So what's for tea!

There is something very satisfying when you can walk in to your vegetable patch, and pick all the ingredients you need for tonight's tea!
Our allotment has turned into a jungle. Just having a fortnight away, a fortnight without picking, tidying and nurturing has turned our veg patch into a wild overgrown, mess - no that's not entirely fair, seen from our kids point of view our allotment has turned into an outdoor edible supermarket! They disappear down the rows, searching for the last peas, daring each other to see how much rocket they can eat that has turned quite 'hot' tasting and popping sweet cherry tomatoes into their mouths whole as if they were sweets.
And for tonight's tea, our first corn on the cob, light yellow in colour, its paleness making the kids wonder twice about them, until tasting them and all three declaring that it was the best sweetcorn they had ever tasted. Freshly dug up potatoes, a task done with the help of the kids, who squeal with delight when they find them hidden in the soil. Runner beans, which the kids now believe (thanks to their dad) that by eating them, they will run faster!! Tomatoes, in different shades of reds, yellows, and orange, some round, others the shape of strawberries, some the size of your hand, others so small they look like berries but all so tasty, and so fresh smelling. And then the courgettes, impossible for me to forget as while we where away, these lovely courgettes have grown into huge 'marrows'. And they are now part of our meal every evening in some manner. But I am not complaining, this time of the year, late summer is a time for a gardener (or his wife!) to indulge and feast upon the fruits of ones labour. To eat and enjoy and my word we all indulging in that!

When all else fails ................

Thank goodness for tomatoes!

We've had a really disappointing growing year.  

After our nightmare with pea thrips, all our legumes came to very little, which was a shame for the boys, as #2 pointed out as he was ramming the last few tiny peas we found on the rather decaying plants into his mouth, "I like the peas out here, just not the peas in the house" referring to the shop bought peas lying in our freezer.

Out of a dozen or so runner bean seeds sown only a handful appeared and well lets just say they have only just started "running"! The borlotti and french beans have struggled and the sweetcorn is only just looking like we might get a crop.

But who can blame the veg! They started life in a heat wave, struggling for shade and gasping for water

and then they have spent the last two months sat in doom and gloom, and in wind and rain, in what has got to be a couple of disappointing summer months.
So the tomatoes that have been growing in the greenhouse, and have over the last few weeks been producing bountiful amounts of fruit, are a complete treat.

We've had tomato salads, roasted tomatoes with garlic, and gorgeous small yellow cherry tomatoes that don't make it into the house, let alone out of the greenhouse! But even though our allotment hasn't kept us in veg, the generosity of our fellow allotmenteers has. We've had gifts of runners, kale, cabbage, lettuce,and summer squashes, some swapped for soft fruit, which we have done well with this year and some just because!

So with our presents and let's not forget the courgettes which seem to be able to solider on regardless, we haven't gone hungry!

The garden takes over!

The gorgeous sunny days that we have been having lately has meant that sewing of an evening has been replaced by watering our veg patch and greenhouse. I'm not complaining, as its amazing to wake everyday to sunshine but with our water butts now completely empty, watering from buckets out of the stream bordering the allotments is quite hard work. Though we are already beginning to reap our rewards.

The kids are munching through our best crop of strawberries ever, I am happy to be left with our patch of wild strawberries which I prefer, the boys choosing size over taste! We also picked our first crop of peas yesterday. None of them made it as far as the kitchen. It brings me much delight to watch the boys sitting on the allotment amongst the veg snacking on peas. I have very clear memories of my sister and I on holiday in Wales sitting podding peas, it was a case of eat one, put one in the bowl!

Our rhubarb is still going strong. I'm hoping to get one more picking before it's time to let the plant rest. It's become a great trading item on the allotments. In return for rhubarb we have had courgette, squash and tomato plants which is great as we're been behind on our sowing. I've also stumbled across some different rhubarb recipes. Rhubarb and ginger cake was delicious, the rhubarb helping to make the cake lovely and moist. On the same site I found a rhubarb relish recipe. It made less than two jam jars and I served it at a small family barbecue we had the other week. I was concerned that I had added too much chilli but seeing as I only have a spoonful left that obviously wasn't the case. It went down very well, so I'm definitely going to be making more. 

