Domestic Goddess

Only kidding! ;) This post should be titled "In The Kitchen", but I can pretend ;)

When it has been too wet to be in the garden, I have been playing in the kitchen. This bubbling cauldron is a sourdough starter. I love sourdough, but have never tried making it before. After watching it being made on a recent River Cottage programme on television, I though how hard can it be? I'll let you know as the weeks go by! Yesterday I started it with flour and water and the fermentation began quite quickly. I fed it in the evening and it is bubbling nicely.

In the hedgerows the wild cherry plums are ripe and beginning to fall to the ground. I couldn't let them go to waste, so we collected 3 lbs of them and I have made some jam.

Each type of wild plum tastes different. Previous years I have used the red ones that grow near our home and they are quite sour, although my OH and Jay loved the jam. This year I used only the yellow ones, growing elsewhere in the village, and the jam tasted of apricots. I'm picking some more!

Besides all the cakes that I have been baking, I made these individual strawberry cheesecakes. I had to take a photo as I thought they looked pretty. I based the cheesecake on a Nigella Lawson recipe, but used smaller quantities.

On the savory front, we are eating beans, beans and more beans! I think I planted too many at the allotment, and there are still the runner beans and borlotto beans to come! We are also eating a lot of lettuce!