Friday, March 31, 2023

Thursday

Today's Harvest: Snow Pea Pods and Vine

It rained late last night and early this morning, but, later in the morning, it was sunny.  I woke up relatively early for me because M had rescheduled his visit from Wednesday morning to today, saying he be arriving between 9:30a.m. and 10:00 a.m.  When I went outside to unlock the gate for him, I realized that it was nice and warm in the sunshine; warmer than it was inside the house, anyway.  So, I sat outside in the sunshine to say my morning prayers and afterwards, I picked some snow pea pods.  I also did a little bit of weeding in the planting bed with the pea vines, but, stopped when I was realizing that I was pulling out the pea vines along with the weeds as they were all tangled up together!  I replanted the pea vines that I had accidentally pulled out, but, a piece of another vine broke off and I brought it in with me.  I will add the growing tips of the pea vine to the leftover stir fry.  

M texted to say he was delayed a bit, but, he'll be here around 10:30 a.m., which was fine with me.  He checked on the plants in the backyard and fertilized the blueberry bushes.  But, today's main project was to tidy up the front section of the side yard.  This is the area behind the chimney and it's where the gas meter is located and one of the feijoa/pineapple guava trees is growing.  The guava tree was already here when I bought the house, 30+ years ago and it is showing signs of stress, with several sections of it drying up.  There is some new growth at the bottom, though; maybe if we cut down the dying branches, it might regrow.   In any case, that area was overgrown with weeds and M cleared it out, today, and pruned some of the nearby euphorbia branches, too, as they were growing over the fence into the neighbor's yard and knocking against their motorhomes that are permanently parked in their driveway, these days.  While he did that, I pulled some of the weeds that were growing in the front yard.  At least, the ones that were easily pulled up!  There are some others that need to be dug up, but, I'm leaving them for another day.  

The clouds moved in by late morning, before M left at 11:30 a.m.  It was no longer sunny and warm and I went inside. 

Last August, I had baked a Welsh bread known as bara brith and there was another portion of it in the fridge.  I had wrapped it well and it had not spoiled, but, it had dried out.  Well, I wasn't going to let it go to waste, so, I cut up a portion of it. mixed up the milk and egg mixture, added a few more raisins and cashew nuts, put it all in a dish, and left it in the fridge overnight for the bread to absorb the egg/milk mixture and soften.  Early this afternoon, I baked the bread pudding:


Bara Brith Bread Pudding


I cut myself a piece of it while it was still warm from the oven and had it for my brunch:


Piece of Bread Pudding

I must say it tasted very rich and I could definitely taste the orange rinds, the ginger marmalade, and the spices I had used to make the bara brith.  I think it would be great served with some custard for a dessert and I just might do that, later.  But, today, I had the piece of bread pudding on its own.

I spent the afternoon repairing the quilt and I watched a few videos while I did that.  It started to rain around 4:00 p.m., and it rained for about 1 1/2 hours.  Then, the rain ceased and I think that might have been our last rain shower for March.  There's no rain in the forecast for Friday and April promises to be a drier month.

I watched the news in the evening and warmed up leftover rice and smoked sausage stir fry for my dinner.  Later, I video chatted with my daughter.

Today, I am grateful for:

- A sunny morning
- More rain for the garden
- M's help with the garden
- Today's harvest
- Working appliances

Today's joyful activities included gardening and baking bread pudding (not to mention eating bread pudding!)  

Plans for tomorrow include more gardening with M. some housekeeping tasks, and quilt repairs.

How was your Thursday?  What are your plans for Friday? 
 

18 comments:

  1. It warms my heart to know you are still enjoying your bara brith. I love bread and butter pudding and there's no reason it wouldn't work with bara bith served with some custard, yum :) I'm going to call in the supermarket today to buy a brown onion and make a cottage pie as I have some frozen beef mince in the freezer that needs using up.

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    1. Oh, I am enjoying it very much, Eileen. At first, I was wondering if I would be committing some sort of culinary crime, making bread pudding with bara brith, but, I must admit that it has taken bread pudding to a whole different level! :)
      Yum! Cottage pie sounds wonderful! Enjoy it!

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  2. I'm glad you had a chance to sit outside in the warm again. Your bread pudding looks sooooo yummy! With all the goodies in the Bara Brith it was bound to be delicious.
    We bottled almost 10 litres of syrup yesterday evening and it is clear with no sediment in the bottles. It tastes wonderful. I had some leftover pancakes in the freezer so we sampled it for breakfast.
    The forecast is for precipitation today but it is bright out, and sometimes we get on the edge of a system and don't get the full effect. Today I need to divide up the syrup bottles into boxes to share equally with our helpers who make it all possible.

