Medlar Fruit Jelly

 

I have been busy making jelly again. Perhaps this is becoming more of a cookery blog than craft blog. We have a single medlar tree in the garden, and other years I have not picked the fruit. But maybe because we did not have as many apples and pears as other years, this year the medlar tree seemed full of fruit, so I decided to give them a go.

I had not heard of this fruit, but apparently they were very popular in medieval times, and because of its appearance had some quite rude names. As you can see they are rather a strange looking fruit, and really quite hard. You have to pick them, and leave them to blett, which means ripen until they look as if they are almost rotten. Some I left a bit too long, but I ended up with about a kilo of usable fruit, and used this recipe on the RHS site to make the jelly. It is a lovely colour, and tastes of apples.

 

My dog is the one who loves the medlars, and if I cannot find her she will often be under the tree snacking. 

Sloe Syrup

I have been looking at the sloes in the hedges around the field for some time now, and trying not to get ahead of myself and pick them too soon. Some books say wait until you have had a frost, but we are quite mild here, so that might be a while. But the other day I noticed that quite a few were starting to shrivel, and looked a bit like raisins, so decided it was time to pick.

My son and me both picked a colander, so we had about 3kg between us. Although I have made sloe gin other years, I decided this year it might be better to make sloe syrup. We could put this in gin, but it might also be nice to have on porridge, or yoghurt, or even icecream. It is meant to be packed full of vitamin C and antioxidants, so hopefully will ward off any winter colds.

Hawthorn Berry Jelly

 

There seem to be more than usual hawthorn berries around this year. Is that a sign it will be a cold winter? So I decided I would have a go at making some hawthorn jelly. I used this recipe from Practical Self Reliance.

I am not sure why my hawthorn berries were not particular juicy, but it took me three colanders before I thought I had enough juice to add the sugar. In the end I made this single jar of hawthorn jelly. Plenty of hawthorn berries were left for the birds.

And now I can hear the rose hips calling to me. Recipes say they will be juicier if you wait until you have had a light frost, which we haven't yet, so I am trying to be patient.

Poor Man's Capers

Not everything has gone to plan in the garden, and I'll be doing my monthly garden update for August soon. One of the plants that has grown well are the nasturtiums, which I planted as a companion plant to distract the critters from the vegetable. I think there is a saying about making lemonade if life has given you lemons, so I decided to do what I can with this surprise success. You can eat the leaves for a spicy salad, and I even saw a recipe for nasturtium flower wine, but the family drew the line at this. I also found out that the seeds can be pickled to make "poor man's capers", so this is what I decided to do.

Here is a link to the recipe that I used Nasturtium Capers. There are a lot of other recipes out there. Some people like to soak in brine before pickling, to reduce the pepperiness. Also I have stored them in the fridge, but some recipes say just store in a dark cupboard. I added a bit of garlic, and they should be ready to eat in about 4 weeks, so I will let you know how they turn out.

Garden Diary July

 

I wrote last month about a deer visiting my vegetable garden and raiding a lot of my plants and produce. The hanging CDs did not put the deer off, but we decided to go for all the senses. So as well as the sparkles, we have hung rags socked in diesel for an unpleasant smell, and also have a radio playing in the polytunnel. That combined with a spooky scarecrow, and we haven't seen the deer since.

Some of the things that I thought were gone have recovered. Although the beetroot tops were chewed, the beetroot themselves are fine. Roasted with thyme and olive oil, they are very tasty. (No horrible beetroot in vinegar for us!)

 

And although most of the strawberries were eaten, I had thought that the plants were ruined because so many leaves were chewed off, but they too have recovered, and tonight I found a single new berry.

 

We aren't going to have as many runnerbeans, but since we are still eating last year's bumper crop from the freezer, this is not so bad.

We have been struggling with space in our small freezer, so have decided to get a chest freezer, which is already filling up.

One new thing we have been growing is these patty pan squash. I love how they look like little space ships.

 

A few other things are still coming along - tomatoes, peas, celeriac, butternut squash, pumpkins and sprouts. We have eaten a few broadbeans, which although the plants are not as big as other years, they haven't suffered from blackfly. I am trying to pick the courgettes before they grow too big, and have made soup and last night courgette fritters. I keep feeling that we should dig the potatoes, as Monty was digging some of his, but we haven't yet.

