I Had A Littlle Fishy

Tonight's dinner was Sea Bass baked in salt in the Dutch Oven, cooked outside on the fire, so dinner was cooked for free, you would think all that salt would make the fish salty but it doesn't, the salt when baked becomes solidified around the fish and when cooked you have to break the salt open to free up your dinner, The Dutch Oven is great for cooking outdoors it is a big cast iron pot with a lid, we were given it for Christmas a few years ago but never really got round to using it until this year now we love it and have now bought a tripod to suspend it over a fire, proper outdoor campfire cooking. Along with the fish we had Samphire fire cooked in garlic and butter. Samphire is a plant that grows in the salt marshes along the coast, also know as poor mans asparagus, it is a seasonal plant and has a bit of a salty asparagus taste.

Now the summer has finally arrived everything is coming on great in the garden, picked the first cucumbers and the first of the tomatoes have ripened at last, we have planted out some Black Kale and tomorrow we will get some leeks put into the ground, we have Beetroot ready to be picked and the Sweetcorn is coming on great, the peppers and chillies are setting there fruit, we have got more peas to get sown as well for an autumn harvest, tonight we are setting the Crayfish trap baiting it with the fish heads last Sunday grandson manged to haul in a bucketful without a trap that we had for dinner so fingers crossed we will have some for dinner tomorrow.

Wet Wet Wet

Yes we all know its been wet and is still wet and more wet to come, some of the veggie crops are failing fast with all this wet stuff and others are thriving, peas we have had a bumper crop and strawberries, it looks like gooseberries are next to be picked the apples are swelling lovely blueberries and cranberries are doing great as well, the kiwi is laden with young fruit as is the plumb trees grapes and raspberries, so fruit wise its all going well, tomatoes are late coming on fruits have now set and getting plumper, cucumbers have set as well, what we need is that big shiny thing in the sky to put in more of an appearance and things might just balance up, the bees are struggling a bit trying to get out between downpours so I am not expecting anything great honey wise this year.

Despite the weather life is continuing and today we fired up the brick oven and had pizza for dinner I had my first ever pizza, being a none cheese eater its something I have never tried before, so tonight I had a caramelised onion and anchovy pizza, we saw it on Hugh's River Cottage program the other night and it was really tasty, defiantly one to do again.

Tomorrow I am having a day out at Fibre East 2012 in Bedfordshire, lots of spinning and weaving hoping to get myself a spinning wheel, or at least start looking into one, I have a drop spindle but really fancy a wheel, so we will see what tomorrow brings, and lets hope the sun shines for a bit pleasssssssssssssse.