And Then Suddenly, Dinner Was Ready.

Gosh, thank you for your kind words on the crocheted garden. I’d best get on with the next section, then…

Meanwhile, let’s talk about food. Way back in April, I promised you dinner. Yeah, yeah, you’ve probably worked up quite some appetite by now: sorry for the delay. Well the good news is that dinner has finally finished growing, muchly helped by this mad sun-rain-sun-hail-sun-apocalypse-sun weather we’ve been a-having. Even the clouds have been a little crazy. Here’s a few I snapped during my run the other day:-

Forgive me: you’re hungry. Let’s get back to the food. We’ve reached that splendid time of year when all those stroppy, diva-like plants at the allotment actually begin producing dinner. But you know what it’s like with allotments: you wait all year for a runner bean and then eleventy billion come along at once, thus ensuring that you properly hate runner beans by the end of the season. I mean, there’s only so many ways with runner beans before you get sick of them boiled, fried, on toast, and steamed under the light of a full moon with dill. Actually, the runner beans are some way off being ready, but we have an insane abundance of broad beans at the moment, here being shelled by the Stoic Spouse. We have so many that I suspect our neighbours are starting to deliberately not answer the door when we knock.

And the potatoes! I love digging up potatoes – it’s like finding buried treasure. Of course the twinnage enjoy helping.

If you’re short on space and skill (that’ll be me, then), rocket is the easiest, tastiest thing in the world to grow. Oh, and courgettes (that’s zucchini to you folk over there). Peas are fab, too, because they’re easy and kinda vertical, so you don’t need much space. There’s nothing nicer than wandering into the garden/allotment to collect what you need for dinner:-

So with this luscious haul, I think it might just be time to get cooking. Do help yourself to some of that wine. This is going to be one of those dishes that just sort of designs itself as you cook it. Onions and garlic… (OK, I didn’t grow the garlic.)

Some chicken. OK, I didn’t grow the chicken. Diced courgette.

Oregano leaves from the garden.

Shell those peas. Try not eat all of them before they hit the pot. Almost fail. Pop a few broad beans from the allotment in there, too, and hope nobody notices that this is the squillionth meal in a row with broad beans in it.

Some wine. And some stock.

And some luscious Pommery mustard.

Puy lentils. You can’t go wrong with puy lentils. Well you probably can, if you serve them with chocolate or something, but in this type of dish, puy lentils are heaven.

And right at the end, the rocket.

Let’s have a stir…

Bit of black pepper, and I reckon we’re done. Enjoy.

Whaddya mean, you don’t like it?! Are you one of my sons or summat?