After several cloudy days and a lot of rain, which was much needed for the vines and for the gardens but still a bit gloomy, it was good to see the sun again at last this afternoon. The bees and butterflies were enjoying our lavender flowers and I caught a glimpse, but not a photo, of a hummingbird hawk moth.
The caterpillars of these cabbage white butterflies eat our cabbages all through the winter, but I still like to see them hovering among the lavender flowers.
And I thought this one was a Red Admiral, but I’m not sure.
With all the rain we’ve had, the chard has been growing very fast and we’ve had a few meals from it.
I made some chard and feta pies and put the recipe on the Food from the Mediterranean blog. We ate them yesterday evening with a green salad, but they would make good picnic food too.
In these pies I used the leaf rather than the stalks and kept the stalks for another very simple dish. I cooked them until they were tender, put them in an oven dish with a chopped clove of garlic, a few spoonfuls of crème fraîche, some grated parmesan and a sprinkle of paprika. After 10 minutes in a hot oven they made a delicious first course.
olivesandartichokes 
The butterfly photos are lovely. Diane
We saw some beautiful yellow and orange butterflies last night walking the dogs – but as I know nothing about them I have no idea what they were! Love the chard recipe – ours is starting to really get going and love the little pasties, will give them a go. The young leaves are also good justed steamed and drizzled with olive oil and lemon juice (but I bet you knew that already!).
Rotten bananas make butterflies *very*, um, happy… you can see some slightly drunken Variegated Fritillarys in my garden. I have to stop reading your blog before breakfast – you make me too hungry! (grin)