Homebody - kitchen edition

So as I said, as well as tending to the garden, I've been doing lots of cooking and baking over the summer. The latest season of the Great British Bake Off has started (which is essentially the only television show I watch all year), so I joked that I should make things to match the theme of each week, and then the idea just kind of stuck!

First up was cake week, so Adrian was treated to a banana cake (best banana cake recipe ever) and a carrot loaf. Last week it was biscuits and I made some oatmeal raisin cookies (disappointing, I don't recommend the recipe). This week it's bread week - any suggestions for what I can make??

On the weekend I made this delicious granola:



We've been eating granola on the weekends (changing it up from our usual muesli/rolled oats combo as a treat) and this actually works out cheaper than buying it and is pretty good if I do say so myself. We've been toying with the idea of making it for a while, and finally got all the ingredients together (normal size, not ground to dust, rolled oats are surprisingly hard to find and expensive in the UK). I'll definitely make it again!

I've also recently made these amaaaazing truffles - you would never in a million years guess that the main ingredient is dates (they're vegan!) and it's been pretty hard to keep them in the freezer and not eat one every five minutes...



The other interesting thing we've made were some brandy snap baskets to take to a friend's house for dinner - I couldn't believe how easy they are! It took a bit of experimenting with different size things to work out the perfect size to mould them on, but we eventually got there and they tasted delicious. I was fascinated with the process too - it was so interesting to watch them spread out and go all lacy in the oven:

I have a long list of other things to make, so I'm sure there'll be more updates! Adrian's definitely getting his reserves in before triathlon training starts in earnest next year that's for sure...

Homebody - garden edition

To make the most of the summer, and to make me feel like I'm getting at least a bit of a holiday, I've been taking both days of the weekend off (normally I try to put in a half day at least on the weekend to make sure I get enough stuff done). We've also been trying to be very frugal and save money (well, not so much save it, just not spend it!) as my funding has come to an end and I'm now living on savings.

As a result, we've been spending a bit more time at home and I've been doing all sorts of stuff in the garden and the kitchen, so today I thought I'd tell you about our horticultural adventures. First up, the thing I'm probably proudest of, our beans! In the words of Fatboy Slim, they've come a long way baby - I planted them from seed and grew them inside on the window sill before planting them out on the 26th of June:

They grew pretty quickly; this is a picture from just a few weeks later on the 12th of July:

And then again on the 29th of July (the amount of growth in two weeks is pretty astounding I think!):



It was a bit hairy when cyclone Bertha came through as we weren't sure whether they'd make it or not. I couldn't put the poles very far in the ground unfortunately, so it was multiple guy ropes to the rescue!:



But they survived and are looking bushy and healthy (luckily no aphids in sight) and we had our first harvest for dinner last night! I made this recipe and they were delicious. The variety is 'Moonlight' in case you're interested.





In other garden news, we had an amazing one-day-only flowering of a cactus, and we've also been enjoying the roses, strawberries, herbs, and actually learning the value of pruning things to make them grow back stronger (our chilli plant inside is pretty miraculous as a result of a good prune). We've also been told that we needed to 'turn' our compost, so did that this morning to great success (I now realise that our flat layers of stuff weren't actually going to do anything, but it now looks pretty good).



Adrian's still on a mission to try and fix the lawn (it's being taken over by rampaging dandelions and other weeds), we have a dead lavender that shows no signs of being able to be resurrected (and it died instantly on being brought home from the supermarket and put into a pot which is a bit annoying), and successfully growing coriander is still a mystery to me, but one step at a time! It's been such a great summer and having a garden has been so nice. Here's hoping autumn is benevolent and we can enjoy it a bit longer...

Le Tour à Londres

The Tour de France came to London today, and along with thousands of other people, I popped down from my office to Embankment to have a look (helmets helpfully identified - I don't think otherwise you'd be able to see them in amongst all the people!). Where we were standing you could also feel the District line trains rumbling under your feet - a very strange sensation.

As you can see from my photo it wasn't that great a spot (although being under the trees did save us from the dreary London drizzle), and they all came whizzing through so fast, but it was fun to see and leaves you with a renewed appreciation for their athleticism (hoping that it's natural, not artificially enhanced). 

It also brought back memories of the last time we saw the tour in Lourdes - can't believe that was six years ago! Time is seriously flying...

A Swedish wedding

Continuing my tradition of jumping all over the place in time, I'm going to interrupt the India travel story to give you some photos of our long weekend in Västerås and Stockholm. We were there for my friend Stina's wedding and it continued the tradition of beautiful weather and wonderful hospitality that have been the hallmarks of every trip I've ever taken to Sweden.

