Sauce, Soup and Sewing

Be patient with me. This is the second time I've written this post having accidentally hit the close button before it was saved to draft...

So, where was I?

This year was a bit of an experiment when it came to growing tomatoes. At least it was supposed to be . Unfortunately, here in the Northern Hemisphere, the winter pointedly refused to exit stage left as per its script, and hung around far longer than it was welcome. This meant that the tomato plants couldn't go out when they should have and were far lankier going in the ground than was ideal. Still, in they went and after some feed and only one demise, they romped off and have been fruiting for a while. It's getting to that kind of time here when the harvesting period starts in earnest and today's chore is to pick some of these...

 

The idea this year was to try an experiment to see which varieties performed the best so that we could concentrate on them another year. Unfortunately, with the weird weather throwing a spanner in the works, this hasn't exactly gone to plan. And it seems that ones that have completely underperformed for me have been doing just fine for my Dad. So, we'll see.

 

I'll also be picking some of these...

 

 

I just wash them and freeze them whole. This enables me to grab one whenever I need one for something. They take moments to start to defrost and are easily chopped up in the early stages of this process. Actually it's far easier to do it then as they can go a bit limp if you let them defrost entirely prior to cooking.

 

I also wanted to share some new fabric with you...

 

 

 

LIBERTY!

 

Back in May, I had a letter printed in Sew Magazine and as a prize, received a £10 Sew Box voucher. I finally got around to spending this and put it towards some Liberty fabric. Being pricey, I only got a metre but I'm hoping to make a simple skirt out of it. It's cotton lawn so should hang nice and floaty. I may well do a toile version with something less precious before snipping into my lovely prize. I'll keep you posted, but just thought I'd share the joy of Liberty in the meantime!

 

In the meantime, happy sewing and harvesting! 







 

Back After A Blogging Break - With Tomatoes!

If you follow this blog regularly, you'll have noticed I've been absent for a little while. Apologies for that. I had some craziness going on with my writing and it ended up forcing the blogs to the back burner. But I'm hoping to be able to get back to blogging more regularly so for those of you that have stuck around - thanks! And I hope you enjoy the upcoming posts!

So! We've actually had a bit of a proper Summer in the UK which after last year's washout, and the fact that Winter seemed very reluctant to exit stage left, has been a pleasant surprise. The garden has been a bit odd though, as because it stayed so cold for so long, things have taken a while to get going. I have a bunch of tomato plants which are now doing pretty well, but none of them have got a heavy crop, and I think it's because they just couldn't get going early enough.

 

This was the scene back at the start of June. They were still looking a little pathetic and sorry for themselves. One of them in fact died off a short time after this was taken so a replacement was popped in his place. As you can see, I planted them in old chimney pipes. This allows me to put them in deeper (as the bed is fairly shallow) and also helps keep them from drying out too much. They don't look the prettiest but frankly once the tomatoes take hold, you don't see too much of them.

 

I also have a few in pots and they've all done pretty well so far, considering the very late start they had coupled with several weeks of 30 degree heat! We've had a few small pickings so far, mostly from the few 'micro' varieties but on Friday I got a bit more of a decent picking of both tomatoes and chillies.

 

 



The chillies are a jalapeno variety and the tomatoes are Red Alert, and Golden Sunrise. I'm still deciding what to do with them, but I think they may end up as soup today. I often use a Delia Smith recipe which turns out well each time.

 

One thing with recipes for tomatoes - they often call for the tomatoes to be peeled, or the mixture to be sieved after blitzing. I think this is a personal thing. Two main recipes I use call for them and I don't do it with either. I have done in the past but it's fiddly and I found, unnecessary. So long as you blitz it well enough, you're not going to have bit bits of skins floating around anyway. But, as I said, it's a personal thing. If you don't want seeds and skins, then sieve away!

 

Well, that's it for this post. I'll be back with some more updates on food, gardening and crafting soon!

 

As always, I'd love to hear from you and how your crafting, gardening and cooking is going!

 

Love, Maxi x

 

 

 





Spring At Last?

It did seem as though spring had finally arrived, although having said that, looking out of the window right now, I might disagree as the rain falls constantly from a flat, grey sky.

But we have had some nice days, and at last gardeners have had a chance to get out and do some tidying up in the garden. It's still too chilly to put certain plants out but some of the perennials have ventured to peer up out of the ground and check whether it's safe to come out yet, and I did get my sweet peas in at last!

This year we've got some 'Skywalker' and one that has 'Ripple' in the title, but the full name escapes me! I believe it's a pinky sort of colour, so I'm thinking a raspberry ripple type colour scheme. The other is 'Sunset'. As you can see, we've put grit around the base so I'm hoping that will be enough to deter the slugs and snails, but I wouldn't bet on it. I shall be keeping an eye out for the nasty blighters. Luckily, we have a very nice couple, Mr and Mrs Blackbird, and some friends of theirs who do their best to dine out in our garden as much as possible. Hopefully that will help keep the worst off.

The lawns have gone mad, so the weeds are having a field day. I'm hoping that some regular cuts will curb them a bit but there are a few biggies of the thistle variety that will need digging out. I've thought of doing the 'Feed & Weed' but as we do have such a lot of little birds hopping around foraging I don't like the use of chemicals and avoid them if at all possible. I'd rather a few weeds and birds, than no weeds but no birds.

