Bagels, cream cheese & jam

Back in the day when MOH and I got together, and when we were ‘commuting’ between our respective houses one of MOH’s specialities was a bagel, cream cheese and blueberry jam. Something I’d not had before, but it was quite a hit. Initially this became a staple weekend breakfast, but over the years somehow it’s fallen off our radar, and I’m not really sure why.

Sometimes though life reminds you of these things, and circumstances even align. That’s exactly happened last week and resulted in a throwback breakfast, and very tasty it was too.

MOH had a planned trip to London, and as he would when we lived in Greenwich he stopped off at Brick Lane for some bagels. They really are the best, and I’ve an inkling that it was when we tasted these bagels (or beigels) that the shop bought bagels fell out of favour - there really is no comparison, trust me.

While MOH was in town I tested out my new preserving pan with the blackberries we picked from the local hedgerow following a recipe I’d tried before. I’m quite partial to a blackberry jam it seems, and had written about two on here before. This time I opted for the blackberry and lime jam, which simply adds lime zest to the jam mixture.

We picked about half a kilo of blackberries and that turned into two jars of jam - as you can see one’s a little larger than a usual sized jam jar, and there was also enough to fill a ramekin which we’d keep in the fridge and use immediately.

MY HOMEMADE BLACKBERRY & LIME JAM PICTURED ON ONE OF MY NEWEST SUSTAINABLE ‘KITCHEN TOWELS’ MADE FROM MY WONKIEST PATCHWORK BLOCKS AND OLD TOWELS SEWN TOGETHER. PRETTY AND PRETTY USEFUL TOO!

So with MOH bringing home the bagels, and my afternoon jam making - all I needed was some cream cheese, which fortuitously I had in the fridge. (It’s a great fridge standby and as well as on bagels, it’s also good for pasta and to make a quick cheese sauce for cauliflower cheese or lasagne - and it usually has a long ‘use by’ date too).

So Brick Lane bagels, cream cheese and homemade blackberry and lime jam (not the blueberry jam we used to have, but close enough) and what a breakfast it was. The jam even solicited unprompted praise from MOH, so a result!

Isn’t it great when circumstances align?

Post Comment Love 6 - 8 October

Hello there, and welcome back to this week’s #PoCoLo - a friendly linky which I co-host with Suzanne, where you can link any blog post published in the last week, posts which are older will be removed from the linky. We know you’ll find some great posts to read, and maybe some new-to-you blogs too, so do pop over and visit some of the posts linked, comment and share some of that love. If you were here last week it was great to have you along, if you’re new here this week we’re pleased you’ve joined us.

I’ve spent most of the week trying to get back into our relatively new routine following an extended weekend away. We’ve spent time getting things more straight finally getting the pigeon shelves which used to be in our porch on the wall in our new plant room (it’s a grand name for a room with all the heating and water gubbings in!). Getting the shelves on the wall has made such a difference though, as it’s a space I also use for drying washing and one which space will become more in demand as the weather turns.

We’ve collected some long awaited furniture for MOH’s man cave, which in turn has freed up some units which I intend to use in the cloakroom by the front door (an actual room for coats and such like, not the downstairs loo - which confuses people!). And then yesterday we popped down to Grand Designs Live at the NEC in Birmingham - it was our first time visiting the Birmingham show and we saw some new things, and some very lovely things as well as things which we’d seen in London back in May, so a mixed day.

My photo this week is another from our visit to Hidcote in the Cotswolds. I was quite taken with this most likely antique, and if not vintage terrarium displayed in one of the fireplaces. I know that if I had anything similar (though definitely more vintage than antique) MOH would be itching to give it a rub down and a new coat of paint!

Anyway, have a good week - and thanks for being here every week.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Celebrating colour at Hidcote

Since we’ve moved to Nottinghamshire many of our regular journeys to visit family and friends have changed, understandably, and that’s meant our usual places to stop have also changed. Our journey to Devon no longer takes us along the A303 (a blessing!) but it means Marlborough and Stourhead aren’t en-route either, both are places which we love to visit.

But it does mean that we have a whole new series of towns, gardens and houses to get to know, and that’s how we came to visit Hidcote. We’d originally planned to stop on the way down, but due to the weather that was correctly forecast the garden was shut for the day, so with remarkably better weather on our return journey, we stopped and I think I’m just a little bit smitten.

Hidcote is ‘one of the country’s most celebrated gardens’ according to the leaflet handed to us as we entered, and it didn’t disappoint. It covers 10.5 acres and the spaces are both formal and intimate, and full of vistas - and plants - to admire. The garden was designed by Lawrence Johnstone in phases from 1907 to 1938, and the borders are full of newly discovered plants and exotic rarities from plant hunting expeditions from around the world. He gifted Hidcote to the National Trust in 1948, and it’s now a Grade I listed garden, which until our visit I didn’t know existed.

We weren’t surprised to be greeted by the typically honeyed cotswold stone, but the riot of colour alongside the cafe was perhaps not what we expected. Hidcote is one of those gardens where paths lead you to explore, with sights and colours pulling you through the garden - the map given to us as we entered was useful to identify which area we were in, but what I most liked about this garden was that there was plenty of spaces to start. Our starting point was clear, once I’d spotted the Plant House through the gate in the hedge…

Well, who wouldn’t want to explore further?

Inside the steel structured plant house there was so much to see, the plants, the structure itself let alone the stone planters of succulents nestled on the steps. And then there was the view over to the lily pond, which of course was beautifully framed by a vibrant yellow border. I’m so glad that we weren’t able to visit on the day we originally planned to, as seeing an all time favourite plant - the red hot pokers - on a warm, sunny September day was so much more worthwhile.

Somehow in driving rain I think the enjoyment would have been so much less! Especially for the bee which was having a quick nap.

But what colour, clearly being a bee here is hard work. But isn’t all this colour joyous?

There were signs of autumn throughout the garden as you’d expect - it was the very end of September after all.

There was also plenty of inspiration. I’ve included this espaliered fruit tree here to remind me that this is what I want to do with the peach tree from dad, and to remind me that I still haven’t created a square frame from canes to start to train it into this shape.

In the potting shed, I turned to MOH and said this is what I want my tiny greenhouse to be like. I’m not sure he got it as, well I won’t have this kind of shelving unit, but I will have the terracotta pots and the plan for the tiny greenhouse is to be pretty as well as functional, but it won’t be industrial functional as there just won’t be the room.

After a walk through the orchards and productive garden we turned and headed back on ourselves through the Beech Allee, and what a walk that was. Again made by the dappled sunlight streaming through the trees. Completely uplifting and again joyous.

Walking through the iron gate, again set into a hedge, we found ourselves on the Great Lawn, heading towards the Red Borders, which as you’d expect from the name, had predominantly red leaved and red flowering plants.

The Long Walk, again aptly named, was bordered by hedges which the gardening team were cutting. It takes five months, with four gardeners working each week day, to cut these hedges which given the amount of time it takes are only cut once a year. If it takes this long now, with modern equipment, I can’t imagine how long it would have taken beforehand.

We wandered around spotting the bathing pool (above) and the vista towards the old garden below, with its magnificent cedar tree. We meandered through paths eventually finding ourselves under the tree and walking through the white garden with its silver leafed plants really helping this garden live up to its name.

So definitely a garden full of colour, and one I’m pretty sure we’ll be back to as well.