Here they come!

The beds are coming to life.

Red and white onions coming along nicely.

Potatoes just peeping through.

Sugar snap peas looking good.

Mixed lettuce, thinned them out a bit today and had a huge plate of baby leaves for my lunch

Strawberries are flowering.

Tomato plants have zoomed up in size.

Pepper, chilies and aubergines coming on a treat.

Finally its time to plant and sow

My lovely tomatoes, peppers, chillis, potatoes and onions all ready to be planted

My Thompson and Morgan seeds arrived in the post today....don't they look gorgeous? The swiss chard looks so colourful..I can't wait to get them in the ground.

This years garden plan..I'm going to try lentils and aubergines this year

Lots of manure to dig in...one of the muckier jobs

That lovely moment just before planting.

Finally the weather has warmed up here. I am feeling a bit behind on my planting but it's been so cold and wet there's no way I could have got anything in the ground. So now its all systems go. I'll put another picture on when its all done in the meantime I've got to roll my sleeves up and get to work! 

Limoncello recipe

This is an amazing drink I discovered last week whilst spending a night in St Ives. We had a great meal at St Andrews Bistro. The chef bought this out as a little treat at the end of our meal. It's so easy to make. I now have a rather nice bottle of it in my freezer!

I used cheap Tesco vodka and bought 6 shot glasses from Amazon. It's now a great addition to all my dinner parties!

Limoncello

Ingredients
5 unwaxed lemons
1l bottle vodka
750g caster sugar
700ml boiling water
Pare the zest from all the lemons, try not to get any white pith. Put the zest in a large clean jar and pour over the vodka. Cover with a tightly fitting lid and leave for a week, shaking the jar every  day.
Put the sugar in a saucepan and pour over the boiling water, stirring until the sugar has dissolved. Once slightly cooled, add to the vodka and peelings and leave for a further week.
Decant into bottles ( I used the original vodka bottle...you'll find you have quite a large quantity of it, I'm keeping the bulk of mine in the storage jar then topping up my vodka bottle in the freezer when its running low!) add a few strips of lemon zest to each bottle. Just keep an eye on the bottle to make sure it doesn't completely freeze as its not pure alcohol!

Foraging

Picking the berries

Juicy

I love to forage this time of year-its amazing what you can bring home in a very short space of time...and all for free!

Alfie and I have just spent an hour up the fields gathering blackberries....they are ripe and juicy, I'll wash them and let any creepy crawlies make an exit then I'll bag them up and freeze them till I want to use them. 

We then raided the sloe bush.....abundant with big purple berries. Dean's off to buy a large litre bottle of Gin. I'll wash and weigh out 450g of berries then prick the skins with a sterilised needle and put in a large sterilised air tight jar along with  225g of  sugar. 

I'll put it in a cool, dark cupboard and shake it every other day for a week then once a week for a couple of months, should be ready in time for Christmas!

We came across a hop plant growing up a telegraph pole-I feel my own brewery coming on...maybe not! Some apples, quite small and some cob nuts. Also a passion flower growing in the sloe bush..bizarre- I've taken a cutting to see if it will grow.

Hop

Our hoard

I love ruby chard

I've just harvested armfuls of delicious vegetables from my garden. Ruby chard, french beans, potatoes and red onion...I've never grown ruby chard before, it's absolutely lovely. You just need to cut the stem out and chop it up then chop the remaining leaves and saute all of it in a bit of butter with garlic and mushrooms, its a great side dish. Ruby chard doesn't have that horrid green taste that spinach gets when the leaves get too big, so don't throw any of it away-eat it all!

Lemon chilli prawns in Armona

Lemon chilli prawns

Beach house in Armona

Supper on the verander

Another amazingly relaxing summer holiday on the island of Armona comes to an end.

One of the highlights for me is preparing food on the BBQ.. it's by far my favourite way to cook.

King prawns are so cheap in Portugal it's hard to fit them all on the BBQ.


Lemon Chilli Prawns

3tbsp lemon juice
half teaspoon hot chilli sauce
1 tbsp grated ginger
2 crushed garlic cloves
2 tbsp chopped  coriander
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp honey
20 raw tiger prawns

Combine the first 7 ingredients together in a bowl then coat the prawns. Marinate for 30 minutes then thread onto skewers.

