A Matter of Taste

I have wondered recently if my sense of taste was disappearing, particularly when I eat vegetables.  On Sunday I managed to collect enough veg from my plot to give us a small portion each.  That's when I realised that it's not my sense of taste, it's the commercially grown vegetables that I eat most of the year.  Carrots usually taste of nothing but I eat them anyway - but - when I tasted my home grown ones the memory of what carrots should taste like came flooding back.  They were delicious, full of flavour.

It's years since I tried to grow carrots, I never had any success with them.  This year, because I now have my raised beds, I decided to try them again.  These carrots are the best I've ever grown, wish I'd sown a few more now.  The mange tout are tender and tasty, the courgettes taste like courgettes and the broccoli has flavour.  Even though I only grow enough veg to use during the summer months it is worth it.  Worth it for the taste and worth it for the enjoyment I get tending my veg plot.

This is a coconut cake that I made today.  So what, you might say.  Well, what makes it unusual for me is that as well as using desiccated coconut it contains coconut cream.  I have only ever used coconut cream in curries before now but the recipe for this cake included coconut cream in the cake and in the icing.  I'm not sure if it makes much difference to the taste but the texture of this cake is very nice.  My recipe book tends to overdo it on the icing so in future I think I'll only make half the quantity, I told myself this before but I must stick to my decision next time.