More garden pictures

Trave is supposed to keep you up-to-date with the garden, but his posts are far from being regular, so here you are.

Generally speaking, things are doing well. We feared for the apple tree after an aphid attack but it seems to have recovered by now.

Leeks:
We have grown them from seeds and they are looking pretty healthy! I cannot wait for them to be ready (still a few months to go though!).


Courgettes:
We have grown 2 plants from seeds, and 2 were supplied already grown in pots by Trave's parents. Both look good (our own stuff even slightly better if I dare say!).


Tomatoes:
Only one of our own-grown cherry tomatoes (from seed) actually worked. Three cherry tomato tumblers in pots and four normal size tomato plants were supplied by Trave's parents.
This one is our own:
Parsley:
Not grown from seed but is growing well in the border. Fresh parsley is really nice!


Thyme:
We came back from Glastonbury and one of the thyme was in full bloom. A bright pink which looks very pretty.

The one I am growing from seed is doing much better than I expected.


Rosemary:
I have honestly not noticed any difference since I planted the two plants.

Sage:
The sage was in the garden already so no merit at all. It looks nice.

Lavender:
We have three different types of lavender on borders at the moment, and I am growing another one from seed. They are all of a different generation and of different colours, varying from very light pink to dark purple. I love the scent.

Lemon balm:
I bought some lemon balm (and geraniums, bianca and bright pink) to keep mosquitoes away from the patio during our summer barbecues. That is, if we see the sun ever again after weeks of deluge. They are doing very well and look very cute.

Honeysuckle:
The bushes were here already but I love honeysuckle so much they deserved being mentioned. It is lovely sitting in the garden by a light breeze and you can smell the delicate fragrance of honeysuckle. I love it!

Our first radishes

It took only a few weeks and we have had our first crop of radishes last week! They are yummy. The rocket is starting to grow as well, but more slowly.

And more radishes yesterday:

More Glastonbury pictures!

This is the Pyramid stage:



This is the Other Stage with tents in the foreground and more tents in the far background:


This is me dancing to crazy gypsy tunes in the mud:


This is the wood oven used by the hippie commune to bake:

Our Glastonbury programme

There is so much to see during the festival, you wouldn't believe it! Apart from music, you have the opportunity to view dance, theatre, comedy, poetry, movies, as well as taking part in political debates, informing yourself about the protection of the environment, gardening, about peace, and discover new delicacies from other parts of the world.

You feel like running all day from one show to the next (as much as you can run in the mud!) and at the end of the day, you realise that you have seen only half a dozen things. Compared to the 700 performances there were over 3 days, this is very little...

So, here is what we saw, although not always the entire show:

FRIDAY

Mr. Hudson and the Library, music - UK
Adjagas, music - Norway
Film: Glastonbury Gap Year, movie
The Hours
Big Beats, music (drumming on recycled material)
Movimientos, music, dance - Latin America
Tacto Latino, music, dance - UK
Super Furry Animals, music - Wales, UK
Radio Four presents Four in a Field, comedy - UK
Arctic Monkeys, music, UK
Björk, music, Iceland

favourite show on Friday: Movimientos, or maybe Big Beats

SATURDAY

Breakfast with Howard Marks (Trave went, I stayed in the dried tent!)
CSS, music - Brazil
Slovo , music, UK (now, wait for this, we recognised the guitarist, and yes, we know him, or rather, Trave and his brother know him very well, I met him only once. Used to play in Faithless)
Jeremy Hardy, comedy - UK
Rhythm Wave, samba music
Marcus Bridgstocke, comedy - UK
Phil Kay, comedy (was not very funny though)- UK
Mitch Benn, music & comedy - UK
Mr Scruff, music - UK
The Killers, music - UK
Iggy and the Stooges, music - USA (did not stay for long, I could not bear the swearing...)
Rodrigo y Gabriela, music - Colombia

favourite show on Saturday: Rodrigo y Gabriela
SUNDAY

The Holloways, music - UK
Mahala Rai Banda - Electric Gypsy Land, music, Romania
The Marley Brothers present the 30th Anniversary of Exodus, music - Jamaica
Black Eagles - Acrobatics
Tumble Circus - Aerial
Jay and Manu - Jugglers
Billy Bragg, music - UK
Tinariwen, music (blues), Mali
The Who, music - UK
Chemical Brothers, music (electronica) - UK
Bill Bailey, comedy, UK

favourite show on Sunday: difficult one... I cannot possibly choose

They say mud is good for you

If so, there are at least 200,000 of us with a super smooth skin coming back from the mud bath that the Glastonbury Festival was this year! We were well prepared for it though, and really enjoyed the festival despite the weather.

We arrived there on Thursday just before lunch. It was not raining at that point. We even had blue skies for a bit and although the ground was wet from almost two weeks of non-stop showers, it was clear grass and not flooded. We pitched the tent and went for a walk around. It rained a bit later on but not too badly. But then it rained all weekend. It stopped raining only on Friday night and Saturday night for a few hours, which made it nicer to stand in the crowded field in front of the various stages.

