Would you look at my little stall? Full to bursting! I have 2 shiny new customers thanks to facebook...need all the help I can get. I'm understanding why dad stopped doing what he classed as 'tiffles' years ago. Cabbages, sprouts, lettuces, pumpkins, courgettes, beans, beetroot. None of them did dad grow. It was cos whn you do most of it alone its just too much. There are not enough hours in a day! Every moment I'm not picking things I'm hoeing things. then theres the cooking and housework, dog walking and washing. The garden is a mass of weeds :( the dehydrator is up and running as the last of the onions from last year are getting close to going icky. So now I have a very large jar of dried onion :) The grape vine has gone insane again (it must have hated dad keep cutting it back!) and we will have grapes up the yingyang! blackberries already on the bushes...everything is early!
The patty pans have gone insane too! and the bunched carrots are lovely. No ones buying them but they taste lovely! I'm sure everyones gone on holiday. At least my customers have!
Keep having mini meltdowns...mainly after things have been done by me and no one else...yes, I know, I am the fairy....
(I drew a new wheelbarrow fairy, she's got a bit more attitude!)
Sometimes the fairy gets to the stage where she has had enough. I think its when I've been bitten by bugs, sweated out a gallon, and been nettled on the ankles!! And I can still see another 100 things that need to be done! Is this what it is to be woman? Or fairy?
Hohum...girls night out on friday (sorry Jim!) and hopefully I've persuaded more 'girls' to join us!
BBS x sorry I've been absent :-P
So...its been jolly hot around here...and would you take a look at my patty pan squash! They are going mad and as I've never grown them before I had no idea what to expect! Next year I'll be prepared to expect ALOT! And as its been so hot I did what mommy used to do..I hoed in sandals...as you can see it gives you a great 'fen tan' on your feet and ankles!
Then again my hands aren't much better!!!!
The courgettes are going insane....now that I did expect!
But they are just so pretty! I've made zucchini bread, but its still cooling. When I cut it I'll show you. Quote of the day comes from OH when he asked what I'd baked, when told courgette cake he said..."I'll not be trying that". Well guess what sweetie, I aint baking anything else till you HAVE tried it!
Got the old singer out again as I found what appears to be old tablecloth fabric in dads house!
So I ran up a dress for something to do:) It has now been dyed green, as white is a stain waiting to happen!
Weeting Rally at the weekend...lots of loading and unloading of tractors and a minor meltdown for me when it finally got to me that dad wasn't there :( He loved the gallopers...and so did I...just ask mommy how much I loved roundabouts as a child!
And the steam engines were beautiful, some serious shining going on there!
Alot of tractors and alot of people, even though it was 32 degrees on saturday, least it didn't have too much rain.
And lastly isn't it funny how you change as you get older. DS had a go on the chairoplanes...when I was young I loved them. But I found myself looking at how they were attached at the top and noticed they just hook on! I am old...next I'll be checking the bolts :)
Life is busy busy...picking, digging, hoeing, friday I'll start bunching, been eating greengages till I actually had to sell them!
BBS x
And you'll probably end up with thousands! I have grown far too many again...nothing new there! But I have a new use for them...
Courgette balls!
1 cup of courgettes...shredded and moisture squeezed out (I used more than a cup)
1/4 cup poptato, shredded and squeezed.
small onion...shredded
1/4 cup cheese (I used cheddar and parmesan)
1/2 tsp salt
6 tbsp flour
Flour wash (flour and water paste!)
Breadcrumbs
Oil for deep frying
Mix it all together. take rounded teaspoons and roll in flour wash then breadcrumbs.
Deep fry @ 190 degrees till they are golden brown. We had ours with sweet chilli sauce and mango chutney, and DS is gonna try them with chipshop curry sauce!
Not the healthiest way of eating one of your five a day! But very tasty!
MMMM green!!
BBS x
So many things, so busy...fairy running around like crazy! Patty pan squash are getting bigger.....and what dad used to call 'mellybellies' which are cherry plums or wild plums, are ready too...
Which is kinda why I'm a green fairy. Everytime I pass the trees I'm eating them and filling my pockets...Oer!
DD came to see us at the weekend so I made some cheese and tomato sourdough rolls...
They were yummy! But they don't last long and its too hot to put the oven on now! 25 degrees so far today!
As you can see DS enjoyed her rolls!!
We'd ran out of cookies agin! So DD 'helped' make some. What a poser! She looks beautiful even when baking :)
then we picked a couple of apples to try out the new Aldi apple peeler! It works really well and DS ate the sour apple slices it produced. He must have a cast iron stomach!
DD in my friends strange mask...nothing more I can say about that!
On Sunday I was off after more cherry plums and the heavens opened...and I got very, very wet!
But it was worth it!
Lucy decided to 'help' me :)
And now the greengages are ready too!! And yes, I've been eating them as well as the cherry plums! Definitely green! But they taste so good :)
And another dress full of plums! No pockets in my hippy dress so its a good job the road was quiet cos I'm sure passers by would have seen my big pants! Plums are more inmportant than modesty!!
And of course I'm still hoeing like a daft woman and still keeping on top of it all! And picking courgettes, and potatoes. Busy busy fairy!
