Easy Carrot cake recipe

I don't know about you but as I've got older I've started with a tendency to feel guilty about eating cake.  Maybe it's the thought of all that cake going on the hips!  But I feel less guilty if the cake has some redeeming qualities e.g. containing some form of fruit or nuts.  So when I found this cake recipe, well I knew I couldn't go wrong!  It's the carrots you see, makes you feel like you're eating something good, even though you're eating cake!

Again it's another clipping from a magazine, but can't remember which one.

Ingredients -
225g / 8oz Butter or margarine
350g / 12oz Caster sugar - I use granulated if I haven't got any caster
4 eggs, medium
175g / 6oz Self raising wholemeal flour
115g / 4oz Plain flour, sieved with 2 teaspoons of cinnamon and 1/2 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda
350g / 12oz Peeled and grated carrots

Topping -
115g / 4oz Soft cheese, Philadelphia type
Icing sugar to taste
Rind and juice of half a lemon - I don't tend to use this as it can make the icing quite runny, then you have to add more icing sugar


Method -

1.  Place all ingredients into a mixing bowl and beat together until well mixed - I did say it was easy!
2.  Spoon into a greased and lined 20cm / 8" cake tin and bake in a pre-heated oven 180 Deg C / 350 Deg F / Gas Mark 4, for 45 - 55 minutes.
3.  Turn out onto a wire rack and allow to go cold.
4.  Mix together topping ingredients and spread over the cake.


Enjoy and don't feel guilty about eating it - it's got carrots in it!  And home-grown ones too, I hope, another way of using an abundance of veg!

Stats today -

Eggs produced = 9

Sales -
1 dozen eggs £1.80
3 x bags tomatoes £3.00
1 x Cucumber £0.70

Expenses -
Nil

August Statistics

Well, August was a good month, takings were up on July, so am really pleased.

Here's the breakdown -

Sales -

22 dozen eggs £40.30
14 Cucumbers £8.40
8 Geranium plants £12.00
2 x Herb plants £1.00
3 bags Carrots £2.25
18 bags Tomatoes £16.50

Total £80.45

Expenses -

1 x Large Greenhouse £383.00

Still a long way to go to recoup the greenhouse money, but hey that was a long term investment, and it's now harvest time so fingers crossed we'll recoup in no time.

Today's stats -

Sales -

1 dozen eggs £1.80
1 x bag Bramley apples £1.00
1 x Tomatoes £1.00
1 x bag French beans £0.50

Expenses -

Nil

Leftover Beef Sturry

Tonight's delight is using up leftovers together with what we have available in the garden.  What true smallholders we are!

Seriously though, I hate wasting food, although I must admit not much gets wasted here, what with seven dogs, two pigs, sixteen hens and a cow.  But with the increase of food wastage always in the news and yesterday Natalie Coleman (winner of Masterchef), was on BBC Radio 2's Steve Wright in the afternoon, talking about her new campaign, 'Love food, Hate waste,' I always try and do something edible for us to eat with leftovers.

So tonight's leftovers being beef and it being Friday, well it had to be a curry - well sort of!  I am renowned for not sticking to recipes's, so I put my own twist on this 'curry'.  Michael likes lots of vegetables in his curries, not just a meat and onion curry with rice, so I raided the garden and collected - a large handful of french beans, a yellow courgette, a kohl rabi, one small carrot, half a dozen shallots, about twenty tomatoes and two chillies.

Collected from the garden

Plus, the already chopped tomatoes and shallots

I chopped all these up and placed them in a large casserole dish, along with the chopped up beef (minus any fatty bits - the dogs ate these!), added some water and a good shake of Bisto gravy granules, just to up the 'beefyness' and to thicken the sauce and put it in the oven for about an hour and a half.

 and this is what it looked like when it came out -

I served it with turmeric and parsley basmati rice and a shop bought naan bread each (which were horrible) -

It tasted delicious, you could taste all the vegetables and the beef was soft and succulent.  The two chillies were enough if you like it quite spicy.  I do think that this type of dish is best cooked in a slow cooker all day, left to bubble away and develop the flavours even deeper, it was a mistake not to do it with this I think.

Stats today -

Eggs produced = 9

Sales -
Nil

Expenses -
Nil

Good old eBay!

Thanks to eBay and Rob from Tiptree in Essex, and to his wife for the coffee, drinks and chocolate biscuits (says Michael), I am now the proud owner of a fabulous new greenhouse and five cold frames.

Michael and Rob spent the afternoon dismantling the approx 6m x 2.4m aluminium greenhouse.  I've now got to decide what to grow for sale next year.

The deconstruction process -

Glass out from the sides

Roof off

Loaded and ready to come home

Michael would like to extend a huge thank you to Rob for helping him take it down, he was extremely helpful.

Can't wait for next year now, it's going to be a huge task to get it up, the base laid, staging in and the cold frames erected too, but it'll be well worth it.

Stats today -

Eggs produced = 10

Sales -
1/2 dozen eggs £0.90
1 x 500g Carrots £0.75
1 x Cucumber £0.60

Expenses -
Greenhouse and cold frames £383.00 (that's an awful lot of eggs and veg to sell!)

Look what they've done now!

The little blighters, not content with decimating my winter cabbages they've been on my spring cabbages aswell.