Grill over hot/grey coals for about 3 minutes per side until the prawns are pink.

I made a simple pepper salad to go with it: 

Red pepper salad

4 red peppers
4 tbsp olive oil
4 tbsp chopped coriander
2 crushed garlic cloves
squeeze of lemon juice

Chargrill the peppers over a flame until the skin starts to blister then put them in a plastic bag to sweat.

Meanwhile put all the other ingredients in a bowl. Chop the sweated pepper and add to the bowl, coat evenly.  

Happy holidays!!

Planting garlic

I planted garlic a couple of years ago without success, it rotted in the ground. This year Dean has decided to give it another go. 


He planted two rows-1 inch deep and 5 inches apart - fingers crossed!

Roast cod on spiced Puy lentils

I just had to put this one on...it's so simple to make and absolutely heavenly!




Ingredients:


For the fish- 2 tbsp olive oil mixed with 2tsp of curry powder. 4x cod fillets


For the Lentils- 
275g of Puy lentils ( I cheated and used a precooked packet-which were well worth it £1.99 from Tesco)
1 tbsp olive oil
2 chopped garlic cloves
1 finely chopped red chilli
half a  tsp of cumin
1 red onion
4 tbsp chicken stock
lemon juice
3 tbsp chopped coriander
low fat yoghurt
cayenne pepper.


Method:
Preheat oven to 200c.
If using dried lentils, cook for 20 mins till tender. 
Brush curried oil over fish, then fry in ovenproof pan, skin side down for 2 mins. Turn over and place into oven, cook for 7 mins. 
Meanwhile heat oil in a pan, add garlic, cumin stir for a couple of mins then add the lentils, onion and stock, add lemon juice to taste. Stir in coriander. 
Spoon onto plates and top with cod, dollop with yoghurt and a pinch of cayenne pepper.


Enjoy

My shopping basket today

My Tesco delivery has just been arrived. It's enough food for the next three days...Sticky Chilli Pork, Roast Cod on spiced lentils and Chicken and mushroom risotto soup. Then two lunches-Tomato soup and Mushroom soup, freshly made. I've also got lots of fruit and some decaf coffee....all very lovely but is it really £60 worth of food?

Growbags are so ugly....

...but great for growing tomatoes in. 

I grow my tomatoes in the greenhouse (you can of cause grow them just as well against a sheltered south facing wall) the problem I had last summer that although I dug in a load of organic matter my soil wasn't really good enough. So I've bought growbags, the thing is I find the bright red and yellow plastic a bit of a turn off. So I've half buried some large pots-in the soil, in the greenhouse and filled them with growbag soil-it looks alright! The pots hopefully won't dry out too much as they are sunken but the soil should be good enough. I'll let you know how I get on!

I've raked in some chicken pellets this year, I normally dig out my friends manure pile but to be honest-life is too short to get old horse poo under your nails on such a glorious day like today (It's 21 degrees here today!).

So my lovely garden is already to go, I'm planning on planting my potatoes next week.

Happy gardening.

Brunch before a days racing at Cheltenham

Oh dear, bang goes the bikini diet!

You can't go to Cheltenham races on an empty stomach though (that's my excuse).

Waffles, bacon, mushrooms, hash browns, scambled eggs, tomatoes, beans, sausages...I think that's about it....oh yeah champagne :)

My garden plan 2012

I'm on my fourth year using the raised beds. I only have three beds so I am doing a three year crop rotation. I've just dug out my past garden plans and have based this years plans on 2009.
I've written up my garden diary and feel happy with the things I'm growing. I might put a few tomatoes outside the greenhouse this year aswell as inside and see how they do. I could do with knocking up some sort of netted lid for the strawberry bed ( not on this plan). 


I'm now going to have a look at the state of my seeds, see what I need to go and buy.


I will need to dig some manure of some kind into the soil, probably well rotted horse poo from my friend. Failing that I shall buy chicken pellets-certainly a lot cleaner and easier...I think I've just convinced myself!


I'll do my next blog once I start planting- potatoes in a week or two.


Happy planning x

My dinner tonight- Chicken with white wine and shallots

This is a really tasty and simple recipe. I cooked it last week and decided to cook it again tonight.