I'm also keen to try this recipe for rhubarb bread. I used to make a lot of bread before #3 came along so I'm looking forward to filling the kitchen once more with the smell of freshly baked bread. We cooked our first meal last week using our conger. We cooked it in an onion and tomato sauce with potatoes, the recipe called it a soup though it turned out more like a stew. The fish was tasty, with the flesh being very meaty. As for bones well I can't imagine eating it in a restaurant as we sat there with kitchen roll at the ready, the bones made it fiddly but it was still worth it, which is a good thing considering how much is still in the freezer!

 
The sunshine really has made the flowers bloom. Just when we were giving up on the clematis as it usually gets clematis wilt before it flowers it has produced the most gorgeous velvety deep purple flowers, The climbing rose has an abundance of flowers on it. It wasn't until today that I noticed it rambling happily through our neighbours trees!

The gazania's open up every morning soaking up the heat,a bit like lizards basking in the sun!
The white clematis not wanting to be out done by the purple one has produced flowers the size of your hand.

Inspired by this lovely lady Mr D and I are attempting elderflower champagne for the first time. It's busy doing it's thing in a quiet corner of the house, if their is such a thing. We're quite excited about making this drink and Mr D is busy planning more hedgerow brews, with help from his Father's Day pressie.

Our redcurrants are nearly ready for picking and if we get to the gooseberries before our chickens do it looks like a bumper crop. So I'll soon be making jam, talk about being kept busy!!

Let's all do the conger!

How do you spend your evenings?

Ours last night took an unexpected turn, when this rather large creature turned up!

One of our neighbours loves going sea fishing but he and his family don't like fish! This I thought was quite a shame all that fresh fish and nobody to eat it! So last night there was a knock at the door and not being one to say no to some free food, a bin bag was handed over and inside along with lots of other great catches was this huge conger eel!

 The only problem was how exactly do you skin a conger.

 With a pair of pliers it seems and some brute force!

The fork through its body was for me to try and hold it steady whilst Mr D tried to pull the skin off. It wasn't the quickest of operations and not for the squeamish but we got there in the end and have now a freezer full of scrumptious fish.

So tonight I'm searching for recipes. Apparently it has sweet tasting flesh but unfortunately plenty of bones. I'm thinking soups and stews, plenty of onions and tomatoes a bit of garlic and handfuls of parsley. Any suggestions are more than welcome!

Sticky Date Cake

Sometimes you stumble upon a recipe that you just have to share.

Oh how I wish I could pass you a piece of this cake, I'm sure they'd be enough to go around.

I've been meaning to give this recipe  ago ever since I saw it on the Hairy Bikers, and yesterday after convincing the boys that not all the cakes we make in this house need to be chocolate we set about gathering all the ingredients. And boy does it use some dried fruit.
 It really is a lovely simple recipe or would have been on a normal day. I think at this point I should rename the cake to "pause cake" or "cake with interruptions" as these names would be a lot more appropriate.

So with the fruit softened we have pause 1, nursing #3.

One full baby later we mix in the flours, but as the nursing took so long its already lunchtime and Mr D arrives home so pause 2.

Now unfortunately #1 whose at home with a nasty cough, takes a turn for the worst so we end up heading off to hospital so he can go on a nebulizer. So cake mixture is left sat in bowl alone in kitchen.

3 hours later we return home having narrowly avoided an overnight stay in hospital and luckily with #1 breathing improved to a mixture looking very sorry for itself. 

Now I'm not one for eating cake of an evening, I'm very much more an afternoon tea and cake girl, but once the smell of baking is wafting in the air and I remove the ("take all day") cake from the oven, I couldn't resist trying a piece even with Mr D commenting on the fact that we're about to have our tea!
Now if the day had gone according to plan and I'd had that first yummy warm piece in the afternoon I'd been very tempted to have some cream with it. But even eating it stood in the kitchen surrounded by dirty dishes and with tea cooking away on the stove it tasted delicious. So lovely and moist.

It was just what I needed after the afternoon we'd had, definitely a cake for mending the soul. And as quite a bit has already been eaten and with #2 declaring it takes like chocolate cake, I don't think it'll be around for long.