Courgette and Chilli Salad

I've got lots of courgettes and lots of chillis plus mint and garlic. All home grown so this recipe from Jamie Oliver fits the bill nicely. Full details here.

I thought I'd give it a go tonight. Ames and Jake are away so I thought I'd experiment on myself in case it goes terribly wrong.

The recipe feeds four so I used one courgette instead of four. I sliced this using a cheese slicer which worked really well. I then thinly sliced a medium-sized chilli and half a garlic clove.

I put the courgette slices in a dry hot frying pan. After letting them brown for a few minutes I placed them on a plate and added some salt and pepper. You should wait 5 minutes to let the salt season the courgette.

I sprinkled on the garlic and chilli along with some olive oil and lemon. I had the mint ready to go but I forgot to add it.

It tasted really lovely. The combination of spicy chilli, lemon, olive oil and garlic really worked. I will deifnitely be trying this one again. Yum!!

Nip in the air

The Summer is almost over, if you listen to the weathermen. However last week has been lovely. This morning while mooching in the garden I did detect a slight dip in the temperature. It's a Bank Holiday Weekend so it bound to turn arctic.

The tomatoes are producing around half a dozen per day. Yes, you could say I rather overdid the tomatoes. They taste fantastic though especially the 'Tumbling Tom' cherry tomatoes. I have noticed that the squirrels have been making early morning raiding parties. I saw one the other day with a tomato in each cheek. Damn you pesky squirrels! ;-).

Other developments include the cantaloupe melon which is around the size of a tennis ball. Hopefully it will grow a little bigger than this. I have put a cloche over it to keep it warm but I have to say I'm not very hopeful.


Jake's wildflower garden seems to have been overtaken by the nasturtiums which again have gone all rampant. There are some lovely blooms though which have been attracting all sorts of nice predatory insects. What I need is a battalion of ladybirds to fight off the blackfly. To encourage them I have built a bijou ladybird house. It's currently sitting next to the shed and is vacant :-(.


So what's on the cards for next year? Well, I plan to terrace the existing plot. I may demolish the old small shed and if finances allow(which they probably don't) I would like to purchase a nice potting shed. This means I will officially be an 'old person'(maybe I should put off the potting shed for a few years).