Spelt Flatbreads, Roasted Sable Grapes & Labneh

Jubilee Strawberries & Strawberry Lassi

It's hard to turn down an invitation of spending a day on a strawberry farm. Especially a Kentish one, but I'm geographically biased on that front.

After meeting the lovely Sam and Jodie from Cirkle PR and the other bloggers, the owner of Kelsey Farms, Paul Kelsey, told us more about the Driscoll Jubilee strawberry. You can see from the photos but they really are like a stock photo perfect strawberry. Heart shaped and so sweet. You definitely won't have to have a sprinkling of sugar on them. I was also impressed that even the bigger strawberries retained the same level of quality as some different varieties can taste watery.

Paul gave us a tour of the farms including the poly tunnels where we got to fill a couple of punnets and the packing plant. I was amazed at how quickly and smoothly everything ran, from the speed of the berry pickers to the preciseness of the staff in the packing areas.

You can stuff your goji berries too. Strawberries are the original superfood. Crammed with antioxidants, more vitamin c rich than oranges, they can help reduce cholesterol and could help fight cancer. They're fat free and help stimulate collagen.

We then had a beautiful lunch at the Duke William pub in Ickham.

When I got home, I was full of strawberries and lunch. I made this quick batch of lassi and laid in the garden. Lassi is a cooling Indian drink, perfect against the cloying milk shakes of summer. Great if you feel like you may have overindulged. The sweetness of the Jubilee strawberries mellow out the cheek puckering sourness of the buttermilk.

Serves 2

Ingredients
1 cup of ice
1 cup of buttermilk
2 cups strawberries

Method
1, Blend the ice, buttermilk and strawberries together until smooth.
2, I didn't have to add sugar to mine as my strawberries were super sweet, but you may have to add a little touch if your buttermilk is particularly punchy.

All views, text, images and the recipe in this post are my own. Thank you again to Sam from Cirkle PR for inviting me and to Paul for his hospitality. I received no payment for producing this post.

Dotcomgiftshop's Christmas in July

Thank you to Dotcomgiftshop for inviting me to their Christmas in July. It was great to see their Christmas range as well as some of their most popular gift items and homeware.

As always, all views expressed are my own and Dotcomgiftshop didn't pay me or ply me with sweets to write this.

Lemon & Thyme Granita

I was trying to figure out the most horrible thing about festivals.

Rain? You kind of expect it and should prepare for it

Toilets? Shudder.

Mud? Some will get on you. Get over it.

Hangovers? Bad when you're at home. Worse when you're in a tent.

"Over enthusiastic" people (normally in jester hats)? Proper annoying but not the worst.

Sweaty wellington trench foot? I pack enough socks to kit an army. We're safe.

Cash point/bar/toilet queues? Oh, honey. We're British. We invented the queue.

Sunburn? I've seen some people who would give lobsters a run for their money in the redness stakes.

Sitting through a terrible act and you want a good seat for the next act? Six words I do not ever want to hear in the same breath - "Nick. Cave. And. The. Bad. Seeds." Please. Never again. Ever. *nervous eye twitch*

Flags? View blockers. Asshats.

But there can be only one.

Warm drinks.

Warm beer. Warm cider. Warm Diet Coke.

I came back and after shaking the dirty clothes out of my bag into a pile in front of the washing machine and having a shower, went straight for the freezer. Ice. Precious ice.

I'm entering these into Kavey Eats Bloggers Scream for Ice Cream herbs challenge. You can read all about BSFIC and how to enter on Kavey's blog.

Makes 2 large servings

Ingredients

400ml water
70gr sugar
Zest and juice of half a lemon
1tsp fresh thyme leaves
Thyme flowers for garnish

Method

1, In a small saucepan, over a medium heat, dissolve the sugar into the wafer and add in the lemon zest and juice.
2, Bring up to a gentle simmer and then remove from the heat. Stir through the fresh thyme and pour into a freezer safe container. Leave to cool completely.
3, Put the unfrozen granita into the freezer and leave for an hour. You'll need to break up the ice crystals and then also periodically after that with a fork. It's really up to you as to the consistency of the granita. Some like it almost slushy and some like hard shards of ice. I hover in the middle.
4, Check the granita every half an hour after that'll break up the ice. Mine took just over two hours as my freezer is quite new and has a super fast freeze option. When you've got to to the desired consistency. Serve immediately.
5, If you're making it in advance, after step four above, leave in the freezer. Remove from the freezer five to ten minutes before it's due to be served so you can break it back down.

Eight Foot Giant Squid Pillow

"I'm going to make my sister an eight foot giant squid pillow for her birthday. I found this really cool pattern on the Internet.", I announced to Jim.

A normal husband might raise eyebrow. Mine didn't bat an eyelid.

It was on.

First things first.

Emily Guendelsberger is genius. She posted the pattern and tutorial and as soon as I saw it, I knew exactly who I would make one for. You can see Emily's post here.

I found it exceptionally hard to find somewhere that sold yards of felt. Ikea Polarvide blankets are about £3 each. I used two purple and one turquoise, with plenty left over. I measured out the pattern first, converting it to centimetres as I grew up on a diet of metric.

You don't need the scalloped edge. Cut it off. Cat supervision is optional.

First the fins. I used soft toy stuffing for the fin and arms.

Sewing the body together with the fins.

Diet Coke cans for scale. And because I have a problem.

The arms. I sewed these then turned the inside out. I weighed the stuffing for each arm so they were even.

Sewing the legs onto the body...

... So it looks like this when turned the right way in.

Starting to take shape! (That is a double bed...)

Creeping on the little cat.

Giant Squid have three hearts. This squid has three hearts too.

Finished stuffing and sewing in the bottom panel. I used the rest of the toy stuffing I had and some polystyrene bean bag ball filling. Which is a mess to use.

Added the eyes on as the last finishing touch.

We weaned him on Diet Coke.

And taught him how to drive.

It's really hard to wrap an eight foot giant squid. But it was worth all the hassle. My sister loves her squid.