Turmeric Courgette Blueberry Cake

Last weekend was dreadful weather wise and I think it is the same this weekend, weather forecasters have predicted rightly that there is more rain to come and it is falling from the skies as I type.  I have noted that its getting dark in the evenings a lot more quicker and its dark in the morning when I get up 6am in the morning - we seem to have skipped a season.  

I am so pleased that I don't have to get up and go anywhere tomorrow, so can snuggle up at home and watch some films. Well that is what I wish for my weekend, but we have lots of chores and housey things to do, so its not going to be relaxing as I wish, but still better than getting up and going into work. 

Well I made this cake last week, it was around the same time as the Turmeric Yellow Courgette Quiche, so yes I was inspired to stir in a teaspoon of turmeric to this Yellow Courgette Blueberry Cake as well.  

I adapted it from a Courgette cake I have made in the past.  D loved the dense rich buttery-ness.  You cannot taste the courgette as it lends moistness, rather than flavour, but you could definitely taste the turmeric which was pleasant and not overwhelming. 

Follow this link if you want to check out other Turmeric Recipes 

Sweet Parsnip, Apple, Berry and Hazelnut Crumble

A couple of weeks back I made a Parsnip Pie with Edible flowers, I have also been tucking into a bowl of Parsnip Porridge for those days when I have been home alone for breakfast.

This time I am sharing with you home-made Parsnip, Apple, Blueberry and Hazelnut Crumble. On one of the evenings we had this with custard, on the other it was simply with cream.

What I love about this Root vegetable crumble recipe is its versatility.  You can easily swap some of the ingredients to reflect the seasons or your taste.
In place of the carrots you can have Swede, beetroot or carrots.
The golden caster could be demerara sugar, coconut sugar, honey, maple syrup
Nuts - walnuts, pecan, almonds 
Additional spices, nutmeg, ginger, mixed spices, 
And of course you can veganize it too.
Just experiment. 

Blueberry Apple Galette

I love this photograph taken by my husband in my first year of blogging.  

The blueberries which are cupped beautifully in the hands of my nephew are from my garden which makes this picture even more more memorable for me. 

So back to 2015, and I am pleased to say that half of the blueberries in this Galette are homegrown, and the other half are from the  Fruit Machine.  The size of the blueberries from the grocery van and mine were vast.  I had some apples at home, as you can see they have shrivelled, but the end result of the galette was oozy luscious blueberry kiss.  The galette is not the neatest I've ever made, but it was like a sugary cosy blanket for the fruit inside. 

D has requested that I make it again, I shall - just with different fruit. 

You may be interested to note that around this time last year I shared this Wild Blueberry Swirl Bundt Cake for Vegan Mofo, so with the prompt being blue - I thought why not share it again.  If you look close, you can just about see the wild blueberry preserve swirls and some fresh ones that have burst.  

By the way, I am hosting a vegetarian and vegan food challenge called Vegetable Palette and Fruit Palette.The theme this month is Purple and Blues, see link for further details here, so if you have a recipe this month that fits, please feel free to share. 

Sweet Potato 'Halwa' Muffins with Popping Blueberries

Homegrown blueberries stud this sweet potato muffin. 

These may not look much to look at, but my oh my they tasted gorgeous.  They were dense, but in a good way and not dry at all.  

I describe them as 'Halwa' as that is what the texture of these muffins reminded me of, especially when they were splendidly still warm.  I am sharing this with CookBlogShare from Hijacked By Twins, this week it is being hosted by SneakyVeg.

Vegan Wild Blueberry Swirl Cake

Regular readers may remember that a couple of weeks back I harvested a handful of blueberries, well this is what I made with them and half a jar of Wild Blueberry Preserve bestowed upon me by my lovely nephew a few months back for a house-warming present - a Blueberry Bundt cake.

If you look close, you can just about see the wild blueberry preserve swirls and some fresh ones that have burst.  

