tomato soup

I had lots of tomatos turning red on the plants in the garden so decided to make some more soup.

I took some vegetables; onions, carrots and celery.


Chopped them up and then put in a pan with a little oil, over a low heat for about 1/2 hour, stirring every now and then.

While they were cooking I went outside and picked the tomatos.

There were loads - a whole colander full. I kept the cherry ones to put in the lunch boxes in the week. Some I saved for lunch - we had greek salad again with garlic and herb foccocia. This has been our Sunday lunch for weeks now, but we love it

I wash the tomatos and cover them with boiling water for a couple of minutes and then skin them.

And chop them up and add to the vegetables. I add some vegetable stock, some herbs and pepper. This is then simmered for about 1/2 an hour.

When it is cooked I blend it with the stick blender until smooth. Sometimes I add a bit of yoghurt to this. Oh and check the flavour.

I then put some in a bowl for lunch the next day. The rest I freeze in these little one portion pots. I made about 14 portions, which is good.

September Sunday

After a very hectic couple of weeks, I had a day off on Sunday and did lots of cooking, but I was so busy taking pictures and cooking that I didn't have time to write the blog, so here goes:

There was a new farmers market at the village hall in the morning so we walked up to have a look. There were only a few stalls, but hopefully there will be more next time. There wasn't really much I wanted as there were two cake stalls and one selling soda bread, one with vegetables and that was about it. So I just bought some eggs and some honey from Clacton-on-sea.


I had wanted to try out a new flapjack recipie that I had found in the BBC Good Food magazine, but found that I didn't have any bananas, so I biked, yes biked to Manningtree to get some and biked most the way home - had to walk up the steep bit of hill.




The flapjacks were lovely very soft and tasty, here is the recipie:

150 g butter, 150 ml maple syrup, 125 g dried cranberries, 2 large mashed bananas, 375 g porridge oats.
Melt the butter with the syrup and then stir in everything else, put in baking tray and cook for about 10 mins or until golden (190 c or 170 c fan oven gas 5).

Oh I forgot I added a handfull of dessicated coconut!

Sat nav bags

Oh dear I haven't written anyting for two weeks, have been a little busy, doing lots of knitting and scrapbooking. I am working on a wedding album for my sister, so can't post any pictures of the pages yet, just in case she sees them before I have finished.



We have a sat nav and Lukey has one for work but they didn't come with cases. When we first got them they had little plastic bags which have now worn out. We didn't want to scratch the screens when they are put in a bag or pocket so needed a case or cover for them. I had looked on the official site and seen the price of them, so decided to knit them! I used the wool left over from my socks for my one and sewed on some sequins and beads that are in my bead box. The other one was made with some cotton left from making a dishcloth, this one had a draw string and embroidered name on the front. I didn't have a pattern for these, just modified a sock pattern and knitted them on 4 double pointed needles - just like a sock! Easy!

Saturday

This is my usual Saturday morning. I go to Manningtree town. This morning I visited The Wholefood store to get my bottles of Ecover washing up liquid and fabric conditioner topped up. Also bought some Kingfisher toothpaste, humus and olives.
On to the library to take some books back.
And then to the market. Fruit and Veg from Darren, today I bought some potatoes, nectarines, sweetcorn, carrots, onions and a cucumber. Not much but we are still eating from the garden.



Lastly my favourite stall. I call it the "Food Stall" They sell all sorts of packets and jars of food, like cake, biscuits, crisps, nuts, sweets and tins and jars. Some items are nearly up to their sell by date, some are well known brands and others I have never heard of. Some is very good quality and some not so. I always have a look to see what bargains there. This week they had Tesco finest teabags - mint, lemon and ginger and chamomile for just 50p for 25 bags, and there is a year until they reach sell by date. The boxes are a bit squashed, but as I am not giving them away I don't mind.

While out this morning I met up with 3 friends had a chat with them all, catching up on what they have been doing.
On the way back picked up a bag of hay for the guinea pigs and home for a well deserved cup of tea and put it all away.

