Oak Tree Cottage

More Marmalade

2012-01-22T14:26:00.003Z

It was like the Tiptree jam factory in here yesterday, but I think I now have enough marmalade in stock to last until next January. The smell was fabulous! The jars have now been labelled and put away, it's nice to see the counters clear again.

Coldest Night So Far

2012-01-17T14:00:00.002Z

The winter so far has been very mild, but we have had a cold snap for the last few days. Last night was the coldest to date and there's still frost on the ground mid-afternoon.

First Batch Done

2012-01-14T13:52:00.003Z

I've made the first batch of marmalade, it's got a great set and flavour and I'm very happy with it. I've tried to buy more seville oranges, but the shops don't seem to have them yet. Not sure how the market trader in Stratford got hold of them so early, but I wish I'd bought more! Click here for the recipe I use.

Stratford - A Year On

2012-01-13T18:08:00.003Z

Believe it or not, today is the first anniversary of my first chemo. We went to Stratford upon Avon last year on the advice of someone who said to make sure the day wasn't all about chemo. However, I did feel somewhat peculiar during the visit and as we've not been back to Stratford since, I decided I would like to go there feeling good. We had a glorious sunny day today, though the low sun this time of year does cause its own problems! The pictures aren't particularly good because of the glare (plus they were taken on the iPad which has a less than stellar camera), but they give a good impression of the day. Unfortunately, due to Christmas excesses, we decided to give the cream tea a miss, but that's always something to look forward to next time :o).

We also managed to time our visit to coincide with the market, joy of joys there was a fishmongers with some lovely crabs which we bought for our dinner tomorrow night. We also found seville oranges, so the next post will probably be about marmalade making!

Happy New Year!!

2012-01-02T18:06:00.002Z

We had family to visit over new year, but I forgot to take any photos :(. So, I'll just say Happy New Year to you all and hope that it is a healthy and happy one for everyone.

Butternut Squash Soup

2011-12-27T15:20:00.005Z

I've tested one of my christmas presents (a new wand blender) in anger today and made a yummy butternut squash soup. A good healthy lunch after having had rather an excess of meat recently!

Ingredients:

1 x butternut squash
1 x apple
1 x medium onion
25g butter (I used a slosh of olive oil)
1 tsp medium curry powder (I used slightly more of a mild korma)
20g plain flour
pinch of ground nutmeg
1 x stock cube
400ml boiling water
250ml milk
salt & pepper

Method:

Peel, seed and dice the butternut, peel, core and chop the apple. Peel the onion and chop roughly. Saute the onion in the butter/oil, add the curry powder and fry lightly. Add the butternut and apple and saute for approx 10 mins. Add the flour and nutmeg and cook for another couple of minutes.

Dissolve the stock cube in the boiling water and add to the pan, together with the milk and salt & pepper. Simmer (stir occasionally), with the lid on, until the butternut pieces are soft (I did mine for an hour). Blend until smooth, check the seasoning, then serve with a little swirl of cream and some finely chopped parsley.

Merry Christmas

2011-12-26T17:01:00.001Z

I hope everyone's Christmas has been as good as ours.

Fat Bird

2011-12-22T10:27:00.002Z

We won't be going hungry this christmas ...

... and I've had my hair done

More Christmas Prep

2011-12-20T17:36:00.002Z

We're just about there with the christmas decorating, OH has worked like a trojan and it's all looking gorgeous.

The Tree is Up

2011-12-16T09:39:00.002Z

Finally, it's starting to feel like Christmas is coming. The tree is up and the lights are sparkling on the conservatory roof. Now we just need some snow - it was forecast to come this morning, but no sign of it as yet. I think we've missed it this time, but fingers crossed we will get some before the 25th.

Gingerbread Men

2011-12-16T09:33:00.005Z

They're like a little terracotta army! A bad back notwithstanding, I've had a few sessions pottering in the kitchen and have now made what I think will become a Christmas classic going forwards. The recipe makes 50-60 men approx 2.5-3" tall. Great fun!

This recipe is Kirstie Allsop's Gingerbread House Recipe from the Channel 4 website.

Ingredients:

675g plain flour
1 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
2 tablespoons ground ginger
2 tablespoons ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground all spice (the smell of Christmas!)
175g unsalted butter
225g soft light brown sugar
1 large free range egg
6 tablespoons golden syrup

Method:

Sieve the flour, bicarbonate of soda and spices into a large bowl, then rub the butter into the dry ingredients until you have a texture resembling fine breadcrumbs. Add the sugar and mix well. I did all this in the Kenwood with the dough hook.

Warm a bowl and mix the syrup and the egg together in the warm bowl. Add the wet mixture to the dry and mix it to form a soft, smooth dough. I found the mixture quite dry, so added another tablespoon of syrup.

Wrap the dough in cling film and chill it for at least 1 hour. I found it difficult to roll it out chilled, so let it come back to room temperature or even slightly above by leaving it near a radiator. Once your shapes are cut out (the original recipe was for a gingerbread house), you can chill or freeze them prior to cooking if you don't want them to spread whilst cooking. I just put my men straight in the oven as this wasn't an issue. Cook for 8-10 minutes on 180C (mine took 15 mins in the Rayburn). Move to a cooling rack as soon as they come out of the oven.

I used a thick water icing on my men (three large spoons of icing sugar and a couple of tablespoons of water, added slowly and gradually), but the recipe recommends royal icing. Leave out to dry overnight.

More Wildlife

2011-12-16T09:31:00.003Z

We were very excited to see four roe deer in the field at the bottom of our garden yesterday morning. Lovely! Not a very good picture as it was snapped through the conservatory window, but proof nonetheless!

Bird Feeding

2011-12-14T17:48:00.003Z

Since the demise of our old plum tree, we have had nowhere convenient to hang our largest seed feeder. At 4 feet long and taking 16 pints of seed to fill, it needs a strong branch to hold it. So OH has put this feeder stand together, mostly from materials we already had laying around. It seems to do the trick, and has the advantage it can be moved from time to time to avoid a build up of husks underneath. It is also easy to take apart if we want it out of the way in summer. OH has now decided to get another couple of hangers for it so it can hold more feeders.

We usually see a sparrowhawk or two around the feeders each year and lose the odd slow bird, but we delight in seeing these beautiful hunters doing what nature intended. When hunting, their speed and acrobatics are almost too fast to follow.

This year we have seen two sparrowhawks hunting in the garden, a juvenile female, who does not appear very successful, and a beautiful adult male who is a very good hunter indeed! He seems able to take birds at will from the feeders, visiting a couple of times each day and rarely missing. It seemed every time we looked out of the kitchen window we would see him flash past over the hedge from the field, grab a bird from the feeders, usually a goldfinch, and vanish. We had flock of about ten goldfinches around the feeders but we are now left with only a single, rather nervous, individual - the rest have all been eaten. At Oak Tree Cottage we do not usually like to interfere with nature, but in this case the positioning of the hedge and tree makes life very easy for the sparrowhawk - he can gather speed low over the field, skim over the top of the hedge and he is in the middle of the feeders.

So we decided to give the birds on the feeders more of a sporting chance by slightly spoiling his clear run. We have put a row of bamboo canes on top of the hedge and hung a twine obstruction to the side of the hedge, so he will now have to slow slightly to go between the canes or rise higher to go over them, both of which should give the birds on the feeders a split-second longer to react.

He has flashed past the feeders three or four times this afternoon since we spoiled his run-up and that extra split-second seems to have made all the difference, as so far we haven't seen him secure a meal from the feeders; a slow or weak bird would surely have been taken though. No doubt such a mature and experienced bird will quickly work out a new hunting approach, it will be interesting to see.

He perched on the tree once and we managed to take a quick snap of him.

New Front Door

2011-12-01T14:48:00.003Z

I've been lusting after these oak front doors for some time, a couple of weeks ago we decided that if we could get a reasonable quote, we'd go for it. Only one downside - it makes the rest of the house look very shabby, it could end up being a very expensive front door by the time we've finished! However, I LOVE it, it is a thing of beauty and I'm very happy with the job that Redditch Carpentry did. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend them and I'm sure they'll be doing more work for me in the not too dim and distant future.

