I have been AWOL for the last few days - it’s migraine season again (yay!), which hit on tuesday and completely wiped me out these last couple of days. I am however feeling much better now, and with no little demon stripping veins out of my eyeballs, I can get back on track! Since getting back from the honeymoon I’ve wanted to do nothing more than nest, but the weather has prevented any serious clearing-out and sorting. Everyone in England has had rain apart from us - we haven’t had a drop for over a month now, the gardens (and myself) are thirsty! We are forecast rain tomorrow, they’ve been forcasting it for weeks, though not one single drip has dropped.

The garden is looking good, if a little dry, and as for vegetables we’ve had peas, are still munching a meagre crop of runner beans (this isn’t anything to do with care or variety, my mother has had real problems with her large runner beans this year) and enough potatoes for a good few meals.

Last night we tore out the peas (saving any missed dried pods for next year’s seeds), dug some more potatoes and marvelled at the pumpkins, of which we have 5 about the size of golf balls. What about winter vegetables though? I’m not sure about the onions, their tops have gone over, which I fear may be the end of them (I think I read somewhere that once their tops have gone over then they stop growing… I know how they feel). If we are to become more self-sufficient then we need to feed ourselves throughout the winter as well. This means two plantings, another one to go in soon of vegetables that we both eat and love. Things like broad beans, parsnips, potatoes and greens. So much stuff to find out about. I luxuriate in our livingroom with book after book reading and finding out how to do such and such.

Yesterday was my jam-making day, and to my delight, it all worked! The first one was a strawberry and redcurrant jam, the strawberries were left over from our wedding, and had been frozen - making them perfect for jam. It set perfectly, they sat in the right place and didn’t sink to the bottom! The blackcurrant set even better, coming out and setting almost on contact with the pots. If you ever get the chance to make jam, do - it’s not hard at all, as long as you’ve got a recipe. It’s a great way to preserve and enjoy summer fruits over the year, most of all it’s delicious - as homemade food always is!

I’m looking forward to the weekend, because most of all I want to sit in my newly-sorted (thanks completely to my husband) spare room, and write. Nothing but a head full of ideas, a sharpened pencil and a wad of fresh, blank paper. As well as insane urge to bake chocolate cakes, which was the first thing I did this morning when I was still weary and bleary-eyed.

The flowers are the David Austen rose ‘William Morris‘ - it’s been flowering profusely even though we only planted it in May. The other two Austen roses, ‘Rosemoor‘ and ‘Félicité Parmentier‘ were swamped by the huge mass of wildflowers sharing their bed - and have not flowered as yet. Zépherine Drouhin suffered the same fate, although all of the roses look healthy. The poppies are just delightful, every colour under the sun, they’ve been the most popular with hoverflies (which eat aphids) and bees.

Whilst sweeping the yard at 8-ish this morning, our lovely neighbour stuck his head around the gate and asked me whether I’d like any blackcurrants and redcurrants. Of course this was met with rapturous squeals of delight, with thoughts of jam, tarts, crumbles and cheesecakes galore! They’re from a friend of theirs who owns an allotment - they had too many so offered their glut to our neighbours (there was too much for them as well!), who in turn offered it to us. I can’t believe how kind our neighbours are, they prepared lots of food for our wedding and were amazing helps on the day. We’re just lucky!

We got a knock on the door this evening offering us 3lbs of blackcurrants and 2lbs of redcurrants - far exceeding what I thought we’d get! So tomorrow I’ll be off to the shop for 6lbs of sugar to make redcurrant jelly and strawberry and blackcurrant jam - yum!

Make a quiche. Yep, it’s been a staple in my family since time immemorial. My mother always made them when anyone came around to lunch, and it’s not summer without a quiche, Jersey Royals, salad and a glass of something cool. I have always found quiches to be really easy to make. Many people find pastry-making a hideous job, but I have never found it hard at all (and I have perpetually warm hands). I have tried making pastry with vegetable shortening and didn’t get on with it very well, so in my fridge (necessity being the mother of invention) I dug out my cake margerine and gave that a go, it worked a treat and so every time I make pastry I either use marg. or butter.