The borders themselves were in need of a decent tidy up, but thanks to some help from my Dad, they now have a proper edge which enabled me to get them much more organised and weeded.

 

 We don't have a big garden at all, but it's amazing how much work they can take to get looking good once the weeds get a hold.

Having dug out the earth to put the sweet peas in properly this year, we've cleared a small area just to put a few herbs in. We have a small rosemary in which I've found I use a lot now I can just pop out and pick it. The herb pot from last year needs a bit of attention, as you can see. These are just what was in last year that have come back up - chives and parsley (with the basil long gone!). I'm debating about putting these in the ground and keeping the re-purposed jam pan just for some basil and perhaps oregano as they are more delicate and can be moved around if needs be. We'll see. I'm still debating as to what to put in. I want to grow what I actually use.

Still plenty more to do, even in a small garden - but that's half the joy, isn't it?


Love, Maxi

Rampant Tomatoes!

I don't know about anyone else but I'm not having much luck with the chilli, aubergine or pepper plants I got this year.I only have one of each, which I'm now glad of but they've really been disappointing. I did have quite a few chillies but kept finding a single hole munched through each one. After some googling, I found out it was most likely caterpillars who seem to think that a chilli makes a nice sleeping bag!

I know that I'm going to be scraping out the inside as I don't use the seeds but even after washing them, the thought that a caterpillar had taken a kip in the chilli rather put me off eating them, so they got whizzed. I've grown them many times before and never had this problem so I'm not sure what the difference is. If anyone has any ideas, or has also been bothered by them, I'd love to hear. And whilst I know I could spray them, that's not how I garden so it's been a squirt of washing up liquid solution t try and get rid of the blighters.

The tomatoes on the other hand, after a bit of a slow start thanks to the rotten weather we had at the beginning of the season, have now romped away. So much so, in fact, that one has gone a bit rampant and collapsed onto the ground the other day, taking the steel support with it and putting a nice bend in it! It is now scaffolding up a bit - I was going to post a pic of this Heath Robinson solution but Blogger doesn't want to play tonight so I'll have to try again another day.

Suffice to say, I am now just hoping that we have enough warmth and sun to ripen the many fruits that are now on the plants. I had a tonne last year and then they just rotten on the vines. Having always been used to making enough soup and pasta sauce from my own tomatoes to last us through the winter previously, this was not a pleasant turn of events, as you can imagine. So fingers are crossed for this year.

But I have to say, the ones that have been picked so far have been delicious!

Grape and Apricot muffins

Continuing with the 60 Jubilee Bakes project, the latest creation is Grape and Apricot Muffins. Now, I have to admit, I wasn't entirely sure how these would turn out as this was a case of using up fruit that was starting to look a little soft and forlorn. So, I just took a basic muffn recipe, and bunged in the halved grapes and chopped apricot at the end, giving it just a few little turns with the spoon to make sure they were all nice and encompassed.

They turned out really well and went down a treat. I hate any food going to waste - which in this household, it doesn't usually get a chance to, but if things are beginning to look like they are thinking about going a bit squiffy, I will generally either a) make soup out of them if they are vegetables, and b) if it's fruit, then they're generally headed towards a tea loaf or some muffins. Give it a try!

We are actually getting a little rain tonight which is certainly welcome for the garden which is looking a bit parched. I'm hoping we'll get enough to fill the rain barrel up again but I've a feeling we're going to miss the main bulk of it. Still, something is better than nothing!

And for those of you wondering, I am still hoping to get back to adding sewing-type-entries at some point. I'm without a machine at the moment, as I think I've mentioned but that doesn't stop me planning! I've also got a few papercrafting ideas that I'm itching to try out so I'll be back soon with those!

Have fun in whatever crafty way you can!

ps - Go TeamGB!

Bad Blogger!

I know, I know. I am a Bad Blogger! There's been rather more of a gap between posts on both this, and my writing blog (http://www.scribblermaxi.blogspot.com/). Life got a bit hectic (well, more hectic than usual) and this combined with some under-the-weather scenarios on my part, and a poorly laptop hasn't done well for my blogging.

So, please accept my apologies and I do promise to do better (I feel like I should be doing a Girl Guide salute, even though I only made it as far as Brownies, but I seem to think that the Promise was the same... I promise to do my best...).

I have been undertaking various baking adventures, so have some more pics of the results to upload. The tomatoes are coming on apace in the garden, although some flippin' Summer Type Weather wouldn't go amiss if any of the Weather Gods are reading this.

Sewing has been a little sparse lately due to me being 'between machines'. I have a shortlist of ones I want to try before I invest, but it's finding time to do that (and waiting for deals!) so in the meantime, I have been pondering on whether to get the prep work done on a bunch of various projects so that as and when a new machine is welcomed into the fold, I can just get whizzing. I mean, the cutting out is really the tedious bit, isn't it? Anyone have any other ideas how I can keep the creative sewing juices going until I can actually sew?

Thanks again for sticking round, and I'll be posting again shortly. And don't forget to let me know about those good ideas!