Ingredients:

4 chicken breasts cut into nice big pieces.

4 rashers of bacon, diced.

10 shallots, peeled.

a few fresh thyme sprigs.

1 fresh rosemary sprig.

1 tsp chilli flakes

2 tbsp olive oil.

250ml white wine.

preheat the oven to 220oc

Put the chicken, bacon, shallots, rosemary, thyme and chilli flakes into a casserole dish. Season with salt and peper, drizzle with the oil. Roast for 25 minutes or until chicken is browned then add the wine and cook for another 20 minutes until the chicken is cooked through.

Last time I had it with rice. Tonight I'll try it with baby potatoes and broccoli. Alfie found it a bit hot (chilli) last time so I'll put half the amount of chili in tonight.

Bon appetito

Taste book App

This is a fantastic App I've just downloaded onto my iphone... if like me you get to the supermarket car park and don't want to cook the same old safe, back up recipes but have forgotten to plan ahead this is an excellent App. You can search what type of dish you are looking for ie: dessert, main etc, you can also search in terms of main ingredient ie: chicken, vegetables...

You can then select a recipe from thousands- it will show you pictures plus an ingredient list which if you click on will go to a shopping list. You then scroll down for the instructions. It's brilliant.

Bibury Court Hotel- Jazz Wednesday

Having had what seemed like hundreds of children staying over the Christmas break with a constant flow of buying, preparing, eating and clearing up food- Dean and I managed to sneak in a quick lunch at the Bibury court Hotel. Now then I'm not normally a jazz fan but Alfie put jazz FM on the other day and I quite liked it (getting old) So we booked lunch to coincide with the lunchtime jazz on a Wednesday. It was really good!  


We had a delicious lunch then sat in the oak panelled lounge next to the log fire with a Cointreau. The 3 young musicians were great. The main violinist who was exceptional had won the Young Jazz Musician of the Year 2010 - Ben Holder.


Would highly recommend.

Wine tasting at Three choirs Vineyard-Newent

What a perfect day to wander around a vineyard learning all about the vines and grapes, sipping delicious cold glasses of white wine and sparkling Rose.

I didn't know that a vine stays productive for about 30 years.

We had a lovely cheeseboard overlooking the vineyard in a slightly strange glorified shed.

A very pleasant couple of hours....would highly recommend it. We bought our tour and tasting through Groupon it cost £21 per couple.

Westonbirt Aboretum-the enchanted Christmas

Last night we ventured out to Westonbirt Aboretum. The trees were all lit up for Christmas. It was very pretty, there were glitterballs swirling in the branches and bubble machines. You could project your face on a trunk of another tree. The hot chocolate was delicious, especially with Amaretto in!  Bit crowded for my liking though. My pictures don't do it justice, I couldn't see the dials on my camera so took a 'movie' accidently, hence it's VERY short :) 

carrot cake recipe

This is a really easy cake to make-it's always really moist and delicious...everyone loves it.


Ingredients
4 eggs
375g cater sugar
250ml cooking oil
280g plain flour
2tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
375g grated carrots
90g raisins


icing
55g butter
60g soft cheese
250g icing sugar
1tsp lemon juice


Whisk eggs and sugar until light and fluffy.
Add oil and beat well.
Sift dry ingredients together and add to mixture. Fold in carrot.
Pour mixture into lined greased tins (20 cm) cake tins.
Bake in a preheated oven at 180 C for about 30-40 mins.
Once cool turn out and ice.

The world's most shoplifted food

The Observer  food monthly magazine had an interesting feature today.

Who would have thought that the most shoplifted food item is......cheese! followed by fresh meat, chocolate and confectionary, luxury cooked meat and then last of all alcohol... What a bizarre world we live in, imagine stuffing a nice ripe Camembert down your trousers......

maybe not

sweet chestnuts roasting on an openfire

I did a great walk yesterday with my dad, Alfie and Wilfie the dog. Starting at Bromsberrow and walking along a few ridges of the Malvern hills. We got a bit lost along the way and ended up fighting our way out of a magnificent wood. I've never seen so many sweet chestnuts, the floor was covered in them. So I now have a nice pile of the beauties. Alfie and I are going to stoke up the chiminea tonight and roast them in foil.....can't wait