Quiet Summer at Home and in the Garden | Slow Days of Food, Flowers & Sewing

Hello and welcome back to my slow living vlog. In this week’s episode of my slow life vlog join me in my kitchen and garden as I harvest some seasonal vegetables and create an evening meal with what my garden gives me. I have been spending some time this week working on the patchwork curtain which I shared plans for with you last week, and I have also been enjoying baking rustic fruit pies, or galettes. This week I made one with blackcurrants.

If you’re new to my channel, hi! My name is Stéphanie and Eighteen and Cloudy is my slow living vlog. I share peaceful, slow paced, relaxing videos about how my husband and I try to live a simple and sustainable life in a big city. I share stories from my kitchen and home garden, as well as our vegetable plot down at the community gardens on which we grow food and flowers. I love heritage crafts, crafting, making, and often share my makes with you in real time in my weekly slow life vlog. I particularly love sewing, hand quilting, and patchwork, but I dabble in lots of things and always love trying something new.

I call it a slow living vlog. I know, it’s a silly phrase. It’s not all about cottagecore and fairies though, it’s just about finding the time in our day to day life to appreciate the changing seasons, and about trying to slow down and, outside of day to day responsibilities and ordinary life, be careful with how and where we spend our time and attention.

For me that means I like to cook from scratch as a way to unwind at the end of each day, and I enjoy gardening and pottering around with a cup of tea in hand. For you, it might mean crochet whilst watching TV, reading a few pages of a novel each night, or the ritual of a morning or evening walk without your phone. Everyone can stop to smell the roses from time to time, and I hope my videos act as a reminder of the little ways in which you could make your own life feel calmer, happier, and more balanced in this mad and messy world of ours.

00:00 gathering vegetables for dinner
01:14 a recipe for courgettes
06:01 evening in the garden
06:47 cooking dinner
10:40 a colourful puzzle
13:37 sewing rainbow patchwork
18:56 making a blackcurrant pie
24:34 cutting flowers, making a bouquet
28:17 golden hour and fruit pie

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#slowliving #simpleliving #slowlife

Let’s see what my garden has for me today. I love high summer, there’s always something to harvest. The first courgettes of the season! I’ve planted some herbs beneath this apple tree, Mint and sage. Hello and welcome, come and join me in my kitchen whilst I make a meal with what my garden gave me. Today I’m making Italian scarpaccia, it’s a crispy and chewy vegetable tart. It’s like a flatbread, and served in a similar way. Homegrown kale. I’m salting the vegetables to wilt them so that the batter isn’t too wet. These are our first bulbs of garlic of the season. Our main harvest is still curing, and not quite ready yet. A couple of weeks ago on the way home from the market we stumbled upon a street fayre in the city centre. There were lots of food stalls selling lunch but we’d already had a falafel wrap from our favourite trader down by the market. One stall caught my eye though it was a Turkish ceramics stand selling kitchenware. I bought two little serving bowls and this garlic plate. Sage. Traditionally, scarpaccia is made with cornmeal, but I don’t have any in my cupboard at the moment. What I do have is chickpea flour, so that’s what I’ll be using today. This next bit is intuitive, I’m adding just enough water to create a batter that flows but isn’t runny. It has the consistency of cake batter for a Victoria sponge. I’ve created walls with my greaseproof paper to help the batter hold its shape. If in doubt, use a tray with sides. Bake the scarpaccia for around 35 to 40 minutes at 180C (350F). Everyone on the street has their doors and windows open as it’s a hot summer evening. As I’m making dinner I can hear the neighbourhood children protesting about bathtime and bedtime! We didn’t grow these, they came from the market. We don’t grow everything, but what we do grow makes a lovely addition to food we buy at the market. Make sure the scarpaccia has cooled before cutting it. A simple salad with ingredients from the market, served with homegrown potatoes. And my usual tahini, garlic, yoghurt and dill sauce! All we want these days is salad, it’s been so hot! He loves watching the sparrows! Last week I shared my plans with you for a patchwork window covering I’d like to make for the window at the top of the landing in the attic. I’ve washed, dried, and cut the fabric. I sew in inches despite using metric for everything else. These squares measure 3.5″ (8.9cm). I want the patchwork to be pattern free but it’s not completely random. I want a balance of light and dark shades across the piece and I want to avoid two identical pieces being side by side or diagonally positioned. It’s a fun little puzzle. Today I’m going to sew the rows together. This should be quite a quick task. The seam is on the wrong side! That’s better. I’ve misplaced the wooden butter knife I use to press seams. So I’m using a crochet hook. There is no way I am turning my iron on today! I made some shortcrust pastry so that I can make another galette. Blackcurrants, we picked some more at the weekend down at the community gardens. Sugar to taste. I’ll put it in the freezer and bake it this evening. Well that was always going to happen! When I was harvesting bits and pieces for dinner yesterday I wanted to cut a big bunch of flowers to take home but I didn’t have my secateurs with me. I thought I’d come back this evening and bring you along with me as I make a bouquet. My dahlias are much earlier this year – 6 weeks earlier. It’s been hot and sunny for weeks on end which is not typical for an English summer! In previous years I’ve only ever made small posies. I usually only cut flower buds that have opened. and so I keep stems short to preserve the closed buds. This year the plants are stronger than usual and so I’m feeling brave, and I’m cutting long stems. There are still many weeks ahead of us with long days, and warm temperatures. I love the whole process of planning and tending our patch of land at the community gardens. I enjoy spending time here on cold winter days and I even enjoy the menial tasks, the prep work. The summer harvests make all of the hard work feel worthwhile. Golden hour is my favourite time of day. Pretty light, pie, and flowers, oh the joy of being easily amused! Thank you for joining me, see you in my next video!