February...according to Instagram

©       Made pineapple jam for pineapple tarts for Chinese New Year

©       Yee Sang on Chinese New Year Eve at Aunty Janice House. It was also the day I gave out my first ang pows

©       Dumpling party with El and Jen at home

©       Dinner with food bloggers (and their big cameras!)

©       Pink © pancakes for Pancake day

©       Spicy Orange Buffalo wings on the coldest day with Federica. Frozen fingers + numb tongue, we must be mad!

©       Valentine’s day flowers from Scott

©       Homemade doughnuts for dessert, made by hubs

©       Home alone so I got crafting for Scott’s Big 30 birthday

©       Alternative cinema under the train arches with El and Lucy, watching Pretty Woman. (young) Richard Gere stole my heart again

©       Revisiting Brixton Market after 4 years and had a lovely meal at Salon

©       Rhubarb in the garden = Signs of spring

©       Scott bought a bike, I named it Randeee

©       Very strong cocktails at St Pancras Hotel

©       Surprised birthday dinner at Dinner by Heston for Scott’s Big 30 birthday (more Big 30 birthday stuff here)

©       A rare Monday morning coffee break with Scott after his Big 30 birthday party

Red, Orange, Yellow, Green Tomatoes

The garden received little love from us this summer as we got busy with the wedding. Of course the too-wet weather doesn't help either! But we did get lucky with a glut of plums that have been turned into jams and plum vodka (hell yea!), handful of chillies, salad boxes and tiny globes of kohl rabi. Surprisingly some of our tomatoes survived the summer and we recently harvested a handful of them. I am hesitant to eat them because they are so pretty but they will be chopped up into a salad sometime this week. We also have a big bowl of green tomatoes which is often the case towards the end of the season....so many never 'make it'...these will end up being roasted up for cheese/pasta

Mission Accomplished!

1) We finally spruced up the cellar entry. Nothing major - a good old scrub, a little bit of paint magic, trusty Dyson to suck up the dusk and we have a more welcoming cellar entry! You would think that a space that small would take no time to get it done but we had to do this over 2 weekends - DIY always always takes longer than expected. The tiny shelves baffled us for a day as we struggled to get the screws in, we were having a 'blond' moment but we got there. Tip of the day: It's all about the tools....get a freaking awesome drill!


2) Salad box for the seasons - you can see the rocket leaves (top left) sprouting out faster than the rest....I would like to believe that is why they are called rocket...for speed of sprouting - very apt! In 2nd place is the mixed leaves salad and in joint 3rd/last place are spinach and cress. Can we deduce from this that popeye is strong but not a fast runner?


3) Rhubarb and strawberry jam - its a known fact that once you see rhubard in your garden/shops you know summer is just around the corner! It is always our first harvest from the garden and it reminds us to get our act together for the rest of the seedling for the season. One jar will be kept for all the 'special' people visiting in August


4) Tomatoes and chillies going strong and ready to be potted outside once the sun decides to show up. We always start with seeds vs. baby plants...cheaper but require some organisation to get it going whilst it is still freezing outside. Look at how tall these are already...so proud!

5) And the biggest accomplishment of all - I got my Permanent Residency approval! Woo hoo. 12 years and counting as a UK resident....crazy how fast time flies. I want to bake to celebrate...but not quite yet. Scott is away this weekend for his stag do (I hope he survives without alcohol poisoning!) and I cannot justify baking a cake just for myself...I cannot...it is bad...bad for my hips and heart function...So I will wait ... to share the fat love

Better late than never

Overall our tomato yield was a little disappointing compared to last year - I think we should stick to cheery tomato varieties next year. BUT...we finally (I know...its almost November!) harvest our tomatoes and check them out! I love the gorgeous shapes and ribs on the tomatoes - these are called Costoluto Fiorentino. Mixed in there are a few tiger toms with subtle dark green stripes

These are going into our risotto tonight - next post!

camera man in the garden

Tony joined us for a weekend BBQ as the weather was scorching last week - probably his last before he goes off for a new adventure in China. Always nice to have a photographer in da house. Scott is not the most willing photographer ...




I wanted to show him my yellow carrots - they make me smile!








happiness in a bowl








I have learnt to show some restraint and not finish everything on my plate if I want to fit into something decent in Septemer - half of these are for my pack lunch tomorrow. Fast learner...

Keeping it interesting in the garden

After last year's garden success and failures - we know we want to get a bit more experimental and plant veggies that are difficult to find / unique. We have great success with these so far...
We were so precious about pulling out these yellow carrots...they grew really well in our garden and we were originally hoping for super long and thick carrots but were tickled pink by what we pulled out instead. I did have my suspicion that the carrots may not come out 'Tesco-perfect' because carrots are fussy plant that need fairly fine soil (i.e. sieved of rocks and old roots etc) which we didnt do! But I love it !! Our first yellow carrots - we have quite a few more in the garden to keep us entertained.