BBS x
What would you buy if you had a £5 Morrisons voucher you found in the glovebox of the car? Something sensible? Nope, not me. I went online to see what was on special offer or vegetarian for DS's girlfriend before we went. Wrote a list. Very sensible. And then I saw this. Scooby doo pasta. Yes I bought it. And we had delias meaty pasta bake and I was like a small overjoyed child everytime I recognised a shape!!
And look in my overall pocket. Yellow and green courgettes. I don't know why I love them so much...might be the colours, the shine. Just love them..so choppy choppy...sizzle sizzle and a yummy side veg with the pasta bake!
And as that was far too healthy....
A big wodge of choccy fudge brownie for desert!! And look what else is coming up.....Patty pan squash! See, I get excited over squash of all kinds..they are just so groovy:)
And there are enough courgettes to sell some now too, not just eat as many as I can cram in!
I am a happy little fairy! Even though its been raining and I know it'll make the weeds grow like mad! I'm thinking of how much it will make the squash grow too:)
BBS x
I made cookies didn't I? I'm sure i did! Well the tin was empty again and as it was a rainy day i thought I'd do a serious batch! But before I'd even managed to get them into the tin 3 had dissappeared!
Ok..cookie recipe.
These are soft cakey cookies, not crunchy biscuits.
4oz marg creamed with 4 oz sugar
Add an egg, a few drops of vannilla essence, mix then fold in 6oz plain flour with a tsp of bicarb mixed in.
You're supposed to add choccy chips at this point,
(I use chopped up 30p chocolate to make chunks instead, about 1/3 bar to a batch) but I have learnt that they burn on the bottom so its much better to drop them on the top of the cookies before baking at 160 degrees for 12-15 minutes. In my oven they take 13 minutes exactly. They don't get really brown but i think thats my oven.
I made 50 cookies!!! Then I decided to cost them!
With Aldi ingredients it cost £1.71 for 50! Not including gas.
3 1/2p a cookie :) DS says they taste like big supermarket ones which cost £1 for 5!!! So a treat at a bargain cost if you ask me and everyone loves them. Jones the steam has had 4 already! OH has had 6 so far..They don't last long do they!
The little box is nearly empty!!
It doesn't look like this now! I like to make my menfolk happy...whats that quote..."Its like they're eating a part of me"..creepy but true :)
BBS x
Can you guess what I put in my little stall today?? Its small and green and not a frog...
Awww aint they sweet? They average about 3-4 inches long :) Size isn't everything!! And they're lovely and sweet and tender and nothing like the ones in the supermarket. And if I can't sell them guess what we're eating this week!! Joy :)
Two 25kg bags of potatoes for the chipshop:) Took me a couple of hours to do because the machines won't fit in the rows yet so they were done completely by hand!! But I do love the fact they go to the local chippy :) And DS turns them into chips!
MORE white chocolate chip cookies...and by the time i thought theywere cool enough to put in the tin three were missing! So theres a fudge brownie cooling in the kitchen as we speak :) Yum!
And another of my mid life moments.....
Hahahhaa I'm blue...I feel like a water fairy in this one...and still I cannot surprise anyone...DS's boss said she wouldn't be surprised by anything I did!! They are accustomed to my strangeness....does that make me normal? Ok, so I definitely have suitable 'hair' for the next night out....now for the outfit!!! I have a cunning plan...
BBS x
Today I got called a lovely lady. That made my day! And it was by lovely Maurice who is 83 years young and really likes my potatoes :) He came on saturday and bought some and wants more for tomorrow. And he told me a poem he'd been taught by his father when he was young, and bless him he wrote it down for me so I'll share it with you too.
Months of the year
January brings the snow,
makes our feet and fingers glow.
February brings the rain,
thaws the frozen lakes again.
March brings breezes, sharp and shrill,
shales the dancing daffodil.
April brings the primrose,sweet,
scatters daisies at our feet.
May brings flocks of pretty lambs,
scorching round their fleecy dambs.
June brings tulips, lillies, roses,
fills our childrens hands with posies.
Hot July brings cooling showers,
strawberries and gilly flowers.
August brings the sheaves of corn,
then the harvest home is born.
Warm September brings the fruit,
the sportsmen then begin to shoot.
Fresh October brings the pheasant,
then to gather nuts is pleasant.
Dull Novemeber brings the blast,
then the leaves are whirling fast.
Cold December brings the sleet,
round the fire and christmas treat.
Isn't that lovely, and he must have learnt it seventy odd years ago. I love my customers!!
It must be my potatoes....
Look at the size of those little devils!! Two bags off to the chipshop tomorrow :) And I snuck four in the house for tea....
Baked new potatoes? Who'd have thought that was a good idea...not me...but the lovely lady from the chip shop said they were good, so we gave it a go...
MMM cheese...homemade coleslaw and beans :) Joy of simplicity.
And then there was the cookie moment...
White choc chip...smarties and....
Triple choc chip :-0 white, dark and milk choc...I make a batch of each on saturday morning...there was one left today! The boys seem to love the white choc and if it cools off in the kitchen at some point I'll make them another batch! Gotta look after the boys :) Especially as DS is now officially a trainee:)