Norfolk - second visit of the year

2011-11-29T09:32:00.006Z

Warning - picture heavy post!

I've been very lax updating the blog recently, we went to Norfolk for the second time this year over two weeks ago, and I'm only now getting around to the update. We had a lovely week, very lucky with the weather as it's pot luck in November. Apart from a couple of grey days, we had plenty of sunshine and virtually no rain, unlike today which is definitely an indoors, catch up with paperwork day!

The week's itinerary went like this: we had an easy Friday packing up and ambling over there, you can't get into the property until the afternoon, so there's no rush to get up at the crack of dawn. Once we were settled and unpacked at the other end we popped to the shops for victuals, then had a quiet evening. One good thing about going to a familiar house and area is that you know where everything is. Saturday morning saw us off on the hunt for crab and also a general mosey around. We drove over to Salthouse about an hour away, bought plenty of delicious crab and also a gorgeous lobster from Cookies Crab Shop and then wended our way back home via country lanes. On Sunday we had a super walk from Thornham, up into the agricultural fields then back via the salt marshes and sea wall. The walk details said it was 5 miles, but the GPS told us over 7, I have to confess that I hit the wall about a mile from home and had to stop at the Lifeboat Inn for sustenance (and the loo!) while OH went to fetch the car.

Monday saw us back over towards Salthouse, at a nature reserve on Cley Marshes, one of OH's favourite haunts. During the week we came to the conclusion that if we were to move to Norfolk, this is the area we would like to be in. The area where we hired the cottage is lovely, but not really close enough to the bits we truly love. While OH was tramping around the marshes, I headed into Holt for a little retail therapy and a chill out in a coffee shop with a panini. Heaven! No idea why I'm struggling to lose weight ...

Every Tuesday there is a market in Kings Lynn, so we headed there in the morning to see what it was like. The fruit and veg stalls were amazing, some really exotic fruit for sale and all of it looking beautiful and fresh. There was also a seafood stand, just as well as we'd eaten all our Saturday purchases by this time. We had a walk around a designated town walk that we'd found in a book at our cottage and finished off with a coffee and panini in Costa. After taking our loot back home we headed to Snettisham Beach, another RSPB reserve, and this one close to where we were staying. It's a couple of miles walk from the car to the beach, but definitely worth the hike. We stayed until the sun was going down, but didn't see vast amounts of birdlife. However, the sunrise and tides were right the following morning for the dawn spectacular, so OH headed back early and had some incredible views of hundreds of geese flying close overhead. Pretty spectacular. Later that day we headed up to another favourite RSPB reserve at Titchwell, although this is a favourite with most birders who go to Norfolk and gets very busy. However, we headed down to the beach where OH saw a grebe that he'd never seen before, so he was chuffed with the trip. We also saw a couple of spoonbills fly over, another first. All very exciting :o). That evening we had dinner with OH's brother and SIL at the Lifeboat Inn in Thornham which was very enjoyable.

BIL and SIL were having a few days in Blakeney at a cottage they had hired, so the following morning we headed over to check out their place (Morgan Cottage). It was very cute and in a little road in Blakeney that I hadn't even realised was there. It also had excellent Wi-Fi, so I caught up with emails before we headed over to the Dun Cow at Salthouse for lunch (another very good meal). We spent the afternoon on Cley Marshes while they headed to Holt, not being quite so keen as us on swamps and birding as we are!

And sadly, that was the end of our holiday. Our lovely hostess said that the cottage wasn't booked for the following week and we could have an extra day if we liked, but unfortunately I already had commitments for Saturday, so Friday saw us packing our bags and heading for home. Another excellent break in Norfolk and I can highly recommend The Coach House at Ingoldisthorp if you want a little Norfolk air in a comfy home-from-home.

The Old Rectory where our hostess lives,
The Coach House is next door

It's Been A Useful Day, Pooh

2011-11-06T16:41:00.003Z

As always, we seem to have been busy recently, but I couldn't be specific about what we've been up to. Catching up with life I think! However, after a pretty gloomy week, the forecast was good today, so we decided to get out in the garden and have a tidy up, it's that time of year again. First up we stacked the logs that OH had cut at his brother's house and then split during the week, then I put a second coat of paint on the planters in front of the shed while OH got his toys out and warmed up. We then moved to the back garden and raked up leaves (OH had the leaf-blower attachment on his petrol strimmer, I used the old-fashioned rake!). After that we put the guttering back on the shed and took the summer shading off of OH's big greenhouse. It's amazing how much difference you can make in a day.

Finally, isn't the Virginia Creeper looking good this year? It seems to have been ideal conditions for autumn colour, we haven't seen it looking this pretty ever, I don't think.

Lower Slaughter and Bourton-on-the-Water

2011-11-01T16:54:00.002Z

We haven't been for one of our days out for a while, so on another day that was forecast to be fine, we set off for the Cotswolds. We had a lovely walk from Lower Slaughter, over to Bourton-on-the-Water and back via some fields. We did this walk last December when my brother & his family were visiting, it was lovely to see it in all it's autumn splendour.

The Rayburn is On

2011-10-27T16:47:00.002+01:00

We didn't make a note of this event last year, so I don't know if we've beaten the date or not, but we have finally succumbed on a horrid dark, miserable and wet day. We've gone completely mad and put the central heating on as well, might as well test it all together!

Addendum 6th November: the Rayburn went off again 4 days after it was lit, but has been relit today. Although the weather's set to continue mild(ish), it's forecast to be very overcast and damp, which makes the house feel chill and unpleasant if there's no heat at all. It also means the towels don't dry properly, something I hate!

Steak & Pigeon Pie

2011-10-20T13:09:00.003+01:00

The first cold spell of the autumn (we have had the wood-burner on for the last two nights and even had a frost last night) turned our thoughts to rich and sustaining winter food, and while I was out yesterday OH made the filling for a Steak & Pigeon Pie. It was absolutely delicious!

We only had two pigeon, which we had bought at the local Farmers Market, and really needed four for this recipe, but we made it up using extra beef. It is a loose recipe, you can add more or less of everything, add some port if you have it, use more or less garlic etc. The rich short-crust pastry was perfect for this pie, made using 120g butter and 180g of flour.

While he had all the pots and pans out, OH also made an oxtail stew, I'm looking forward to that tonight!

Ingredients
4 woodpigeon
1lb braising beef (cut into ½” cubes)
1 onion, 2 carrots, 2 sticks of celery, all chopped (for the stock)
1 onion sliced (for the pie)
Button mushrooms (halved)
4 rashers of smoked streaky bacon (finely chopped)
a bunch of fresh parsley
4 juniper berries
a pinch of thyme
a clove of garlic
2 glasses of red wine
1 tbsp brandy

Short-crust pastry
180g plain flour
120g butter
2 tbsp (approx) cold water

Egg to wash

Method
Put the pigeons, together with the onion, carrots, celery, juniper berries, thyme and stalks of the parsley, into a casserole or large saucepan. Add the red wine and top up with water to provide enough liquid. Bring to the boil and simmer for two hours or until meat comes easily off the bones. (Alternatively, you could put in a slow-cooker overnight, or OH pressure-cooked for 30 minutes)

Remove cooked pigeon on to a plate to cool slightly, strain the cooking liquid through a sieve into a jug, then return it to saucepan. (Discard sieved parsley stalks and stock veg)

Next, in a large frying pan gently fry the bacon until there is sufficient fat in the pan, then add the braising steak and brown all over. Transfer the steak to the saucepan of cooking liquid, bring to the boil and cover, simmer gently for 40 minutes or until the beef is tender. Meanwhile add the sliced onion to the frying pan and fry until soft and golden, then remove to a large mixing bowl. Next put the halved mushrooms in the frying pan, with a clove of crushed garlic, and fry until the mushrooms are cooked but still firm, then add them to mixing bowl.

Remove the breast meat and leg meat from the pigeons, cut into small pieces and add to mixing bowl. Chop the parsley leaf and add to mixing bowl. When braising steak is tender, use a slotted spoon to transfer to mixing bowl. Then reduce the cooking liquid to intensify flavour, check seasoning, add brandy and continue to cook for a further minute or two, thicken if necessary.

