A lot of fruit was bought and consumed by The Little Fella and myself today.  I started this bright and sunny Saturday with a punnett of red grapes, which we munched on our way up to Sevenoaks.

Isn’t fruit amazing in the summer?  It is so sweet and juicy. After Harvey’s appointment at the hospital he was hungry and we had spotted a cafe on the way in to town that appealed to us both; The Zed Music Cafe.  It was quite busy when we arrived but three tables full of people left almost as soon as we sat down!  Harvey enjoyed his toasted sandwich and soya  milkshake and I had a soya milk latte.  Very friendly staff and my only complaint was a very small menu. i.e. a very limited choice but when I explained we were not eating dairy, they were very helpful. Next stop was the little market on the high street because I had spotted this fruit and veggie stall and wanted to check it out. It was great.  Not organic and certainly not local either but such fresh looking produce and the fruit was actually ripe and, as we discovered later, full of flavour, unlike a lot of the plant foods we buy in the supermarket.  The prices were reasonable so we bought masses.  Literally as much as we could carry.   Next stop was Paddock Wood which I always think feels like stepping back in time. This department store, which does have fantastically courteous and helpful staff, really reminds me of a department store I used to go to as a child called ‘Shinners’.  They have a small number of a large range of things and the prices aren’t bad.  They had what we needed which was great. Some of the things we bought at the Sevenoaks market are 2 boxes of these honey mangoes. A bag of apricots. a 10kg box of cherries – this box is MASSIVE. I had not eaten anything all day apart from grapes so I made a smoothie from 10 of the apricots and 2 mangoes. These mangoes are at the peak of their ripeness.  They are just perfect and the stone is quite small so you got a lot of mango for your money.  At £5 a box they were good value anyway. This smoothie was sensational.  I wish you could all try it as it was so good. It literally contained only apricots and mangoes and was the perfect balance of sweetness and tartness and the consistency was amazing.  I loved every single mouthful of that one. I couldn’t resist trying one of these nectarines and that was spot on too – not too ripe and soft but not hard either and full of juice and flavour. I spent a very happy couple of hours in the veggie patch in the late afternoon sunshine. Mangetout.  I always hear “mangetout mange tout Rodney” in my head when I think of mange tout 🙂 Mizuna. Spinach. My sisters bought me 5 roses for my birthday 2 years ago and this one is looking amazing; it smells wonderful too. Eye spy with my little eye …… the raspberry canes Kath gave me when she emigrated home to NZ are ripening up and full of fruit. This was the only disappointment of the day.  At first I thought it was soil but no, the broad beans are badly infested with some kind of fly which is disappointing.  I chopped down the worst one and saved as many beans as I could which I gave Harvey in his stir fry.  I was eating raw all day and the one bean I tried was bitter so I think they are better cooked so they couldn’t be added to my salad. For supper I carefully washed all the green leaves I picked: spinach, mizuna and rocket plus I added some watercress I bought at the market.  So lush and fresh. Topped with celery, red cabbage, carrot, tomatoes and mashed avocado which did the job of a dressing.  No added oil, salt, pepper or any other seasonings. I then actually did pit all these cherries to make cherry and banana nice cream.  All these cherries shared between us plus 3 frozen bananas each made a fantastic pudding. Served with some coconut and coconut sugar. This was so good that someone ( I won’t name names though) actually licked the bowl.

So, one very well fed lady is feeling good after an all raw plant food diet today.  I enjoyed pottering about in the shops with the Little Fella today as it is a long time since we have had a day like that together.  The fruit haul was a real result and we are both enjoying getting through it all.