Sunday 13 November 2011

The Joy of...............Cauliflower.



After the controversial, and may I say ground breaking decision to plant my Cauliflowers in a circle, (the circle signifying the head of the flower). I was not surprised that they were failing.



Apart from the planting I felt that I had done everything correctly.  I planted the plugs in moist soil and watered them well in, I had netted them straight away, to stop the greedy pigeons, and as we get very little rain in East Anglia I made sure they were never dry.
Despite all this devotion all I seemed to have grown was a mass of green leaves, I was actually wondering if you can cook them.












So I decided to remove the netting.  As I did this I pulled away some of the leaves, I was surprised to see the most perfect whitest Cauliflower head I have ever seen, I moved to the next plant and I actually squealed, another one just the same. It's hard to convey the absolute delight that I had in this discovery, most people on the allotment had told me they could be tricky so I think I had anticipated failure.






Buoyed by my success and dreaming of cheese sauce, I went to harvest the cauliflower.  It was at this point that I realised that I didn't know how to harvest a cauliflower. Do I pull up the whole plant, or do I just remove the flower? I walked around the allotments there was not a soul about, so I decided to ask on Twitter and sat all forlorn waiting for a response. @AllotmentMate, who Is a sort of allotment Superhero (not sure if he has a cape) came to my rescue, he very promptly tweeted Cut just below the Cauli taking a few leaves with it.



  
I did feel a bit of a fool, but it's always better to ask when you don't know, so thank you very much Ian.
I had also left the shed keys at home so was unable to get to the right tools for the job,  fortunately I had I pair of scissors and a nail file in my handbag so the beheaded was an old fashioned execution rather than the guillotine.


Everything we ate that night was  produced within a mile of our house, local Lamb, potatoes and Cauliflower cheese, very satisfying.






7 comments:

  1. Woohoo - congratulations on your lovely caulis

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  2. I'm impressed. It'll be spring before we can harvest ours. However, your readers might not know that you are a dream allotment holder - weeding, watering and tending with diligence.

    I agree with you, the local lamb is to die for. Best lamb that I've ever tasted.

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  3. Great looking caulis!

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  4. Ooh that looks fab. I've yet to record any success with cauli so well done! Loving the oodles of cheese too, nom nom nom...

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  5. Hello

    Love reading your blog and those cauliflowers look wonderful. Oh for an allotment.

    Just to let you know that I have nominated you for an award. If you would like to visit my blog to collect the same.

    http://tarragonnthyme.blogspot.com/2011/12/liebster-award.html

    Take care and enjoy and keep up the good work

    Pattypan

    x

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  6. Hello from Eastern Australia.

    I was admiring your soil where I could not see one stone in sight.
    We have 200 acres, beautiful soil but, oh the stones and rocks! I thought I'd mention the Mittleider Gardening method that I used for the first time this year with great success even though we were late with planting.
    There are You Tube videos on it for us novices.

    the web site is www,foodforeveryone.org.

    Hoping you all have an easy winter in the UK. I love your country even if you have the drivers from hell!! I call them 'up your bummers'. I could be going well over the speed limit and on a straight stretch, easy to pass but, no, there'd be a tailgater... love those by ways to pull into and have a look around your beautiful land.

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  7. Hi!!!
    I can say aloud that you're a wonderful food lover and amazing chef!That's why I'd like to suggest you a new dining community where food meets art!So If you like good food in interesting ways, with great company, request your membership here! http://www.radicaldiningsociety.com/register adding manually (do not copy and paste) the following invitation code: RDSxx4x002 This will give you a 90 days free upgrade!
    I've signed up and I eagerly look forward the next dinner parties!
    P.S.
    I'll try to make this healthy cauliflower!!It looks amazing!...yummy!!!

    ReplyDelete