These pictures seem to have joined up in some mysterious WordPress way so rather than mess about with it anymore. I’ll just leave it like this. :)
The top one is a ladybird larvae on an outside wall beginning its change…..
These pictures seem to have joined up in some mysterious WordPress way so rather than mess about with it anymore. I’ll just leave it like this. :)
The top one is a ladybird larvae on an outside wall beginning its change…..
In the best (worst?) tradition of see something and want it now a post from Sally BR at the Bewitching Kitchen hit my inbox last night. Some not so sublimal message went straight to my brain…..
‘Oh yes!’ , I thought, ‘Blueberry muffins, I want them and I want them now!’ – (after a virtuous light supper of broadbeans and tomato passata on pasta). Thank you Sally! Sometimes reading my friends’ blogs is just what I need to prompt getting out the mixing bowl!
I went outside and inspected my very small blueberry plant, there were exactly 6 ripe blueberries on it. Not quite enough for a batch of these, in fact, let’s be honest, I have never grown more than a handful of these and the dogs have a habit of hoovering them off the plant anyway when they think I’m not looking.
As I have a mild phobia about translating cups to grams, I made them this way…
and I made them very fast.
250 grams plain flour
170 grams golden caster sugar
2 tsps baking powder
2 eggs
150 grams full fat yoghurt
grated fresh lemon zest
100 ml unsweetened soya milk
50 grams melted butter (as used full fat yoghurt reduced the butter- but you could use more like 100 grams if you are using low fat yoghurt I guess)
200 grams big fat blueberries
I sieved the dry ingredients together.
Beat the eggs, yoghurt, and soya milk together gently. Didn’t have buttermilk or much yoghurt left so added soya milk which seemed to work fine.
Added the lemon zest.
Melted the butter in another pan.
Then mixed the dry ingredients with the eggy/milk/yoghurt mix, drizzled the cooling butter in on top, gave that a quick stir, till the butter was just mixed in, folded the blueberries in. Plopped it into 11 muffin cases. I’ve realised that if you use one less muffin case, you get bigger muffins and they look more convincing.
Baked them at 160 C on Fan setting for 25 minutes.
Eaten approx 15 minutes after they came out of the oven.
Watered the veg bed, admired the rainbow, went to bed.
Hot summer days in this country are still a big event: precious and usually cherished. We celebrate by putting our thermals away and staying out late and attempting to do what those in hotter climates are born knowing how to do….cook outdoors.
One chicken dinner: four huge pieces of chicken, marinated in lemon, fresh oregano, sweet paprika and a little oil, squeezed onto the rack of our new barbecue, dome popped over the top and cooked in about 45 minutes, served with fresh radishes and spring onions and griddled lettuce, and what look like carrot chopsticks and some other big hunks of salad vegetables. A slice of sourdough, a few new potatoes. That’s about it…
You want a review? Messy, smoky, delicious. Some of the best chicken I have eaten in a long while, the dome kept loads of moisture in the meat, succulent is the word that springs to mind – I could get into this…. :) All tips most welcome to this barbecue beginner!
No pudding, just a wander round the garden looking at the flowers.