There's life, Jim

July 14th, 2009 2 Comments »

drosera seedlings

Do you remember the gap I left in the Carnivorous Garden? That was for a sundew and the only sundew I could find at the time was a grow-your-own kit. I didn’t honestly think it would work so I’ve also been nursing a poorly sundew I found at the garden centre down the road too which is almost ready to go in the main plant pot with the others. But… the seeds have started to grow. The plants are tiny, like, reeeeally tiny and the photo above doesn’t really give you the scale. To put it in perspective, the plant pot in the photo is just over an inch in diameter. The sundew is a carnivorous plant and captures its prey using sticky mucus on the end of the stalks covering the leaves. The leaves then curl up around the victim/lunch and slowly digest it. The white you can see is mould, you have to keep the soil permanently very wet.


PizzaBurger 2.0

July 12th, 2009 1 Comment »

PizzaBurger1The ultimate in pizza based burger hybrid snacks has returned and this time it is suitable for vegetarians. I kept the same cheese & tomato pizza, kraft cheese slice and ketchup combination from before, but this time used a Quorn burger in place of beef, significantly reducing the calorie count. The top photo shows the fully assembled burger ready for consumption, but I’ve decided to show you a cross-section as well so you can fully appreciate the magnificence of this creation.

PizzaBurger2

Festivalicious

July 11th, 2009 No Comments »

food festival 2009 - Poppy 1Today we visited Cardiff International Food Festival which had taken over the bay area for the weekend. They’d done a good job of cleaning up the area after Captain Jack was blown up leaving a massive crater in the middle of Roald Dahl Plas earlier this week. It’s almost as if that had hadn’t happened at all….

Anyway we came back from the festival with a push-chair full of goodies including a selection a different scotch eggs, some very very hot scotch bonnet chilli sauce, chorizo, spicy and honey roast cashew nuts, samosas, olives, sun dried tomatos and the star of the show: Venison and Chocolate Sausages. They were dead cheep. Ah, that doesn’t work darn it. At some point over the next week or so it’ll all be devoured by me or one of my minions. We also had an obligatory burger (organic beef for me, duck for Vicky, and duck-dogs for Poppy)… and for dessert we sampled a few Dutch pancakes called Poffertjes – unusual but nice, a bit like sweet yorkshire puddings but less crispy and covered in sugar. We were pretty lucky with the weather too, it stopped raining when we got there, and started again just as we got home!

ff2009-2

The School Report

July 10th, 2009 5 Comments »

The results are in… Poppy has had her first school report, and here it is:

Poppy's School Report July 2009

What Welsh Produce?

July 6th, 2009 1 Comment »

Disappointing would be the best word to describe it.. Yesterday we walked in to Margam Park to take a look around their Welsh Produce Day. Billed to include Farmers Market, Craft Stalls, Storytelling, local brewers, Music and Artist Painting Workshops, fiddle playing, and folk dancing. Okay so the weather wasn’t the best with a few spots of rain every now and then but overall it was nice and warm, so I guess that is why a lot of the sellers may have stayed away. If we are to judge Welsh produce selection by what was available at the event then Wales only produces honey and that bl**dy awful “kid-me-not” goats milk brand of everything edible. Kid-me-not goat’s milk chocolate is the only chocolate I have ever eaten that I’ve actually spat out. Apart from food they did have face painting (massive queue), a few craft stalls selling jewellery and books, and a number of girls carrying harps around (I never did hear them play). I’m told there was dancing too but I think they’d been rained off by the time I got there. After the disappointment of the event we decided to go to the ‘Discovery Centre’ for a Sunday roast and an icecream.. and that was pretty good. Anyway next weekend is the Cardiff Food Festival which should be a lot better. I’ve been looking forward to this for a year now since I went last time and it was brilliant. I’ve printed off the list of stands and the stall layout map, and have been highlighting where I want to visit – got to be organised about these things!