Microgreens

Well, Happy New Year to you all, and as you can see I'm back in blog land again.  It's good to be back with you all.

Plans are afoot for this year, extra enterprises are to be ventured into with the view of making a bit more out of what we have, fingers crossed - all will be come clear in due course.

Having read the November edition of 'Grow It', magazine, (a fab magazine for all things growable!), and absorbed the article on microgreens, I decided to do a trial.  So out came the seed box and I sorted through to see what I'd got that would be microgreen-able.

Now I'm never one to follow rules too rigidly and with an empty polytunnel I decided to plant a row of each of my seeds and see what happens.  Hopefully something will grow that is harvestable, if nothing grows, well I haven't lost much apart from my time; these were all seed packets we had anyway.

So I sowed the following, one row of each -
Parsley - French plain leaf
Basil - Sweet Genovese
Chives
Broccoli - Romanesco
Cabbage - Xmas Drumhead
Kale - Dwarf green curled
Savoy Cabbage - Winter King
Radish - French breakfast
Beetroot - Boltardy
Peas
Landcress
Lettuce - Arctic King
Rocket
Tatsoi
(the last four packets were free with a previous edition of Grow It magazine)

So I'm hoping this will make a fabulous mix of greens and I'll keep you posted on their progress.  If all they do is get to the seedling stage and survive the winter giving me some delicious spring greens to eat I shall be delighted, but am hoping for the microgreen stage instead.

Stats today -

Eggs produced = 4

Sales -
Nil

Expenses -
Nil

Bacon, Leek, Potato and cheese pie

Thought I had better give you the recipe for this as I had raved about it the other night, so here you go.  As usual I haven't stuck rigidly to the recipe (I never do!).

4oz Pastry - I used shortcrust, the recipe says use Flaky, but I don't see that it matters.  You can use frozen for this or homemade

Filling -
1 medium leek - I used two smaller ones and found that four of this size would be better
2 medium potatoes
7oz smoked bacon
1oz butter - the recipe says to use clarified, but I couldn't be bothered so used it straight from the pack
4 fl oz Milk
3 fl oz Single cream - I used double cream as I didn't have any single and it was fine
2 beaten eggs
2 tsps dried mixed herbs - I left out as I didn't have any
2 oz grated Double Gloucester cheese - I just used strong Cheddar instead, but used about 4oz
Salt and Pepper to taste

• Preheat oven to 190C / 375F / Gas 5
• Slice leeks into approx 1cm rounds and wash thoroughly
• Peel and thinly slice the potatoes
• Trim off the bacon rind and roughly chop
• Roll out the pastry and line a 20cm flan dish, trimming the edges
• Fry the bacon under the fat starts to render and it starts to go crispy.  Set aside on kitchen paper
• Cook the leeks in the same pan and set aside with the bacon once soft
• Add the butter and fry the potatoes until just coloured - you may have to do several batches
• Spoon the leeks and bacon into the flan dish
• I then added a generous layer of grated cheese and sliced a couple of tomatoes over the top
• Arrange the potato slices over the top, overlapping to cover the other ingredients
• Beat together the milk, cream, eggs, herbs and season well
• Pour over the potatoes and top with more grated cheese
• Bake for 30 - 45 minutes, covering with foil if it starts to brown too much

This is great served with a simple salad or with whatever veg you have available like we did.

Enjoy!

Stats today -

Eggs produced = 7

Sales -

1 dozen eggs £1.80

1 x 1Kg Onions £1.00

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