I'M BACK!!!!!!

It's been a while, so bear with me.  Totally forgotten how to use this thing, haha. But I need to get back on it so I can link it in my Instagram and Facebook page.

So, I'm going to start off with a weekly blog.  Quick rundown of what's been happening with some photos and then write out one or two favourite recipes of the week.  Hopefully one sweet and one savoury.  Hmmm!

So last week was the first week of things being sort of back to normal. We had my son's telephone assessment for his ESA, my oven was cleaned and my son's trampolining lessons started again.

In the garden we've dug over and replanted the front of the wildlife pond area and removed dead or old fruit bushes from another plot which I'm hoping to use for more veggie growing next year; maybe a smallish polytunnel/greenhouse. Lost two feverfew plants, so out they came and were replaced with a lemon balm.  No big deal, obviously didn't like their new bed. Tomatoes are still doing well and starting to go red, but if not done by the end of the month, it'll be green tomato chutney and green tomato and orange marmalade making. Nothing's going to waste.  The spinach, beetroot, radish and kohl rabi seeds have started growing.  The kale is doing well as is the leeks.

On the kitchen front it was a week of winging it dinners as I didn't recipe plan and the veg box had a strange combination of veggies that wasn't easy to just thrown things together quickly.  But I managed. 

Favourite recipes this week!

Has to be Chocolate and Ginger Brownies; these are adapted from a Nigella Lawson recipe:

150g marg/butter

300g caster sugar

75g of cocoa powder

150g gluten free Dove's Farm plain flour

1tsp bicarbonate of soda

pinch of salt

4 eggs

1tsp vanilla extract

100g plain chocolate chopped into smallish chunks

50g stem ginger in syrup also chopped into smallish chunks

1. Preheat the oven to 190C/Gas 5.  Grease and line a 10 inch square baking tin or use a tin foil tray if you're transporting (works just as well).

2. Melt the marg/butter and then stir in the caster sugar until it's dissolved and blended.

3. Sift together in a bowl the flour, cocoa powder, bicarbonate of soda and the salt then tip it into the pan with the sugar/fat mixture. Stir; it will be dryish and not necessarily combined.  Remove from the heat.

4. In another bowl which the eggs and the vanilla exract together and mix into the brownie mixture in the pan.

5. Stir in the chocolate chunks and the ginger pieces and quickly pour into the prepared tin/tray.

6. Bake for 20-25 mins. The top will be set and slightly cracked but the brownie will be slightly wobbly and gungy, but not too much.  I've allowed my to fully cook with no issues.

7.  Allow to cool and dust with icing sugar and/or edible glitter if for a special occasion.  Hide from everyone so you can munch on them yourselves 😁

NB: The original recipe asks for 150g of chocolate.  I use plain, but you can use anything you like.  Swap out 50g for stem ginger as I have here or glace cherries. Swap out 50g of marg/butter for peanut butter/hazelnut butter and add a handful or two of nuts.  It's an easy basic recipe that can be altered as you like it, which is why it's my go to when I'm stuck for ideas.