it's all relative but not having to be at the field every single day to water does give us a bit of a break).
Eat Your Greens veg boxes:
The boxes are definitely looking very autumnal now. In the small boxes, squash, beetroot, cauliflower, apples and the last of our tomatoes. In the regular boxes - mushrooms, chard or salad, cabbage, swede, leeks, celeriac, clementines. Some ideas on how to use chard below in case this is a new one for you. Riverford is always a good place to start if you don't know how to use a vegetable that comes in your box - they have a good A-Z of all the veg here, with ideas on how to cook.
The Vale Grocer shop:
Plenty of: squash, potatoes, purple / orange carrots, swede, sweet potatoes (including some from UK which are pretty unusual), leeks, Chioggia / golden / red beetroot, red / brown / Roscoff onions, Roscoff / purple garlic, fresh ginger
Limited: pink cabbages, cauliflowers, celeriac, beef tomatoes from Prion, mixed salad from Prion, palermo peppers
Fruit: clementines
+ hens eggs (eggs likely to be in short supply as we come into winter)
+ Bryn Cochyn and Cae Main apple juice
+ sourdough from Nant y Felin
Recipe inspiration:
Here's a recipe for what looks like an interesting lasagne - chard, pancetta, leek and ricotta. As we've mentioned before, with swiss chard make sure you cook the stems separately/for longer than the leaves. As well as Riverford, the BBC is a good starting point with some info here on swiss chard.
I'm going to give this celeriac and swede salad a try from Ottolenghi, although pretty sure the dried sour cherries are going to be difficult to get hold of (Holland & Barratt might be an option?) so might leave those out.
have a good week