What summer and other things?

This blog is about a number of random things - mostly simple things that have made me happy lately.
It has not been the greatest summer here in Welly, and apart from a couple of really hot days it has been mostly warm - ish, along with the odd day or two without any raging winds.
So almost on cue at the end of summer my Isle of Capri tomato plant sprung into action. I picked three lovely ripe tomatoes. We plan to eat them today in a very ceremonious way.
The plant is laden with many more that I am willing on to ripen before it gets too cold and dark.

There are about 20 more tomatoes to ripen - yay!

I planted beetroot in my garden, not a great crop but managed to winkle a few to put into a salad. This recipe is one of those random ones, roast this and that, add a wonderful grain or two, add a bit of parsley, squeeze in some lemon, drizzle extra virgin olive oil and top it off with roasted pumpkin and sunflower seeds and viola! You have lunch made for a week.....Yum!

Roast beetroot and parsnip, black rice and quinoa salad

I have blogged before about our lovely old lemon tree. In spite of (some) branches covered in lichen, it keeps on producing. This year we have a bumper crop. And what do you do with them all - you make lemon muffins with crunchy sugar lemon topping, a large roasted lemon cake and of course a jar or two of lemon curd. Wonderful!

Our magic lemon tree

My fav roasted lemon cake - gorgeous with yoghurt

And finally my latest 'find'. Last week I helped move office for a charity I volunteer for. They did not want this old but lovely 1960 - 70's? telephone table. Score! I handed over a generous monetary donation and squeezed the table into my little car before they could change their mind. However, I now have a bit of a problem - we really have nowhere to put it in our house. Every bit of space is already occupied. And hubby does not share my love of such furniture. Clearly I have a lot of work to do to convince him otherwise.

My latest little find