Beautiful Homegrown Flowers - Lovely Surprise from a Neighbour

A few days ago as we returned to the house after walking the dogs, we saw a neighbour; from a nearby street, walking towards us.
He also has two dogs, and they're as lively as our two, so we don't usually get too close to each. Hahaha!
As he was a little way up the road from us, we just waved and said 'Hi!'.

We came in our back gate and were busy taking the dogs leads and collars off, when our neighbour suddenly appeared at our gate holding a bunch of flowers, which he promptly handed to us.
We had a little chat about the homegrown vegetables he's been growing on his allotment, grow your own food, and the flowers etc. and then as quick as he'd arrived, he left to finish his dog walk.

I can't remember what he said the flowers were, and I'm not a flowery person, but they were a mixed bunch of brightly coloured blooms, which he'd grown on his allotment.
Beautiful flowers, and completely unexpected. Absolutely lovely!

An empty jar, a bit of water, and our kitchen was instantly brightened.
Beer (our own) is just sat waiting for room in the fridge - we have limited storage.

It's not everyday someone gives us flowers, and it was a very pleasant surprise.
When was the last time someone gave you flowers?
Was it a special occasion, or a random - just because?

Generous Neighbours, Free Vegetables, Allotment Goodies

One of our neighbours recently gave Mr.R a jar of pickled beetroot.
He said his friend had grown the beetroot himself, and we love beetroot so we were very pleased.

Then a few days later I saw the same neighbour and he handed me a bag of lovely ripe tomatoes, again these were grown locally on an allotment.
And then another neighbour called us over, and asked us if we like tomatoes, we said yes, and she handed us a bag full of lovely sweet tomatoes.

And just a few days ago the neighbour who gave us the beetroot etc., offered us some more fresh homegrown food, this time he handed us a bag containing some lovely big carrots, three large onions, and a huge leek.
As you can see from the photo, the leek was so large that our neighbour cut it in half to share with us.

It's so lovely having such generous neighbours.
And really lovely eating lots of fresh healthy vegetables.
We absolutely love vegetables, I mean we're not vegetarians, but we eat lots and lots of veg.
Do you like vegetables?
Do you grow your own veg?

Homemade Pickled Beetroot

A while ago one of our neighbours gave us lots of lovely home-grown beetroot.

I put off doing anything with the beetroot for a few days, because, well, because I'm a procrastinator.
And I couldn't decide exactly what I wanted to do with it.
I thought about roasting it, making beetroot soup, eating it raw, or pickling it, but I couldn't force myself into the kitchen to actually do anything with it. It's not my room - Mr.R does all of our cooking. Thankfully!
I can cook, I just don't particularly enjoy cooking - not that making beetroot edible is cooking...........

Anyway, one afternoon when Mr.R had pooped out I suddenly felt the urge to finally do something with the carrier bag full of beetroot. I decided to pickle it.

I've never pickled anything before, well, not by myself. Although I do have lovely memories from my childhood of helping my mum pickle various foods.

A quick Google search and I'd found a recipe for pickled beetroot that I liked the sound of.
Although as I've said before, on the rare occasions when I do cook, that I don't like following recipes, so I usually find one I like, and then ignore it, and make it up as I go along. Hehe!

Right, so here's what I did to pickle the home-grown beetroot our neighbour had given us.
I started by washing, and then boiling the fresh beetroot, until it was tender.
Once the beetroot was cooked, I left it to cool down, before I peeled it; rubbed the skins off.

Whilst the beetroot was cooking I washed several jars, and sterilised them by heating/drying them in the oven.

I boiled the jar lids to sterilise them, and left them to dry.

Then I made the pickling vinegar.
Being limited by what's available in the local shops, I had to use basic white distilled malt vinegar as the pickling base.

I then added a few other ingredients from the cupboard to the vinegar, including -

• Himalayan Pink Salt
• Black Peppercorns 
• Juniper Berries
• Coriander Seeds
• Fresh Chili
• Sugar - small amount added by taste
• Cinnamon
• Turmeric

The pickling vinegar only took a few minutes to heat, stirring gently to help mix the ingredients.
It smelt really good.

By the time I'd added the vinegar and the other pickling ingredients to the saucepan, the beetroot was cold and ready to be peeled.
I gently rubbed the beetroot skins, which came off easily.

