Rain

I am delighted to announce that it rained yesterday.  Not torrential, but just nice, gentle rain.  It has been so dry and the garden is loving it.

More gratuitous rose shots

You can water all you like but nothing beats the nitrogen-rich real thing.  Plus it stops my lawn from looking like a badly formed Venn Diagram as I try to get my sprinklers to overlap and cover the whole area but fail miserably.  I am also quite pleased as it has been non-stop in the garden this Spring with several groups coming to visit.  It's been very pleasant to have a break from watering/raking/mowing/weeding and spend the day pottering around in the kitchen, which really is my favourite thing.

I've picked most of the broad beans, shelled them, blanched them and frozen them in bags.  I haven't done this before but am hoping that they can be re-blanched and podded.  Even the chooks might be relieved that the broad beans have finished...

The lemon scented gums went pink in the rain...must have been the shock.

I have a new culinary fixation that I need to share with you. I expect that as usual I am slow off the mark and you are all completely familiar with za'atar, but  I have only just realised that it is very easy to make.  I had heard of this zesty Middle Eastern spice and herb mix, mostly by reading my Ottolenghi cookbooks but never really tried it.   Then I had lots of thyme that was about to flower and needed to find something to do with it.  Well.  Nothing is safe from a sprinkling of za'atar this summer.  It is perfect on an egg...

and completely brings your avocado on toast to life.  You could use it as a rub on any meat and sprinkle it over a soup.   The four simple ingredients and dried thyme, toasted sesame seeds, sumac (available in good food stores) and salt.  I picked the thyme, put it on a baking tray and gave it half an hour in the simmer oven of the Aga.....in a normal oven 15 minutes at 150c should do it.  Keep an eye on it so it doesn't get burnt.

Strip the leaves off the stalks and using your thyme pile as a guide, toast the same amount of sesame seeds (I do this in the oven....don't forget about them though!)

Mix it up and add some salt (about a teaspoon went into the above brew)

Put it in a jar

and sprinkle to your heart's content.