French beans or No French beans?

Just a short visit to the allotment this week, to pick a few things quick tidy up and check over to see what’s what. The French beans planted a few weeks ago are looking very sorry for themselves very yellow and not really much growth, after a closer inspection the soil! Well I should say mud/clay I may give royal Dolton a call to see if they want to buy the ground….will make some cracking plates. I was also thinking of making myself a Masai mud hut and doing away with the shed. On a serious note, my beans have far too much water than they can cope with and no sun to help them grow, I am going to give them a few more weeks and if nothing changes weather wise and condition wise I will pull them out and cover the soil to try to dry it out.
On the other hand this weather has made my courgettes romp away I have had my first pickings today and can’t wait to eat them tonight.
The strawberries are still going strong and have had another good picking today, may get one more next week if I am lucky.
My raspberries have done really well this year; they were planted last autumn and won’t really get the best from them until next year but I did get a few from my summer raspberries and going to knock up a raspberry crème brulee tonight for dinner:

The recipe I am going to use is:

600ml double cream
50g golden caster sugar
1 vanilla pod stripped
8 egg yolks
They are really easy to make simply bring the cream and sugar to a slow boil then whisk the egg yolks together then pour the hot mixture over the eggs and whisk then add the vanilla pod.

Place the raspberries in the bottom of your ramekins then top up with the mixture bake in the oven in a water bath (a roasting tray with water in it) this will stop them from burning or splitting they will take about 20 minutes to set. Remove from oven and allow to cool, and go cold. Cover the top with icing sugar and place under a grill to caramelise the top and give a crunchy top.

Hope you enjoy it if you chose to make it………

Let’s hope this weather improves sometime soon.  

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