Mainly Domestic

[callmemadam]

More surprises in my garden. This lovely rose is on the gable end of the cottage, under my bedroom window. I think it must be ‘Buff Beauty’? Love it. The round beds (will they stay?) are a haze of pink and purple at the moment, mainly from aquilegias. When I looked close, this appeared:



The name tells you how I missed it: Thalictrum aquilegifolium. Pottering around the border before flowering time, I would have taken it for yet another aquilegia.

It’s getting really summery



I was intrigued by to Cornflower’s description of beetroot with goat’s cheese as recommended by Nigel Slater. I have a copy of The Kitchen Diaries (50p from the market) and followed his instructions for baking beetroot rather than faffing around with a pressure cooker as I’ve always done before. It was a complete success. I now have leftover cooked beetroot, some of which will make my favourite beetroot salad. I got this tip from a friend years ago: just diced beetroot in yogurt flavoured with horseradish. It’s pink! It’s delicious.

I was so inspired that I went on to make Nigel’s Pear and Blueberry Cake, only without the pear.



Lovely.
Of course, it helps to have a shiny shiny new kitchen, shown here just before it was finished.

Comments

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

Thank you!
I love that icon; I think I should replace a lot of mine.

[land-girl.livejournal.com]

I don't know about replacing yours (I love your icons!) but you are very welcome to use it. It was scanned from a 1950's Robert Opie scrapbook (I think) - I don't think it will be missed!

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

Oh, thank you. I saw one of those Opie books recently (10p!) but didn't buy it because it was rather scruffy.