Mix the contents of the bowl well. Line a pie tin with the short crust pastry, fill with the pie mixture and gently firm, then pour on the sauce until the pie base is full. Add the pastry lid, crimp the edges, eggwash and cook for 30-35 minutes at 180C, serve immediately. Heaven!

Happy Happy

2011-10-19T16:32:00.002+01:00

Thank you everyone, I'm having a great day and I've been spoilt as usual!

Let There Be Light

2011-10-11T19:11:00.003+01:00

We've had a couple of blown double glazing units in the kitchen for quite some time now, but haven't really known what to do about it as we imagined it to be a big expensive job (of course it was the biggest pane of glass in the house that went). Not a bit of it, we spoke to a local glazier recently and a couple of quick visits and less than £150 later and we can see again! It's amazing the difference it's made to the room, we've been missing out on some of the best views from the house for a long time. Wish I'd remembered the before picture ...

The middle pane in the large window

The right hand pane in the side window

Brighton

2011-10-11T17:44:00.002+01:00

A trip down memory lane in Brighton (this is a picture-heavy post). Many moons ago we used to live in Brighton, so it was nice to revisit some of our old haunts, though there have also been some big changes. Our old flat was still standing and I could swear they still have the same lace curtains in the kitchen as I put up 20 years ago! We would have had lunch in Browns if we hadn't had a killer breakfast at Amberley Castle, all we could manage was a cup of coffee in Costa. We had a mooch around the lanes and down the pier, but we didn't visit the Pavillion this time. I think another trip is in order before too long. I also discovered the most amazing shop window, it's a clothing shop, but the (huge) window was full of old sewing machines. I couldn't believe my eyes and spent quite a bit of time drooling. As you can see, I wasn't the only one photographing it. I wish now that I'd gone inside and asked why they'd chosen that particular theme and where all the machines had come from. It's not a window display they're going to be changing any time soon, but it's certainly eye-catching. Glad I'm not responsible for the dusting LOL!

One bonus of this visit is that I found some nice Christmas presents for my brother & his family, they'll be in the post in plenty of time this year, though it's hard to believe I'm starting to think about Christmas, the year has just flown by.

Wedding

2011-10-10T17:08:00.000+01:00

The last week or so has passed in a blur. We started with a trip to Watford on Saturday to watch a rugby game. Despite taking the camera with me, there are sadly no photos of fit young men running around in the cold - maybe next time I'll remember to take it out of the car :o). The next trip south was on Monday for a wedding, I did remember my camera this time and have plenty of photos, particularly of the fabulous venue for the reception. After the marriage itself at Guildford Register Office, a very nice old converted house where we also got married, we went on to Amberley Castle near Arundel in Sussex. It was magnificent, the food was lovely and we were very well looked after. We also had the most amazing room, complete with back door in the bathroom with a spiral staircase leading up to the ramparts. How novel is that????

The day after the wedding we had a trip down memory lane in Brighton. That will be the next post ...

Another Glorious Day

2011-10-04T17:36:00.002+01:00

We've had a real indian summer this October, and it's been glorious, if a little sweaty at times. Today was cooler, but it was still lovely. OH has gone fishing with my cousin, so I decided to do the canal walk by myself. I treated myself to a coffee and muffin at the Queens Head pub, the turnaround point - as you can see, the muffin didn't live to tell the tale :o). Water levels are very low at the moment - despite a cool and windy summer, there hasn't been much rain this year.

Cheap Bedding Plants ...

2011-10-03T21:41:00.002+01:00

... duly bought and planted. I don't know how well the pansies will grow as they are essentially planted in bark chippings, but hopefully they'll give a bit of colour for some of the winter at least. The two chrysanths are supposedly hardy to -2C, we'll see if this winter tests them. As the heading says, they were just cheap bedding plants, so they've got two chances (as my Gran always said :o)). I've given up trying to find plants that will grow well in a dry north-facing bed, I'm just going to replace them regularly and accept that what will be, will be. At least it gives an opportunity for regular change, which is nice too.

Busy Day

2011-10-03T08:57:00.004+01:00

Yesterday was yet another hot and sunny one, we've had some amazing weather this last week. It got up to 29.9C on Saturday, a record October temperature. We had thought of going fishing at Rutland yesterday, but in the end decided that the time would be better spent at home catching up on jobs in the garden, there's not going to be a lot more opportunity this year. We put the last of the green paint on the shed, which now looks properly green rather than patchy green. I also put a first coat on the planters which will match the doors when finished. None of that took too long, so the next area in dire need of attention was the front garden.

I neglected to take a "before" photo, but trust me, it was pretty scruffy! Whilst OH strimmed the area to the side of the house I cleared the front beds, then he barrowed about 8 loads of bark over. I need to buy some more cheap bedding plants to brighten things up, but at least they look neat for now. OH also got the lawn edger out and trimmed the sides of the path, then we both had a go with the scraper and got rid of most of the moss and grass growing in the brickwork of the path. All in all, a good day's work, but as the photo shows, there's still plenty more to do on the weeding and tidying front. We're currently ruminating about putting gravel down on the driveway, it would be a great improvement on the now disintegrating tarmac. In recent days OH has also trimmed various hedges, so all in all the garden doesn't look too bad.

The hanging basket by the front door is an early birthday present from a friend who has gone off to Thailand, Vietnam, Burma, Cambodia and various other countries in that area. She's a bit more adventurous than me :o). The final picture shows that the pear tree is still loaded, I've had a couple of pickings of ones that have come off easily, but I don't want to take them all at once as I'm hoping to get a succession in the ripening. It's the first year the tree has produced so many pears, so I don't have a lot of experience in the best way to harvest them. We ate one yesterday that had ripened beautifully, it was absolutely delicious. The apples are quite nice too, it's been a bumper year, we don't usually get anything edible off the tree next to the deck. Shame I'm not that keen on apples :o).

Pear & Cranberry Chutney (no chillies!)

2011-09-25T17:23:00.004+01:00

It's been a chutney-making sweatshop here today. I finished off making the damson chutney I started a few days ago and decided that if I was spending the day in the kitchen stirring chutney, I might as well stir two pans as one. With that in mind, I chopped up some more pears and set to on a recipe sent to me by my sister-in-law. It was originally a Delia recipe, but we've both modified it, here is the version I made (delicious, even before it's had a chance to stand):

1kg pears, cored, chopped fairly fine in the food processor (use the pulse button, don't blitz!)
450g chopped onions (again, done in the food pro)
500g dried cranberries (much cheaper to buy the big bags from Julian Graves than Sainsburys)
1tsp ground cinnamon
1tsp ground allspice
500g demerara sugar
400ml cider vinegar
zest and juice of an orange

Put everything in a preserving pan, bring to the boil whilst stirring, turn down to simmer for 1-2 hours. The chutney is ready when you can draw a spoon through it without liquid pooling on the surface - it should be a golden red brown colour. Put into sterilized jars as per normal.

We've Succumbed

2011-09-20T19:54:00.004+01:00

It's been a dark and miz old day so we've lit the woodburner for the first time this year. Off to sit in front of it again ... (really missing Fatcat).

Rustic Pear & Apple Tart

2011-09-19T21:24:00.002+01:00

I adapted a recipe I found on the internet to make this tart, it didn't turn out quite as I expected (I think I used too deep a pan), but it was very tasty and I'll definitely make it again. I had a regular short crust pastry case in the freezer, so used that, though the recipe calls for a fancy pastry with egg yolk, lemon zest and mace, which are also the main flavourings in the pie.

Crust
1 1/3 cup plain flour
3 tablespoons sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons grated lemon zest
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground mace
7 tablespoons cold butter
1 large egg yolk
2 tablespoons ice water

Filling
1/2 cup chopped almonds
2 large eating apples, peeled, cored, cut into 1/2-inch-thick wedges
2 pears, peeled, cored, cut into 1/2-inch-thick wedges
1/2 cup sugar (I used some vanilla sugar I had)
1 1/2 teaspoons grated lemon zest
1/4 teaspoon ground mace
1 1/2 tablespoons butter

For crust: Mix flour, sugar, grated lemon peel, salt and ground mace in a food processor. Add butter and process until mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs. Mix yolk and water in a small bowl. Add to processor and mix in using the pulse setting until large moist clumps form. Gather dough into a ball; flatten into a disk. Wrap in clingfilm and freeze for 10 minutes.

