Cheesy but true good life post

It was a beautiful day here in the mountains on Friday. We had the luxury of knowing at least a day of good weather was on the way. On a day like that I am determined to spend the day in the garden. And that's exactly what we did. 

Lunch was homegrown lettuce, french beans, and broad beans, a friends rocket and eggs and the tuna was from Aldi. (Lidl's tuna is much better)

The dressing was garlic, Dijon mustard, balsamic vinegar and an olive oil that we brought home from Spain.

Washed down with our very first attempt at homemade elderflower champagne. 

I wasn't sure what to expect from this drink. We only made it about 3 weeks ago. About 7 bottles. One of the bottles exploded in the shed even though we were letting the gas out every other day. Another bottle didn't seem to be fermenting as much as the others, which is the one we stuck in the fridge and had while sitting in the sun. It is sweet and floral and still fizzy, and absolutely lovely.  

One of the jobs for the afternoon was picking the soft fruit. Redcurrants like dangley earrings will be used for their pectin content in the strawberry jam fest that i am planning for the wetter weather that is forcast for next week.

Great blackcurrants this year, i'm thinking these might be infused in vodka, as the raspberry vodka that i normally make is under question, because the raspberries look half the height they usually are and i'm not sure that they will crop well this year.

The blueberry bush is a great plant. Laden with fruit at the moment, our four bushes enjoy our acid soil and will be picked  several times in the next month, as you can see they don't all ripen at once. Once they have offered up all their fruit, then the foliage goes flaming red and are wonderful to look at. These berries rarely make it into the house. If they do, they are in such small numbers they are snaffled out of the little bowl in the fridge before i can ever do anything with them.

This year I am determined to make a blueberry pie or at very least a batch of muffins.

Who'seberry?

 July was a very busy month for me. Work started on a new extension, and surgery at the end of the month knocked it out of me a bit. But even with out those events, July is always a busy month.

 In recent years my fruit and vegetable garden has become really productive, and July  is a month where just working in the garden and kitchen can keep a girl busy. Lots of things to sow, weed, feed, water, plant out, and of course harvest. I love bringing in the food. 

There are some things that  you just harvest as you need them, the garden becomes like another cupboard in your kitchen. Like making a crumble and popping out to pull an armful of rhubarb, or nipping out to snip a bayleaf, parsley and thyme to tie up a bouquet garni for a slow cook stew.

 Then there are things that NEED  to be picked everyday while they are in season to keep them productive, like mange tout peas and french beans and courgettes, if you skip picking for a day when they are really powering along, they become like triffids and you can be facing a glut. It still amazes me how much growth they can put on in 48 hours. In the rainy summer we've been having, the strawberries go from ready to mushy very quickly, so these too need to be picked everyday.

One of my favourite harvests is the soft fruit. Gooseberries are generally only harvested once, in one sitting. There is a window of a good couple of weeks, where they are ready and can be picked.

 Its a sunny day job. Little Bee and i will get little chairs and sit below the bushes and pick and chat away. Inevitably she will remind me of how sharp the thorns are. She will remind me of how funny it was two years ago when i was bending over picking one bush and i backed onto another and let out a holler as I got pricked in the bum. She was three at the time and thought it was hilarious. Any mention of gooseberries since then, and she loves to tell the story.

The picking in the garden is very satisfying, but it isn't over at that. Food will be wasted if not dealt with efficiently. Gooseberries need topping and tailing, washing, bagging and freezing. Armed with a  small scissors and my 7lbs of gooseberries took about an hour to top and tail. 

Sometimes the occasional visitor makes his way in with the crops. 

This snail was really really tiny,

and this little fella was extremely green.

I'm not sure which one of them was responsible for this very artistic.....

poo initial left on this gooseberry.

For me and my daughter, harvesting gooseberries never fails to dissappoint.

Colourful and not too deer.

Another very early start for me on Sunday morning. Up at 5am and on the road by 5.30. Its lovely having the country roads to myself at that time in the morning. I noticed there were an abundance of rabbits scurrying into the hedgerows as i drove. (Keep thee away from my veggies or i'll run you over)

Selling was slow and steady at the car boot sale and i packed up a little early when rain threatened. The rain never came, but i did get a chance to have a really good mooch around. 

I picked up a crochet blanket for €5 threw it in the washing machine as soon as i got home and dried it off in the sun this evening.  I'm really pleased with it now. I've decided to finish off my very small granny square blanket with lots of rows like this one. It was only looking closely at this one on the washing line that i realized how much more straightforward this pattern is. One ball of wool and off you go till you run out. 

On a multicoloured theme, i picked up these rainbow coloured mugs. They aren't old, I just liked the colours and their potential for space saving, which with my very small kitchen is an important consideration.

They stack.

Not sure i'll use the frame they stack into, but i'll keep it, as I will no doubt sell these on at some point.