We will definitely plant kohl rabi again next year - so easy and so unique in the garden. This is definately one of those vegs that you just will not get in any supermarket. We just pull them out from the garden - slice away the purple skin, grate it, drizzle a little oliver oil and - voila...yum!


Check this out! Achocha is an unusual vegetable from South America that is pretty easy to grow and does go a bit mental and a vigorious climber. Very productive and most of the fruits are still teeny tiny but we got a couple of bigger fruits. This variety is called 'fat baby' - so cute!! We don't know what to expect with this one - apparently eaten raw it tastes like cucumber, but cooked it tastes like sweet peppers!! Surreal...

Plum season

No I don't mean physically....I meant my plum trees!


Our first harvest for this year - fairly merge looking as I was only picking thoses withins arm's length for a healthy snack tomorrow. Unfortunately I do not think any would be left on the tree come September - you will have to see/taste it in jam format!

Giant harvest

Can I show you what we harvested this weekend?


1 giant courgette
1 kohlrabi (the purple globe - tasty nutty flavour sliced raw in salads)
1 mini cucumber (we got over-excited and harvest it while it's tiny)
2 giant radishes (I know they look small in the picture but trust me they are huge compared with standard radish.The reason they look small is because they are next to the giant courgette!)

So lets focus on the courgette - biggest ever harvest. Fair to say we are proud!

longer than Scott's face...


So heavy it could be used as dumbbells

Still don't believe me when I say it is huge? OK - I didn't want to do this but here goes...
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it is bigger than a cow!


Scott sorted out the garden this weekend ...


...so I made him victoria sponge cake as a thank-you. Or maybe that is a thank-you to myself for going for a run that week. I'm undecided


French doors from the bedroom to garden - One of my favourite spot. You can smell the lavender just standing there

First harvest 2011!!!!

Scott is clearly trying to look nonchalant with his Mona Lisa smile while I was clearly looking very happy! Well chuffed!!!
1 year of waiting and allowing the plant to settle its roots and we can finally harvest our first crop!
Jasmine: it keeps cropping so there will be some left in September for you!


we made strawberries and rhubarb crumble to celebrate! No 'after' picture of the crumble as Scott went straight for the kill when its cooked and slice it up. We are an impatient lot when it comes to eating


since we are on the subject of food...I might as well show you dinner too. Slow cooked lamb - 4 hours of magic in the oven while we work the soil in the garden. My theory is anything cooked for that long will taste amazing - never had a bad stew. I insist you go try it - chuck in the usual stew ingredients; tomatoes, onions, garlic (keep them whole then squeeze out the soft flesh and mix it in or pop it straight into your mouth for garlic heaven), herbs, carrots etc, go do something productive for 4 hours (gardening, online shopping, watching reruns of MadMen, fix all the missing buttons on clothes you chucked in the corner - admit it now! we all have a 'chuck' corner) then say Amen when the kitchen timer goes 'ping'!

Sunshine!!

Summer is coming!!!...the clock has changed... longer daylight...my tulips and daffodils are all out...and my kitchen window ledge looks like this!

lots and lots of corns, tomatoes, carrots, cucumbers and chillies. First batch to sprout. More to go...

Everything is freaking coming back to life!

L: neighbour's flowers that tumbles into my garden so I share the joy!
R: mini red currant flower - they flower first then the raspberries


We decided to make the raised bed at the end of the garden into our fruit section - all the berries and currants. We bought and planted blackcurrants and an additional gooseberry plant - you probably can't see it but its there! I don't think we will get any fruit this year from the new plants (dang!) but like they say...patience is a virtue!

We have grand plans for the garden this year...stay tuned for the great unveiling!

Weekend pictures

FRIDAY NIGHT

Dinner with Ross and Nat - spicy chicken pie, carrot+beetroot+pear salad (recommended! no additional dressing needed), buttered potatoes. Chocolate & Guinness cake. Verdict: more malty than chocolatey..but still very tasty

SATURDAY



Sorcha's 30th birthday party. This is definately another sign of 'adulthood'...accepting invitations for 30th birthday party vs. 21st / 16th birthday parties.

SUNDAY





Spring cleaning the garden - weeding, defining borders, picking up leaves, cutting down dead branches. Check out my plum trees...completely covered in white flower that look like snow in the picture. I am assuming it will be 1 plum per flower (OMG - FAINT!)

Arran Victories Potatoes

We harvested our last batch of potatoes, our most successful batch. Highly recommend Arran Victories potato variety for next year again. The purple hue is a delight to find against the dark soil. It was roasted tonight as part of Scott's roast duck with orange and marmalade main course for Jasmine's last meal at our flat. She was the camera-woman hence the no show on any of the pictures! There will be more farewell dinners coming up next week so I am sure her picture will crop up sometime soon!