Butter a 9-inch pie plate. Roll out dough to a 13-inch round. Lay the dough over the prepared pan and fold in the edges to form a double thickness. Crimp edges decoratively.

For filling: Preheat oven to 190C. Spread the almonds on the bottom of the crust. Combine apples and pears in a large bowl. Mix sugar, grated lemon peel and ground mace in a small bowl. Toss half the sugar mixture with the apples and pears. Pile into crust. Sprinkle the remaining sugar mixture over the fruit. Dot with 1 1/2 tablespoons butter.

Bake until the crust is brown and filling with bubbles, about 1 hour. Cool on rack. Serve tart warm or at room temperature with whipped cream or ice cream.

A Time of Mellow Fruitfulness

2011-09-19T21:09:00.003+01:00

The year is still rushing by at an alarming rate and suddenly it's time for harvesting - did I blink and miss the summer? Or didn't we have one again? The damsons have nearly gone over, but I've just caught them in time and have started a batch of damson chutney, as well as putting another 4lb in the freezer. Pears apparently don't ripen on the tree, but are ready to pick when they come off easily, so those are the ones I've taken so far. They're still hard, but I'll be keeping an eye on them and hopefully won't miss the point at which they're ready. I think the tree's feeling grateful, at least the branches aren't on the ground now. I made a pear and apple pie for pudding last night - recipe in another post. As for the apples, the bramley is having a year off this year, so these came from another "cooker" tree, I don't know what variety they are as the tree was here when we moved in, but they do cook down nicely. The tree close to the house which has russets (amongst others, it's a family tree) is also well laden, I'll take some photos of those tomorrow. No partridges.

Hot (Very!) Pear and Cranberry Chutney

2011-09-13T19:17:00.005+01:00

I'm hoping that time will mellow this one, it certainly puts hair on your chest at the moment!

Ingredients:

1kg firm pears
185g onions
200g dried cranberries
225g demerara sugar
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground allspice
1 tsp salt
3 medium red chillies
2 1/2 cups cider vinegar

Core and dice the pears (no need to peel). Peel & chop the onion. Place all the ingredients in a preserving pan over a medium heat. Stir until the sugar has dissolved, then bring to the boil. Reduce the heat and simmer uncovered for about an hour, stirring regularly for the first half hour or so, then stirring fairly constantly for the last 20-30 mins. It should be ready when it has thickened and you can draw a line in the chutney without it filling with liquid vinegar.

Fill sterilized jars, then leave to cool before labeling. Store for at least 3 months before eating.

Raw mix

Not quite there yet

I Love iPhoto After All :o)

2011-09-09T19:11:00.007+01:00

When I first got my iMac I wasn't particularly enamoured of iPhoto, mainly because I couldn't easily access the photos through Finder to upload them to my blog. However, I've now had time to have a little play with it, and I've found several things I like a lot, plus I've figured out how to easily upload files from the iPhoto library to blogger.

For quick photo edits for the blog, iPhoto isn't bad. Previously I was importing the photo into iPhoto, making my changes and exporting it to a folder which I could then navigate to in Finder. However, I've now found out that you can access the iPhoto library by clicking on the Media (Photos) button in the bottom left hand corner when you've clicked "Browse" in blogger. Ironically, I couldn't find a way to add the arrow to this screenshot in iPhoto, I did that in Preview (another amazing little app that comes on your Mac). Just use the Annotate option to add arrows, shapes and text.

If you desperately want to view your photo files in Finder, you can go to Pictures where you will have an item called iPhoto Library. Right-click this and you will see an option to "Show Package Contents". Browse to your heart's content!

Next iPhoto eureka moment was printing photos to my own printer. When you go to File, Print you have various frame options which you can customise. Once you're happy with what you have, you can either print to your printer or right-click on the frame area of the photo and choose to create PDF. How cool is that?? (Darn it, getting too clever for my own boots, I just tried to upload the pictures here, but of course they're pdf and not jpeg ... I must be able to convert them, it'll just take a bit of investigating.) UPDATE - Yes, you can!!! And guess which app does this? The wonderful Preview.

I've also discovered that Apple offer a very good printing service - now I'm sure it's not the cheapest on the planet, nor is what they offer unique, but neither is it prohibitively expensive and it was so easy to use. As an experiment I used one of their christmas card templates, added some photos which I took in the snow last December and then clicked on the Buy Card button (if you have iPhoto 11 you also have some nice embossed card options, dread to think what they cost! I only have iPhoto 9).

From the envelope they arrived in, it looks like the printing was done in the Netherlands, they were delivered by UPS today, just 3 days after I placed the order. Five very nice quality cards with glossy printing on both sides cost £8.33 delivered. They are completely unique and will be going to special people, so no pictures here yet :o). I thought the postage charges became a little steep when you ordered more cards, considering it probably doesn't make much odds to UPS if there are 5 or 20 cards in the envelope, but apart from that I am very impressed.

Next up, I might try printing a calendar. I also have an idea for a photobook ...

Buzzer's just gone - sticky cake calling. I said I was going to make the shortbread biscuits next, but I had complaints after I gave half the last sticky cake away. Better hope we get visitors again, I'm not sure it's going to help the weight-loss program to eat it all ourselves :o).

OK, that's enough Apple excitement for one night :o).

That's Better!!

2011-09-09T15:51:00.004+01:00

After another fairly long session in the garden we're beginning to get where we want to be. Sadly it's going to need another coat as the colour's still quite patchy. On the upside, it's not going to need painting again before the next millenium ... well, I'm not doing it before then anyway LOL! For those wishing to replicate this look, it's Sadolin Superdec Satin in Jungle Green with highlights in Burlesque. Avoid Clover Leaf which is the previous colour!

Eek, is this another expensive mistake???

Phew, no, I think this is pretty much what we're after

Shed blending in rather than standing out like a sore thumb

Shed Progress

2011-09-03T20:01:00.003+01:00

After a long hiatus, we have at last put the second coat of paint (Sadolin Superdec) on the log cabin. It's looking good, if only we were happy with this colour! As we'd bought 10 litres of the Clover Leaf (which looks duck egg blue), we decided to use it all up, it's all good protection. However, we have bought 2.5 litres of a new colour - Jungle Green - and we're planning to put this on the two sides you can see from the house. Fingers crossed it isn't going to need two coats ...

Progress by lunchtime

By the end of the day - first coat of Burlesque (cream) on the doors and window

Evesham

2011-08-31T19:28:00.005+01:00

We had a spur of the moment day out in Evesham this week, it's on our doorstep and we drive past on the bypass regularly, but we've never been into the town. What a pleasant surprise it was, it's not huge, but it has some very historic buildings and sits above the scenic River Avon. We didn't have suitable footwear to do the riverside walk, but we will definitely be going back with our walking boots! The purpose of the trip was to buy some more paint for the shed, so with any luck you'll be seeing pictures of shed painting soon ...

Rutland Success!!

2011-08-31T19:24:00.003+01:00

The duck has been broken at last, OH and my cousin went to Rutland on another pouring wet day, but they did come home with a trout each. My cousin caught his on about the third cast of the day, so they expected to fill the boat with fish, but in the end it was just one each. Not huge, but beautiful nonetheless!

Granno Cakes : Sticky Cake

2011-08-27T13:03:00.004+01:00

Whenever anyone visited my Gran they would be sure to find a standard range of cakes in the box, which became known in the family as Granno Cakes. Everyone had their favourites in the selection and mine was the sticky cake, followed closely by the meringues. Other items always to be found in the box were flapjacks and shortbread biscuits which were my Mum's favourite and which she called roundels. In later years there was also a sultana cake which was originally my aunt's recipe. Now, no-one has had to make Granno cakes in the past as they have always been a special part of visiting my Gran, but sadly she passed away in March at the tender age of 94, with the result that the last piece of sticky cake was consumed last week by my uncle (it freezes well!). I have inherited Gran's recipe books and I found a lovely handwritten recipe for sticky cake, so I decided that today was the day to try to replicate it. The recipe is in typical Gran shorthand, so some of the process has been guesswork, but I think I now have an authentic looking result. The proof of the pudding and all that, I'm still waiting for it to cool, but I'll be reporting back on that in due course.

