Coronation chickpeas (something I've always wanted to make) for jacket potatoes at the community kitchen. Just nayo and curry spices, basically. Also made a chocolate biscuit fridge cake, because there was a bowl of broken digestives to use up. It hadn't set by the time I left, but apparently it all got eaten.
Footpath garden: cool spider, second(?) tomato, pretty wild flowers.
A gluten free, beetroot brownie, full of good stuff. And my perfected homemade falafel, because I have a craving. Also dyed macaroni pink by cooking it in beet water. And two courgette cakes for the freezer.
Braw summer days. Beach wanderings and swims with visitors (G&K) and Max.
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Sunrise with Max, who slept over at mine. He's so good at sitting quietly first thing in the morning now.
Walk with G&K along the beach to East Wemyss. The ice cream shop was closed :(
A decent flush of chicken of the woods in the same log that last year I found one as big as my torso. A few baby dryads and oysters around, too.
"What is... spotted dick?" asked one of my guests from Europe.
Incredibly braw pink sunset.
Coconut jam cake to use misc leftover jams and coulis; radically improv gluten free brownie, with cranberry sauce, teff flour, and all manner of other strange things.
Breaded chicken of the woods. One needs nothing else in life.
An uncharacteristically braw 10th of August. Sunrise, brunch at Kangus, Community Kitchen, then a glittering walk home. Plus an epic moonrise.
A tiny wee harvest from the footpath garden.
Enough courgettes? Big enough tomato?
Gorgeous summer continues. It's magical every day. There really aren't words.
Cutie Lucy came to stay over. She's 14 years old, blind, and deaf. She wanders around the flat gently bumping into things while she works out the smellscape. If she happens to bump into a human, she wags her tail in delight. She doesn't care who it is, she's just happy to find herself not alone. Even Dave is charmed.
I made this crust for a tart, finally using the gluten free oat flour I've had for ages as well as hazelnuts, coconut oil and rose sugar syrup, but it a) only made half what I thought I'd need and b) completely fell apart so was no use. It tasted nice anyway though.
Lowenna (and K&M) came for beach walkies. Then we went to Auchtermuchty for lunch in the Old Barn, a wander around the open gardens. Finally off with R to look for agates.
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After a hot week, and a thunderstormy weekend, it was time to see if all the newfound rainfall caused the oysters to flush again. It had, but a week earlier! Somehow we missed it, it must have been wetter in the woods than in Dysart. But there were still a couple of boxes worth that weren't too old, though the rain had splashed them all over with dirt. We also got a handful of charcoal burners in surprisingly good condition.
BBQ pulled jackfruit at the community kitchen - a first for me - to go inside tacos. The BBQ sauce was improv from what we had to use up, but I brought my own liquid smoke. The canned jackfruit has been kicking around for ages. I also made a coffee and walnut cake.
Went to a spot where we missed chicken of the woods last year, and found a nice flush in perfect condition. Then went to a nearby spot where we got chicken of the woods last year, and saw none. But stayed a few more minutes to look around near by trees, and lo! 5.5kg in total. It's chickeny meals for the next weeks.
A huge haul of agates to clean up.
More braw sunrises.
I've never tried butter chicken, but it always sounded so appealing. I followed a normal butter chicken recipe (subbing coconut cream, cashew cream, margarine, etc) to make butter chicken [of the woods] and it was fabulous!
Accompanied by courgette pakoras, naturally.
I marinaded chunks of chicken of the woods in lemon juice, olive oil, garlic, sage, thyme and rosemary (herbs from the garden) for most of a day, then seared it in the pan. Served with spaghetti, chard and green beans (from the garden) and drizzled with the rest of the marinade. *chef kiss*
Caught up on work in the garden and had a couple of big harvests. Loads of tomatoes and courgettes, UFO squashes and chillis, green and purple beans. Fewer cucumbers than last year. The raspberries are wrapping up but the blueberries are starting. Picked my first celery! Relieved the heat wave didn't wreck it.
