Where to start?

I've been away so long it's hard to know where to start!

Sorry for the long absence, I've been up to stuff ,but nothing particularly interesting to report on. Also have been working some extra nights at the rest home so that has gobbled up a lot of my time.

I used up the last of the stored pumpkins from last season, they kept remarkably well, although the woodlice/slaters did start to invade. I made us a lovely pumpkin pie a couple of weeks ago. I still have a few chunks and pulp of pumpkin stored in the freezer, no doubt another pie will be in the making soon (maybe Halloween if I have time). Outside I have a few pumpkin seedlings coming up for planting this year, and am growing the same varieties again - Musquee du Provence and Queensland Blue. When we get pigs again next year these will be useful food for them - as well as us of course!

I harvested some of the globe artichokes from the garden and with rather a lot on hand decided I would try making some soup. Previously we've just have them boiled with hollandaise sauce. I followed a recipe from my book How to Store Your Garden Produce by Piers Warren. Unfortunately it did not turn out well though, I think the problem was I used quite large artichokes and the result was a very woody mush despite going through the food processor, and when I sieved it I was left with only a tiny dribble of very thin artichoke 'milk'. Not a good result!! There must be some other recipes out there to try, or perhaps I should try again with smaller chokes.. I hasten to add that How to Store Your Garden Produce is, however, a very interesting and useful book! Does anyone have any tips/recipes for globe artichokes?

Lovely large artichokes

A lovely large mess!

We've also had Scottish shortbread. I dug out my wooden mold to make this one day:

I've been out in the garden when I can, lately digging up purple carrots, some of which are quite big, and hopefully not too 'woody'.

I'll be working up in the garden digging over the next few days as will be needing the space for summer veg soon. Plus by leaving all the weeds etc I'm providing a nice habitat for lots of snails and slugs..... I went on patrol last night and squished lots. Had to resort to slug bait around my pea seedlings as they are getting munched.

Today D and I made these Rocky Road cookies. We found a packet of mini marshmallows in the pantry, but I didn't have enough chocolate on hand to make true Rocky Road. Anyway, I found this recipe on the net (thank you Rachel) and we whipped them up in no time, actually D did most of the work on these. Here he is mixing in the marshmallows:

 And here are the cooked cookies:

OK I'll finish here. Hope all's well with everyone.