abricots

Market this morning was a hot one! 37 degrees in fact. Met Auntie Lou and John for a coffee afterwards and had a chat in one of the cafés in the Arcade. Hopefully going to see them over the next week or so for a wee outing to the pool or something.

Got back, had a wee bit of lunch and made some shortbread rectangles in preparation for the dessert I was making for dinner. Headed to the garden late afternoon to do some watering - this time we used well water again and the pressure was great. Picked a load of green beans - nearly 2 kilos! - and then headed home just before dark for some dinner. Before we went inside though, we took a detour along what we've always called "the apricot path". Dad had said there was a field of apricots that he'd seen being harvested a week or so ago and that the workers had left hundreds of apricots on the trees! So, we nipped along in the car, I ran in, and in the space of about 4 minutes, I filled two bags :) They were perfect as well - ripened on the tree and a lovely soft orange colour with red patches in places.

Got them home and made shortbread, vanilla ice cream and apricot sliders. So bloody good. One of the best combinations of food I've tried. So glad I made them! You know that way you think of a recipe, or get inspiration from somewhere and really want to try to make the thing immediately; then you do and sometimes it's crap and other times it's a sort of accidental triumph. Well, this was one of the latter occasions...

Will have to jam the rest of the apricots - they're just too good to go to waste. I can't believe there are still hundreds on those trees that may just do that...and you'd pay about £4 for a handful of apricots at home!