Getting through winter and the hunger gap is my biggest challenge as we rarely buy any fresh fruit or vegetables at this time of year. My only exception is that I do buy an odd bag of sweet potatoes, net of oranges, and a couple of pomegranites for health reasons.
The only time I really buy any vegetables are when they are reduced to 5p just before Christmas. I then stock up on carrots, potatoes, shallots, cabbages, and a few parsnips. For under £2 we can put pickled cabbage in the pantry, have enough potatoes for about 10 weeks, shallots to last us the year to supplement our onions, and carrots, cabbage, and parsnips to last us a couple of months. I don’t have enough growing space to harvest enough to live on, and so these cheap Christmas vegetables help us get through winter and the hunger gap.
All of our homegrown and foraged produce is waterbathed, frozen, or stored in cool places. We also buy cheap pumpkins around Halloween time to bulk out the vegetables. Reduced vegetables are often on sale at Easter as well, which gets us through until our first harvest. We live with what we have. Salads don’t have tomatoes or cucumber. Grated carrots, defrosted sweet corn, beetroot, spinach, and young lettuce have to suffice. Coleslaw or lemon slaw are another alternative. Despite not shopping for fresh vegetables most of the year, we still eat meals packed with veg, have apples in the fruit bowl, and make compote each week. An odd year we have had to go to a community fridge to get us through, but as my knowledge and skills improve, this is less likely. I am also learning from experience.
Checking stored fresh food regularly is really important.
A couple of my home grown onions have started to sprout which nudged me to check other fresh vegetables. Some are stored in my kitchen, others in the porch, or in the cold conservatory. There was a little spot on my last decent sized Halloween pumpkin, and so that was cut out and the pumpkin put into the slow cooker to make puree. This will be used to make flat breads and pizza bases instead of yoghurt, and my favourite pumpkin waffles.
The sprouted onions were chopped up and frozen and the middle sprouting bit saved. These have been placed in a little bit of water for a couple of days and I will plant them in a bucket of soil tomorrow. They will form new bulbs in a couple of months (with no skin), or I can just snip the tops to use in cooking.
I have a box of apples left. One had gone off but the newspaper had protected the others. The butternut squash are fine, and the swede needing eating within 2 or 3 weeks. Some of the potatoes have started sprouting and going a little bit green. These are all 5p Christmas potatoes. I just peel the green off, and rub off the sprouts and they will be fine. The fridge has a shelf of potatoes as well, and some cabbage, carrots, and beetroot. As I get more space in the freezer over this next week, I will freeze some semi cooked chips and wedges.
Outside we have spinach, chard, and beetroot leaves. Inside a bit of lettuce is still growing. The onions, and 5p shallots are all fine and should last a while, as later, in a couple of months, I will be using wild garlic to enhance the taste of meals. A bit later still, spring onions will also help. The hessian bags I store them in are easy to make.The freezers are full of fruit and vegetables and so I think that the hunger gap will be a lot easier this year, and won’t be as hard as some years. How are your stored items doing?
