Garden update

A few successes out in the veg patch. 

I'm very pleased with the cucumbers. I'll try that big one soon.

Green beans managed to survive some of the slug attack.

Peppers are alive but unlikely to bear fruit in time.

Same with the squash but a girl can hope.

The broccoli looks great.

Neighbour gave me some of his runner beans which I've fried with the mildly successful garlic and some random tasty herb. Tossed with pasta, olive oil, salt and pepper. Nom nom.

Baking Bread

I am out of bread for lunches, so I baked some this evening.  I think it shall be perfect for lunches.  Just a strong white loaf with sunflower seeds.

Om yom yom

Another weekend in the garden

Spent more time in the garden. Not sure if I'm improving things, but it's nice to just go out there and not worry about anything except what to do with all the soil I'm moving around.

The bulbs are showing their pretty colours.

I've had some strawberry plants in plastic tubs, and they were never very productive, so I've pulled them all out and planted them in the formerly weed-strewn side patches.  Hopefully they'll be productive and make lots of new plants for all future renters.

The raised bed is finally constructed and filled with soil.  Found a tub of 'poultry manure' in the shed, and thought 'oh I'm sure that will be good for the veggies.' Due to its age, and damp, and flys laying larve, yeah that was a most foul smelling tub of shit. It better make the plants happy or I'm going to cry for the wasted effort.

The back of the raised bed is constructed of bricks partially buried in the ground. I didn't have enough to make a wall, and I'm unwilling to buy anything because of the empty wallets. Eco-gardening? Sure, let's go with that.

Weekend Gardening

I've rearranged the front of the garden and found an ugly plank of cement to use as a retaining wall.  I'm trying to use only that which is already in the garden.  I've moved all the plants at the front to places further back in the garden to make room for a raised bed where I shall do my best to grow (read: kill) vegetables.

Probably another weekends worth of work before it ready for seeds. My poor rough, blistered hands. 

Gardening

So I've spent all of three days work in the garden trying to hack back all the wildness the previous renter's garden negligence.

Last november I spent about 4 hours on the last warm day pulling down the ivy which had decided to take control of several trees and creating quite a dark corner of the garden over the grass. The removal of said ivy really brightened up the place.

Last Sunday afternoon I used my shiny new brown wheelie bin to dispose of all the ivy i cut down and proceeded to conduct a serious ground cleaning of squirrel planted trees, dead bushes and weeds.  That left the garden looking just so:

Aww, snowdrops.

mussles with pasta, potato and brocc.

Tonight for dinner: Mussles from Marks and Spenser.

The mussles came in their own cream sauce so it was easy to throw a couple cloves of garlic and let them simmer.
In another pan I had pasta starting, I sliced up a potato rather thinly and chopped some purple sprouting broccoli, then threw them in the pasta water to cook up.

Took the mussles out of their shells, reduced the cream sauce, dash of pepper. Drained the cooked pasta et al. and mixed together with the cream and mussles and presto: Fabulously tasty.

Roasted Tomato S'p

So I've had This Recipe in my saved folders for ages, and since I started my food adventures, it seemed like the perfect thing to give a go.  I've not made tomato soup from scratch before. I see a lot more of this on the horizon.

I love this website, it has a lot of amazing recipes that look delicious.  The author is subtly vegetarian, but they dont advertise it anywhere, as far as I can tell.  You only notice when there are chunks of tofu used in recipes instead of chicken or fish, but it's so unobtrusive. I don't feel like I'm browsing a meat-free site, just a food lover's site. Lots of inspiration, have a look.

French Toast

Enjoyed a fantastic chicken club sandwich at Maison Blanc on this brioche bread.  I hypothesized with my friend that this bread would be awesome as french toast, and so I bought half a loaf and commenced with the french toast dinner. the results:

It took a very long time to figure out how to make it pretty, and I'm still not convinced that it is, but it was exceptionally tasty.  Topped with apple and clementine slices and a cinnamon apple sauce.

Pizza time

For dinner tonight I made pizza from scratch (mostly).  Home made base. Toppings include pizza sauce from a jar, pepperoni, red peppers, mushrooms, broccoli, cheddar, mozzarella, and parmesan. 

And it was delicious.

Snackfood

 I haven't decided what i'm going to do with this blog-space, but to start it off, I'm taking pictures of the things I've eaten lately. 

In an effort to think more about what I'm eating I'm going to enforce a little Presentation Challenge on it. 

This way I have to make a bit more effort and hopefully manage a bit of portion control.