I’ve been off the blogging scene for a while now. I think I just needed a little break from it after my solid effort of 3 blogs! Still need to take a leaf out of my cousin’s blogging skills! However in my absence my vegetables have bloomed and blossomed and are doing amazingly well.
My sunflower success rate however has not done so well and I have one (maybe 1 and a half depending on whether said sunflower will recover) out of 24. Oops. This sunflower is, I think, the beast of all sunflowers. It is not a giant kiddies one (I was too cheapskate to buy that packet of seeds, well seed, £1.99 for one giant sunflower seed!), but is a huge plant sized, garden centre worthy, award winning Chelsea Flower Show sunflower! This I am very proud of!
Now we have courgettes, broccoli, and particularly mangetouts coming out of our ears! I do not mind as I love all these vegetables.
However to
use up some courgettes there is a recipe in one of my favourite cake books, The Hummingbird Bakery, for Courgette, Walnut and Cinnamon cake. I reckon this may
be quite nice. Courgettes don’t have much flavour and you have to grate it in.
Like Carrot Cake, a favourite of many, and yet you can’t taste the carrot. So I
think this cake will be next on my To Bake list. I just need to find people
willing to try it. Any takers?
My last cake went down a storm, a lovely Strawberry and
Poppyseed cake, perfect for the lovely weather we have been having and very
nice if I do say so myself. Although the real test is to see if James likes it
as he is not a massive cake fan so when he does like my baking I am very
chuffed, and he has yet to try it. If he doesn’t by tonight it will be gone and
in my tummy! Oh well – ego boost or satisfied tummy?
There’s an update on my baking and my broccoli, how are my
boobs you may ask? Well I am 5 chemos down, awaiting round 5 side effects, due
tomorrow, and hopefully no repeat of hospital visit brought on by chemo 4. Very
irritating seeing as my temperature lasted half an hour, and me and James were
in hospital on one of the sunniest days of the year, also the day we were
supposed to be meeting our gorgeous new nephew for the first time and visiting our
other gorgeous nephew and his lovely parents (who are big fans of my baking
skills!). To put the icing on the cake it was also Wimbledon final day, and for
anyone who has been in hospitals before know that when you are lucky enough to
have a TV in your room, it is not your averaged sized TV. It is about the size
of an old school Playboy (I did love the Nintendo Playboy, you can’t beat SuperMario 1
and 2!). So trying to see where the tennis ball was being hit, whether it was
in or out, was nearby impossible. Luckily the kind doctor sent me off end of
Set 1, with the biggest antibiotics I have ever seen. Seriously. Even broken in
half they were still above average tablet size and not the nice coated, easy to swallow type either! However I was happy to get home
and witness the wonderful Andy Murray win his first Wimbledon title. I may
have had a little nap in Set 2 but was wide awake for the third and
final intense set! So 5 chemos down and 1 to go. Woop woooo! And to top it off Rick Stein will be waiting for me and James after the Final Chemo 6. Well I don’t know
if he will personally be waiting, a girl can hope (big fan of Rick Stein’s Indian Odyssey by the way ‘that’s a mind blasting curry Ricky!’), but his
cookery course will!