We helped them set up the venue (a beautiful barn) and then enjoyed all the festivities - despite everything being in Swedish! The food and wine was excellent, we loved the fact that the DJ played a ridiculous amount of ABBA, and it was so much fun being in the sauna and (wood-fired!) hot tub at 3am with the sky being nearly as light as the middle of the day. 

Stockholm was great as well and this time we finally made it to the Vasa Museum which was really interesting and well worth a visit. We also had the most delicious lunch at Nybrogatan 38 which is a little restaurant in the upmarket Östermalm area of Stockholm. We arrived late (the Vasa Museum had held us captive for much longer than anticipated) and even though they were operating a reduced menu it was still really good and great value. Just check out the size of my salad:

Thank you so much to Stina, her family and friends for making it such a great visit. We promise we'll come back and take you up on the offer of cross-country skiing!

The rest of the photos are online here.

The Golden Triangle: Delhi

(I can't believe I never posted this...better late than never I guess!)

As part of my part-time job last year, I was incredibly lucky to be able to go to India, somewhere that I've wanted to go to for ages, and which I've heard so much about from Mum and Alexandra.  I worked for several days at a conference in New Delhi, and then had a week to go exploring.  I was supposed to travel with a friend, but unfortunately she couldn't make it, so it was just me tripping around.  I didn't feel unsafe really at all, although being a white female by herself you certainly got a lot of looks outside the main tourist locations.  I did do some shopping at the Lajpat Nagar market on my first few days to get some clothes to blend in - a couple of shalwar kameez which were actually the best things to wear, nice and loose and light.

While the conference was on we did a bit of exploring, including the Hauz Khas complex which was very relaxed and a lovely green respite from the city, as well as the Qutub Minar, which is a 73m tall minaret which was built between 1192 and 1368.  The complex has got this fantastic iron pillar in it which is rust resilient, and quite advanced for the time of its construction (unknown, but predating the Qutub Minar at least).

After the conference I moved to a B&B  in the Defence Colony and spent three days doing some exploring around both that area and the central city.  As it was monsoon season it was a complete washout most days, and apparently one of the days was the third heaviest day of rain they'd had in 10 years - I can believe it!

Thigh-high water in my road in the Defence Colony - just don't think about what you're wading through...

While I was in Delhi I packed in as much as I possibly could.  I saw the Jama Masjid mosque, which is the largest mosque in India, holding up to 25,000 worshippers, the beautiful Red Fort, Indira Ghandi's house, the Ghandi Smriti (site of martyrdom, including an amazingly modern and interesting museum, full of things to interact with), Safdarjung's Tomb (taken there by mistake after the rickshaw driver didn't understand my directions), Humayun's Tomb, the shrine of Nizam-ud-din-Chishi (where I nearly lost my shoes after coming out a completely different way than I went in and taking about 20 minutes to walk around and find my original point of entry where I'd left my shoes in the first place...), the Jantar Mantar (a huge outdoor observatory) and the incredibly elaborate Akshardham Temple on the outskirts of Delhi.  You're not allowed to take photos inside the temple, but here's an image I've found online of the amazing elephant reliefs - so detailed (and there are 148 elephants in all, surrounding the base of the main temple).

I also got taken on a tour of Delhi by a very enterprising Sikh rickshaw driver who, as well as taking me to the inevitable shops, also took me to the Gurdwara Bangla Sahib, the largest Sikh house of worship, in Delhi.  They feed, for free, an astonishing 10,000 people per day which is pretty amazing.  I tried the food and it was pretty good!  I also got a tour around the kitchen which was churning out food on a pretty incredible scale given the basic nature of the equipment.  Loved this guy who was overseeing potato preparations:

After Delhi I was supposed to get on the train to Agra, but fell hook, line and sinker for a scam at the train station and was conned into getting a car and driver for the whole round trip.  I was completely suckered in by the fact that everyone talking to me was in uniforms and seemed completely legit.  I should have known that it was all a big, fat con, but ah well, never mind.  These things happen!  In the grand scheme of things it wasn't that expensive (and they refunded me the price of my train tickets), and it was probably safer to travel that way as opposed to on trains by myself given I had just shown myself to be overly gullible!  My driver, Mantun, was actually really nice and friendly (and I am sure not in on the scam itself), and he took me to places I would never, ever have seen had I been on the train, so I'm happy to see a silver lining in it after all.

But that's enough for this post, next post, Agra and Jaipur!  (Although if you want a sneak peak of all the photos, the album is online here).