Try to image what can happen when it rains, a lot, and you have nearly 200,000 people walking in a restricted space... To give you an idea, clic on the following links: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tims/622824055/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tims/621896673/in/set-72157600482303155/

Our own photos are not very dramatic as we tried to keep the camera safe and dry!

Here is a view from the stone circle (Kings' Meadow):

One of the Tippi Fields:

These ones are overviews, giving you some idea about the size of the site:

Off to Glastonbury!

I came back from Eisenach, Germany yesterday where I was for work during a couple of days.

We are heading off to Glastonbury tomorrow morning. Our waterproofs and Wellington Boots are already packed.

Full report when we come back!

Kitten!

The mother, called Fluffy, gave birth to three cute kittens on 8th May. Aren't they cute???


And this cute one here should be with us from 8th July. We have a name but will wait until we are sure about the gender. We think it is a girl. I mean, doesn't she look like a girl? ;0)

Flooding

I was going to tell you about more food stuff and show you pictures of our kittens, but the severe weather we have had tonight takes priority.

It was raining very badly when I cycled home from work tonight. Out of my three-mile journey, I had several inches of water on the ground for over 2 miles. The roads were covered with water, literally. When I got to the Offchurch bridge, the rain was torrential and visibility very very low, less than 20 yards and the rain was turning into hail. There was about a foot deep of water before and after the bridge. On the uphill after the river, pebbles and gravels were washed away by torrents of water which were hard to negotiate on a bicycle. I almost fell off my bike a couple of times because of branches or pebbles. Water was everywhere, even on the tops of the hills... Down at the canal bridge was pretty bad too. One of the lanes was closed in Radford Semele, I think because on the sewage covers had been forced by the water and was sticking out of the road.

When I got home, water had started gathering around the house, which was worrying. The shed was leaking from everywhere. 15 minutes later, the water was a couple of inches from our front door, and the street, higher than our house, was completely flooded and THAT was very worrying too. If the water started to come off the street into our driveway... we would be flooded for sure. It rained more and more.


We took all we could upstairs: tables, chairs, rugs, mats, plants, chest of drawers...

The rear garden was half flooded, all the neighbours gardens, front and rear, were flooded. The inside of our house was dry. But this shows how it was outside our front door.


When the rain eased off, we went out to check out if the neighbours were OK. The next 3 houses on both sides had been flooded, living room and/or utility room. People were throwing buckets of water onto the street. Some houses' electrics got cut off... Most places dried off pretty quickly. Within an hour after the rain stopped, and with the help of heavy-duty brooms, we had cleared the driveway and the garden was not a massive puddle any more.

I was terrified at seeing this quantity of water waving through our glassed front door. I hope it does not rain overnight...

WE ARE SO LUCKY. I cannot believe how lucky we are...

Apparently, people have been asking the council to put drains along the road for years, which has not been done. Given that 80% of the houses in this street are council-houses, they should really do something about it, and quick.

A neighbour told me he had never seen this before. And he has been living here for 15 years. We have been in this house for less than 10 weeks so it is kind of scary...

To leave on a positive note, we got to meet and introduce ourselves to neighbours we had not met before, which is nice.

Mediterranean quiche

I cannot tell you enough how nice this quiche was! And we are going to eat what is left of it tonight, yuppeeee!

For the pastry, I used:

80g wholemeal flour
60g plain flour
50g mixed seeds
2 TBSP grated Parmesan
1 TBSP mixed Italian herbs
1 pinch salt
3 TBSP cold water

Make a pastry, roll out and cook with baking beans for 10 minutes. Remove the beans. Meanwhile, prepare the filling.

For the filling I used:

2 courgettes, sliced
1 red pepper, diced
1 yellow pepper, diced
mixed Italian herbs
Freshly cracked black pepper

Fried in olive oil then placed into the pastry case.


Cover with 80g grated cheddar cheese.

2 eggs
150ml milk

Mix the eggs and milk and poor over the cheese.
Place in the oven preheated at 180 degrees for 20 minutes. Voila!

Cereal galettes

These are really easy and quick to make. For the full recipe, click here. I had even so little time to make dinner that frozen peas were served as a side dish!

Mashed potatoes & bulghur

I was running out of ideas that night. I thought about a stir-fry with potatoes, bulghur broccoli and carrots but was not in the mood for stir-fry :(

So I mashed the potatoes, cooked some bulghur, mixed them together with a generous handful of freshly roasted pine kernels, added fresh parsley from the garden and served it with boiled broccoli and carrots. It was delicious! I will definitely make this again.

Warwickshire countryside

We are going to have a kitten!!!!!

Last Saturday we went for a bicycle ride towards the South/South-East to some stables where the kittens were born on 8th May. They are really cute little things and it is going to be really really hard to choose one of them. We have not decided yet.

There are some wonderful views and on the way back we took a different route, not so hilly (I think this is the reason why Trave wanted to ride back that way!) and we could see the hills and Chesterton windmill. And then we passed this beautiful view of a hill with a tree on the top and some sheep grazing on the grass. Outstanding. Trave took the picture (I suspect this was an excuse to rest for a bit!!!...)


