Any cheerful news today? (Nothing negative please! 🙂)

[hairbear]

@letsmile

looks like a deluge of them about to descend on me

The tomato deluge is something to behold . last year at its peak,I was getting about 2Kg per day. I bought a new freezer this spring, just to cope with the tomato (made into pasata and pasta sauce) plus all the peppers, chillies and other freezable stuff we produce. We go all year eating it all, which is wonderful. I never thought I had green fingers before moving here, but as the voisins say, everything grows like weeds, except the weeds, which grow faster
Our first real winter crops were cauliflower, which were wonderful as I love pickled cauliflower,and onions and shallots which we pulled last month. Last year I did coriander and got about 400g of seed. Of course it’s self seeded this year and I’ll probably get more this year, the leaf having now died away. My immediate voisin in North African, so I’m going to make a present of a large jar of coriander seed for her. I’m sure she will appreciate it.

l

[strudball]

@JaneJones

courgette soup, courgette spaghetti, yo

And i suppose you dream of courgettes running amock and chasing you round your garden,.

[hairbear]

Courgette, I’m afraid is a no go for me. When I was in Deux Sevres, every summer, you couldn’t move for people trying to give you courgette. People at vide greniers had big baskets of courgette with signs basically saying ‘help yourself’. What is this obsession with courgette. I don’t like the bloody things anyway.

[vero]

@hairbear

Last year I did coriander and got about 400g of seed

How wonderful! I love the leaf and the seed and use both a lot, so delicious

[hairbear]

I do too, use it in loads of things, but with so much seed, you just have to give a lot of it away. At the mo, the seeds are still green and have a lot of moisture in them, so I’m going to try the fresh seeds in a stir fry tomorrow. They’re so fragrant when green that I hope they live up to expectation.

[Debby_Wade]

Have you tried growing yellow courgette Hairbear? Much milder flavor , my OH won’t eat the dark green ones but will happily eat the yellow ones.

[JaneJones]

Best are lebanese courgettes (Otto is our favorite). Very pale, and with a nutty flavour.

[Ancient_Mariner]

I’m inclined to suggest that courgette is best used as a reason for battering and deep frying.

[Jane_Williamson]

Delicious on a barbecue grill.

[letsmile]

And going to try courgette brownies later so many courgette recipes out there!

[Debby_Wade]

I don’t think I’ve come across them Jane, I’ll have to look in the seed catalogues. I love trying new things or different varieties, this year it’s Ying Yang beans mainly to dry for Autumn/winter.

[almondbiscuit]

Major hailstorm yesterday. I was very worried about the baby kestrels we can see (with binoculars) in the nest in a pine tree opposite the window. It was all very quiet after the storm yesterday and couldn’t see them.

Then today, there they were! Three big fluffballs in the nest. Just hope the storms in the coming days won’t be as bad.

[graham]

I was going to post that my ECBU test on Tuesday was negative… but that’s positive
Is that on topic?

[Stella]

I think your negative result is very much on topic… very cheerful news… hurrah
EDIT:
Just had a ring on the doorbell… and there’s a neighbour handing me a large punnet of strawberries… they smell delicious.
OH is preparing them for immediate despatch.
So that’s my/our “cheerful news” … and yes, as so often… it’s all about food.

[strudball]

@Ancient_Mariner

battering and deep frying.

Sounds nice, and better for you than a deep fried Mars Bar

[David_Spardo]

The big telly isn’t broken, it was something else entirely which has now been discarded, so after 3 days of watching the picture on a tiny screen with my eyes screwed up, I can sit back and watch a nice big, clear picture again.

[Stella]

Today’s cheerful news:

We’ve a grand reunion planned this weekend with friends of various nationalities and
they always relish our “British offerings”… grantham gingerbreads are cooling on the racks and the apple-spicey cake is almost ready.
We’ve been searching in the cave for something “different”…
Anyway, we found a bottle of Sloe Brandy we made some 30 years ago and thought we’d give it a whirl… just to test it, of course…
having supped just a little (hic) I can report that it tastes absolutely marvellous!
We’ve another bottle down below… but that’s staying hidden… that’s just for us.

We’ve several bottles of sloe gin… which is lovely when iced… but having tasted the brandy… the gin doesn’t even come close…

[John_Scully]

@Stella

Sloe Brandy we made some 30 years ago

There’s sloe and slow

[Stella]

I think you might have guessed… that we’re not great drinkers… not of spirits anyway.
I know what I like and, whilst it’s nice to have a bottle (of whatever) nestling in the cave, I don’t feel compelled to drink it.
But, it is rather nice to have an excuse to open a bottle now and then…

[David_Spardo]

At last, our last by a long chalk in the area. farmer has cut the 2 fields that we normally walk in. It was up to my eyeballs and I could only spot Jules by his shark-like dorsal tail tip scything above the waves.
And a wonderfully sunny day for the return, he can now run and walk in a 33 metre radius of me to his heart’s content, and I can walk to the centre freely without getting sopping wet.

And on such a sunny day, down to the bottle bank and back on the trike and any moment now, a happy return to the pond, I was way too busy yesterday.

This afternoon, on the way to ‘dog school’ we will call in on a friend who is donating 2 single bed duvets that she was chucking out (2nd home visitors selling up, Brexit again ) and now Fran’s single med bed won’t have a great big double trailing all over the floor.