A super productive day at home!

As my holidays draw to a close I realised I hadn’t really had any quality ‘me’ time. So today I decided I would do some gardening and cooking and most importantly eating (followed by a brutal workout)…..

I know most of the people who know me are like WHAT? at the thought of me enjoying nature and cooking…… I also know most people who know me don’t read my blog. But for those that do – I have my ‘things’ and I do what I want (in my most bratty voice).

I love my garden, it feeds us, surprises us and looks great.

Hubby knocked together these fabulous macrocarpa sleeper raised vege beds for me. We wanted something in the small front yard as it was somewhat bare and we were sick of looking at the neighbours.

The vege beds are recessed slightly into the hill so the sit level. The bedding is in layers. Starting at the base there was two layers of newsprint paper. Second layer was pea straw, third, compost and finally a layer of bark. All of the plants were planted with natural root booster pellets and were raised organically with no pest control…. and well, now the garden has gone mad! MAD! I harvest weekly and cannot keep up with the amount of produce coming out of this little garden. We packed the plants tightly so there would be minimal opportunity for weeds to take control, but that has had it’s drawbacks with some plants competing for space and trying to kill out it’s neighbours. I keep this in check by trimming and strapping plants but I don’t do much else……. other than send hubby out to water it in the afternoons.

After pulling out weeds, planting in new salad plants, re-strapping tomatoes and lemon cucumbers (called apple cucumbers in NZ) I harvested all the available produce and prepared most of it for the freezer.

My haul today included lemon cucumbers, capsicums, tomatoes, a million beans, strawberries, rhubarb, eggplant, basil for pesto and mesculan and herbs for this week salads. 🙂

A little bit hungry and tired from the adventures in the garden, I decided to do a spot of baking and got a little carried away….. It started with a loaf of crusty white bread in the breadmaker, then a banana, walnut and dark choc bread for breakfast toasting and a gourmet lemon slice for anytime…..’all the time’ she whispers. I found the original recipes on Pinterest and the web, but I had to drastically alter them to meet my fussy tastes. There is nothing better than a slice of dense moist sweet banana bread freshly toasted and a little crispy on the outside with a splash of butter in the morning, and nothing more delightful than a citrusy lemon sticky slice on a crunchy base with a freshly brewed espresso on the side…… Heaven.

I have written out the recipes for the banana bread and lemon slice, just click on the images below to enlarge them. If you can’t read my writing and want to try out the recipes just let me know and I will try typing them out for you. Also apologies for the spelling mistakes.. teehee.

Honestly, these recipes are super, super easy and the results are to die for. Mmmmmmm

Now I thinks it’s time for that workout. 😦