So, what's going on???

It's been busy around here in the last week.  Busy in a good way.

The garden is back in shape after the jaunt to New Caledonia.  I'm not sure why all the berries decided to stop growing while we were away, but methinks the sister who was meant to do the watering probably forgot.  The lettuce went to seed, the peas turned to straw, the berries stopped fruiting and all the roses needed trimming.

But, we are back on track.  The cucumbers are doing better than ever, we are about to be inundated with tomatoes, the radishes are almost done, the chili's are growing faster than I can harvest them (I think this would be a brilliant cash crop if we didn't eat them all on a yearly basis!).  Yesterday I planted more peas, lettuce and celery.

Grapes, growing nicely, looking forward to them ripening

Cucumber!

And in the category of cooking.... the garden has been great.  I made fresh spag bol the other night using only lamb mince from a friends farm and things from the garden.  I stopped sort at making my own pasta, because being without a pasta machine means that I stubbornly make it by hand.... which is labourious and not so attractive afterwards. 

On the sweet and tasty front, I've been trying to create the perfect apricot ball.  After reading all my recipe books, which is no small feet, and checking out internet recipes, I tried the most popular one (which had condensed milk, cocunut, apricot and caster sugar.)  This was too sweet, and too coconutty for me.  I tried a version with malt biscuits broken in, but were still too sweet and cocnutty.  But, I think that I shall have the perfect apricot ball recipe by the end of the weekend.  I was going to upload a picture, but.... I kinda ate them all before photographing..... :D

With school back in 2 weeks, I have just a fortnight to get all sorted for the mad-morning rush!  So, after sorting out my bento cupboard, again, I went and bought a whole load of plastic containers for storing my cups, mini-cutters, picks, etc.  Tomorrow's task is to sort of the drawer.......... which is bulging at the seams.  And what happens to all the bento bands?  I seem to lose them.  But, I have a plan, which I will post out to all my readers once I have sorted out.

I do have a question for my readers...... I have LOADS of zucchini/courgettes.  We are now at the stage that we are sick of eating them.... what recipes or ideas do you have for using them?  I've been making lots of vegie fritters, grating them into dishes and generally trying to think of something fun to do.  What do you do with them?