In the oven

A kind committee member of TRHA has a garden party in her lovely garden every year. It’s an informal occasion and she provides some lovely food. I had planned on making a quiche, but a French couple who help at the store, also said they wanted to make one, so I decided to make a Spanakopita pie, and turned that idea into mini triangle shaped ones. I got the spinach from the allotment, boy I needed a lot of it! The filo pastry I bought, it was a bit fiddly, I got my friend to try one, after they were cooked and they got the thumbs up. The recipe is here

I have over the last few weeks been standing in for a new friend who works on a garden. She was away for three weeks for her fifteenth birthday. It’s been nice working there, two friendly dogs, and two rag doll cats. The other day, both of the cats were sitting on the car’d parcel shelf, lying in the sun. Unfortunately the second cat moved before I could snap it.

With all the dog sitting, there hasn’t been much time to work on the garden, I have started rectifying that. In the greenhouse, despite the awful weather, the cucumbers are growing with some very small ones appearing now, and after a few of the melons dropped off ( maybe they were not pollinated?) I have a tennis ball sized one growing on nicely.

Also in the garden on a vine bought for us many years ago, the thornless blackberry is covered in fruit. The blackbirds don’t trouble it, if they do, they leave a lot behind! I picked a kilograms worth yesterday and made this blackberry cake ( there are blackberries in the sponge). I think it could do with a few more berries in the sponge, but maybe they are all in one part of the sponge that I haven’t cut yet! The recipe for the cake is here



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Deja Vu

Image
It is the last day of looking after the Cocker Spaniel who lives in the house where  one called Neville used to live. As time goes on the two Spaniels are converging, there are some subtle differences, the  youngster is becoming less black on his back. The youngster is very vocal, he talks non stop. Ignoring him increases the volume of the chatter until you involve him in some way. He loves doing things, non stop, action all day is the name of the game. He loves water, but he won’t swim. It’s been hot, so the walks I have done I have tried to ensure he had the opportunity to cool down. A walk from Aston to Henley, along the river Thames. Pub visit at the Angel on the Bridge. He loved that of course. Another day, another walk. This time around the pub at Waltham St Lawrence, another favourite pub, but we did the walk too early for opening time. Another dip in the lake by Shottesbrook. He found a dead mouse early in the walk, decided to carry it about, but thankfully dropped it!...
Read more

A few days off in the sun

Image
Like many tourists of yesteryear I have just got back from a holiday in North Wales, based in Colwyn Bay where my brother in law now lives. I have stayed there before but many years ago. He was down in our neck of the woods, so I hitched a lift in his MX-5 car to save me using the train or driving. The weather was still nice up there, just a little cooler, with a sea breeze thrown in for good measure. In the evening after we got up there, as  Monday is a quiet night, we had a few drinks in a local bar, where they have a reciprocal arrangement with a local pizza place, you order at the bar, they get delivered to you and you eat them with your beer. Result. All are priced the same. I had Peking Duck ( amazing ), he had Smoked Haddock ( also amazing ). The bar does all sorts of things like film nights, to tempt to punters in. We also had another drink in the local Wetherspoons, which I think was an old cinema, still featuring lots of its old fittings. On the next day we walked to near...
Read more

Remembering two tragedies

Image
After breakfast in my room, I had a leisurely start and left Penzance by foot to Mousehole, not pronounced as it is spelt. I walked through the town, heading to nearby Newlyn, which is a proper fishing village. Along the route was a lovely wide promenade and a Lido, cleverly designed to withstand the force of the sea and heated from a geo thermal spring. It’s called Jubilee Pool because it was built to celebrate George V’s Jubilee in 1935. There was a nice old art deco pub opposite, sadly with the parked cars it was not easy to see its full design. Along the prom, lots of people were walking, and many of them had black Labradors, which was nice as it got me thinking about the one I know who now lives in Oxfordshire, they contacted me today, I might see them next weekend. I carried on into Newlyn, a smaller conurbation with several buildings with a fish themed rectangular mosaic on their front walls, a nod to its fishing heritage which is ongoing. There was a statue to honour all the fi...
Read more