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Tag: columnar apple trees
Hygge recipes to get you through autumn and winter: mushroom soup
The Danish, hygge (pronounced “HUE-gah”) is one of those words that just has no English alternative. Though there are many ways to describe hygge, we see it simply as the Danish ritual of enjoying life’s simple pleasures. Friends. Family. Graciousness. Autumn is truly here, it’s time for warm jumpers, soft scarfs and comfort food. I… Read more
Making a six strand braided challah bread
I’ve been eating challah since I was a kid and I used to bring it home from the kosher deli I worked in at weekends. It’s a sweet, enriched dough bread which makes the most amazing sandwiches and it looks super impressive because it’s braided but it’s actually really easy to do. The recipe I… Read more
Viennese whirls – joining in with the Great British Bake Off
We greet the return of the TV show The Great British Bake Off each year with giddy delight. We love it but we are rarely organised enough to join in the way so many of our friends do. Each year we marvel at the stories of our friend who bake with their kids each Wednesday… Read more
If you love Pizza, you’ll love making your own
I love pizza, I make pizza a lot, so when I had a random conversation with a colleague from work, Suzie, yesterday where we were talking about making bread and she admitted she’s never tried to make pizza, I promised to do a quick blog post with my recipe so she could try. For a… Read more
Can you go on holiday and not come home to a dead greenhouse? With quadgrow you can.
When I installed my new quadgrow watering system in the greenhouse, one of my questions was, “will I be able to go off on holiday for a week and come home to happy and healthy tomatoes or will everything be dead?” We’ll I’m happy to report that yes, we went off on holiday and when… Read more
Did the copper tape defeat the slugs and save my strawberries?
You betcha! So… strawberries, slugs, copper tape. I promised you an update after I put copper tape around the raised bed with the strawberries growing in it, hoping it would deter the slugs from eating all my strawberries like in previous years.Well I am pleased to say it definitely works. Definitely. Last year we maybe… Read more
Sweet potato satay: a slightly healthier option using sweet potato noodles
Being on a health kick or trying to lose weight doesn’t mean you can’t eat tasty, filling food. Anyone who tells you otherwise has their pants on fire! One of the simplest, quickest and tastiest ways we’ve discovered to reduce the calories in some of our favourite meals is to replace the high carbohydrate things like… Read more
Laying a lawn – turf
I had a query recently from a work colleague about lawns, whether to grow it from seed or to lay turf. This got me thinking about when I laid our lawn. When we bought the house, the previous owners had been elderly and were not able to keep the gardens as well as they had.… Read more
The traditional Cottage Loaf – bake it yourself
The cottage loaf is a traditional British loaf shape from the Victorian era and possibly even earlier although it’s rarely seen in shops these days. I use my standard bread recipe but this loaf is shaped by putting a small ball of dough on top of a bigger one to make something like a dough… Read more
Beef Ramen – the ultimate comfort food
Ramen is essentially noodles in soup with various toppings. However in the west we tend to think of this as instant noodles or super noodles. Trust me, it’s not the same and after trying this quick, easy and gorgeous version, you’ll never reach for the instant noodle packets again. I doubt there is anything properly… Read more
Grass, the hardest plant to grow. Honest!
One of the hardest plants to grow and maintain in our garden, believe it or not is grass. Although I should clarify, it grows brilliantly in all those places you don’t want it to; like between the paving slabs, in the flower beds and rockery, even in the greenhouse, but trying to get that beautiful,… Read more
Homebrewing competitions: what is it like to enter a beer
Well I promised an update on my entries to the home brewing competition but I thought I’d take the opportunity to do a little more than an update. I thought this was a good chance to talk about what it’s like to enter a home brewing competition and what to expect if you do. I know… Read more
Pizza Muffins – all the pizza goodness but in a handy munch sized format
Everybody loves pizza. It’s one of the facts of the world but sometimes you want that pizza hit but maybe you don’t want to eat a whole pizza (I can’t imagine that’s ever true). So the solution, Pizza Muffins. Pizza muffins are really simple to make and are a brilliant and comforting munch when slightly… Read more
Making tomato relish
We eat a lot of relishes, chutneys and pickles, but it’s not something we’ve ever tried to make so today I decided I’d have a bit of a look around the internet to see what was involved with the aim of using up the last of the marmande tomatoes from our greenhouse (well I say… Read more
Beetroot soup – what to do with a glut of beetroot
We mentioned earlier in the blog that we were having to come up with ideas for using up courgettes. Well the problem now is beetroot. We have tons of the stuff. So Kate and I have challenged ourselves to come up with 5 things to do with beetroot. Today it’s beetroot soup. Ingredients What to… Read more
Our bride ale – our wedding favours and the Black IPA recipe
The big day has come and only just gone which meant we got to enjoy giving our wedding guests the bride ale we created in their honour. You can read about its creation in a previous blog post: Brewing up a bride ale We had decided a while back that we wanted our wedding day to… Read more
Dealing with a veg plot deluge – courgette fritters
It seems that the courgettes are back on form this year after a bit of a poor showing last year. The plants have only been flowering for a few weeks and already we’re struggling to eat all of them before we have another ready to harvest. The solution – courgette fritters. Gorgeous, hot or cold… Read more
Brewing up a bride ale
Firstly I should probably do the announcement, Kate and I are getting married. Letting you in on that little secret might explain the rest of this post :0) There are two camps to this little piece of brewing history but as I’m neither a historian nor have I made any more effort to research this… Read more
Petunias – the growing from seed adventure
This year’s experiment was to grow the flowers for our hanging baskets ourselves rather than buy plants from our local garden centre. This would be the first time we’d grown flowers from seed so it was a bit of l new adventure for us and as usual I went into full research ninja mode before… Read more