Treasures and textures in the home and garden shop at Snape Maltings

Walking into the House & Garden shop at Snape Maltings was the equivalent of entering a sweet shop for me. First I spotted the yellow velvet chaise longue and then there was something else that caught my eye. I was here, then I was there and I think at one point MOH was all for sitting down on the said chaise longue and wait for me to ground myself. However I suspect he also wanted to stay in close attendance so he could proffer the inevitable "and where would you put that" or "don't we already have something like that" when faced with me wanting to buy yet another thing. I'm sure without him following me around I'd have returned to him looking like someone who'd just taken part in the cabbages and kings game on Crackerjack (hands up who shouted it then, even if it was just in your head!) but I suspect even I may have struggled with the beauty that I first saw. 

I mean I don't even like corner sofas (and yes that was pointed out) but isn't this gorgeous, and totally worth making the exception for. I countered that this was the very reason we had to have mustard dining chairs. Understandably he looked confused, as we'd not even seen this then. But you know it makes sense don't you?

It's probably just as well we didn't come here before we bought our gorgeous white glass dining table, or else we might have ended up with this as this was everything I thought I wanted. 

And then I spotted this. It's wood. I was shocked too. But the colour. Even MOH was showing some interest now. I don't think the interest was to shoo me away from it, but maybe...

I managed to curb my enthusiasm enough as we continued through the shop.  Smaller, detailed items caught my eye, like this garden lantern - wouldn't these look great in a line along a patio or on my sleeper bed?

And after the frenzy of the colour overload we started with, I moved into a more restful and neutral - but no less gorgeous - part of the shop. The rose chair here isn't usually my style, but I fell for this too.

Being attracted to colour and naturally so, I always pause and wonder if there is such a thing as too much colour. Often when I see such subtle beauty as this. I'm reminded though that we all need some neutrals, to make sense of the colour and these go on my list for a future house too.

Even though I admire the coolness of these neutrals, I think I'd always be tempted to add a pop of colour in with all that pattern.  And some lime green blankets would be just my thing. 

My creative mind was also piqued with these heart made of buttons on wire. I'm not sure I have enough buttons yet, but give me a while and who knows!

Then just as MOH had managed to successfully steer me around the shop with no purchases, we both faltered. As usual I was attracted by the glitz of these stacking tables. MOH who's got a bit of a map thing was interested in them too, and I think they're the type of tables that are timeless. And what's even better is the top lifts off so it becomes a tray too. Multifunctional and beautiful, I think if we see these again we're sold.

I say if, as I strongly suspect that any future attempts to visit Snape Maltings in Suffolk will be strongly rejected, well I guess they will be if he knows where he's going...

Are you and your OH like this shopping? Or do you have other, defined roles that each of you take?

July's flowers: Fuchsias, agapanthus and succulents (yes succulents)

Remember those giant fuchsias I had a while back? Well they've grown, and flowered.  And while the flowers could be described as giant, the plants are still not quite in the giant category. They have grown tremendously since even the end of May, but I think that (assuming they survive the winter) next year they'll be brilliant.

The buds of the flowers gave a hint of the fullness of the flowers within, looking fit to burst at any moment.

And when they did, pretty ballerinas with frilly skirts were on display. I don't think there's been more than a couple of flowers on each plant at a time, but given there's so much flower that's not surprising is it?

They last pretty well too, and still have a certain elegance even as they fade.

Elsewhere in the garden the hardy fuchsia bush was up for the chop. It looks dramatic - and quite a bit was cut off - but it was the lower branches which were starting to swamp the grass. Seeing it in the trug waiting to go to the compost bin looking so pretty almost made me regret it, but then looking back at the bush that looks way better too.

July was also the month that deadheading also came into its own with gazanias, sweet peas, giant fuchsias and roses all combining to make this striking photo - helped by the pretty pink trug.

DEADHEADING!

By the conservatory our agapanthus buds were finally opening, there was a while to go before the flowers started to open but watching these is fascinating. 

And when they open, they're breathtakingly stunning.

Outside my greenhouse something quite remarkable has taken place in my succulent trug. Some of my succulents have started flowering, and they're the most delicate flowers. 

I've never seen succulents flower, especially any of my own. And if I'm honest I'm surprised they have because I do very little to help them. Most of these were pretty neglected last winter, as I forgot I'd left them in the hanging basket on the cherry tree. But I do wonder if that contributed to this year's flowers, as after all they are alpines, who knows?

There's been plenty more flowers in the garden during July but these three are my favourite plants, so it's good to see them all flowering at the same time.  What's your favourite plant?

