I used a couple of my home grown onions, small but perfectly formed!
A couple of cloves of this wonderful French garlic which I picked up for a song on a french market.
Fried it together with a couple of dried chillis, the last of my stock which I grew and dried last year.
I bottled these tomatoes last year, they were the left over from what I had grown and, following instructions very carefully (didn't want to die of botulism, as was suggested if you didn't do everything by the book) I got them perfectly preserved. I pulled off the seal and opened them up to be met with a lovely scent of tomatoes!
These are pink peppercorns, which I harvested from a tree in the South of France. I dried them for a couple of days in the sun and they are so delicious. Ground up a few and added them in.
Finally some of my thyme that is growing outside. I recently thought that it had died, but I think it was just unhappy and was contemplating suicide. I have brought it back from the brink and it is flowering happily now.
Left to to simmer for an hour or so. Delicious.
Other garden news:
It won't be a big tomato crop, and I would really like them to start ripening, but at least there are some good looking ones.
Chilli plants finally coming on, need them to as I used up my final dried chilli for the sauce above.
I had a lovely big crop of Nicola Potatoes, this is the ones from the ground and this:
is from the potato bags. Much better crop in the bags it seems. They are delicious and I have immediately planted some more potatoes for Christmas.
Finally I have a kitchen light! I was beginning to hate the bare flex I had dangling. I had planned on getting this ages ago, but it was £40 from Amazon and there was no way I was going to pay that. Couldn't find one cheaper so over the last few months I have been doing online surveys that pay you in amazon vouchers and finally had enough to get it for free. A few phone calls to me much more practical brother and I managed to successfully wire it in and get it working, first time! Finishes off the kitchen beautifully.
Hi, that sauce looks great! I have that same light in my living room, I had a wire hanging there for several years before it went in too!!!
ReplyDeleteYou also have lots of plants in your garden that i have in mine too!! I enjoyed the garden tour of your last post.
It is such a lovely light isn't it. It has made such a difference. All good cottage garden plants, that is what I am generally going for. I love the cottage garden, rambling look.
DeleteWill the chilli plants still grow chillis? I had just given up on mine thinking it too late in the year, should I persevere?
ReplyDeleteDefinitely persevere, I had given up on mine, but they are really healthy specimens and I have no doubts will eventually produce chillis. I wouldn't put them outside though, bring them in, if they are not already and just keep watering them on a sunny windowsill, something will happen to them eventually, one way or another.
DeleteLooks good to me and so does your sauce.
ReplyDeleteLove from Mum
xx
It was really good and made 4 healthy portions, even for a greedy man like me.
DeleteLove the light and what a brilliant idea to do the surveys in order to obtain it. Also very impressed with the preserved tomatoes and the peppercorn crop.
ReplyDeleteI only did the preserved tomatoes once and I am regretting that now, they are really good. I don't think my crop will be big enough this year for anything like that, which is sad, but if I ever see masses being sold off somewhere, for dead cheap, I will do it again.
DeleteThe light is lovely. Your sauce looks very good too, keep the vampires away! I found our potatoes yielded better crops in bags too, I honestly thought it would be the other way around.
ReplyDeleteHavesting pink peppercorns from a tree in the South of France? I am so jealous of how that sounds. ;-)
ReplyDeleteThe sauce looks wonderful. I'm so going to have to use this recipe (next time we have fresh tomatoes).
LOVE the light, it looks awesome!
I love the light fixture, all more fabulous by it being free and self installed
ReplyDeleteStill working through your archives and perhaps I will come across a post describing it soon but if you haven't already written about it, could you perhaps tell how you did your tomatoes in that kind of jar? Up to now I've only used the type of jars with a two-part lid, or with a separate glass lid and rubber ring. Do you just close those jars over and process in a water bath? I didn't do any this year but there is nothing better than opening a jar in the deep of winter and getting that fabulous tomatoey smell.
ReplyDelete