The loveliness continues...

This has to be the easiest laziest bread recipe in the world. Although in all honesty it does taste a bit more like tea bread than 'normal' bread. It's from Nigella Express, her Lazy Loaf. Rob made it at the weekend and it's yummy.

Ingredients

200g sugar free muesli

325g wholewheat flour

7g sachet of yeast

2 tsp Maldon salt or 1 tsp table salt

250ml low fat milk

250ml water

Put all the ingredients into a bowl and stir. Transfer to a greased loaf tin and transfer to a cold oven turning the heat onto 110/gas 1/4 for 45 mins, this will allow the dough to prove.

When the 45 mins are up, turn the heat up to 180/gas 4 and bake for an hour. By this time the bread will be cooked through and when you tap on the bottom of the loaf it should sound hollow. If it doesn't sound hollow pop it back into the oven for a few mins without it's tin.

Smother in butter and home made blackberry jam...which leads me to...

Blackberry Jam

Ingredients

2 lbs blackberries

2 lbs sugar

2 tablespoons lemon juice

Put a saucer in the freezer!

Pour blackberries into deep heavy based pan. Put on a low heat on the hob and stir gently every now and then until the fruit starts to go mushy and soft.

Pour in the sugar and stir gently, then stir in the lemon juice. Continue to stir until the sugar has dissolved. Then bring to the boil and boil rapidly. Stir every couple of minutes to prevent it from sticking to the bottom of the pan. Continue to keep it on a rolling boil (all small people and animals to be locked elsewhere!) and then take saucer out of the freezer. Let a bit of jam drop onto the saucer (not too much, don't waste it!) it has reached 'setting point' when you can push it with your finger and it goes a bit crinkly, if that makes sense. If it doesn't crinkle then keep boiling and do the saucer test again a few minutes later.

When it's ready pour into sterlised jars, very carefully and put on sterilised lids. I sterilise mine by putting them through the dishwasher and filling with boiling water afterwards.

It tastes seriously good. This pair of jars is making its way to Oxford on Thursday for two small people who have become fans.

Alison from Vintage Amethyst sent me this fabulous rosebud heart after my name was pulled out in her prize draw giveaway a couple of days ago. If you haven't checked out her blog and FABULOUS shop you must, right now!! Her address is in the side bar-over there, see?

Thankyou Alison, you are very generous and sweet. If I could post you a jar of jam I would. However I fear for the postman.

My cucumbers are coming along well in the back garden-this is them first thing this morning. I think we will be able to keep the street in cucumbers for weeks to come.

The first rose on our beautifully scented bush by the back door. It smells beautiful. I think it has been in our garden from when the house was built. It's huge and every summer we have an abundance of these deep red blooms.

Home grown radishes. I grew these in pots. Highly recommended if you want to grow your own at home and only have a tiny garden or window box-these take about 4 weeks to grow, so are particularly good if you or your children are impatient!

I went to the allotment this morning and picked some more strawberries with Dad. The strawberry patch smells beautiful. They are now covered by huge cages that Dad made, covered in chicken wire to keep the birds away. We are having a bumper crop this year, due to the weather conditions. We're really pleased with how they've done.

We also met our old friend Len up there this morning, complete with baseball cap and roll up ciggie. He spends all day every day up there. I may have mentioned before that he owns several allotments all together in one corner of the site and has been a fixture up there for years, as have several other old boys. I love watching them sitting together putting the world to rights, or swapping tips on how to grow the perfect cabbage. Len is particularly good at 'suggesting' when something isn't being done quite right. He has told me 4 times now how to grow the perfect parsnip, having seen us sow them a few weeks ago. We did it wrong, by all accounts and I don't think he will be happy until he sees a trench dug a foot or so deep. Then he may stop bringing it up!
He can talk for England. I sometimes struggle to understand him and start to get tired of saying 'Pardon?' (he doesn't like that, starts to shout as if Im deaf-although he thinks I talk too quietly so is always saying 'Eh?' when I mutter something.) So instead I sometimes smile politely and nod. Seems to work.

He gave me a couple of lettuces this morning and a big bunch of spring onions. His allotments and vegetables are PERFECT. Seriously, there is not a weed in sight. He has built sheds, greenhouses, fruit cages, even a toilet on his plots. It's like a home from home.

I'm not actually that wild about spring onions, but will throw them in something or other. It is good allotment etiquette to take things when offered, otherwise you don't get offered again!