Too Young To Be Grumpy

Today was an absolutely beautiful day. The sun was shining bright and the sky was crystal clear and a deep blue in the morning. We went up my folks to take them the pictures from yesterday, and then headed into town to do some essential shopping. Unfortunately we forgot some change, so didn't have any money for the car park (charging on a Sunday - the rotters!), so we had to park a little way away and walk in. I didn't mind too much, though, because it was such a lovely day.

When we got home we did a few chores and had lunch. Then I made a cake.

Chocolate, Hazelnut and Coffee Cake

I got the recipe from Esurientes blog, who is always posting absolutely gorgeous sounding recipes. If I had more time, I'd probably try all of Niki's dessert recipes. Anyway, you can find the recipe and method for making the cake here.

I only had chopped hazelnuts and considered whether to grind them up a bit, but in the end I didn't. Also I accidentally put all 250g of chocolate into the cake, and didn't leave any for the top, so I ended up putting about 320g of chocolate into ours. Oops!

Here's a couple of pics of the finished article, which is absolutely fandabeedozee.


Here's the full cake. It didn't stay full for long.

Sliced and just dying to jump in my mouth.

Roast Dinner

Earlier in the day, we'd decided that tonight we'd have a roast dinner and harvest the broccoli flowers from our veg patch. I really wasn't sure about what they were going to taste like. I mean, I've tasted broccoli before, but this is the first time I'd tasted something from my own veg patch. I don't like runner-beans, but Daisy was up for having a couple of huge ones that were dangling off our plant. I said I'd try them :)

We'd bought a lovely corn-fed chicken from Somerfield, and cooked it up. As it was getting dark, about 30 minutes before the chook was ready, I headed out to do my harvest bit.


There's the broccoli, prior to decapitation.

There's a big one you have Mr.Bean.

Mr.Broccoli has the chop.

Chopped into florets - a surprising amount from a single flower. Easily enough for two meals.

These are the little critters left hiding in the flower. I washed them all out, and here they are at the bottom of a bowl of water.

The bean all sliced and diced. Looks perfect -- if you like that sorta thing.


A yummy chicken roast.

I wasn't sure about the broccoli until I tasted it. It was absolutely yummy. Almost sweet. I don't think I would have believed you if you'd told me as a kid I'd be saying "yummy" about broccoli, but there you are. I guess I'd never had the fresh stuff before. I'm chuffed how far the single flower went too, because it means I've got quite a few more meals outside in the veg patch. I still didn't like the taste of runner beans, though - fresh or not. But even so, the fresh veg made the tinned peas and the frozen roasters taste really quite weird. Next time, I think we'll have to have real 'taters for the roasters.

Have to say that the corn-fed chicken was delicious too. It was rather pricey, and didn't have alot of meat on it, but it was a very tastey chicken, and it's nice to know it was probably a happy one.

Nothing like finishing off a roast with a nice piece of that cake again!