GYO Christmas Dinner?

[Nikki Arnold]

Share your top tips for a homegrown Christmas lunch (growing advice, recipes - whatever you like) and you could be in with a chance of winning a prize!

Our favourite posts from this thread will be printed in the December issue of GYO magazine and the winning grapes will each be awarded a £10 Thomson & Morgan voucher (please note tips must be posted before midnight on the 2nd October 2012 to be considered and may be edited for the magazine).

Looking forward to reading your posts!

Best wishes from
Nikki & the GYO team

[Feral007]

Lettuce, tomato, capsicum, cucumber. Cous cous with bacon, mushrooms, capsicum and lots of garlic. Icecream made with berries, mint and pistachio nuts. Green beans with balsamic vinegar and sesame seeds. Waldorf salad. Grated carrot and grated raw beetroot with walnuts, either balsamic vinegar and olive oil, or maybe a creamy mayonaise because it's christmas. BBQ prawns.

I'll stop now, because I'm full already

[veggiechicken]

Sorry Nikki but even the incentive of a £10 voucher will not make me think about Ch******s dinner in September

[Alison]

My sprouts have turned out to be cauliflowers so I won't have any of them homegrown . I will however have carrots and swede, parsnips, potatoes etc. I grow storing type tomatoes so that I can serve home grown ones fresh over the earlier parts of the winter and should have some fresh salad stuffs. Last year (or maybe the one before) I made a lovely stuffing from foraged chestuts, leeks and apricots (although did have to buy the apricots). Christmas tea is likely to involve a fresh trifle with frozen raspberries and I have managed to make cranberry sauce from home grown ones but this year I'll have to buy them.

[Pinfold Plotter]

I will be down the plot on Christmas Eve cutting myself a stick of sprouts (if the caterpillars have left me any), some leeks, parsnips, carrots, and a stonehead cabbage (and I will leave some seed out for the birds' Christmas dinner too). Potatoes will be sifted from their bags on Christmas morning and I will get some of the broad beans we grew earlier in the year out of the freezer. I'm feeling quite festive, writing that!

[Bren In Pots]

Christmas lunch will be Jerusalem artichoke soup followed by a pasta salad, beetroot, frozen broad beans and All year round lettuce out of the GH.

For dinner I'm hoping to have sprouts, kale, leeks, carrots and parsnips all from the garden to go with our roast beef.

[Thelma Sanders]

I'll have swede and squash - roasted with the Desiree spuds, leeks, Tundra cabbage and/or Sutherland kale

I haven't decided on the meat/poultry part of the meal - but do know what veg will be available

[VirginVegGrower]

I have grown Charlottes in a bag, which will be in the polytunnel through the Autumn months until Christmas day, when hopefully they will be ready. I have sown a winter hardy carrot for a fingerling crop in the polytunnel, again in the vain hope of putting them on the plate. Brassicas are already planted on the allotment as part of our normal Winter diet and I have stored potatoes as you can't have a Christmas dinner without roasties. My only fail this year is parsnips, but am hoping that I can do a swapsie with someone on the allotment

[phil the shed]

gosh reading all that the other grapes had listed made me envious
then i realised i have

christmas potatoes
carrots
parsnips
green sprouts
red sprouts
kale
leeks
and
cabbage
from the freezer
runner beans
broad beans

raspberries strawberries blackberries currant red/black for the freezer fruit pavlova a christmas special of late
does make you feel good that after a somewhat weather spoiled season we are still able to provide somthing for our tables.

[planetologist]

Since the vegetables have been dealt with at length, I'll mention cold-stored-apple with bottled-blackberry pie (I grow more raspberries than blackberries, but find that raspberry is a fragile taste that's not the same bottled, so I simply eat the lot fresh now). And if I can get the arapuca to work, pigeon or pheasant.

[Rhona]

I know it's Christmas when we start drinking Allotment Kir Royales! Elderflower 'Champagne' with some homegrown cassis. I'm bottling ours now, so it's ready by mid-December. My favourite drink of the year!

[Scarlet]

Well I'm for the traditional turkey! Hatch in April/May and slowly feed up for Christmas. I couldn't buy one from the shops again.

[Cue the Toms]

I will concentrate on feeding up the chicken with good quality food so that's it's lovely and ripe for the oven... As they say, you are what you eat
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I am kidding of course. I haven't even got a chicken


Chris

[VirginVegGrower]

No fowl for us now since keeping them...sob!

[hollychap]

potatos (lady christl) hopefully will be ok i have them growing in 4 scaffolding clip bags (extra strong bags) but there was a slight ground frost the other week which nipped a couple of leaves (now moved into lottie greenhouse) carrots i grow every year in window boxes with great results (taste alone makes these worthwhile) as its my first full year with a lottie i also have sprouts (red and green) which are looking good and are in a sheltered area and well healed in , parsnips (i sampled one last week) have done really well, and also a new one on me roast beetroot ,i have always boiled them before so i tried them roasted the other week there exellent and finally a drop of homemade sloe gin