Friday 8 June 2007

Self Sufficient Egg and Chips



Yay!

We've graduated from sandwiches to hot meals. From dinner to tea (or lunch to dinner if you're posh) in the self sufficiency stakes.

We now have the makings of a meal. We dug up our first few Charlotte potatoes today. (Not counting the one we dug up a couple of weeks ago to see what was happening down there)

No I didn't make chips (just how common do you think I am?) We have had them boiled in their skins with lots of butter and they were yummy and potatoey. I even went so far as to cook duck to go with them in a hastily concocted marmalade sauce (which is far indeed for someone as domestically challenged as I am). But the potatoes were the stars.

And yes we have had them at tea time

Potatoes! The official food of the Breezy Break!

ps Do we leave them and dig them up as we want them or dig them all up now?

9 comments:

Jen said...

Wow, homegrown egg and chips sounds like the best meal on earth - even if you didn't make the chips!

Duck in Marmalade Sauce sounds fabulously 'Jilly Cooper' - you can't imagine how much I envy your life! Only 8 more years until I can run away to France!!

Breezy said...

come on Jen you were going to do something rash run away now (same disclaimer as before). Well me an Jilly we're like that you know (not really)

Jen said...

You know what? I'd run away to France tomorrow if I could... seriously... sigh

I'll just carry on dreaming and envying you in the meantime!

Imperatrix said...

Huzzah! for working gardens! I think I read that root veg can stay in the ground until you need them, even after a frost? I think.

Oh, how I would love chickens. I even have three books on raising chickens in your backyard. Four things worry me though:

1) Rats. The books imply that if you have chickens, you have rats.
2) The dog. Chasing the chickens.
3) The cat. Pouncing on the chickens.
4) The dog and cat. Working together to create an UFHUCU (Ultimate Fowl HUnting Commando Unit).

tea and cake said...

Congrats on the egg 'n' chips!

just reading 'The Vegetable Expert' who say, yes take them as you want them now; once the haulm has turned brown & stems have withered, remove & cut the haulm and wait 10 days... then lift the roots and let the tubers dry for several hours, then place in a wooden box & store in a dark, frost free shed. Hope this helps, though I'm sure you've got this book! cheers, kaz xx (ours in Scotland haven't even flowered yet.

Breezy said...

Imperatrix we haven't seen any rats or signs of but then the chicken house is on legs so they can't hide under there and there are lots of owls, buzzards etc etc to keep the population down

Our dogs Sissy (she lives up to her name) is scared of them Tasha ignores them but I wouldn't trust her on her own. My friend down the road has three cats and six chooks and they generally ignore each other.

Breezy said...

Kaz
Thanks for that yes the book is right next to me but I probably read too much conflicting advice then worry about doing stuff "just right". Never mind you'll be eating spuds when ours are just a fond memory

Unknown said...

Karen, you can leave them in the ground until the tops die down if they're maincrops, but if they're earlies you need to eat your way along them as soon as the flowers die off. If you leave them longer they'll still be good, but the skins "set" and they lose that "new" potato taste. That's why we grew half a row each of first and second earlies, and the rest of the planting were all maincrop (for storage).

Rats - not if you have a chickenhouse on stilts!

Breezy said...

Thanks HW we may do less earlies then next year and more for storage depending on how the desirees turn out. It was really good to get spuds without loads of manky bits on them like you get at the supermarket.