A day in the kitchen: (almost) domestic goddess-ing

Despite having the best looking veg box delivered last week, somehow lunches didn't happen as I'd hoped. They were hastily grabbed and probably not the healthiest option and I was keen not to repeat that again this week.  So yesterday I spent some time prepping and cooking in the kitchen so that I stood half a chance.

If you didn't see my pretty and tasty veg box, here's my Facebook post:

The box was so good - it's the type of box where you can choose your items - that our second box is arriving before we head to work this morning. We usually buy our fruit and veg from our local greengrocers, but just lately the quality seems to have gone down while the price has gone up and so I've been looking at other options. The price of this box is similar but the quality - and freshness - of the produce is far superior.

As well as these we also had some raspberries from the allotment to use - most are in the freezer - so my day of Domestic Godess-ing started with banana, apple and raspberry spelt pancakes, which of course we topped with greek yogurt, more apple puree and honey. They're good, and I use the recipe in Hugh's River Cottage Everyday as my base. I'm not sure I ever really follow it - for a start it doesn't have banana in it - but you'll discover through this post, I often only use a recipe as a guide.

Back to those lunches...

And yes, if you've scrolled down that is cake. But a homemade cake so I think that's slightly better. And any lunch this ends with cake is even better still.  

So this is my take on Elly Pear's apple and banana cake. It does have quite a bit of sugar in, as I discovered as I started to make it - oops.  Well, I consoled myself that it was helping me reduce the mountain of frozen bananas I have in the freezer.  The recipe says to use overripe bananas, not frozen ones, but I sort of adapted the recipe a bit, I also didn't add the second topping, purely because by the time it was in the oven I had moved onto other things.

The cake recipe says it serves ten, even for a big cake person like me, I think it'll do more than that. Maybe next time though I should opt for a healthier cake, I will, if I remember. There is more to our lunches than cake, but rolls get boring (and sandwiches aren't my thing) so I've turned to those kinds of lunches where there's salad, protein and grains with lots of variety.

To help get us back on track with weekday lunches, yesterday I cooked some greenwheat freekeh and knocked up another batch and a half of Elly Pear's green harissa. I was only going to make a single batch, but my kitchen scales went a bit loopy with the coriander and so it became a batch and a half.

I think I agree with her about it being addictive, and who'd have thought that spring onions, kale, coriander, garlic, pickled jalapenos, salt and vegetable oil could produce such a winning combination.

In her newest book there's also recipes using the paste - I cooked the green eggs and refried beans, and we'll be having that again. Maybe not this batch though, as a spoonful alongside grains, salad and roasted vegetables will give our lunches a bit of zing, and there's more recipes I want to try in her books too.

And a batch of pizza dough 

While the cake was cooking I was making a batch of pizza dough, as with the weather nice again we decided to fire up the pizza oven. There seemed little point making enough for one meal though so in the end I made enough for what turned out to be three occasions.  With a kilo of flour, plenty of yeast, some olive oil, salt and tepid water it's a sticky, but enthusiastic dough.

I've still the perfect my take on the recipe, but when I do I'll share it here. Already we've found that the simplest pizza toppings are the best: tomato sauce, torn mozzarella and torn basil, or with some shavings of spicy nduja sausage.

Here's one serving of the dough during its second prove, it's enough for four pizzas the size of a large side plate and a smaller, test, garlic bread pizza. With another two "meals" in the freezer, the self appointed domestic goddess title was starting to be earnt.

But I wasn't done there as while the pizza oven was on, it seemed a missed opportunity not to make use of the heat as the oven cooled down. So the apricots from my veg box were split and doused with thyme, vanilla sugar, water and a vanilla pod. A combination I remembered seeing online recently and was looking forward to trying out. 

Each year I forget just how much I like apricots and I was really looking forward to trying these. 

Outside finally the pizza oven was getting there, and pizzas were cooked and eaten. No pictures, as by now I was hungry. I'd also made some crumble to keep in the fridge to meet emergency crumble needs, and following the suggestion of rhubarb crumble in an earlier comment, it seemed the only way to go.  

Not content with that I'd also made a good looking, and well-risen sourdough to cook in the pizza oven. We knew it was possible, but as we discovered our oven was still too hot. The crust crusted up well, but before the bread could continue to rise in the heat, and it came out looking like this - oops.

Thankfully though it tasted better than it looked and so we'll be eating this for breakfast this week. And trying again, every time we fire up the pizza oven. 

That wasn't our only mishap though as it turns out I needed my emergency crumble sooner than I thought too. That turned out much better than the bread, especially dolloped with mascarpone and eaten straight out of the tin as soon as it was done. It seemed rude not to.

But what became of the apricots? 

The short answer is, not much and quite a lot! They cooked well and were just starting to catch so MOH took them out of the oven. And promptly dropped them. 

Strangely, after that neither of us wanted any...   Ah well, another time maybe.