Fresh!

Salad including freshly podded peas, served with halloumi.
Fresh peas remind me of two things. Firstly, my grandad.
He had an allotment (as well as a greenhouse and plenty of growing space in the garden). I have memories of being round my grandparents house and being given a big bowl of peas to shell, to prepare for Sunday dinner. I think for every pea pod that got emptied in to the bowl, one or possibly two got emptied in my mouth! The second pea memory is Roskilde festival.
We went in 2006, it was ace, though super hot. The world cup was also on, and we spent much of the week buying a crate of Tuborg to sit on (and drink the contents), watch the football, and eat a bag of podded peas. Fresh peas go surprisingly well with Danish lager. Continuing the fresh theme, this morning I was up early to go to my local S'n'B, and made a fruity smoothie to kick start the day.
It contained a huge ruby grapefruit, half a honeydew melon, a lemon and plenty of ice cubes. Delicious. I was inspired by this amazing smoothie flowchart. Smoothies will never be the same again. Also check out the eating rules breakfast flowchart too - very cool.

More bread and a bit of salad too...

This is becoming a bread themed blog! This time I used this recipe from Doves Farm, though made the flour 50/50 white and wholemeal, and added seeds during kneading. This recipe takes a little longer, as you leave the dough to rise twice, but I think this helps make the bread much lighter.
To go with this fresh bread I made three salads.
Firstly a tricolore salad - containing plenty of tomatoes, basil and mozzarella, topped with olive oil and pepper.
I served this in an amazingly kitsch bowl, which I found dumped in a box outside our building - don't worry it has been well washed!
Secondly a garden salad, including some lightly blanched broccoli.
And finally a salad of butter beans, red pepper, red onion and spinach, with a tangy dressing made of olive oil, juice of one lemon and a teaspoon of chopped red chili.
Very tasty indeed!

Let them eat bread!

There is something fantastic about fresh bread. Moreish, comforting and tasty.
We have an amazing bakery just round the corner, so I really don't make bread as much as I used to. Though the other month we visited a Cogglesford mill in Sleaford, and I couldn't leave without a big bag of wholemeal flour.
This gave me just the excuse to get baking. Kneading bread is quite the workout, but this all helps to justify eating warm bread. I mixed the wholemeal flour 50/50 with some white flour, and added sunflower and pumpkin seeds to the dough.
I am always a little surprised about how much the dough rises when left to prove, it is almost as if I don't really believe that the yeast will work. It really is a little magical!

Heavenly goodness...

Last night we checked out Heavenly, a new vegan cafe/bar opened in Glasgow city centre. On a beautiful summers evening to discover they have Samuel Smiths wheat beer on tap is just a dream! The food was delicious and service fantastic. To start we had some brilliantly beetroot soup & a roasted stuffed pepper. Very tasty & great presentation.
For our mains we had a very creamy butternut squash risotto and tofu and vegetable kebabs with rice.
The tofu was smoked and tasted great, and pleasing the mushroom count in the kebab was low. Feeling pretty full & satisfied we skipped on dessert, in favour of more booze. However, we will be back to check out those sweets soon!

If you are what you eat...

Does that make me a button?
Fantastic button birthday cake from Wright's Delights & button chocolates from M&S.

Feeling hot hot hot...

We are having our British summertime. My forehead is a bit pink, despite factor 30. And I have more freckles. Time for hot spicy food!
Stir fried veggies, which had been marinated in chili, garlic and paprika. Mixed bean salad with feta cheese. Shredded lettuces and cucumber. Topped with Mrs Renfro's habanero salsa and more jalapenos. Served with plenty of plain yogurt for cooling!