Another take on beer bread

Watching America's Cup racing is hard on the nerves so, to preserve the rest of my fingernails, I decided to make vege soup and beer bread during yesterday's first race. I've been toying with the idea of making bread rolls and was hoping that if I dropped roll-size lumps of dough on the warmed pizza tray it wouldn't drip through the holes. I left the cheese off the top and only added a small teaspoon of mixed herbs and a sprinkle of Cajun seasoning. The recipe with 3C flour made 10 lovely bread rolls, next time I going to try pull-apart rolls by tipping all the dough on to a silicon mat and then make indents.

Halfway through cooking - about 30 minutes at 190°C

The finished product - just enough crust and perfect with soup

Wednesday last week started with a big frost and a beautiful sunny day. The ice on my mud puddles made interesting patterns and the plants sparkled like diamonds in the rising sunlight.

I was given a pottle of mealworms a few months ago to feed the robins at Dancing Star. They are easy to look after; add a bit of wheat bran and a slice of apple, then an occasional sift to remove debris. All good but then they started turning into pupae - eek, what do I do now?? Google gave me this link http://www.geckotime.com/how-to-breed-mealworms/ and although I'm not going to become a breeder, it's been fascinating to watch these critters as they turn into beetles.

Separating the mealworms from the pupae and beetles

Mealworm pupae

A couple of beetles have 'hatched' but they're camera-shy and scuttle under the bran before I focus!

The warmer weather is heating up the plants under plastic, look how big my seedlings have grown in the last month...

I've filled up several bags with compost and will transplant seedlings into them. Whilst sorting through the bags I came across this resident - possibly a Cambridgea spider.

The yacht racing has been abandoned for the day so no excuses for staying inside - I'm off to garden! Go Team New Zealand!!