One thing I feel this year is that we have had less weeds. Perhaps it is the hot weather, or maybe I have kept on top of them a bit better than other years. Hard to tell.

Finally two photos of the ruby passion sunflowers. They are not as tall, or as large flowers, as the sunflowers we grew other years, but they are really beautiful

Garden Diary June

A little bit late with my garden diary for June, and as you will see the look of the vegetable plot has changed in the last day. I have realised from gardening the last few years that not everything is going to work out, and you have to not worry too much about the failures, but celebrate the successes.

So far this year that was going much as usual, something ate all the carrot seedlings. But some of the new things we are trying are doing well: brussel sprouts, beetroot and celeriac. But then a few days ago when I went to water, all the strawberries I had been so looking forward to were gone, the tops of a fair number of my sunflowers were bitten off. Then yesterday I noticed that quite a few runner beans were bitten off at the base, and the tops of the beetroots were really eaten. But not I thought the usual unseen minibeasts, as there were also some fairly large hoof prints in the soil. 

Yesterday I was in the house but looked out to see the culprit strolling down the hill for some afternoon snacks. A very confident deer, who was not put off by my son picking cherries nearby. I shouted out the house, and he ran off, and then my husband spent the evening setting up a border of CDs, which we are hoping might stop the deer jumping in. They are quite shiny, and if they don't do the trick perhaps some hanging tin cans or windchimes might have to be added. I have also arranged as many covers as I can. Below is the celariac and beetroot under a wire cover.

 

In the polytunnel the lettuce are doing well, and the mini cucumbers which I am trying this year. Very pleased with the lettuce, which self-seeded from last years. We had put last years compost outside on the soil, and I noticed that little lettuce seedlings were coming up. I transferred them inside, and they are doing better that last year.

The courgettes are almost ready to eat, and this year I am going to pick them small, and not let them grow into marrows like last years.

Most of the fruit is doing better than last year. I am picking about a bowl of raspberries each day, which are heading to the freezer at the moment. I think they are doing better because we removed a lot of the brambles that were mixed in with them. Also there are a huge amount of cherries. We can reach some, but there are also masses higher up out of reach. My son and I have started some cherry wine. The apples, pears and gooseberries all look like they are going to be better than last year, but I am keeping my fingers crossed that the deer does not return and have an appetite for fruit.

Country Life

 

I've been busy here in the country, but can't believe I have nothing woolly to write about. There just seems a lot of other things to do, and although I have the beginnings of an idea for a new pattern, I am not sure it is going to work out. It is funny like that, sometimes things just fly off the needles, and other times not.

I have booked a table at another craft fair, not until December, and am thinking about making a few very small knitted toys. I felt that there were one or two children at the last fair, who had been give £1 to spend, and would have been very happy to buy a little toy. The current UK news seems to be suggesting there will be no toys in the shops, so perhaps homemade/local is the way to go.

At the top of this post is my single jar of homemade Rose Hip and Apple Jelly. Here is a link to the recipe I used. I love the beautiful colour, and hope it was worth the effort of getting prickled picking the rose hips. The apples came from the supermarket, as our very small crop of apples is all brewing into cider.

Apart from that I have been busy tidying the garden. This isn't my usual garden diary, as a lot of autumn tidying is not very photographable, but here is a selection of the squash we grew. The first is called honeyboat, and then there is the butternut. But finally the more mysterious white acorn squash, which I did not buy seeds for, but just appeared. I think there must have been a mistake at the seed packeting factory, but it was very excited to realise we had something unusual among the other plants.

We also have a few pumpkins, which I haven't picked as yet. I feel they may not be growing any more, but I just like seeing them in the garden.

We have had a few other dramas - losing the dog, and big relief finding her. And I have got a part-time job at a school. I don't begin until November, but am hoping it will really help me feel part of the locality.  

Finally a photo of Lanhydrock House, which we visited at the weekend.

Still plenty of time to to join in Ginx Woolly Linx Party for October.

Big Fat Cookie

You may have noticed that there really seems to be a lack of knitting on my blog. I seem to have slightly lost focus, but it also because I have been working on a new pattern since the start of 2015. It is taking so much longer than I expected. So until that is done, here is a bit more cookery ....