The original recipe, complete with some shortbread mix

Ingredients:
Shortbread:
6oz self-raising flour
4oz margarine
2oz caster sugar

Fudge:
1/2 tin condensed milk
3oz caster sugar
4oz margarine
1 tbsp golden syrup

Topping:
200g Bournville chocolate, melted

The shortbread was easy to make, I just whizzed all the ingredients in the food processor, then pressed it into a tin (approx 6" x 8") and cooked it on 180C for 15 mins until the edges were slightly golden.

The fudge turned out to be trickier than anticipated. As you can see from Gran's original recipe, it says treacle, however I was fairly sure she used golden syrup. Despite this, I decided to follow the original recipe and used treacle. The problem with that was that you couldn't judge the colour of the fudge, with the result that mine was horribly overcooked and ended up like burnt toffee. Fortunately I didn't put it on the shortbread as it wasn't looking too good, the fat had separated out and it was a very dark brown colour. Yuk!!

It's good luck that you only use 1/2 tin of condensed milk, as it meant I had enough for another go. This time I used golden syrup and was able to judge when it was ready by its colour. It also changed texture, went very glossy and started pulling away from the pan as you stirred. Result! The method for the version that worked was to put all the ingredients in a pan and bring to the boil, stirring continuously. Once it's boiling, it took 11 minutes to get to the right colour, you keep it boiling (not too hard) and you keep stirring all the time.

Finally, melt the chocolate (mine took 2 mins on 600 in the microwave, stirring at the 1 min mark and the 2 min mark, then letting it sit for a couple of minutes to melt the last few lumps). This gives a generous layer of chocolate, 150g would probably be enough. Spread the fudge over the shortbread, then the chocolate and let it all cool before cutting into small pieces.

And there you have it, special Granno Sticky Cake.
(I'm going to try the shortbread biscuits next)

UPDATE: it looks like sticky cake and it tastes like sticky cake. However, the fudge is a lot firmer than Granno's ever was, so I think a bit less cooking is the order of the day.

A Job for the Boys

2011-08-26T16:05:00.002+01:00

OH is happily fishing today, but it looks like he's going to be busy this weekend :o).

The eagle-eyed may notice that the right hand log store is now empty, OH spent a happy afternoon last week moving the wood into the left hand store so that he can spend the next couple of months pruning some trees for his brother and being "paid" in wood.

The farmer has also been busy, this heap of bales appeared over the course of yesterday. I'm not sure if this is going to be their final resting place, time will tell.

Getting Ready for Winter

2011-08-26T15:50:00.003+01:00

It's still summer, but it's the best time of year to get organised for winter as oil is cheaper and the chimneysweep and Rayburn engineer aren't too busy. Last week saw visits from all three, so fingers crossed we'll have a trouble free winter from a heating point of view. The trees and bushes are smothered in berries so we may well be in for another hard one.

Smoked Trout Cannelloni

2011-08-15T20:24:00.005+01:00

Here's another trout recipe, we made this for dinner this evening and it was delish! It's made much like a lasagne, but the finished dish seemed much lighter.

Ingredients:

1 onion, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 can chopped tomatoes
dried mixed herbs
200g smoked trout, deboned & flaked
1/2 cup frozen peas
3/4 cup fresh breadcrumbs
12 cannelloni tubes
salt & pepper
Béchamel sauce with a grating of nutmeg
grated cheese (parmesan and/or cheddar)

Method:

Fry the onion and garlic in some olive oil until soft. Add the canned tomatoes and dried herbs and cook uncovered for about 10 minutes until thickened. While this is cooking, make the béchamel sauce.

Place the smoked trout in a mixing bowl, add the peas and breadcrumbs and the cooked tomato mix. Mix well, then stuff the cannelloni tubes, laying them in a pie dish. Cover with béchamel, grate some parmesan and cheddar over the top and cook at 180C for 30-40 mins, or until the pasta is soft. Serve with a side salad and enjoy!

Hay Cutting and Wildlife

2011-08-15T20:21:00.002+01:00

Its that time of year again, the fields around us which have been waist-high in grass have now been cut. The good weather has enabled the farmer to come over 3 weeks earlier than last year. He was hurrying to get it all cut and baled before a band of rain moved in and he actually cut the field outside the kitchen in the dark. In the morning you could see what he had missed!

Since the hay has been cut we have seen lots of curious wildlife investigating the changes, including roe deer, foxes and this opportunistic common buzzard who came back two days running to do some hunting from the top of the hay bales.

Where does the Time Go???

2011-08-15T20:01:00.006+01:00

I can't believe we're already half way through August. I've been busy, but I just don't seem to have got around to blogging. Looking at the calendar, I see that we went to Rutland Water on the 1st in yet another vain attempt to catch a Rutland trout. I was absolutely exhausted by the end of the day, despite only going for a half day on the boat. However, it turned out that I had the startings of a bug which knocked me out for a couple of days after that. A bit miserable, but I'm pleased to report that it's completely gone now.

I spent the second half of the week doing emergency housework and shopping in preparation for a weekend visit from OH's son. The boys went fishing on Saturday (J caught 2 lovely trout, his first ever!), while I stayed home and pottered in the kitchen. In 3 hours I managed to make a coffee & walnut cake, some smoked trout pate and the boeuf en croute and b&a crumble for dinner. I wish I'd taken a picture of the dinner, it looked very impressive when it came out the oven, and tasted even better!

On Sunday we all went for a walk on the Malverns. This time we did about 7 miles, very enjoyable, if a bit blowy and, at times, wet.

Look at that weather heading our way!!

It improved later in the walk.

Last Monday I headed off with a friend for a "bake-off" at said friend's old company, a small family business with about 25 employees. We weren't sure what to expect, but took cake with us as instructed. My friend won first and second prize with her cupcakes and I got third for my coffee & walnut cake - we're suspecting these prizes are a bid to get us to take cake in regularly LOL! It was very sweet of them nevertheless, and they raised over £50 for charity, not a bad effort from a small group.

Most of the rest of the week was taken up with quilting-related activities as the Festival of Quilts was on at the NEC. I spent a day looking round the show and meeting up with friends and then attended a two day masterclass with Pam Holland doing Thread Painting. I had a lovely couple of days with some very pleasant ladies and ended up with a spiffing picture of a pair of shoes. I will reveal all on the quilting blog soon ... :o).

Today has been spent catching up with paperwork and business activities and tomorrow I'm taking said Thread Painting teacher around the Cotswolds. She's over from Australia and has a couple of days to kill in the area before heading over to Ireland, so I thought I'd show her something quintessentially English. Fingers crossed the weather's good and the crowds aren't too bad, though it is summer holidays, so I'm not likely to get the latter wish granted LOL!

Malvern Hills

2011-07-28T21:57:00.005+01:00

Walking in the Malverns is one of our favourite days out. It's less than an hour's drive to Hollybush where we usually start. We've had some very nice weather this week, surprising as it's the first week the schools have broken up, the previous two summers have been a complete washout. We've been doing a few local walks to get ourselves going again after six months of idleness, and decided it was time to tackle a much more strenuous walk. The GPS died after 2 miles, but we guesstimate that we walked somewhere between 8 and 10 miles, which is pretty good going under any circumstances, let alone up and down the hills. To say we were pooped by the end is a bit of an understatement, I was praying my feet would go numb, but the pain just seemed to get further up my legs LOL! Needless to say, there were plenty of rests along the way.

The rosebay willowherb was everywhere, very pretty. And I'm wondering if the number of berries on the rowan trees is an indication of a hard winter to come. The brambles all have loads of berries coming along, and a few were even black, very early for them we thought.

Tatton Park Flower Show

2011-07-28T21:47:00.004+01:00

We had a day out on Sunday at the Tatton Park flower show. It was busy, but we had a great day and got plenty of inspiration - just need to put it into action now. One thing we were blown away by was the show veg, they are truly remarkable specimens. Here are a few shots to make my allotmenteer friends jealous :o).

