Time to prune the grapevine

As the grapevine needed pruning, I thought it was a great opportunity to get the dolmades recipe out again. I used the same recipe as the one in my first cookery book From Spade to Plate, and went down pretty well.


As we had run out of sweet chili jam and this group had not made it before,  I went to buy peppers and chilies to turn into a delicious jam to go with our dolmades.
    

We also went in the garden and the allotment to pick some strawberries and turned them into a savoury salad.

   

this post was first posted on 6/6/2019

Christmas coffee morning - Book launch

Over the last few weeks,  have been finishing my 4th From Spade to Plate recipe book. Lovely to see these pictures from 2 years ago when we launched the first book .

Today was such an exciting day as it was the launch of the first From Spade to Plate cookbook.
It was lovely to see how much my friends enjoyed them, even though we have already spotted a few mistakes!  So the 2nd edition will be in the making.

I made some hot apple Christmas juice, with puff pastry mince pies, anise biscotti and an amazing strawberry Christmas star. To be honest I was surprised myself. Here is the link on how to make it.
The anise biscotti are included in the cookbook.

        

What a disappointing onion harvest - Lets do something positive with it

With the leek moth very busy in our garden, it not only affected the garlic but also the onion harvest, There is no way that I can keep this onions for any length of time. It is for this reason that I decided to turn most of the onions into a delicious French Onion Soup we baked bread to top with mature cheddar cheese and put it under the grill and let it float ontop of the soup.  It turned out well and we all enjoyed the soup very much.



The rest of the onions, I prepared by taking off the outer layers and disposed of the occasional leek moth 'speck' and sliced  and froze them for use in the following weeks.











As the oven was on today, we also made bran and raisin loaves in jars.

It was a very jolly afternoon, lots of chatting and arranging to meet up for arts classes with Carmen and general socialising. So nice that the group is gelling so well.