I thought you might like to see what I came back to find the other day. She hadn't baked it, but my daughter had prepared this enormous cookie. She used this Millie's Cookie recipe, just leaving out the chocolate chips, and came up with the design herself. The letter cutters were from Santa, but he got them from Tiger. I took the photo below to try and show the scale. Despite its huge size the cookie still disappeared incredibly quickly.

Non Cook Raspberry Fudge

I saw a link on Inspire Me Wednesday at Adventures of Mel for a non-cook fudge. The recipe is on Simple Stacie, and it definitely took some of the stress out of fudge making.

We couldn't find the right brand of cake mix or sprinkles so did a bit of substitution. It would have been nice to have had little hearts like in the original, but our raspberry pieces mean that we can kid ourselves that this fudge contains one of our five a day. Fudge has been placed in a recovered chocolate box, and will be presented to hubby as a Valentine gift when he gets up this evening. (He is on a run of night shifts.)

 

Cake Pops

I work in a school, and sometimes at the end of the school year the children give me some really lovely thank you gifts. One of the more unusual gifts a few years ago was the book pictured below. I have often looked at the lovely little cakes on sticks, but only recently managed to find the lollysticks that I needed to make them. Once again Lakeland came up trumps. 

 
So we decided to have a go at one of the easier recipes. We did get a bit confused to start, as the book is American, and refers to frosting. But once we had worked out that was what we call icing there was no stopping us. Our cakes are not quite as professional as the ones on the book cover. We went for a slightly more random decoration style.  But they were easy to make, and very tasty. Next time we may try some of the little animals.

They make a really lovely display, and I think would go down very well at any sort of party. Also very easy to eat without making a mess.

 Cake Poptastic!

Gingerbread House

Some time last year I saw on another blog some tin baking trays designed to make a gingerbread house. I thought this looked such a great idea, and so was really delighted when Father Christmas found and delivered Frankie some gingerbread house trays.

These are made of sillicone, and I think they are something we will use time and time again.

She had such fun making (and decorating this house). There is a gingerbread recipe on the packaging, which worked really well. The sections of the house were easy to turn out, and constructing the house was not difficult. 

My daughter is 10 years old, and has done a lot of cooking, so apart from helping her with the oven, she made and decorated this house without any help. (I was knitting and supervising from a distance!) They also suggest you can use the trays as moulds for a solid chocolate house, which would be rather fantastic!

The house is still uneaten, although quite a lot of the sweets have mysteriously gone missing. We also caught one of my cats on the table licking the chocolate decking, so we are going to give that part a miss.

If anyone in the UK is interested Santa told me he got the trays at Lakeland Plastics, and they do have a website. You can find the trays at http://www.lakeland.co.uk/16789/Fairy-Tale-Cottage-Mould

Seaside Biscuits (Our Signature Bake)

Our favourite TV programme at the moment is "The Great British Bake Off". The week before last they had a small section on Aberffraw Biscuits, a traditional biscuit baked on the Island of Anglesey in North Wales, and shaped in a scallop shell.

So, because we have a few scallop shells handy, we decided to have a go at making our own version.

My white scallop shells were just too big to use as biscuit moulds. They were bought at a fishmongers in Southwold, when we were on holiday once. So we decided to use a smaller black one that my husband found on a beach in Cornwall.

So first we made a standard shortbread. We didn't have any wholemeal flour, so used 200g of butter, 300g of plain flour, and 100g of caster sugar.

First cut up the butter.

Then mix the flour and sugar.

Then rub the butter into the dry ingredients.

We kneaded our dough into a ball, and then rolled it out.

Then we cut around the shell.

 My shell was too flat to put the dough in, so we pressed the shell as hard as we could into the dough.

I was a bit worried that the markings would disappear when cooked. But all was fine.

They looked great on the baking trays.

We also made a few round biscuits, for which I had another plan.

For the round biscuits I made a very simple stencil from a piece of paper, and we sprinkled icing sugar to turn them into sand dollars. If you don't know about sand dollars, see my previous post in September. Some people call sand dollars sea biscuits.

Our final plate of seaside biscuits looked very appetizing, and melted in the mouth. The scallop biscuits were quite large, so I am on the look out for a slightly smaller shell to mould them in next time.