Sushi for lunch

I'm getting into this sushi lark!

It's much easier to do it with the seaweed on the outside of the rolls rather than with the rice on the outside, for obvious reasons! And it looks much neater too.

Autumn

I usually hate this time of year because of the spiders (see Charlie Brooker's column on this subject). However, in allotment terms, it's bloody marvellous! I haven't done a lot of work on it lately, but stuff just keeps growing. Today there were 4 courgettes of harvestable size, plus at least another 5 baby ones which I'll leave to grow a bit more, the first crop of French beans, more never-ending lettuce, and another lush strawberry, which unfortunately the slugs reached before me:

24 mini chocolate cakes in 20 minutes...

Had a sudden evening burst of energy so thought I would put it to good use by making some little cakes in my new silicone cake tray that cost £2.49 from B & M bargains!... here are the results:

Sushi!

Making sushi is fun! California rolls are fiddly but do-able with a bamboo rolling mat. Nice with crabsticks, salmon, avocado and cucumber, served with soy sauce and pickled ginger. Gave the wasabi a miss because it's too spicy for my tastes:

Sushi with fresh tuna steak, raw of course:

Spot the difference

Popped into the allotment yesterday to pick up some courgettes that have sprung out from nowhere and discovered that one strawberry has ripened. Can you spot the difference between these two pics?

60th birthday celebrations

Happy birthday Barbara!

A more sophisticated version of the flowerpot cakes, with sugar roses, rolled icing cut into leaf shapes and a silver sheen cake spray on top to give them a glittery finish, presented in a little basket with leaves from the garden and candles:

Chicken korma cake

Last night I cooked a chicken korma cake and served it with fresh raita and chickpea salad with coriander and cherry tomatoes. It was delicious hot straight from the oven. Curry in a cake sounds really weird but it totally works! The consistency was good - soft and moist - and it was all very colourful. There was plenty of cake for three people and we were stuffed afterwards. Here's a picture:

Beginnings...

 So I had the idea of setting up venture specialising in savoury cakes about a fortnight ago. So I bought a domain name, set up this blog and made a facebook page. Cakes have been, and are still being tried and tested, tried again and tested again, eaten and hopefully enjoyed. Suggestions have been made, tastes changed, herbs added, spices removed, natural garden flavours added, vegetables (organic of course) picked and chopped and sliced and grated. Eggs (free range of course) bought by the million, salads devoured, and a little bit of research done into eventually setting up a business

I'm not going to set up anything complicated just yet, as I have been out of work for a while now and am trying to curb my tendency to rush into anything new and exciting. But if you want to try some cake, do have a look at www.offbeateats.co.uk where you'll find more details. You can also have a look at the twitter and facebook pages (on the menu bar on the right), press 'like' if you like, and check out some of the pictures of tasty and nice things.

Above: Indian bean cake. Spicily mellow... if that makes sense.