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    1. Thank you, Bushlady; it felt good to get some sunshine and fresh air. I'm a bit sore today from all the stooping and pulling weeds! I didn't do too much, but, it was more than I've done in a while.
      The bread pudding with bara brith tasted a little like a plum pudding, to me! I had another piece for dessert, last night!
      That sounds like a good batch of syrup! I'm sure it tasted wonderful. Hope you avoid getting too much precipitation. It's a mostly sunny day here, with a high of 61F according to the forecast (59F as I type this at 1:40 p.m.)

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  3. I love it how you also eat the growing tips from the pea vine, and fix up your delicious bread pudding. Not throwing anything out.

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    1. Thank you, Jozien. I hate food waste and try to use up everything. I add various things to soups and stews and I've made jam with the peel from peaches, etc. Any garden produce I don't eat, get composted.

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  4. Your Bara Brith bread pudding looks delicious. I'll have custard with my piece please!

    I hope you can save your guava tree. Is that to do with the drought in previous years or is it maybe the age of the tree?

    Today (Friday), I've been pottering about at home and getting some of the simple jobs done that I keep putting off. For example, I've finally got round to rearranging the shelves in one of the dining room units so that I can fit the bread maker in instead of leaving it out on the worktop in the kitchen ... it only took 10 minutes to do and now I have regained much needed space available on the worktop. xx

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    1. A piece of bread pudding with custard will be served to you as soon as I get the custard made! :D
      I think the guava tree's problems are a combination of lack of water during the drought years, age, and the fact that the neighbors raised the height of the side wall - it has created a micro climate in the side yard and killed two other guava trees that got burned for the radiant heat from the wall. I've grown succulents along the side yard to replace the guava trees that died.
      Well done finding a space for the bread maker in one of the dining room units! I know you had mentioned wanting to do that. :)

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  5. So nice that you were able to start the day with morning prayers outside in the sunshine. I love starting the day outside. It makes me feel ready to start the day!

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    1. Thank you, Sharon. I usually wait until afternoon to venture outside because that's when it is warmer, but, I will probably sit outside in the mornings more often as the temperatures warm up. :)

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  6. The bread pudding looks delicious! I'm sorry the guava is probably going. Didn't you plant one in the back garden? I hope you have another for fruit someday.

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    1. I have another guava tree in the back yard, Celie, which was also here when I bought the house. That tree is doing well, probably because it is not trapped between the house and the raised side wall. I think that raising the side wall made it too hot for the trees, along with the drought, of course.

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  7. The bread pudding looks so good. I've never tried it before, perhaps I should search for a recipe.
    Hurray for more garden produce. Xx

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    1. Thank you, Jules. Bread pudding is one of my favorite ways of using stale bread and it's a fairly easy recipe. Butter the slices of bread (sometimes, I skip that step and just add a few pieces of butter on top before I bake the pudding), cut into cubes (or, just lay the slices overlapping each other), and put into a buttered oven-proof dish, mix up some milk with 2 beaten eggs and some sugar and a bit of vanilla essence, and pour over the bread, leave to soak for a few minutes, or longer if needed. Then, bake in a 350F oven (sorry, don't know what the equivalent would be for you, 176C? Or whatever is closest to that according to your oven temperatures) for about 25-30 minutes (a bamboo skewer or knife blade inserted into the middle of the pudding should come out clean). I often add raisins and cashews to the bread mixture before it is baked, but, it's not necessary to do so).
      I'm enjoying the fresh garden produce. :)

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  8. What a good idea to use your Welsh bread to make a bread pudding.
    I imagine that was quite delicious.
    I needed to top up my baking supplies this week. Sugar, flour and brown sugar. I didn't have any brown sugar at all and there were a few times I wanted to bake something and didn't have it.
    So this morning I made some cinnamon rolls. :)
    I used a recipe that's more like a biscuit dough with both baking powder and baking soda.
    I've already had a few with my morning tea.

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    1. The bread pudding is very tasty and full of flavor.

      Glad you were able to top up your baking supplies. If you have any molasses, you can always make brown sugar by adding a little molasses (1-2 tbsp. depending on if you want light brown sugar or dark) to 1 cup of regular white sugar. If you don't have molasses, you could use maple syrup. If push comes to shove, you could substitute regular white sugar (just increase the amount of liquid called for in the recipe because white sugar is drier than brown sugar).
      Yum! Cinnamon rolls! Enjoy one for me, too, please! :D

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  9. Thanks for the hints about making brown sugar. I do have molasses and didn't think to do that even though I knew you could.

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    1. You are welcome. I thought you would have known, but, decided to go ahead and mention it, anyway. :)

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