Bread

Today I decided to make some bread. I had a packet of "Wrights" Garlic and Rosemary Focaccia bread mix in the cupboard, and decided to make it. This was very easy, just add water and olive oil and mix, then let it rise and cook.
After that I thought that I would make a loaf by hand and not in the breadmaker as usual. I just followed the recipe on the back of the yeast packet. It was quite hard work kneading it for 10 whole minutes!! I made two loaves.

As there was no cake left and I wanted something for Alice to take for her snack tomorrow I decided to get a "sausage roll" of biscuit mixture out of the freezer and cook. Some time ago and made some orange and cranberry biscuits, there was quite a lot so froze half of it in a roll. When it had thawed a bit, I just sliced it up and cooked the biscuits.

Weekend

The weekend is almost over, a few short days until Alice goes off on her travels and a week until I go back to work.

Alice will leave on Thursday morning to do a six month work placement in Germany. She is so excited and so am I, but I am going to miss her so much.

This is a photo of some annual climbing plants, called Blackeye Susan that I have grown for the first time this year. I planted them in tubs and grown them up some canes.

This weekend I went to the market and they had a good price for plums so I bought 6 pounds to make into wine. I started it off this morning by cutting each one in half, removing the stone and then squashing them by hand - that was fun. Then they were covered with boiling water and left for 48 hours.

Someone I know said he had some Elderberry bushes and that I could go and pick. They were laden with ripe fruit. We picked two large carrier bags full, and after spending hours taking them off the stalks ended up with 7 pounds, which is great. I will be able to make 4 different lots of wine with them. I have put them in the freezer for now, as I don't have the right sort of yeast.

This morning I also racked the strawberry wine and made some fishcakes and froze them. They will be ready for quick dinners when I get back to work

garden changes

This was my back garden taken on a winter day earlier this year. The garden is long and narrow, about 80 foot long. At the bottom is a large sycamore tree which shades a large are. There is an apple tree and a small wildlife pond. By the house is a small patio and the rest is laid to grass.
For the last few years we have tried to grow some vegetables in pots and tubs, with a little success. Last year we dug over a patch of the grass to create a tiny vegetable plot, this was soon filled and we were running out of space to put the pots.



So this year we planned to build some raised beds. We decided that we couldn't move the apple tree so they would have to be built around it.







I wanted this area divided off from the rest of the garden with arches and a flower bed. The first arch was built on an angle to met up with the shed.









The other are was built on an angle on the other side, both of these were lined up with the paths between the raised beds.

Lukey dug the beds quite deeply and pulled out as many roots and weeds as he could.

We then took a trip to Capel st Mary armed with wellies, spades and plastic sacks to get some spent organic mushroom compost. I didn't think that it would smell quite as bad as it did and since then have always given my mushrooms an extra scrub. We went to a place along the Harwich Road that sells wood chips and bagged up our own. This was laid on the paths between the bed. I think that it looks lovely and have spent a lot of time in my "vegetable garden".



Soon they were planted, growing and now we are harvesting. For the last 3 weeks I have been picking a handful of runner beans each day. I grew them with some borage and sweet peas









This is a picture of the cabbages, sweetcorn and beetroot.

We have grown: potatoes, onion, cabbages, carrots, spring onions, beetroot, swiss chard, lettuce, cucumbers, sweetcorn, runner beans, courgettes, butternut squash, coriander, peas and tomatoes.

I have also got french beans growing, these were put in late, in a gap I had to see what will happen. We have planted some winter vegetables- purple sprouting broccoli, leeks and brussel sprouts. They are covered with netting to keep the butterflies off as they lay eggs which turn in to caterpillars who eat the leaves. Our butterflies are very clever as they have managed to get in and we are picking off the caterpillars!

I still don't think that I have enough room to grow what we need so have put my name down for an allotment, I am number 10 on the waiting list. I think that I may be waiting some time.