I know, I know, I agree it could have done with a little iced lemon drizzle, but it was still rather nice with a cuppa tea. 

By the way, I am hosting a vegetarian and vegan food challenge called Vegetable Palette .The theme this month is Purple and Blues, see link for further details here, so if you have a recipe this month that fits, please feel free to share. 

Handful of Blueberries and Purple Beans

Plenty of runner beans and raspberries still coming from the garden.  These have been cooked and made into various dishes.  Most recently the Runner Beans were cooked in a Sri Lankan Runner Bean Pie and the raspberries in Chocolate  Brownies, 

The other berry fruit harvested from my garden are these blueberries,  barely a handful but lovely.

I also harvested some purple beans aka Blauhilde. These turn green upon cooking. 

I am sharing this small harvest with Daphne Dandelions for Harvest Monday.

Blueberry Cake

I usually put a lot more thought into what I am going to cook or bake, but having picked around 100g of fresh blueberries from the garden yesterday morning, I needed blueberry inspiration, and I don't mean muffins.   

So without much thought, I plucked one of the first recipes that appeared on the U.K internet.  I made this recipe for Blueberry Cake, minus the lemon zest and lemon drizzle. 

Well as soon as I looked in the oven, I felt like I was back at school again as the result was like one of my school girls efforts, rather disappointing.  I was terrible at home economics at school.

Firstly, the cake took much longer to bake - almost 45 minutes. The texture was also very crumby and buttery. I think the original recipe assumes you have a food processor as part of the instructions was to 'place all the ingredients in a bowl and beat'. I did this the old fashioned way by hand, and may have over mixed.  So although the cake was edible, it was not particularly enjoyable. I have posted the recipe and link to the original, but I am not recommending it.  I just wanted to share what I had done with my homegrown blueberries. By the way, if you do have a good blueberry recipe (other than blueberry muffins), please do share.  It will be most appreciated and I will certainly keep it in mind for the next time.

Blueberry Cake
Serves 8
Ingredeints
100g softened butter
175g self-raising flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
175g golden caster sugar
2 eggs
6 tablespoons milk
100g blueberries
Method
Preheat the oven to 180C/gas 4. Place all ingredients except the berries into a large bowl and beat until smooth. Spread into a lined 18cm cake tin and sprinkle the berries over. Bake for 25 mins until golden.
Cut into slices when cool. Adapted from here.

A Blueberry Heart

The skies have been clear, giving me an opportunity to get some laundry done.  I'm not saying its sunny, but its certainly breezy which will hasten the drying of sheets and heavy clothing. 

Whilst I was down in the garden, D prompted me to take a look at the blueberry bush and I am so glad he did, as there was a good handful of mauve and purple blueberries to pick.  I am so surprised that the tweety birdies haven't gorged on them, but that might have to do with a new cat in town.  This cat has been making itself at home in our garden and me hissing at it, or showing my teeth to it from the flat window is not much of a deterrent either.  It just struts its stuff with no care.

Anyway, back to the blueberries.  Unfortunately, there are not enough for a cake or muffins, so I will just have to enjoy the sweet and sharp bursts naturally - one by one. I am linking these berries to the Penny Worthy Project, and to the Garden to Table Challenge as the best foods are often free.

Blueberry Banana Muffins

After a week long break down South with family, we are back in Scotland where the grey skies welcomed us with a little drizzling of rain. 

Firstly I want to Thank each and every one of you for your kind and encouraging comments on my Words and weeds post.  I can't express how touched and Thankful I am for your supportive words, so please accept my simple heart felt Thank you.  Regarding meet mangocheeks post, I hope to share more about me as promised later this week.  I also have quite a lot to share about the new allotment in Wales, but right now I just want to lull you back sweetly.  So here is a Blueberry Muffin recipe.

Blueberries are in season right now, yet those growing in my garden are not quite ready to enjoy.  When I eventually get to move down South, there are not many plants in my garden that I will be taking with me, but I will certainly take my blueberry plant that has been happily growing in pots for the past five years or so.