Now it was time to chop the cooked beetroot, ready for the jars.
I decided to chop my beetroot quite small; julienne, because I thought it would save time cutting it in the future when we'll eat it on salads or in a sandwich etc.
Plus I thought the smaller the surface area, the more the pickling vinegar could impart it's tangy flavour in the beetroot.

Then I filled the jars with the cooked beetroot strips, topped the jars with my pickling vinegar, and sealed the lids tight.

And that was it, job done, I placed the jars in the larder to do their magic.

I'd read various recipes about how long you should wait until eating the pickled beetroot, all of which seemed to state different times from one week, to one month.

I waited about a month, turning the jars upside down occasionally to make sure all of the beetroot was getting a good soaking in the spicy pickling vinegar.
Finally, unable to wait no longer we opened one of the jars of beetroot to taste it. It was seriously delicious - perfect!
In fact the beetroot was so tasty that despite promising some to family, I decided to keep it all for ourselves.
Just in case you are wondering; the neighbour who generously gave us the beetroot didn't want any of it back, he had lots of his own to eat.
Do you like beetroot?
Do you like pickled beetroot?
And finally, do you pickled your own beetroot, and if so what ingredients do you use?

Courgette - Grow Your Own

Homegrown food is most definitely tastier than mass produced shop bought food.

Mr.R has managed to grow quite a few different things in pots on our tiny yarden.
Courgette is just one of the vegetables he has grown.
I saw this large courgette this morning, and then I noticed the tiny courgette right next to it.
We had thought about eating the courgette flowers, which is nice, but then we decided not too, and let the courgettes continue to grow - we've had some whoppers.
Mr.R usually grills courgettes, and they taste delicious.
What's your favourite way to cook courgette?

Blueberries - Homegrown

Mr.R has green fingers.

Our tiny yarden has a few pots with various things growing in them. It's surprising what you can grow in a pot, and in such a small space too.
One of the foods Mr.R has grown for us is blueberries. Small round indigo fruits of pure delight. I love 'em!
Blueberries have been called a Super-Food but I'm not interested in all these faddy marketing gimmicks, and I know they are good for your health, full of vitamins and minerals, but that's not why I like them - I simply enjoy the taste. And home-grown blueberries definitely taste better than the industrially grown shop bought ones.

Thank you Mr.R for your green fingers - and your lovely blueberries.

This was the first blueberry I ate, and it was delicious. Excuse my dry skin, it's the water here - it's horrible.
Do you grow any food for yourself?
Do you like blueberries?

Sunflower with a Difference

We've had several sunflowers flourishing in our yarden, but now the weather has cooled (not that it was ever particularly warm), and we've had heavy rain lately, they are all close to the end of their lives - all except one of them.

As we stood chatting in the yarden Mr.R mentioned that one of the sunflowers was still growing, albeit in a slightly different way to usual. I looked at the sunflower and saw that it was concave. Never seen that before. Mr.R also pointed out that this particular sunflower was not only not close to death, it was full of life - it has several new flower heads growing on it.
It's all quite odd, hopefully we'll get some more yellow loveliness in the yarden and extra sunflower seeds to eat, thanks to this super-sunflower.

I love snacking on sunflower seeds. They're good to mix with other foods, I like them in my porridge, or on a salad.
Do you like sunflower seeds? How do you eat them, as they are, or some other way?

Sunflower

Sunflowers

Mr.R has been busy with our small back yard, or yarden as call it, we have various vegetables growing out there in pots.
We also have several sunflower plants too, and I am especially looking forward to eating the sunflower seeds - I love 'em!

We had a few very warm sunny days recently, and the sunflower plants have been growing so fast that I swear I could see them getting bigger as I stood by them soaking up the suns rays and getting my vitamin D fix.
We also had a few dull days, as you can see by the lack of blue skies in the photos above.

Sunflower seeds are one of my favourite snacks.
Do you like sunflower seeds? Have you ever grown your own?

Peas - Homegrown and Delicious!

Mr.R has got all sorts of vegetables and herbs growing in pots in our tiny yarden, and we've already enjoyed eating some of the fruits of his labours - or should that be veg?

Peas!
Recently we have eaten some delicious homegrown peas.
I don't think it's psychological, they really do taste sweeter when you have grown them yourself, or in my case Mr.R has grown them - with the help of the sun obviously.

Do you grow your own?