Produce from the garden, soft bread rolls . . . and best laid plans (not!)

Today we harvested these goodies from the garden, along with more peas.  I am trying to keep a record of our produce (weight; numbers and dates) for future reference, although we crop lettuce as and when and I don't record that.  We've noticed that our bean plants have nothing like the growth they had last year, and we suspect the crop will be quite small (we only recently finished the beans we froze last year).  Hopefully the peas will make up a little for the shortfall.  These potatoes are 'freebies' - they are from a couple of spuds that started sprouting in the bottom of the veg basket, and which N just stuck in the ground to see what would happen.  Well, I can tell you that they were delicious, simply boiled and served with a bit of salt and butter.

I've been meaning to try making some soft bread rolls, following on from my success with loaves.  

Something on the move under the tea-towel!

Recipe for Soft Bread Rolls

450g white bread flour

2 tsp salt

7g dried quick action yeast

150ml milk

150ml water

50g butter (I used margarine)

Mix the dry ingredients together in a large mixing bowl.

Heat the butter, milk and water until the butter has melted, allow to cool to blood heat.

Add the liquid to the dry ingredients and mix together to form a sticky dough.

Turn out onto lightly floured surface and knead for about 10 minutes. (the dough was very sticky and I did have to use a bit of extra flour on the worktop)

Place in bowl, cover with clingfilm (I use a damp tea-towel) and leave to prove until doubled in size.

Remove from bowl, knock back and knead for about a minute.  Divide dough into 8 equal amounts, form each into rounds, flatten slightly and place on greased/floured baking tray.  Cover again and leave to double in size again.

Bake in pre-heated oven, gas mark 6 (200 C; 180 C fan oven) for approz 18-20 minutes.

Though I say it myself, these were the most delicious rolls I have ever tasted, let alone baked.  So soft and very, very more-ish.  I was very pleased with the results.

Yesterday was our 4-weekly to-ing and fro-ing for the Flatmates, so we had been saving up a number of things we needed to do to keep us busy while we waited to collect them for the return trip.  Having dropped them off, we did all the things on our list and were feeling quite pleased with ourselves at such a productive morning.  We even had time to have a lovely walk along the esplanade while we waited for the boat.

It was another gorgeous day, and N and I really enjoyed our walk.  There is always something to see on the water, and yesterday we saw an old friend,  Leopard, cruising around the Solent.  We have followed her for several years - she is a beautiful racing yacht, and usually dwarfs all the other craft around her.

So far, all according to plan.  We collect the Flatmates, return home, have a cuppa, meet up with the pair of them again ..... and head off to the hospital - this bit was not planned!  S has to be admitted for a couple of days with asthma problems.  We have been here before, but hopefully not as bad as on  previous occasions.  We were glad we were in a position to do the running around for them - we have always been at work before.  We have kept in touch with her by text (I have to admit technology has it's uses!) and visited this afternoon.  So far so good.  We'll see what tomorrow brings.

I had not had much experience of asthma before I met N and his family, and had little idea of how serious a major asthma attack can be.  It is very frightening to witness such an attack, and I can only imagine the fear and distress of suffering from one.  N has asthma himself, but not as severe as S. The worst I have seem him was last summer, when he was clearing some long grass around the allotment we had just taken over.  Within minutes, he was struggling for breath, and got back home with great difficulty.  The grass pollen had aggravated his hayfever, which in turn had triggered an asthma attack.  Thankfully he was OK, but it was a salient reminder to us.  Needless to say, we had to give up the allotment.  It was a blow, especially as we had waited over two years for it and had hoped it would be the answer to our wish for a bigger garden.  However, it just hadn't occurred to us the problems we might face with the cut grass.  It was a lesson well learned.

Tomorrow my son is coming to stay with us for the weekend - I'm looking forward to catching up on the wedding plans :)