We’ve had a second bout of very cold weather over the last week, with a good few inches of snowfall, and blizzard conditions.
Friends living in a caravan a few miles away whilst they self-build their house have found their water tank and pipes frozen over these last few days.
Between the snow flurries
It takes me right back to our caravan days in the last really cold snap a few years ago with husband heading out into the snow in his dressing gown and wellies, clutching my hairdryer to try and thaw out our frozen water pipes. Unsuccessfully.
It makes me doubly grateful that we are warm and dry in the house in comfort now. In the evenings we fire up the woodburner and enjoy the sound of it crackling away cosily in the corner.
Some of my seeds have started to germinate. The cucumbers raced up, and we have a few chillies, lettuce, tomatoes and beans starting to show.
I think that they’re all a bit perplexed at the moment though. Bright sunshine through those big windows, lots of solar gain and warmth, but snow flurries just a few feet away!
Confused cucumber seedlings
Winter still has us in its grip. Cottage pies, warming breakfasts and slower days.
Cottage pies
It has to be done. We don’t take any of this for granted.
Due to the great sheep invasion I’ve decided that until we can get our croft fences repaired or replaced, any winter vegetable growing will have to just be in the polycrub.
More sheep lurking around the croft
Autumn is definitely in the air, and I’ve been slowly clearing the pots of spent pea tendrils and bean shoots, freeing up space for successional sowings of winter vegetables and herbs.
The tunnel is still pretty full of plants:- tomatoes slowly ripening, beetroot, cucumbers, sweetcorn, carrots, herbs and squash, but now is the time to start the next round of crops if we want to continue eating through the colder months.
Beetroot
I’ve been in there over the last few weeks sowing seeds. The great thing is that they germinate quickly at this time of the year – which is a good thing, as we need them to get established enough to survive the winter in an unheated grow space. I’m trying my best not to have to subsist on neeps and tatties this year.
Leetle vegetable seedlings
So far I’ve got pak choi, winter lettuce, black spanish radishes (exotic, I know – I don’t know what came over me) purple sprouting broccoli, spinach, rocket, more dill and coriander and a few more tubs of carrots on the go. They’re looking lush with promise at this stage, although I’ve been here before..
Carrot sowings
I’ve still got winter cabbage and kale to sow. We can’t overwinter without salty kale crisps and rumbledethumps (a Scottish dish of mashed potatoes, cabbage, onion and cheese, like colcannon) once the weather turns.
More dill
The wormery that we installed a few months ago is now coming into its own, and we’ve been watering the polycrub pots with worm juice every week. It seems to be doing the plants the world of good.
It looks like gravy, which I guess in a way it is. I try not to feel sorry for the worms that inevitably fall into the collection tray full of liquid and drown. It’s a hard enough life being a worm. Husband has an idea to use insect mesh to save them, which we will certainly try in the interests of worm colony morale.
I love the cyclic nature of growing: garden clippings and waste go into the compost or the worm bins, which get added back to the soil to support the next generation of plant growth.
This continual replenishment of nutrients and micro-organisms is essential in helping to build healthy soil, which is truly the heart of everything. I’ll just have to live happily with the scurrying, burrowing beetle and other insect life that it supports, and which I know is a good thing.
Someone once told me that if nothing was eating your plants, you weren’t part of the eco system. I’m pleased to report that we well and truly are.
It all started with a big paper bag of chestnut mushrooms. Perfectly in season, brown, earthy and fresh. Smelling of autumn. That, and a glance out of the caravan window at the rain convinced me that it was definitely soup weather.
Sautéed mushrooms
Much as I like a bowl of Heinz mushroom soup as a quick, comforting lunch, a homemade soup is really in another league and is well worthwhile the small effort that it takes.
Mushrooms, chopped sweet chestnuts, garlic, fresh parsley and tarragon are the mainstays of this soup. A slosh of cream or creme fraiche finishes it. It’s warming and delicious, and cooks up in less than thirty minutes.