You may have gathered that Trave lacks training these days. The nice weather is coming back so we shall try to go for weekend rides more regularly again.

Our first strawberry

Here is a picture of our first strawberry, which we shared on Friday. We have had some more since then, yum yum!

WED 2007

Today is World Environment Day.

I'll just let you think about it for a second.

Strawberry and chocolate cake

Thanks to Cléa I discovered this wonderful cake. It is tasty and refreshing. Sure, you need half a day to make this, but it is worth the effort.



For the sponge cake:
3 eggs
90g light raw sugar
90g self-raising white flour

For the strawberry jelly:
300g strawberries
100g raw sugar
2g agar-agar (or gelazone)
200g silk tofu

For the chocolate mousse:
80g 37% milk chocolate
2g agar-agar
100ml rice or soya milk
200g silk tofu

Strawberries to decorate

1. Sponge cake
In a heatproof bowl, whisk together the eggs and sugar. Cook in a bain-marie whilst whisking. The mixture must become paler and double in volume.
Remove from bain-marie and stir again to cool the mixture down a little.
Mix in the flour in 3 times with a wooden spoon. Take care in not removing the air from the mixture.
Place into a 22cm diameter cake springform and place in a 180 degrees preheated oven for 15min.
Leave to cool down completely and cut in half to make 2 identical disks.

2. Strawberry jelly
Wash and remove the stems of the strawberries. Place in a food processor with the sugar. Add the agar-agar and place in a saucepan. Bring to the boil and simmer for 30 seconds. Pour back into the food processor with the tofu and process.
Place one sponge cake disk back into the form and cover with the strawberry jelly. Leave to cool down completely until set and cover with the second disk.

3. Chocolate jelly
Melt the chocolate. Process with the tofu.
Mix the milk and agar-agar in a saucepan. Bring to the boil and simmer for 10 seconds. Process with the chocolate mixture and pour over the second disk of sponge cake. Leave to cool down completely until set.

Remove the form. Place onto a serving dish. Decorate with fresh strawberry slices and serve cold.


Pour la recette en francais, faites-donc un tour chez Cléa !

Orange and apricot jelly

I am no big fan of jelly as such, but this is refreshing and fruity, and does not have the texture of jelly. The secret ingredient to this? Agar-agar. I discovered this ingredient a year ago and it is great to facilitate the setting of jellies or cheesecake.

The following recipe makes 4 jelly moulds:

225g dried apricots
300ml orange juice
3 TBSP lemon juice
2 TBSP honey
1 g agar-agar
3 TBSP water

For the cream:
125g mascarpone
125g fromage frais
cinnamon to sprinkle

orange slices to decorate

1. Place the apricot and orange juice in a saucepan, bring to the boil and simmer for 15 minutes.
2. Process in a food processor with the lemon juice and honey.
3. Boil the water, add the agar-agar and stir well for 20 seconds
4. Add the agar-agar to the apricot mixture and process again.
5. Place in individual moulds and leave to cool down completely.

6. To make the cream, stir the mascarpone and fromage frais together.

7. When serving, unmould the jellies onto serving plates with a spoonful of cream. Sprinkle with cinnamon and add a slice of orange to decorate.

Plavac Mali

During the show in Munich we received many visitors, including existing customers and distributors from all over the world. My contact in Croatia came with two bottles of wine as a gift. The one I kept was Plavac Mali, a dark red wine from the Dalmatian coast. It was nice. I never had tried Croatian wine before.

Vegetable lasagne (home-made pasta)

We took the time to make our own pasta yesterday. With the dough we made some lasagne and some tagliatelle.


The following recipe for a basic pasta dough will produce enough to make lasagne for 4-6 people and a batch of tagliatelle for 2 people.

450g white flour
4 eggs
3 TBSP extra virgin olive oil
pinch of salt

1. Sift the flour in a bowl. Add the salt and make a well.
2. Stir the eggs and oil together and place in the center of the well.
3. With a wooden spoon, incorporate the egg mixture to the flour. When it becomes too hard to use the spoon, knead the dough thoroughly for 15-20 minutes until soft and smooth.


4. Place the dough in a bowl, cover it with cling film and leave to rest for 15 minutes.
5. Roll out the dough into thin layers or use a pasta machine.

Pizza bianca

Nice pizza which Trave made on Friday. Use your favourite pizza dough recipe (Trave used 1/2 plain, 1/2 wholemeal flour). Once the dough rolled, we added a can of chopped tomatoes with herbs on the base, then sliced courgettes, topped with fresh rosemary from our garden and slices of mozzarella. In the oven for 15 minutes, and here is the result:

Cranberry juice cocktail

I had cranberry juice to use up so I made the following cocktail:

For 2 people:

8 oz cranberry juice
8 oz apple juice
2 oz spiced amber rum
2 oz Galliano
ice


Mix it in a shaker, add the ice, relax!

Let me know if you come up with a nice name, I could not find any!