Halloween 🎃 Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

This is the first year I would have grown the pumpkin, used some of the flesh in soups and roasted the seeds plus given the waste to the wormery, which means technically zero waste and maximum use of the annual pumpkin and that feels pretty good.

I have also kept some of the seeds back so I can grow my own next year and hopefully I grow enough to share even more pumpkin delights, I didn’t grow enough for pumpkin pie for example so that’s on the cards for next year. Anyway, roasted pumpkin seeds.

It doesn’t get much easier than this, you scoop them out of the pumpkin, clean them and then spread them evenly on a backing tray and your good to go, below is what I opted to add, but you can get as creative as you like.

Savoury option:

• A generous glug of oil (I mixed olive and coconut oil)

• turmeric powder
• Garlic cloves
• Black pepper
• Cumin
• Sea salt

Depending on how many seeds you have will determine how much seasoning you add.

Pop them in the oven and in no time your have yourself the easiest savoury snack of the autumn 🤗.

Happy Halloween

Love you all

Matt

Homegrown & Homemade Hummus

Yep it’s the simple things in life that bring the greatest joy, a few short months ago I made a pallet planter and planted some chickpeas, now as you can see from the picture I did not plant nearly enough, let’s call this years crop a curious experiment and needless to say I did need to top up the content of chickpeas with shop bought ones in order to make my hummus , so it’s not fully homegrown.

Hummus is easy to make and is a summer favourite in our house, this recipe is simple, but you can get as fancy as you like.

Ingredients:

• Chickpeas
• Garlic
• Olive oil
• Sea salt
• Black pepper
• Turmeric
• Tahini

Method:

For the homegrown chick peas you can put them straight into the blender with the other ingredients, the shop bought chickpeas will need cooking first. When blending add water to reach desired consistency after that serve and enjoy, a splash of lemon goes well with hummus.

All the best

Matt

Wooden Palette to Planter!

Recently of late, I have become more frugal, encouraged by both circumstances and choice. I would see all this thrown out wood in the local bins and wonder if I could do something with the discarded wood? Originally I thought I could make a compost bin, a hedgehog home, a wormery and a bug hotel, all good ideas and some we have explored, however, it was Adele who looked at the palette and declared it could be transformed into a planter!

A moment of awesome vision, we used old bed frame wood amongst other pieces to board around the palette so the soil would not fall out and then lined it with camping sheets and weed roll both bought for a pound. Our makeshift planters cost £2 and had we planned things better the soil could have been a lot cheaper, however, we didn’t and our baby lettuce plugs arrived and we needed soil so we raced off to the nearest soil vendor and purchased our soil requirements for under £10. The baby lettuce plants 75 in total also cost £10. For the combined price of £22 we did well, of course, had I planted my own seed, which I will do next year and had planned my time better for getting the soil then that price could so easily drop under the £10 budget mark, which in today’s world I think that’s pretty awesome.

As you can see the lettuce leaves are loving there planter and the new one we are building is going to house a variety of herbs.🌿😀

Homegrown and self-sustainable living, I’m learning, making mistakes and continually being surprised.

Happy growing and building to you all.

Dahl stuffed Marrow

I have shared a similar post before, however this time there are a few small and yet significant changes!

Homegrown tastes best and is simply better for you, I am yet to taste something homegrown that does not surpass the shop bought version in every way and this Dahl Stuffed Marrow is no exception.

The following were grown in either our garden or allotment:

• Marrow
• Red Hot Chilli Pepper (a small tip)
• Garlic (3 cloves)

The following are shop bought:

• Can of chopped tomatoes 
• Fresh turmeric root (1 inch)
• Fresh ginger root (1 inch)
• Dahl lentils (1 cup)
• Mushrooms (as many as you like)
• Garam Masala (1tsp)
• Sea salt (3tsp)
• Red onion (1)
• Koftas (2)
• Lemon (1/2)
• Olive oil (1/2tsp)
• Coconut oil 2-3 tsp

With dhal I always cook 1 cup lentils to 3 cups water, get that going in a pan, bring to the boil and simmer until soft. Whilst that’s happening get your blender and add the canned tomatoes, ginger, turmeric, garam masala, sea salt, lemon, olive oil and chilli, whizz them up until smooth. In another pan heat up water (splash) mixed with coconut oil and cook up your garlic and onions, once they’ve started to sweat so to speak add the mushrooms and koftas (cut them up into any sized pieces). By now the Dahl should be cooked so add the other ingredients to the pot, I usually clean up the pans at this point leaving the one pot with the mix in on a low heat. Once everything is cleaned I grab my Marrow half it then quarter it, scoup out the seeds and place on a baking tray (bear in mind your mix will probably fall out over the edges). Add your mix to your marrows and pop them in the oven, crank up the heat according to how quickly or slowly you want to cook your dish and happy days, if like me you find you have extra Dahl left over then no problem eat on its own as a starter it tastes great. Enjoy.

I am growing tomatoes and onions, I also have turmeric root growing so some day soon I should be able to make this dish with even more home grown produce, which is exciting 😀.

Enjoy.

Matt

Soaked Rice with Beetroot, Apple and Fennel Salad

A salad is all about how you dress it! 

This particular salad was dressed with soaked brown rice, mint sauce and home grown chard leaves and kale flowers. The reason for sharing is two main points: the soaked rice and the home grown additions!

I’ve been soaking my porridge oats overnight ready for breakfast for some years now, but for some reason I had not done the same with the grains I use for lunch and or dinner. The thing is when I prepare my porridge I am also usually making dinner so it’s a two birds one stone situation and yet when making breakfast it hadn’t dawned on me to prep lunch! Until now.

I have a sensitive digestive tract and grains are not my best friends when it comes to ease of digestion, yes liquorice and other digestive aids help, plus eating slowly and not over consuming all help, but ultimately soaking the grains really makes a huge impact on the texture, taste and ease of digestion, in my opinion it improves the overall experience in every way😀.

The salad was a simple grated salad dressed with a mix of tahini, olive oil, apple cider vinegar, lemon and a pinch of salt, as my herb garden grows various herbs will be added to play with the flavour and feeling of the salad, however within the salad are already some homegrown beauties including kale flowers and chard leaves, homegrown always does and always will taste best and will be the best for you, I’m looking forward to the salad that’s close to 70% homegrown 😜🌱. 

Ultimately this salad looked great, tasted awesome, was hydrating and satiated my appetite and personally I think the secret lay within the soaking of the rice and the homegrown ingredients.

It’s all about how you dress a salad so go ahead and have fun with it.

To you all in great health.

Matt

Growing an Avocado Plant

Well as a family we are slowly making a transition to a sustainable way of living and one of the requirements of that movement is the ability to grow your own produce.

Living in the U.K the thought of being able to grow an Avocado plant seemed unimaginable, however after watching a few YouTube videos on how to do it I figured I have nothing to loose in trying and so of I went, ate some beautiful Avocado and kept the seeds.

The pictures presented are growth from seed to current state over a 8 month period from when the seed was first placed in water. I lost many in my trials and tribulations, but from those losses I have 3 healthy plants who are continuing there growth despite it being winter, one plant the tallest of the two (I gave one to a friend, so I have two) is growing in a spot where very little sun light gets in during the winter and yet she appears to be happy😀. 

It takes about five years for it to fruit, but that’s cool five years appear to fly these days.

Will check back with you all in the summer to see how they are doing😀.

To you all in great health.

Matt