Mum's Sweet & Sour Pork

2011-07-25T19:54:00.005+01:00

This recipe is one my Mum always made to use up the leftovers from a roast leg of pork. To prepare the meat you simply cut into smallish cubes and fry in a hot pan until the edges are brown and crispy. OH made a slight variation today by adding garlic and ginger, very yummy. The sauce is made as follows:

Ingredients

1 level tablespoon cornflour
2 tablespoons sugar
1 dessert spoon soy sauce (I usually use a tablespoon)
3 tablespoons vinegar
1/4 pint chicken stock / water
1/4 pint pineapple juice

Method

I usually drain a tin of pineapple which yields approximately 1/4 pint of juice, then top up to 1/2 pint with water. Simply put all the ingredients in a pan and bring to the boil (the sauce will thicken and go clear), then add a few of the pineapple slices to warm through. This recipe quantity is probably meant to feed 4, but we usually flood our plates with sauce :o). Enjoy!

Life Gets in the Way of Blogging!

2011-07-25T19:07:00.003+01:00

Life has a habit of getting in the way sometimes; after spending most of June travelling to Coventry every weekday for radiotherapy, we were looking forward to catching up with the ever growing list of overdue jobs around the house and garden. However, it was not to be as OH's father passed away unexpectedly on 10th July, so much of our time since then has been spent travelling up and down to Heathrow where he lived and making all the usual arrangements. I did the bookkeeping today for the first time in a couple of months and was shocked at how many times we've filled the car up since the beginning of June. Not surprising, but with fuel the price it is these days, the numbers are still alarming. Still, we will not dwell on the unpleasant, but rather catch you up with the more enjoyable things we have managed to fit in.

The first weekend in July was very busy, OH and I went down to Eastbourne to go prawning with my aunt, a cousin and 2 uncles. We had a great time, the weather was lovely, the tide long ... but the prawns scarce. Never mind, we caught enough for the boys to use as bait the following day, plus some to use as a starter for the next night's dinner. OH and I plus my cousin stayed overnight with the uncle who lives in Eastbourne so that the boys could go bass fishing the following morning. I took a leisurely drive up to Tatsfield to spend the day with my other aunt and uncle, with the boys following in the afternoon, supposedly laden down with seabass. Sadly they didn't have any joy with the bass fishing, so we were down several dozen prawns, with no payback. Ho hum, you can't win them all! As compensation we had a gorgeous dinner which my aunt had made (fortunately she hadn't put bass on the menu that night), including the prawns with homemade blinis and soured cream. Yum! There are no photos from this weekend, I ruminated about taking the camera, but in the end decided that if I fell in a deep gully whilst prawning, the camera wouldn't thank me. As it turned out I only fell over once, which resulted in one wet arm, but you never know with those slippery rocks!

We have managed one day out in the garden together and achieved a remarkable amount. OH has had other days of labour, with the final result that we have consolidated the junk area at the bottom of the garden and it now looks like this:

You can get a good idea from the grass as to where the junk was. A good bonno will take care of a fair amount of what's left. OH has also given the hawthorn hedge outside the kitchen its first cut with a hedgecutter, it's now a proper grown-up hedge :o). Amazing to think it's only been in the ground about 18 months.

The pear tree is having a bonanza year this year, we're going to have to thin them out and probably should have done it at the end of June, but it's such a difficult job to do. This pear tree has been in the ground for about 15 years and has only really started cropping the last couple of years. There's a little rhyming ditty about planting a pear for your heir, but, darn it, google has let me down and I can't remember exactly how it goes! I'm sure you know what I mean and you certainly will do if you've ever planted a pear tree and waited in vain for it to produce fruit.

Canalling Again

2011-06-27T18:37:00.004+01:00

It was a scorcher yesterday, so we set off at midday for our canal walk (mad dogs, etc!). Fortunately there was quite a bit of shade on the towpath, so it wasn't unbearable. We're now getting into holiday season, so there was plenty of activity along the canal, which I enjoy as it's a distraction when the legs start to ache :o).

Fishing Is Easy :o)

2011-06-24T17:30:00.005+01:00

OH decided that as I'd lost the two trout at Rutland Water, I needed some landing practice. There is a small local fishery that he goes to occasionally where you are almost guaranteed a fish, as it's a small lake with a lot of fish in it. Fishing conditions were ideal today, with the result that I had one on the line before OH had even got his fly tied on! This time I managed to keep the line tight, didn't have any hooks break on me, and ended up with a nice little 1lb 13oz rainbow. Not bad for five minutes fishing! After flapping the fly and line around a bit more, and spending a reasonable amount of time untangling knots, I managed to hook and land another one, this time definitely bigger - 3lb 6.5oz. What a lark! We'd only got a two fish ticket each, so that was my lot. In the meantime OH had had one throw the hook and one snap the fly off, so he took over my stand. Not long after moving, he was into a good sized fish which turned out to be a monster and his biggest ever - 5lb 10.75oz. It took so much line I'm sure it was nearly on the other side of the lake! Not long after, he hooked his second fish, the smallest of the day at 1lb 10.5oz. Not bad for an hour's fishing! The smoker's now chuffing away ...

Walking Again

2011-06-18T16:08:00.004+01:00

We headed out today for our usual canal walk at Tardebigge, it was really great to get down there after several months absence. We got a bit wet during a couple of heavy showers, but most of the walk was dry and sunny.

Non Fishing on Rutland Water

2011-06-17T13:29:00.003+01:00

OH and I decided to have a day out yesterday and headed over to Rutland Water for a spot of fishing. Now, my only previous experience of fishing was dangling some bait over the edge of the boat at Kielder water last year, with absolutely no interest at all from the fish below. Rutland Water only allows fly fishing, however, so the first job of the day was to learn how to cast without catching myself, OH or anything else in the boat, and hopefully getting the fly in the water more than a couple of yards in front of the boat. We started with a roll cast, which I struggled with, especially as it was pretty windy and choppy and not really that pleasant a day. OH then decided I should try overhead casting which I found a lot easier. We were just assessing how I was doing after my second or third go when there was a jerk on my rod and, blow me, I had a trout on the other end of my line. "I've got one, I've got one, what do I dooooo???" I yell. OH leaps up with the landing net (ever the optimist!), I'm determined not to let my first fish go and start hauling in the line (pretty much the opposite of what you're meant to do), the rod's nearly bent double, I'm thinking I'm going to get pulled in the drink, when suddenly it all goes quiet. Oh dear, first fish ever and it's gone. I blamed myself, went back to getting the hang of casting and wasted the next hour or so with the top hook in this picture. Spot the difference? Spot the problem? Hmmm, no wonder I lost my first fish, I only discovered this problem when I reeled the line in to move to a different spot. Oh well, it makes a good story LOL! I don't think it was a huge fish, but it certainly had some strength.

We pootled around a bit in the boat, then found a new spot slightly in the lee of some trees. Unfortunately the best spots were already taken, so there was still a fair breeze where we set up, but it was a bit better than our first spot. We tried fishing a more sparkly fly, but the fish weren't interested, despite the fact that I saw one following my fly while I was retrieving - the water was very clear. Again, I did the opposite of what I should have done, ie I stopped the retrieve whereas I should have kept the fly moving so as to force the trout into a snap decision, rather than letting it get a good look and decide that discretion is the better part of valour. Oh well, another lesson learnt! We then swapped to the second of the flies above, a more natural one, and I got another bite. Oh the excitement! I saw a flash of silver tummy and it looked like a good sized fish to me. Right, I'm not going to try hauling this one in and risk losing it, I'm going to let it have some line, oh dear me, I seem to have lost my second fish as well. Hmmm, this fishing lark is more tricky than they make it look on the telly LOL!

Still, we had fun, despite the weather (I had to put my brolly up in the late afternoon, I'm sure all the fishermen round about were sniggering, but I didn't care). Note, there is no mention here of all the fish OH didn't catch ... we're not talking about that :o). In fact, in comparing notes with all the experienced fishermen back at base, it turned out that I'd done very well to get two bites, most of them had had the same as OH, a big fat zero. Oh sorry, I wasn't meant to mention that ...

