Tag: kale

Soup and salad in winter

Minestrone is a favourite soup on these cold days. It’s great to use fresh local vegetables from the fruit and veg shop round the corner, and my own garden produce. The tomatoes and curly kale are from the garden. To serve this soup, I like a sprinkle of parmesan on top.

Lots of vegetables (and pasta)
Curly kale fresh from my garden

On Thursday, at Foundation, I had a salad which had in it braised brussel sprouts, potato, kale, orzo and red onion, among other healthy things, and various additional options from which I chose halloumi. It was a salad variation on minestrone and a great winter choice.

Chilled garden

The leaves are falling off the grape vine, revealing many bunches of grapes some of which are beginning to rot. There are too many for the birds it seems, and certainly too many for us, although it’s lovely to pick a bowlful to eat and to share.

The grapes seem to have survived the -6.3C frost overnight. Perhaps they don’t mind being chilled. The water in the bucket – with grape leaves – is frozen solid. The kale and broad beans looked rather limp two hours ago, as did the daisies in the front garden. They are recovering quickly in the sun.

Fortunately I’d thrown frost cloths over the late tomatoes. The plants are bent by the weight of fruit, but they seem to have survived the frost. Perhaps it’s time to pick and ripen inside.

This shoot was outside the frost cloth. It’s too late in the year for the flowers to produce fruit, sadly.