Martha's Marvellous Munchies

I was going to post something more thoughtful this week.  But... it's been a long day.  I got a grand send-off to work this morning; all three boys waving from the front door.  Which was very heartwarming - except that I leave at 6:30 am and really they should have all still been in bed!  Then I got back from work, and we had to run some errands and feed everyone and stop Toby and Theo from arguing and put them to bed and you know.  All that stuff. I'm waaalkiiiing! But at least dinner has been easy for the last three days.  Our latest impulse buy was a deal on a three-meal box from HelloFresh .  The idea is that they pack up the ingredients for three recipes, add in the cooking instructions, and deliver the whole lot to your door in a carefully insulated container.  Full price, as you might expect, it costs only a little less than our usual week's shopping bill, but with the offer it was relatively affordable.  About the price of a dinner out, for all three meals.

My ambition is to have a glut. Maybe not quite the kind where you make a million jars of marrow jam and secretly leave tomatoes on your neighbours' doorsteps at midnight.  Just a little glut would be fine.  So far my vegetable gardening has tended to produce three tomatoes at a time, to be ceremonially and reverently   consumed.  Then you wait a week until the next three come along.  That is pretty much an anti-glut, I would say. So, this year.  The Year of the Glut.  Well, I have tried courgettes (zucchini) for the first time, which are notorious for being prolific.  Four plants, looking pretty healthy so far. Still in growbags.  Maybe one year I will get a permanent garden.  I wasn't even going to attempt tomatoes again, because last year I got 10 ripe ones and about 100 unripe ones, and I have almost finished the green tomato chutney.  But then the garden centre had some interesting varieties, including a yellow one, and Toby informed me that tomatoes were the onl

It's not often that you get two Monthly Munches in a row, is it?  In fact, it's not ever that you've had two Monthly Munches in a row.  But this month has been entirely taken up with our two-week trip to America; the weeks either side somehow vanished without trace into the maelstrom of packing, planning, jetlag and sleepless nights. We made it!  Newark Airport. Let me start by saying the boys were brilliant.  They got through five flights, two houses, three pets, at least ten meals out, and too many friends, relatives and complete strangers to count, with humour, graciousness, and a lot more smiles than screams.  So I guess you'll want some photos to prove it... Toby - got very excited every time all the clocks at my grandparents' started striking (even in a one-bedroom apartment, they have six, most of which ding, dong or cuckoo.) Dinner at Meemaw and Grampoo's - liked playing on the rocks by the James River best in Virginia. - could re