 I may well regret this one.....I knew Mr Thrift Bee would question my sanity when i arrived home with this little purchase. He is quite lightweight plastic (the deer, not Mr Thrift Bee) and i thought i could spray him some funky colour.

Or perhaps not.

Source

The white would be cool.

Source

Or if I was feeling a bit glam.

Source

I think he'll come in pretty handy at Christmas.

After I arrived home from the car boot sale, Little Bee was keen to keep up her day long adoration of her father on fathers day, so we decided to make rhubarb crumble for after dinner.

Little Bee using rhubarb leaves as an umbrella.

I cut the leaves off and it was her job to pile them up and take them out to the compost bin. The recent rain meant the leaves were huge.

About a pound and a half of rhubarb, squeeze of lemon, drizzle of water and a couple of tablespoons of sugar.

Top tip: I always make DOUBLE  the quantity of crumble topping and put half in the fridge or freezer for a super quick pud the next time i have a fruit overage. So into the food processor, buzz up 7oz SR flour,   6oz butter and 2oz brown sugar, then stir in 5oz of porridge oats,  use half for to cover the rhubarb and store the rest. It will keep in the fridge for as long as butter would, but you could also freeze it. I had twice as much rhubarb as i needed so the rest went into the freezer, it means I just chuck it all in a dish and have a pudding done any time the range is hot.

In the oven for 40 mins @180 and bob's your uncle.

The resultant crumble was a bit sloppier than usual, in retrospect I probably could have left out the water completely. There has been so much rain recently the big fat stalks were obviously swollen with rainwater.

It didn't detract from its tastiness! And 'Father' approved.

Happy Fathers Day.

Linking to Her Library Adventures and Thrift Share Monday

Homemade Granola

Breakfast cereals are generally full of crap, cardboard with added vitamins. When I'm in health mode it always starts with a batch of homemade granola. A couple of spoonfuls over fruit, yoghurt or a combination of both is my favourite healthy breakfast. It is cheaper, fresher, healthier and more to my own taste than anything i could buy in the shops. This is how i make it.

A while ago this brand of oats were on special offer, I had money off coupons AND some packs had 50% extra free and a best before date of  end 2013. I now have about 15 thrifty kilos of porridge oats stockpiled in the shed!  Apart from breakfast porridge and granola, we would use oats for fruit crumbles, smoothies and flapjacks. 

 I would recommend jumbo oats for this recipe.

2 cups jumbo porridge oats

1 cup mixed nuts (hazelnuts, waltnuts and almonds all with skin on because good for lowering cholesterol)

Chop mixed nuts (but not too small)

Roughly half a cup of seeds (sunflower, pumpkin) you could also throw in coconut, linseed and/or poppy seeds.

Two of my favorite ingredients Vanilla extract and cinnamon - couple of teaspoons each. (to taste) 

2 - 3 tablespoons of olive oil

2 - 3 tablespoons of honey 

 Mix it all together in bowl.

Line baking sheet with foil and spread mixture.

 Put in a lowish oven (160 degrees )and check and stir every 10 mins for about half an hour or until golden brown. 

Allow to cool.

If you want to add dried fruit so so at this stage.

 Store in an airtight container.

Two tablespoons over stewed apple will be my breakfast tomorrow. Mr Bee and Little Bee will sprinkle it generously over vanilla ice cream for dessert after dinner.

De-lish.

Linking to FHCS - Ta-Dah Tuesday

Perfect timing.

Yesterday our postman delivered my latest impulse purchase from Ebay . I came across it on a website which shows auctions closing soon that have no bids and a low starting price, which is supposed to help you find bargains. All that really happens is you make rash decisions, and suffer impulse purchase guilt. 

 But not this time! 

Arrangements had been made for a bunch of us to arrive at a friends house for her birthday, one brought flowers, another the card, another bowls of sweets and popcorn for the kids and i said i would make a cake.

I have a lovely recipe for a very rich chocolate cake, it looks very odd in the making, but every time has been ridiculously good to eat. It is a sort of fudgey brownie kind of cake and really needs no decoration. But it was a birthday celebration and of course once my lovely retro icing syringe was delivered there was no looking back.

The result! 

Ok, its not the prettiest thing I've ever seen. but it was made with love. I had to bring it to her house in the car so i thought it was a good to sort of stick the cake to the plate with a rim of icing. The icing wasn't quite a stiff as it should have been and because i was running short on time, i had to ice it when it was still a bit warm in the middle. As a result, this happened.........

A sort of buttercream volcano.

Driving down the hill from my house i watched as the top layer tried to slide off the bottom layer. Fortunatly my friend lives two minutes away and i had to drive UP the hill to her house. The cake sort of corrected itself on the way up. It looked a bit sloppy but tasted just fine.

I hope she appreciated the very first ripe strawberry from my polytunnel this year.