Mushroom & sweet chestnut soup
As winter approaches I make soup much more often. There’s usually a pot of soup simmering on the stove most days in this weather. Soups are so versatile, and can be made cheaply from the simplest of ingredients.
Amongst our personal favourites are mushroom and chestnut, fresh chicken, winter vegetable, butternut and sweet potato, leek and potato, Cullen skink and lentil soups. Not having a blender here in the caravan, all of our soups are left “au-naturel” and somehow feel all the more of a meal for that.
Served up with warm cheese scones, or good crusty sourdough bread, soups are definitely the food of autumn.
When we awoke it was to sleet and snow pounding the roof and windows of the caravan, and it had settled on the hills. The morning was very cold. It took all of our willpower to leave the warmth of our bed and stagger through to the kitchen to make hot coffee.
We ate breakfast watching the snow swirl around the caravan, and both decided it might not be a bad idea to head out to do our weekly food shop now in case it got any worse.
We already have food stocks of oatmeal, pasta, tinned goods and flour, even within the very limited storage capacity we have within the static. I think it’s just prudent to keep long-life food available in case roads become impassable or we got ill. You never know. And whilst the weather is doing this it just reinforces the stocking up instinct further.
Whilst husband is working in the house filling gaps between the SIP panels in our desire to have the house as close to passive house standards as possible, I’m doing most of the food preparation. It’s just what we can both best do to contribute to pushing this build forward at this point in time.
Food has become reduced to simple homemade soups, curries, stews and occasional bakes. Tonight, for example, I’m making a cottage pie. Yesterday was bean and vegetable soup. Nothing fancy, just home made food that fills us up and is filled with nourishing ingredients.
I’m also making Athol Brose this evening. A small, sweet, creamy whisky based treat that we’ll take a glass of before bed each night.
Absolutely essential preparation for wintering in my book. 😊
I have many half packets of nuts and dried fruits that travelled with us from London, and which I don’t really have space for in this little caravan kitchen.
Oatmeal, dried apricots, pecans.. So I made flapjacks.
I’m not going to pretend that these are healthy with the amount of butter and golden syrup that they contain, which is more than the oatmeal could ever compensate for!
But as a pick-me-up, elevenses, or snack when energy levels are getting a bit low, they hit the spot.
We love good bread. We eat a lot of it, especially seeded, malted grain bread.
So it was with great excitement that whilst shopping in our local Co Op on the island I spotted that they’d just put out a selection of speciality breads.
I read the ingredients. Irres Cran, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds. What the heck was irres cran?
Intrigued, but assuming that it was some sort of ancient Scottish grain, like Emmer wheat, I popped it in the trolley and brought it home.
I tried googling irres cran but nothing came up. There was nothing left but to try it.
It was cranberry bread.. 😂.
The bread range is called Irresistible and they’d clearly abbreviated the label to fit all the ingredients on.
The news spread that the local village store had some estate venison for sale this week, so I hot-footed it over to see what was available.
I picked up a 500g pack of diced venison (no haunch of venison for us as we have no way of roasting it right now 😕) and decided to make a venison ragu for dinner in the slow cooker.
Deer are a problem here on the island. They no longer have any natural predators and as such their numbers are out of control. There is talk of reintroducing lynx to the Highlands after many hundreds of years of extinction through over hunting, but nothing has yet come of it because of farmers concerns for their sheep.
What there is in place is a selective culling programme across most estates, and when that happens Clan Venison appears in the local outlets.
It’s cheaper than Highland beef, totally free range and organic, almost fat-free and very tasty. And every deer we eat is one less to eat our baby trees when we plant them next year. What’s not to love?
I cooked the venison with red wine, red onions, chopped tomatoes, peppers, garlic, juniper berries and a sloosh of balsamic vinegar. Four hours in the slow cooker. I forgot to add the chestnut mushrooms that I’d bought.
Ravencroft Skye 