Category: Summer
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How to make vanilla extract
This is so simple to do, you’ll wonder why you ever spent the money on the shop stuff. The picture shows my 500ml bottle of vanilla extract. Here’s how I make it… Method Take 6 to 8 vanilla pods and split them with a sharp knife, leaving them just attached at one end. Pop them…
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Easy courgette cake recipe
What to do with all those courgettes now that we’re having a summer at last? Here at Legge Towers, the courgette harvest is ‘extensive’. Not surprising as we have eight plants for the fruit and six for the flowers… And the flower producing plants also produce some fruit too. So I had a good trawl…
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Potato soda bread recipe with cheese, garlic & thyme
Kaethe from SPUDS (The Sustainable Potatoes United Development Study!) in Ireland said: Cheesy, garlicky soda bread made w/blight resistant Blue Danubes sounds fab, but where is the recipe? Any new take on soda bread ROCKS for us Irish, especially if it incorporates SPUDS…Send a link pronto! Who can resist a request like that? Not me…
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Kefir Bread Recipe
I love the way Twitter works. In particular how ideas get propagated: across the world in an instant and inspiring new networks of enthusiastic people. And also how physical things are shared too. This kefir bread is the result of both such things. My apologies for the pics – they’re taken quickly on an iPhone…
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Cumin & rye flake pitta bread recipe
Here’s a quick and easy pitta bread recipe as requested by my kind and talented Twitter friends @evilgordon & @karlasparlour. I served it with a tasty lamb tangia slow cooked for 7 hours and which had some of the Smen I blogged about earlier. The method is one I’ve borrowed from Dan Lepard, it saves…
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How to make Smen, Moroccan fermented butter
Morocco has a special place in my heart as that’s where I had my honeymoon well over 20 years ago. Since then, I’ve maintained a keen interest in Moroccan & other North African cuisine. One of the ingredients that is traditional to this part of the world is Smen (also called sman, semneh, or sminn) which is a…
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Puntarelle – recipes and how to grow 2
How to grow Puntarelle In my last blog post, I showed you how to use this versatile vegetable. As promised, I’ll tell you how to grow them in this post. We found these very easy to grow last year even with all the rain and lack of sun. If you’d like me to show you…
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Ginger and Pecan Muffins Recipe
This is one of Debs’ inventions that I made yesterday. When I first tasted them I was in food heaven. Lovely spicy ginger flavour with the roasted pecan taste and a hint of spice. It’s such a gorgeous combination – they are my favourite muffin now. What’s even better about this recipe is that you…
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Peat Free Diet Audio Book Review
Emma Cooper – The Peat Free Diet – Audio Book Running time in excess of 2 hours The Peat Free Diet (PFD) on Emma’s blog is a really useful resource for anyone interested in growing things. If you’re also interested in saving peat bogs by going peat free, then all the better: the book or…