Things are underway

It has been a glorious Spring day here in Peterborough, nice and mild and the best part the sun has been out and it makes me feel very blessed and very glad to be alive and breathing!  Slowly mother earth is coming alive again and I want to get out in the garden, and sow seeds to my heart's content.  I love growing stuff from scratch. However I have stuff to do in the garden before that happens, hopefully we will get some more of this wonderful weather so that we can proceed with this.

I also received my Kitchen Garden Magazine and Grow Your Own Magazine with loads and loads of seeds yesterday.  Still only managed a flick through, some serious reading will go on tonight.  There were between the two magazines 22 packets of seeds.  Shall do an update on what maybe tomorrow.

I was a bit poorly again last night but am okay now.  So things on the to do list are not as far along as they should be.  

Beetroot is cooking in the pan on the stove ready for slicing and pickling in spiced vinegar.

Eggs have been boiled in readiness for pickling.

Plums are soaking in sugar in readiness for making Plum jam tomorrow.  You cut the plums in half and then the cut side you dip in sugar.  This should create a syrup as you leave it overnight.  I have added the rest of the sugar on top and shall add it all to the pan for cooking in the morning.  I have 2kg of prepared plums in this bowl with the same amount of sugar.

I also have prepared another 2kg+ of plums in readiness for plum jelly.  They will spend the time in the fridge overnight and I shall then boil them up tomorrow and then pop them through a jelly net and then make the actual jelly on Tuesday. Plum jelly can be used as a sweet sauce in home made stir fries as well as using it as a glaze, or on toast, as a filling in cakes.

Spinach is in the Dehydrator all five trays of it.  This is going to the green powder selection I am slowly building this up for adding to soups, casseroles, stews and gravies.

So at least I have done a little bit.

We had a lovely tea tonight. We had fillet steak served with boiled and buttered new potatoes, a mixed side salad consisting of mixed salad leaves, sweet different coloured strips of pepper, cherry tomatoes, some of the cooked beetroot, sliced red onion, green pepper sauce and I had some fried onions. In fact it was lip-smacking gorgeous even if I do say so myself.  The steak was lovely and buttery and tender and you could cut it with an ordinary knife.  We shall certainly be using Stilton Butchers again.

The steak as it arrived:

Taken out of the packet - can you see the marbling, this melts away as you cook it and there is no hard fat left in it.  Best to buy steak like this if you can.

See how nice and thick the steaks are.  Fillet steak is never much bigger than this as the fillet is only a small diameter cut.  It can be quite thick in depth though.  This was about 2 inches.

In the pan with thick cut onion starting to fry.

The meat went nicely caramelised on the outside.

A thoroughly enjoyable meal.

Right am off to have a look at my gardening magazines.  I will post up during the week a post relating to the finished preserves so that you can see what I have been up to.

Another busy day tomorrow.

Catch you soon.

Pattypan

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