Herb Garden Rebirth

Gardening heroes!

Phoenix the Pumpkin and the Business of the Bun in the Oven

If Green Cheese were a garden it would look like my garden, which last month looked like this:

Clovers from the North moved in swiftly and overcame the watermelon and the rosemary with little resistance. Raiding nettles moved in by stealth and the pumpkin made a bolt out South East but was cut off at the knees by a deadly fungus. Rogue grass and guerrilla weeds plundered the remains.

But hope glimmered among the weeds, for as I surveyed the devastation, my hands linked resignedly behind my head, I noticed a small, golden mass...

And then, slightly to the right of the head of a flaxen-haired cherub, I noticed another small, golden mass. On closer inspection, nestled like a phoenix among the ashy dirt and bark my cat uses as a toilet, I found this:

It was a pumpkin, and it had grown without me. It is a lesson in life, everybody. Something good might still happen even if you don't do any work and lie around on the couch instead.

Speaking of growing things, I have an excuse for this atrocious neglect of my garden and its metaphorical counterpart, and that is I'm growing a little something myself - yes, I'm delighted to say that baby number two is busy getting all ready for his or her December appearance into the world.

And why is this an excuse? So I don't have to repeat myself, please refer back to April 2008. Only this time my cast-iron stomach let me down for the first time in 18 years, which is unfortunate, because that was one streak I had been seriously hoping to continue for the remainder of my life.

So food-related talk and cooking has been off the cards for a few months now, and may be for some time if my last pregnancy is anything to go by. But let me assure you of one thing: Project Bake will be back. Hopefully not in black though, because that sounds like an Epic Fail to me.

 Sun-dried tomato WIN

Quorn™. Eat Quazy.

Here's another product offer promo marketing I'm letting through the net because someone may get some free "meat free, soy free protein" out of it. 

Yay?

I won't be able to attend this Quorn party - and I'm not going to say I'm not a tad frightened of whatever Quorn is anyway- so feel free to RSVP yourself if you want to be among the FIRST in Australia to try the new range, or if you just want free champagne. Say you're me if you need to. Do whatever it is you need to do to get your hands on that free Quorn!!

I hope they have security at this event.

Project Bake #14: Hazelnut Caramel Slice

While I had the hazelnuts out I also made this slice, about which Bake warned:

"The caramel won't be cuttable if you don't cook the caramel enough."

When I took the slice out of the fridge and tried to cut the slice - even with my best knife - the slice cracked and splintered and I stood dismayed. Not cuttable. I was ready to accept FAILure, with or without appropriately-placed pronouns.

Or was I?

My prolonged dismayed stance allowed my brain some quiet thinking time. After this time, I abandoned the knife and the caramel and editorial oversights and picked up a book to get lost in a story about a smelly boatman and a big-nosed doctor with a bruise on his chest.

I came back to the slice an hour later. It had softened. I sliced the slice with my best knife.

WIN

Project Bake #13: Chocolate Hazelnut Friands

Made last night for Mums Group this morning. Very hazelnut mealsy. 

WIN

Project Bake #12: Lime and Poppy Seed Syrup Cake

"We have the countries of the eastern Mediterranean - Greece, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan - to thank for the serendipitous act of transforming a simple cake into something truly splendid by drenching it in sugar syrup,"

 says Bake. And I thank those countries. This may not be everybody's cup of tea, but it's my cup of tea, like a nice hot cup of Rooibos this afternoon with a good mate, who couldn't have cake because she's on Lite 'n' Easy (you don't have to shop or cook, you see, all you have to do is buy milk).

But I dug in nonetheless, and she dug into her fabulously organised packages of dried apricots and berry yoghurt, and while I do like citrus flavours in desserts, I absolutely LOVED this. Hands down my favourite baked good of the project so far, and enjoyed in such fine company! Could this day get any better? Yes! There is still three-quarters of the cake left!

I'll be needing Lite 'n' Easy myself before this project's over, and it won't be because it's Easy.

 EPIC WIN!

Project Bake #11: Honey and Museli Scones

A Sunday arvo tea treat for husband and friend. We ate half of them before I remembered to take a picture. It's bound to happen eventually, in which case I'll have to draw a picture. Or steal something off Google Images.

 WIN