Quiches are delicious, simple and quick to make. In this recipe I’ll give enough ingredients to make two 8-inch quiches. You can vary the ingredients to make less or more, and to cater for whatever you have in your fridge at that particular moment. Eggs can vary in size, I use medium, and can get away with adding more milk to the mix if I have only 3 eggs per quiche instead of 4. Be warned, if the mixture is too runny it won’t set as well. I make the mixtures in two batches for ease, so when making, halve the ingredients and do as I do - or not if you want to make it all in one go! The amounts quoted for things like milk are completely changeable, I do everything by eye now and so if it *looks* right to you, leave it, don’t feel compelled to add the below amounts.

Spinach, tomato and mustard quiche

For the pastry:
3oz (85g) butter, cold, cubed
6oz (or maybe a bit more depending on butter) plain flour
pinch of salt and pepper
enough water to bind into pastry - usually a tablespoon or so

For the filling:
6 (or 8) eggs, depending on economy
100-150ml milk (can be Jersey milk if you want it creamier - if not, semi-skimmed is excellent)
8 cherry tomatoes or 4 regular
2tsp dijon mustard (can be wholegrain honey mustard instead).
1 large handful of washed, trimmed spinach
salt and pepper
A handful of grated mature cheddar (optional)

a little butter and flour for greasing the tins.

Method:

Preheat oven to 190ºC / gas mk. 5 (175ºC for fan ovens)

In a bowl take the flour, butter and seasoning and rub-in until you’re left with a fine breadcrumb consistency and no discernable lumps. Add the cold water slowly, until perfect pastry consistency is achieved. Chill for 30 mins in the fridge.

For the filling beat three (or 4) eggs, mustard, seasoning and milk together in one bowl. Beat for at least one minute. Slice the tomatoes, into half if you’ve got cherry tomatoes, or slices if they’re large tomatoes. Into an 8-inch pie dish or cake sandwich tin, rub a little butter then dust with flour to prevent sticking. Take the pastry out of the fridge and divide equally into two onto a floured surface. Roll out to around ½cm thick and line tin. Repeat for the second tin. Put these into the freezer for 5 minutes or so, it makes for better pastry!

Divide the tomatoes and spinach equally between the two tins and pour over the eggy mixture. If you want to add a little cheese now is the time to do so. Repeat with the second and get them both into the oven as soon as possible. They should take around 30-40 minutes depending on your oven, keep checking on them, they should rise quite nicely.

You can be creative with quiches, once you’ve got the base, the possibilities are endless. We have a glut of salmon left in the freezer since the wedding, and last year I made a splendiferous ’salmon, pea and mint’ quiche, or perhaps broccoli and stilton? Brie and asparagus? Enjoy!

There has been a strange occurrance in the front garden of late. Everything is looking healthy, and on our weekly inspection a couple of of months ago, I said to The Husband “Look at this! We’ve got a cabbage growing!”. He eyed me suspiciously, with a kind of contempt reserved soley for one of my practical jokes. He didn’t believe me until I showed him, but sure enough, there were the beginnings of a cabbage plant. Then, in a look of utter shock, I noted that the plant growing not 3-feet away from it was a cauliflower! If by now you’re thinking that I’m on drugs, you might be right, these plants have settled themselves into the most improbable place possible - but what stumps us is where they have come from. We haven’t ever grown cabbages or cauliflowers, although that doesn’t seem to make a difference in the slightest!

On returning from honeymoon, I looked out of the living-room window, and said with complete alacrity “Darling, there’s a tomato plant in the front garden”. By now, my husband has given up even questioning my bizarre statements, and just takes them on board. Yes, indeed there was a rather healthy tomato plant sat in a crack of earth not two-inches wide, growing very happily. Next to it, there is a self-seeded sunflower. We can only put these magical, strange occurances down to Vegetable Fairies, little elfin creatures who come to our front garden at the darkest of the night, and merrily plant cauliflowers, cabbages, sunflowers and tomatoes! Not that we’re complaining, I can’t think of anything I’d rather have growing there!