Asparagus & Goats Cheese Quiche

2011-06-07T17:00:00.006+01:00

I had a couple of quilting buddies over on Sunday and decided to make a seasonal lunch. We had smoked trout pate to start, asparagus & goats cheese quiche with salad for main and strawberry pavlova for dessert. Yummy!! We also had a great day chatting and sewing (though I have to confess we did more chatting than sewing LOL!). I also made some choc chip cookies to have with tea and coffee. Not a day for dieting :o).

Ingredients:

Shortcrust pastry case
230g asparagus
130g cubed goats cheese
4 medium eggs
150ml single cream
chives

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180C.

First make your pastry case, prick the bottom with a fork and blind bake with ceramic beads for 15 minutes. Whisk the cream and eggs together and use a pastry brush to brush a coating on the pastry base. Return to the oven for another 5 minutes to create a seal.

In the meantime, steam the asparagus for 5-10 minutes, until tender. Drain and rinse under cold water, then cut into 5cm lengths. Place these in the pastry base. Scatter the goats cheese cubes evenly over the asparagus, then chop the chives and add them to the egg/cream mixture. Pour into the tart base and cook for 30-35 minutes.

A Few Days in the Brecon Beacons

2011-06-04T18:57:00.006+01:00

The time seems to be whizzing by recently, and I realise it's already 2 weeks since we set off in the truck for our 4 nights in the Brecon Beacons. We had a lovely time, despite the wet and very windy weather, which meant that only one of the three days could be spent fishing. That was a shame as fishing was supposed to be the main occupation during the break, but we had one day touring the area and checking out various fishing spots and another day in Brecon itself, enjoying lattes in an internet cafe whilst watching the rain lashing down, then mooching around town. And guess what? I managed to find a quilting shop! What fun, it's not safe to go anywhere LOL!

Since a picture paints a thousand words, here is the story of our holiday:

There is one funny story. We were staying in a converted barn in the middle of nowhere, the only access being along very narrow single track roads with plenty of hills and twists and turns thrown in. At about 2 o'clock in the morning of our first night there, we were woken up by the sounds of cars zooming past. I thought at first that it was one car going up and down the hill and blamed boy racers, but OH had been awake for longer than me and said that there had been batches of cars going past at half minute intervals with a gap of about 5 minutes between each batch of ten or so cars. It turns out that a stage of a rally was going past our lounge window, just what you want on your holiday LOL! We haven't been able to find out anything about it online, but it was definitely an official rally. What nutters, doing that in the middle of the night!

The cottage we hired was Barley Store, very small and cosy, but very nicely done out and ideally situated for fishing on the Usk Reservoir and even came complete with its own trout stream that you could just amble down to whenever you felt like it. OH managed to hook one wild brown trout, but after a series of acrobatics it managed to go on its merry way without troubling him to get the net out. Next time we'll probably rent one of the next door units which have two bedrooms and a slightly larger kitchen, ours was a little too bijou, particularly when you're carting a load of fishing gear along.

Trout Recipes

2011-05-27T13:52:00.002+01:00

I seem to have a ready supply of trout these days, so in addition to our favourite home-made smoked trout pate, we been trying out one or two other trout recipes and here are two we like:

Trout fish cakes

350g mashed potatoes
50g butter
400g fresh trout, flaked
2 tbsp flat leaf parsley, chopped
1 spring onion, chopped
½ tsp mustard powder
1 tbsl Parmesan, grated
Squeeze of fresh lemon juice

For the coating, 1 beaten egg and 50g breadcrumbs

1 In a large bowl, beat the butter into the mashed potato followed by the mustard and grated Parmesan.
2. Fold in the trout, herbs, lemon juice and season.
3. Mix in enough of the beaten egg to bind mixture
4. Cover with cling film and chill
5. Divide up into four portions, dust each with flour then dip in remaining beaten egg and coat in breadcrumbs.
6. Fry until golden
7. Serve with parsley sprigs and lemon wedges

We actually made this with lightly smoked trout rather than fresh, delicious.

Trout with mango chutney and lime

This is a quick and simple recipe OH picked up from the wife of one of the fishery managers.

Take two fresh trout fillets, lay skin side down on silver foil, then coat each flesh side generously with mango chutney and lime juice. Grill for 5 minutes until cooked then serve at once garnished with chopped coriander leaf. Again, very yummy.

Gooseberry Chutney

2011-05-19T17:42:00.006+01:00

I ran out of homemade chutney a couple of months ago, but have only just got round to restocking the store cupboard. I hauled some gooseberries out the freezer, chopped some onions, chucked in the vinegar and spices, then waited for it to boil down. I hope I waited long enough, it's paler than my last batch, but I didn't want to caramelise it. 4lb of gooseberries made just under 5 jars of chutney. For the precise recipe, search this blog for gooseberry chutney, there's one I made earlier!

(Looking at what fruit is left in the freezer, I need to make a lot of summer puddings I think!)

Spoilt Again

2011-05-07T12:21:00.003+01:00

I received another beautiful present a couple of weeks ago, I've been very spoilt recently. One of my quilting buddie's OH is a woodworker and he made this for me after I fell in love with the original in the house of another quilting buddie. I've got a spot earmarked for it, but need to get a screw in the wall to hang it from. As a bonus, I also got a new salt & pepper set, also made from lovely wood. Thank you Andy & Marian, they are both beautiful gifts and I love anything made from wood.

Cricket on the Green

2011-05-07T06:51:00.004+01:00

The second part of the fishing weekend was spent watching my cousin play cricket for his local village team. It was a lovely afternoon, but there was a wicked north wind that cut right through us, so we were pretty chilled by the end of 40 overs! However, my cousin opened the batting and ended up 56 not out, a personal record for him, and we were very chuffed to have been there to see it. We didn't watch the second innings as we had to head home, but they won the match by 69 runs, a good result all round.

Record Breaking Fish

2011-05-07T06:44:00.004+01:00

OH and my cousin went fishing last weekend and had great success. Between them they caught 7 gorgeous rainbow trout, 4 to OH and 3 to my cousin. The highlight of the day was this bruiser, weighing in at 4lb 13.25oz - OH's personal record catch which he insists would have been over 5lb if my cousin hadn't insisted on leaving it out in the heat so it dehydrated LOL. You can guess what's now been purchased from ebay - yup, a weighing scale so that the fish can be catalogued the minute it comes out the water!

We had a bbq in the evening and smoked 4 of the trout, so there's plenty in the freezer for trout pate, as well as the record fish which will probably be eaten as baked fillets. I'm looking forward to it all.

While the boys were fishing, my aunt and I headed off to a local quilt show in Crowborough, which was very enjoyable and as usual had excellent tea & cake! I was amazed how many quilts they managed to cram into a regular sized church hall, as well as having several traders (yes, I did get tempted to spend :o)). I didn't take many photos, but here are a couple of tasters. We also stopped in at a garden centre and another craft show, so all in all a busy day.

A Dry Summer?

2011-05-02T10:55:00.002+01:00

I noticed this weekend that the oak trees have come into leaf before the ash trees, a rare event indeed having the oaks in full leaf before the end of April. When I commented on this, my uncle quoted the following:

Ash before Oak, in for a soak
Oak before Ash, in for a splash

It'll be interesting to see how true the folklore is!

Easter Flowers & Anniversaries

2011-04-22T16:17:00.006+01:00

It's hard to believe that it's a year since we got married, so much has happened and changed, particularly in the last six months, the time has just whizzed by. We have been very spoilt today and had a couple of lovely arrangements for our anniversary (completely unexpected I have to say), and we've also had a couple of bunches of flowers from friends who've just popped in to say hello and how are you? It's been a busy day for a Good Friday, but a lovely one! The weather's been scorchio scorchio, we're about to light the BBQ ...

From OH (not so unexpected :o))	From my Dad & his wife (included a bottle of wine)
From a quilting friend	From my neighbour Hazel

From my business partner

Beef & Mushroom Pie

2011-04-21T08:13:00.004+01:00

We've recently had some fun making easy meat pies and my brother & dad were so impressed with the big game one we did while they were here that my bro asked me to put the recipe on the blog. Unfortunately I didn't photograph the really impressive one, here's a snap of one of the smaller beef ones we made and froze. They make a great quick supper, out of the freezer, in the oven for 20 mins and you're away. So, a quick overview of how it was made.

