Walking

The last two days I have been for a walk to escape the city I live in and to go foraging. I came home with tons of blackberries, elderberries and crab apples. I also took a few photos.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I loved these cows. They have the cutest faces and they were very friendly. 

I shall make another post about the stuff I found when I figure out what to do with it!

Gratitude Sunday

Joining Taryn in this heartfelt tradition. A time to slow down, to reflect and be grateful.

This week I have been grateful for

- early mornings when no one else is around

-plenty of rain - not only has it filled up my new water butts it has meant I haven't needed to water the plants

-my other half for setting up my new water butts

- my new table. For the kitchen and also it is big enough to use my sewing machine. I got it for free from the in-laws.

- an excellent find in the charity shop, I found some huge 100% cotton curtains for £5 and a really good book on herbs and their culinary and medicinal uses was only 40p. 

Foraging

I love stuff for free, I mean who doesn't?! I especially love free food and that's why I love foraging so much. As a child I used to go blackberrying and scrimping on my own and with the grandparents. On my old walk back from college I often bought home apples and blackberries which meant only one thing for desert... Crumble. One of my favourites. Yum.

If you need any more inspiration for foraging I suggest watching this video: http://www.eatweeds.co.uk/soulseekers, The video gets across the pashion for wild food Robin
 has, I love Robin's blog, it had loads of great recipes for wild food and hints and tips about what
 to find at what type of year.

There's a local park near me which is fab for foraging so I set out with my equipment...

A good selection of plastic containers, set out and two hours later came back with this:

Blackberries in the top container, rosehips under that and raspberries at the front. I also found sloes, which

 are not ready yet and lots of new stinging nettle growth, I didn't bring any gloves with me so I couldn't pick them :(

 I made stinging nettle soup once and it was very tasty. I also read on Robin's blog nettles make very good pesto so I shall try that one day.

What is your favourite forage and the recipes which go with it?

Baking time

I have been really excited lately with the start of the new series of the Great British Bake off. I love the show to death and it's a great inspiration the get new baking ideas and tips. It started last night but I didn't catch the end because I fell asleep!

Yesterday I was craving sweet treats, especially the biscuit variety, so I begin hunting for recipes. I eventually came across one of Mary Berry's one for lavender biscuits. I changed it slightly so here is my version.

It was amazingly simple and I have plenty of lavender hung up in the garage so I can make plenty more.

The recipe is as follows:

175g of butter

125g of sugar

225g of plain flour

About two table spoons of dried lavender.

The easiest way to measure the lavender is to pull the flower heads of the stalk and the measure.

The recipe says to chop the flowers up but I left them whole. Pre heat the oven to 150C.

Next step is to cream the sugar and butter and add the lavender. Then add the flour. My mixture was. Little too dry at this stage and wasn't coming together particularly well so I added a dash of milk.

Then you need to work the mixture together then roll it into a long sausage, some people may find it easier to make two smaller sausages. Roll out the sausages depending on how big you want you biscuits and then let the dough rest in the fridge to firm up for around half an hour.

Once your dough is firm, slice the dough into biscuits, place on an oven tray and bake for around 15 minutes until they are golden brown.

 

They are the perfect go-to mid morning snack, especially with a cup of mint and fennel tea.

Garden update 19/08/2013

Today the weather great, lovely and sunny. Unusual british summer weather. But even so, the plants seem to have exploded with growth.

The brassicas are doing excellent, apart from those sneaky caterpillars munching my plants.

The nasturtiums have also started growing well. 

The radish roots are swelling now, not long to go.

Tomatoes have just started to turn red.

The plum tree is starting to look heavy.

And the potatoes are growing every day.

Also another set of chillis are on their way! See the buds

I have also picked my first blueberry, it was fantastically tasty. Made a mini fruit salad from strawberries, raspberries and blueberries. Very tasty but didn't last long enough for me to take a photo.

Gratitude Sunday

 

This week I have been grateful for the sun and the rain we have had. This has meant my tomatoes are starting to get red.

I am also grateful for the lovely wedding I was invited to yesterday.

Tahkli Spindle

Helloooo, I hope all is well.

I bought myself a tahkli spindle to have a go at spinning some different fibres. The tahkli spindle was said to have been invented by Ghandi; so people could spin cotton as a way to provide for themselves. It is small and transportable and great fun.

I have also bought some silk, in my favourite colour purple. It is soooo lovely to spin. The only thing I could think to use as a mini-niddy noddy was a loo roll! Is there anything a but more presentable I could use?

The cotton has also turned out really good.

Just need to think of a project or three to use them now!

Gratitude Sunday

Today I am incredibly grateful for the lovely weather we are having today. This means I have done loads of gardening and managed to get lots of outdoor things sorted.

I am also grateful for trying new things, I bought myself a tahkli spindle and have had a go at spinning cotton and silk.

Also, I found the first ripe blackberry of the year.

My new food dehydrator

I brought myself a present... A food dehydrator! Ta-dah!

I bought it so I could process my produce in a healthy way. It's been running non-stop since I got it.

Here it is in action, making sweet potato and potato crisps. If you head over to pintrest I started a board collecting recipes.

Here are some dehydrated tomatoes which I am storing in olive oil with garlic, oregano and basil. Mmmm makes me hungry just thinking about them.

Here are some "cookies". They are basically mashed bananas, cocoa, vanilla paste and oat flour. Very tasty.

Here is fruit leather. Again very easy to do, just cook two apples down until soft, add in some blueberries and blitz with the food processor until it looks like baby food. Spread it out thin on some baking parchment and dehydrate until it is leathery. About 12 hours. 

I have also made jerky. It is very tasty.

Let me know your favourite recipes so I can give them a go.

Spinning/dyeing update.

I spun this wool a while ago, but only have just gotten round to dyeing it. I have changed my method from using the microwave to using the oven, it seems to make less smell which my boyfriend was very pleased about.The kicthen tends to smell like what I decribe as pickled sheep.

I love love love the colour. It reminds me of the sweets called fruit salads.

Garden Update 5/08/13

Today the weather has been rubbish. It's been all gloomy and wet.

But luckily the plants don't mind getting soggy. All the beds are growing well, but my cabbages are attracting loads of butterflies, I must remember to go and get some netting to prevent them from laying eggs.

We have a new arrival too, a blueberry plant! We had a trip to the DIY shop and got some things to repair the shed as well as some much needed garden supplies.

Also tomatoes are coming along nicely too. Looking forward to them. I have split up my strawberry plants too. I was just jamming all the runners into the same pots. And after I counted them I had 9 plants which mean I have trebled the amount of strawberry plants.

Some more raspberries will be ready too soon!

Gratitude Sunday

 

Planting mad.

Today, I received 64 brassica plants. 16 each of kale, cabbage, white sprouting broccoli and spring greens. Planted them as soon as possible, in the midday sun. Phew, I was sweating buckets by the time I had finished. Little bit squashed in my raised beds now, I shall probably pick some for baby leaves to thin them out and see how we go.

Also harvested some cayenne chillies, I will make some fermented hot sauce - like Tabasco. I am also planning on drying some out and adding them to some olive oil for dipping bread. 

These chillies are off of the bigger of the two plans. My other one isn't doing too well, does anyone know the cause of the chillies doing this?

Back onto the hot sauce. Easiest method I found was to toss the peppers into a clean jar, add some garlic cloves, salt and water.

 

And saving some seeds of course. :)