Yesterday I harvested the first radishes!

Last weekend I went to Poland with mum and this week I’ve been in Denmark, Germany and Switzerland for work so it was wonderful to decrease my stress levels doing some gardening this weekend. It’s still cold during nights so most of my vegetable plants that I planted in early spring are still indoors. I’ve gone crazy with the planting and my husband counted all pots and plants to just below 100!! He actually did the counting after I came home and saw that one of the plants had died as he had missed to water it :-) The only plants outside so far are different kinds of carrots, radishes, red onion, spring onion, potatoes and sugar peas. And of course assorted perennial plants such as rhubarb, gooseberries, strawberries and white, red and black currant. Below you’ll see some of the vegetables that I’ve grown from seeds; missing on photo are corn (Ashworth), jungle cucumber, normal cucumber, pumpkin and probably something more. I’ve also included a photo of the rhubarb and some strawberry flowers.

The melon plants already have mini melons, probably thanks to the fact that I pollinated them myself with a small brush. I’ve planted Sweet Sibirian, Jenny Lind and cream of Saskatchewan melon.

Chilis! I’ve planted Anaheim, Early Jalapeno, Espelette, Hungarian yellow hot wax and Aji blanco cristal.

Tomato flowers. I’ve planted wild tomatoes, Black Krim, yellow pear shaped, Tumbling Tom, Hundreds and Thousands, Black cherry and Green Zebra.

Outdoors. The Rebecka strawberries, a mix between strawberries and wild strawberries are flowering.

The rhubarb is growing like crazy. It’s time to start making jam and pies.

Seed potatoes with blue sprouts.

Some month ago I bought seed potatoes at Zetas, my favourite plant store. I was looking for some early potatoes and the only left were Ulster Chieftain. I haven’t tried them before so I don’t really know if I’ll like them. When I came home I placed the potatoes in a cardboard egg box and left it on a windowsill for a few weeks. After some time the potatoes started to sprout and today I finally planted the potatoes in a double pallet collar, which is the way I grow vegetables in my rocky garden. In 10-12 weeks I expect a lot of tasty potatoes!
Have you grown potatoes? Do you have any prefered variety?

Last week I needed to decrease my stress levels so I decided to spend some relaxing time in the kitchen baking cookies for my colleagues. I choose to bake three different cookies: these yummy Blondies, thumb print cookies (or jam caves as they are called in Sweden) with cinnamon and forrest jam and chocolate cookes. The Blondie recipe I found at Anne’s and they are really easy and quick to make. I added dark chopped Toblerone, walnuts and Frangelico liquer to the Blondies, but any chocolate or nuts will be fine. They travel really well and managed my harsh treatment including the flight abroad to the office without any problems. You’ll find the recipe here.

(Graphics from Ben & Jerry’s.)

Every year Ben & Jerry’s has a free cone day around the world and today April 21st it’s time again. Just go to your local scoop shop for a free scope of delicious ice cream. Swedish scoop shops can be found here. Check out Ben & Jerry’s site for more information.

Recipe for Ice cream indulgence

Ingredients:
*Your favourite ice cream (home made or if you’re lazy something from the store, preferably in a high plastic container so it won’t get wet).

*Your favourite bath foam (in this case a “Comforter” bubble bar from Lush).

*optional: music and a book.

Method:
Fill the bath tub with warm water using your favourite bath foam. Take out the ice cream from the freezer, bring a spoon and then take a lovely bath while eating ice cream.

The past period has been very busy and even though I’ve missed the blog, I haven’t had any inspiration to cook or write. But since last week I’ve started to cook more and more, and now I’ll blog on a more regular basis again.

Yesterday we went to church with samples of Easter food for the traditional blessing of food. I’ve written about it several times before, for example here and here. The contents of the basket we had for breakfast today, outside on our terrace in the sun as it’s finally spring in Stockholm.

The below cake is a simple lemon sponge cake that I baked today. I bought the mold with Bugs Bunny in Rome last year and as bunnies are asociated with Easter I thought it would be nice to use the mold now during Easter.

Happy Easter to all of you!