That's two trays nearly all eaten.  It was only by chance that I noticed them.  I was watering them yesterday and wondered what was going on, happened to take a closer look and noticed what looked like caterpillar poo on the leaves, near where the leaves joined the stems on the upper surface, and didn't believe my eyes.

I swept my hand gently across the top of them and lo and behold did the little blighters fall off onto the compost in front of my eyes!  So I did it again until I found them all, and took great delight in squashing them. I'm hoping they aren't too far gone and will re-grow.  I had planned to plant two more trays, as we can sell them once pricked out and plant some here to for sale next year; looks like that job has just been added to my list for tomorrow.  Oh well that's gardening for you.

Stats today -

Eggs produced = 11

Sales -
1 & 1/2 dozen eggs £2.50
1 x 500g Tomatoes £2.00
1 x 500g Carrots £0.75
2 x Geranium plants £3.00

Expenses -
Nil

Peppers V Peppers

The battle of the Peppers!

Now, I've always been told that you cannot grow Peppers and Chilli peppers in the same greenhouse / polytunnel at the same time, because they are too closely related and will not produce fruit if you do.

That sounded like a challenge to me, and always up for a challenge, I decided to see, more out of curiosity than anything, what would happen if you did plant the two plants side by side.

Sweet Peppers

Chilli Peppers

These two plants are less than half a metre away from each other and seem to be thriving, (that's the same yellow leaf of a cucumber plant in the photo's).

Having read several books on the subject of growing peppers and chillies, I find that nowhere in these books does it say that you cannot grow them together, in fact they are both in the same family as tomatoes, potatoes and aubergines and should be treated as such for rotation purposes.  Both are reasonably easy to grow, suffer from little problems - the usual slugs, aphids and red spider mite; the main problem being blossom end rot, ie. lack of sufficient water, but if you're seeing that on peppers then you'll be seeing it on your tomatoes too and bells should start ringing in your head to give them all more water.

So I shall continue to plant all my peppers and chillies together and not listen to other people's ideas until I have thoroughly checked them out.  To think I had been panicking about not getting any peppers or chillies - that'll learn me, as they say here in Norfolk!

Stats today - 

Eggs produced = 12

Sales -

1 dozen eggs £1.80

1 x 500g Carrots £0.75

1 x Oregano plant £0.50

Expenses -

Nil

Poo tea food

Food for tomatoes that is!

How to use your Poo tea.  What?  You mean to say you haven't made any?  Shame on you, when it's free (or pretty cheap, compared to chemically prepared stuff), and organic, what could be better for your plants?

Ok, so you made your witches brew a week or so ago, it should be pretty well stewed by now, stewed enough to use anyway.  Collect your utensils together -

I use an old baked bean tin to collect the tea in, a large plastic watering can, I think it's about 10 litres, then a stick to stir it with.

Give your brew a good stirring.

Then collect a tin full of it, straining off as much as the liquid as you can, leaving the raw material behind.

Empty the strained liquid into your watering can and then top up with water.  Direct the watering can flow at the bottom of your tomato plants; I use one watering can's worth to six plants.

I'm tending to use this concoction every day to water my plants, rather than just plain water, especially as the fruits are beginning to ripen.  Don't forget to top up your dustbin, as the water level recedes.

Stats today -

Eggs produced = 13

Sales -
9 x Geranium plants £13.50
1 x 500g New potatoes £0.75
1 x Cucumber £0.60

Expenses -
Nil

Sowing time

Been busy again, sowing seeds today.  I'm never quite sure when to sow the next batch, to keep the harvest coming.  I'm meaning now in terms of quick harvest plants - salads mainly.  Do you stick to a rigid routine, every three weeks you sow another row, or when you plant out the last lot you sow some more, or is it just when you remember?

I planted out some salad crops in two Belfast sinks we have sitting on the corners of the patio.  In there are two types of lettuce, spinach and beetroot - just harvested for the leaves.  This is so that my husband has got some salad to go in his sandwiches, when he's making his pack-up in the morning, usually in a rush!  There is also a large tub of watercress, so he's spoilt for choice now.

I'm having a bit of a disaster with my spring onions.  I sowed these in a large tub, just outside the greenhouse, about a month ago.  I did sow them pretty thickly but as you can see germination has been poor, as are the plants that have come up.  They are watered every day, but not waterlogged and still seem slow and straggly.  Any thoughts?

I also managed to get some seeds sown in the ground, I'm hoping it's not too late and I'll be able to harvest something from them this year.  I did half a row each of Pak Choi and Swiss Chard.  Never grown or eaten Swiss Chard before so am very much looking forward to that.

I've also got in front for next year.  I've sown a tray each of the following -
Viola
Physostegia
Honesty
Forget me not
And two trays of Spring Cabbage - Greyhound.  Will sow another two trays of cabbages in about a month's time, as they can fill bare patches left by harvested onions, shallots and other summer veg, plus the empty polytunnel, where they can be planted out and stay for the winter.

I love seeing the greenhouse like this, new life, all clearly labelled as you can see, that's if the sun doesn't fade it!

Stats today -

Eggs produced = 11

Sales -
2 x 500g New potatoes £1.50
2 x 500g Carrots £1.50
1 x Cucumber £0.60

Expenses -
Nil