This hot weather is definitely not fun, I like a good sunny day, but when you open the door and the hot air hits you like opening an oven door, it starts to be a nuisance. I remember being at school and hating the classrooms, which always had the heating on in the hottest days before the school holidays, and the tight, restricting uniforms. Thankfully this house is kept pretty cool and no part of the house is too warm as to be unbearable. And like the title portrays, I’ve been a busy-bee. A couple of days ago I tried to get out into the garden, and failed miserably, I managed maybe half an hour, but hoeing in 30ºC heat is not for me, however much I covered up - our neighbours think I’m half-Bedouin - so I gave that up for the day.

Baking has also been on the agenda, another insane pasttime when it’s so hot outside, having the oven on isn’t maybe the smartest thing, but when I have an urge to bake, boy do I bake! Cranberry, white chocolate and banana muffins followed by spinach, tomato and mustard quiches (which are absolutely gorgeous), sausage casseroles, and many other yummy things. The good side to a mass-bake is that I don’t have to cook anything on a set day - I can pull something homemade and gorgeous from the freezer, make a salad and it’s done. Forward planning!

The rest of these long, Indian-summer days has been spent putting the house to rights. With the advent of the wedding looming, furniture was moved into unlikely places, space was made to accommodate the influx of guests, and there was little time to do much before we left for honeymoon. So when we got back, the house was as we’d left it - a tip. The police officer, who came to see us after reporting the car break-in had to wade over boxes, with profuse apologies from me saying that, no, this isn’t how it always looks! He grinned and said nothing.

I’ve been working room by room through the house, trying to make order of chaos, having a re-arrange of furniture (something I find very relaxing), and trying to avoid flaking out in the heat completely. My one solace has been the garden in the evening. As the day wears on the temperature dips, and by 5-ish I can sit outside and smile as I see the wonderful runner beans do what they do best, creating little curled beanlets, which grow and unfurl into spectacular stringless specimens. The lavender bushes have been amazing this year, the three in the back garden were kept for two years in their pots (due to us not having a garden to put them in when we bought them) and became root-bound. But with some love and attention they’ve given us hundreds of spikes of lavender flowers, ready to be dried, so I can smell summer all through the cold winter months that are to come. The three in the front garden were bought this year and are full of lavender heads.

The wildflowers are still flowering, more are opening every day, especially the poppies and calendula. One of our roses, William Morris (Auswill) which was only planted in May this year has got a profusion of buds on it already with one which is just opening!

I had to post pictures of our alliums. I didn’t think they’d come to anything at all, they were so slow to produce a flower that I was tempted to pull them up and be done with it! How wrong I would’ve been! Patience, as they say, is a virtue (lest I forget) and I’m so glad I waited!

Not usually a fan of lilies, I was skeptical when I saw these on offer, merely £1.50 for a pot of three healthy specimens. Despite not having them near the house (white lilies = death), I planted them in the semi-circular bed and forgot about them, then one day I noticed something pretty and it was a lily! They’ve all flowered, with around 5 flowers a plant, and in such splendor!

Tomatoes will always be grown here as long as there is a breath in my body. They are summer to me, and the smell when I brush past them is just as good as their huge bounties of lush, organic, flavourful fruit.

We’re growing no less than 5 different varieties, and whilst I’ve lost some of the name tags to tell you which ones they are, I can tell you that there is one called ‘Tumbling tom’, a yellow tumbling variety, a red tumbling variety, Alicanté, a red plum tomato and another red one, I think.

The Jerusalem artichokes* (Helianthus tuberosus) are now one of my most interesting vegetables, and have piqued further research. I’ve eaten them before, and to my recollection, I really enjoyed them, not wholly dissimilar to potatoes/water chestnuts, they are another source of good-carbohydrates. They grow quicker than potatoes, very quickly in fact, produce one tuber which can be quite large (I checked the tubers of ours when I potted them up in April/May, one was already the size of my fist!), and are a really good sustainable crop. According to my complete self-sufficiency guide, they are great fodder for animals, smother any weeds and don’t contain very many calories. They’re ticking all the boxes for me! We are giving these a go, and hoping that they’ll be a great catch-crop for future years - the only problem being that we cannot find anywhere that sells the seeds/tubers at all! If you know of anyone/anywhere that does, please let me know!

*The Jerusalem Artichokes are the tall sunflower-lookin’ things below the hanging basket!