The rest of my footpath garden sunflowers have opened and are making the place look nice. Distracting from the caterpillar apocalypse that is shredding everything else.
Next level sunrises. L came to visit!
Food at Kangus.
First poppy in the wildflower bit of the footpath garden. More cornflowers and teeny pansies.
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A trip to Dundee with L. We visited the V&A, Verdant Works, and the street L's ancestors grew up on, and had lunch at Rad Apples.
Pizza and hot chocolate pics are actually from Nova Pizza in Edinburgh, where we had a reunion with A!
Courgette choc chip cake, beet brownie (roasting the beets instead of boiling does keep the pink colour!), seedy bread, more breaded chicken of the woods.
Pretty fairies bonnets. A poor showing of chanterelles and a sorry cracked bolete.
Apple crumble cake, and almond lime pie at Community Kitchen.
Thai green curry with chicken of the woods. Incredibly good.
Making pizza from scratch just for myself feels like such a treat. Not having to care about what anyone else wants on their pizza. Not having to stretch the dough or toppings as far as they'll go to make as much pizza as possible. Just one pizza, exactly how I like it, just for me.
This one has chicken of the woods, and all veg from the garden apart from the sweetcorn.
Spicy Mexican chicken (of the woods) with black beans, in fajitas.
The sunrises and glorious beach photos are old news at this point. Supper Club by Louise at Grain & Sustain is new though! Fantastic food and company.
First mange tout and carrots. Picked a load of celery. Romanesco looks like it's trying, but may be suffering from caterpillars. Not sure if it's right or not. Rainbow chard still going strong. Small sweet turnips. Tons of chillis. Mutant giant capsicum.
Chicken (of the woods) karaage. Marinaded in soy sauce, mirin and cooking sake, then coated with cornflour and plain flour before deep fried.
Also a giant pot of soup made from excessive garden vegetables.
Front seats at the Kirkcaldy marathon (which is going past my window). There are some stewards clapping everyone who passes, so I can pretend that I'm getting little rounds of applause every time I achieve something very small today.
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Lucy is back for a longer stay. I love how her little velvet ears flap from side to side as she trots along.
Last week I met someone on the late bus back from Edinburgh. We had a lot in common, and she told me about a wellness weekend in Silverburn Park this weekend. So I went, along with K and R. We had a tour of the flax mill, and learned about all the amazing stuff in Silverburn park we didn't know about! Then had a very disappointing lunch experience at Blacketyside Farm.
This is the best one yet. Sweet and sour chicken of the woods balls. I read a bunch of recipes, then improvised. Blitzed the chicken of the woods and stirred in Chinese 5 spice and vegeta. Bound it with soy sauce, cooking sake, cornflour, plain flour and chickpea flour. Mushed into balls, and deep fried. They held together perfectly. Then stir fried them along with veg from the garden, and sweet and sour sauce (ketchup, white/coconut sugar, rice/apple cider vinegar). Reviews included: "this tastes like KFC?!".
I also made matcha chop chip cookies, cos I had a craving, and courgette and rhubarb cake, cos I had a glut.
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The harvest continues.
Dave and I went on a somewhat ridiculous adventure to a loch near Pitlochry. Something about UFOs. We walked further than planned, and I saw lots of interesting mushrooms, and almost fell for false chanterelles. I had multi-layer redundancy for where to stop for lunch, and about five places were inexplicably closed or had stopped serving food by the time we got there. We settled for very mediocre hotel restaurant chips.
I saw false chanterelles in the mushroom book last year and was like pffffttt they look nothing like chanterelles what idiot would fall for that. Yesterday I climbed up a steep bank and picked a load of... false chanterelles. Sigh. (I definitely did think they were a bit shifty at the time though.)
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Puffballs, birch boletes, not chanterelles, pretty amanitas.
Pretty sure it's a bit early for this many agaricus!
Apple and oat muffins, spiced fruit cookies, and not-meatballs, at the Community Kitchen.
