Back in the kitchen............

and the garden!

Its been a busy few weeks and consequently the blog has suffered but I've just had 2 days off work and as well as relaxing I have been back in the kitchen (and also the garden). I've also joined twitter so anyone who is interested feel free to follow me (purelyfood).

I started my day off yesterday by making a batch of bagels and enjoyed one fresh from the oven with cream cheese sat in the sunshine. For our eveing meal I tried out my first recipe from Bill Granger's latest cookbook - feed me now! It was his baked chicken with potatoes, green olives and lemon and it was delicious (by far the best dish I have cooked in sometime) - expect a blog of this recipe later today or certainly in the next few days. Today I'm in the middle of making olive and pumpkin seed bread from Andrew Whitely's Bread matter's. If it works out well you can expect a post on that soon too. Cross your fingers though as I haven't had any sucess with any of the other breads I have tried that involve any length of fermenting (eg ciabatta or sourdough). Mine always end up too wet and runny.

I have also spent some time in the garden today, planting some seeds. We tried growing our own last summer and grew some herbs, salad leaves and mangtout. It was a reasonable sucess apart from the snails! so we're trying again this year. We have very little space so only grew in a few pots last year. This year we have emptied the only small area of planting the garden has and are trying to grow more veg. So far I have sowed (some directly outside and some in seed trays on my kitchen window sill) herbs, salad leaves, mangtout, spring onions and courgettes. If space allows I would also like to plant some beetroot and another type of climbing bean/pea.