Larder larks no. 4

It's been a funny old month. GastroClub on hold (and much missed). A sick computer. A work project that saw me doing 12-hour days for 3 weeks. The weather... I've not done much cooking - the volume of work meant that for the last 10 days at least I've been living on snatched sandwiches and delivered takeaways.

But then a few days ago, this lovely parcel arrived.

It was, of course, a #foodiepenpals parcel and it came from Becky, who had thoughtfully sent me a lovely batch of storecupboard goodies. And I loved the purple packing paper too!

Some of it was scoffed fairly quickly. The olive tapenade survived barely a day - as a topping for rice cakes, it made a tasty snack while I was buried in work. The dried fruit breakfast topper was a welcome addition to my breakfast granola, until it ran out...

Alas, the pickled garlic (something I really love - how did Becky know?) leaked in transit. Becky's handwritten card was a soggy mess on opening the parcel. But, hey, the garlic is pickled, right? I figured it would be fine and as it happened I had a bottle of it in the fridge that was almost empty but was still full of pickling juice. So Becky's garlic went into the fridge with my garlic. Sorted.

The turmeric has gone into my spice cupboard, of course. And the Welsh whisky grain mustard is in the larder (I had a little taste and it's mighty fine).

Most intriguing was the rosemary jelly.

I've never come across this before but I thought it would be good with lamb. A quick chat with Becky on Twitter confirmed this. I've not eat any lamb since its arrival, but I have a good excuse to drop into my butcher this week so I can try it out.

Meanwhile, with the big project finally signed off I'll be getting busy in my kitchen again...