These Blueberry Banana Muffins were not overly sweet, as the sweetness comes namely from the ripe bananas.  The lush dark blueberries pop in your mouth to release that tangy acidic burst of juice.

Blueberry Banana Muffins
Makes12 muffins
Ingredients
400g plain flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
60g – 80g caster sugar
125ml vegetable oil
350ml – 450ml soy milk
2 ripe bananas, mashed
2 tablespoons ground flax seed
120g blueberries (fresh or frozen)
Method
Preheat oven to gas mark 4. In a large bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder and sugar. Add the oil, mashed bananas, flax seeds and blueberries. Stir gently to combine together. Spoon into muffin cases and bake for 35 – 40 minutes. Test with a skewer to see if done. Adapted very slightly from How it all Vegan by Tanya Barnard and Sarah Kramer.

Purple Blueberries

Yesterday I showcased some of my allotment raspberries. Today in the limelight are the last of my blueberries from the garden. These will be enjoyed au naturale.
In my younger years, I used to wear a lot of black and dark reds, but as I have got older I now wear a lot of browns and purples. I think blueberries are such a beautiful two tone colour. A colour I would be happy to wear, a bit like these hydrangea flowers growing in Nessie's garden.

Nic of Nipitinthebud says hydrangea flowers remind her of butterflies, I can see why.

See I told you I wore purple, I even have some accessories to match. I felt I had to showcase this little glitzy little evening bag as my mother got it for me. I hope you don't mind.

My blueberry Friday

These are some of the blueberries (amidst the last of the strawberries and wild strawberries) which I picked from the garden early in the week.

I have kept a handful back for breakfast tomorrow, but the others - I had turned into these blueberry muffins.

Very nice they were too.

One thing I have noticed is that home-made muffins, whatever flavour they are, never turn out so uniform and huge like those you see in certain shops.

Colours in the garden plot

It was an early start for me today. I got up at 4.00am this morning, as my mother and nephew were both due to fly back down to Wales. I took a few days off from work last week too, so it is also my first day back into work.
I had been neglecting the garden plot, so over the bleak weekend before he left my nephew helped tidy up the garden. While he cut the grass with the manual temperamental mower, D raked the grass cuttings and tipped them into the compost bin and I cleared the garden plot and some of the pots of weeds.

The cooking apple tree is looking rather disappointing, last year it was heaving with apples, so much so that I took basketful's into work. However, this year you can only see a dozen or so (that’s of course if they ain’t been knocked off by last nights gale force winds).
Please note, just because I have an apple tree in the garden, please do not be misled into believing I have a big garden, far from it, that is why I have an allotment. The garden is also on the edge of the railway track, so most days it is not the most pleasant of places to sit out in either, all that pollution and shuddering of the building does get me giddy, but I digress.

Back to the garden, when we moved into this flat, D lovingly dug me a 6 by 8 foot plot, in which we have Toscana di nero (black Tuscan kale), some broccoli, Bright lights Swiss chard all which are thriving happily. The rhubarb that I forced early in the year has already begun to retreat. I cleared the rocket that had gone to seed, as well as the remaining bolted green lettuces, most of which have been used in cooking for both lettuce flan and lettuce soup. In the corner of the plot, I noticed some volunteer Edzell Blue potatoes from last year, somebody didn’t do a good job of digging them all up. Tut tut. But that might be a good thing, we may have some ending up on our plate.

Growing in the border I have some herbs, as well as this so called hydrangea bush. Recently, Nic of Nip it in the bud and myself have been trying to identify these flowers. First we thought these were Azalea or rhododendrons, but later found out they were hydrangea. Most Scottish gardens have them and they come in so many vivid colours.

And how can I forget two pots of blueberries, one pot has none, but the other is producing for the first time ever.

My nephew managed to collect about 100g - 150g, most of which we enjoyed with pancakes and lemon curd. What a lovely combination.