Today I’ve got two things to show you.

1) A few weeks back I planted some black beans (I let them sprout first) and they came up nicely.

Of the three plants that I have, one is already done with flowering and is now letting its pods dry, so I picked four pods off and shelled the beans. This yielded 16 beans! Hooray!

All my gardening happens inside the flat and there are no pollinating insects in said flat thanks to the bug screens we put in the windows. So, I chose beans because they are self-pollinating and required no tending besides a little watering and removal of old leaves.
I know that I won’t harvest enough beans for more than one meal (if that) but I like the idea of harvesting at least something.

2) After dinner I made churros. I got the recipe from the 50th issue of Donna Hay, so it’s not necessarily like any traditional recipes. But they were delicious anyway.

 

This is my version of the recipe (I winged it a little):

• melt 50g of butter in a saucepan (but don’t let it brown)
• add 1cup of water and let this boil
• once it boils turn down the heat to low
• add a mixture of 1cup flour, 1teaspoon baking powder and 1/4 cup sugar to the butter-water
• stir until you’ve got a ball of goop
• with an electric mixer beat two eggs into the goop until you’ve got a smooth dough
• heat some oil in a wok or saucepan (it needs to be deep enough for the dough to swim on)… turn it to medium heat
• using a bag with a nozzle (I’ve got something that looks like a childrens’ syringe) squirt strings of dough into the hot oil
• fry the strings of dough until they are golden brown, take them out and let them sit on some kitchen paper
• serve warm

I made skinny twisty churros… you can make them fatter and less twisty. I also melted some chocolate to dip them in. I’m sure they’d be great with maple syrup or honey.