OH is the meat man, so he makes the filling, this is just a quick overview of what he does, it varies! So far we've made turkey & ham, mixed game marinaded in port and beef & mushroom pies, you're only limited by your imagination.

If you're starting with raw meat, brown it in a pan, then cook off some veg (carrots, onion, celery, etc). Add the meat back to the pan and add some water / gravy / stock and leave to simmer for an hour. This stage is very flexible, you're basically making a casserole, so be creative. Add the mushrooms nearer the end of cooking so they don't disappear, also if your veg has cooked away you can add some finely chopped carrots or anything else you want to see in the filling. Once you're happy with your meat mixture, strain the liquid off into a jug, then make a standard butter & flour roux and gradually add the liquid until you have a thick sauce (the turkey & ham pie had a standard white sauce made with milk). Don't forget you'll get more liquid out the meat, so you won't necessarily need to use all the casserole gravy. Add the meat to the sauce and that's your pie filling made.

Next up take some puff pastry and roll it out into a rectangle. To make a big pie to feed 4-6 people you'll need 500g of pastry (roll out half at a time), I use 1/3 of a 500g pack for a 2 man pie and cut it in half to make the small pies. Your rectangle for the medium and small pies needs to be twice as long as the pie's going to be. Take a standard baking sheet and put a teflon non-stick sheet on it. Lay the pastry on the sheet, put some pie filling on half of the pastry, leaving about 1" around the edge. Dampen this edge with water or egg, fold over the top of the pastry and roughly scrunch it up around the edges. Eggwash the pies and cook for about 30 mins on 180C - the big pie may take a bit longer, but basically you're just cooking the pastry and warming the filling.

Trucking Fun

2011-04-21T08:12:00.002+01:00

It's great when you've got the right tools for the job :o).

New Furniture

2011-04-19T06:50:00.004+01:00

I've been on the lookout for a stone topped table for the conservatory ever since we had it built, and the other day I spotted just the thing in John Lewis. They also had a lovely plant shelving unit, so I am now the proud owner of one of each! And many thanks to my bro for helping to put them together. I'm a great fan of JL and love the fact that both these pieces have adjustable feet so they don't rock - a great advantage when standing them on natural slate flooring. Attention to detail, that's what I like!

OH has planted me some herbs in the green pots (dill, basil and coriander) and the trough will have pick and come again lettuce leaves. The green enamel pots came from B&Q. The other shelves have just had things put on them for now, they will have more plants in due course.

Lovely Weather = Happy Plants

2011-04-17T09:41:00.003+01:00

The new hedge alongside the kitchen is going great guns, I can't believe how solid it is and the stems are thickening up nicely. We were worried during the very hard weather in December, but all the plants seem to have survived and are thriving. Can you believe it looked like this just 16 months ago?

The pear tree has been an absolute picture and the little apple tree also seems to be enjoying life.

Chicken on a Beer Can

2011-04-12T09:05:00.003+01:00

When you have South Africans visiting and the weather's good, it's silly not to set them to work on the BBQ! My brother and dad were over for a few days and I asked my brother to cook "chicken on a beer can" which he does regularly at home and was a concept that intrigued me. Fortunately I made this request before they left SA, as you need a gadget to get the whole thing to stand up. What a treat, it was delicious!! And of course the rest of the beer needed drinking too :o).

A Little Walk Around the Village

2011-04-12T08:53:00.007+01:00

We're very lucky to live in a small rural village. We went for a little walk a couple of days ago, glorious weather and great views. The last time I photographed these vistas they were knee deep in snow! The magnolia tree in front of the local church was absolutely magnificent and the blackthorn also looked amazing.

Lemon Curd

2011-04-03T15:52:00.006+01:00

The lemons have been dropping off the tree in the last few days, so I had to make a decision about what to turn them into. Top of the list, lemon curd. Very quick and easy to make, wonderful flavour.

Ingredients (makes 3 x 1lb jars):

grated zest & juice of 4 large juicy lemons (I used 6 smaller ones)
4 large eggs
350g caster sugar
225g unsalted butter, cut into lumps

Method:

Lightly whisk the eggs in a medium sized saucepan, then add the rest of the ingredients. Place the saucepan on a medium heat and whisk continuously with a balloon whisk until the mixture thickens - approx 10 minutes, or longer if you're overcautious with the heat as I was! Pour straight into hot sterilized jars.

Successful Bread Machine White Loaf

2011-04-03T09:09:00.004+01:00

Just so I don't forget what I did (it didn't last long!).

315ml water
600g white bread flour
2 tsp dough improver
1 sachet yeast
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp demarera sugar

Bread machine settings: programme 6 (french bread), smallest loaf, darkest crust.

More Springtime Activity

2011-03-24T08:21:00.003Z

OH went on his first fishing trip of the year yesterday and came home with these two beauties. They're in the freezer at the moment, but will be turned into smoked trout pate in due course!

This beautiful book was a Christmas present, OH has filled in page 1 with details of yesterday's trip, but didn't want it on the blog, however these photos should give you an idea of how lovely the book is. There are half a dozen different page designs and once it's filled with fishing information it's going to be an invaluable resource.

Garden Update - Spring is Springing

2011-03-24T08:17:00.005Z

It's so wonderful to see the garden coming to life again, the grass had its first cut yesterday and the new hedge has survived the bitter cold weather we had last December. Also, OH has taken down the remains of the plum tree that died last year, any excuse to get the toys out!

More Pretties

2011-03-24T08:14:00.002Z

I received some more lovely flowers this week, this time from my friend in Australia. Everyone has been very kind and the house looks lovely. I'm having to keep them out of the conservatory as we've actually had some gorgeous sunny weather of late and it's getting rather hot in there - not ideal cut flower conditions!

Flowers

2011-03-18T09:02:00.002Z

Some more beautiful bouquets from friends and relations over the last month or so.

Ross-on-Wye, Hay-on-Wye and Brecon

2011-03-18T08:48:00.005Z

We had a little touring trip out on Tuesday, we started in Ross-on-Wye, then headed over to Hay-on-Wye before ending up in Brecon. It was lovely to get out and have a change of scenery and go to a couple of places we've not visited before. Hay-on-Wye is definitely a town of bookshops, though there seemed to be as many cafes as well - I suppose you need somewhere to chill out with your new books.

Ross-on-Wye:

Hay-on-Wye:

The coffee shop in a church in Brecon - interesting!

Fruit Leather

2011-02-25T08:48:00.005Z

We've been watching the River Cottage Bites programmes on telly and were very taken with the fruit leather. We've got tons of fruit in the freezer which needs using up, the Rayburn's on all the time, so we decided to give it a go. It took quite a bit longer in the Rayburn bottom oven than it was supposed to, but it's only a warming oven, so it obviously was cooler than the Aga's bottom oven that was used in the programme. However, it got there in the end and it's a resounding success. It keeps for several months, but I don't think it's going to last that long!

To make fruit leather, use a pound of bramleys, a pound of blackberries and the juice of a lemon. Cook for about 20 mins until well pulped, then push through a sieve to remove all the pips. Add about 150g of honey (I used sugar), then spread out on a tray covered with baking parchment (not greaseproof) or better yet, a silicone sheet. Place in a very low oven (60C, or the bottom oven of an Aga or Rayburn) and leave for 12-18 hours. Mine took about 36 in the bottom oven of the Rayburn, but the mixture might have been a bit wetter to start with as the fruit came out the freezer. When cool roll up in fresh baking parchment and store in a cool dark place.

Norfolk - Part 2

2011-02-22T10:26:00.006Z

Wednesday was a pottering day. After building ourselves up with a nice cooked breakfast, we headed out towards Great Massingham Heath and Grimston Common. We were hoping for a view of a rough legged buzzard, we didn't see any of these winter visitors but we did have the most amazing view of a barn owl on a farm wall. He was less than 10 feet away from the car, and seemed quite unperturbed by our visit.

Next up was a visit to Dersingham Bog (I'm taken to all the best places you know :o)) and Wolferton. This is a small nature reserve and is a bit off the beaten track. We had a walk here and had the place to ourselves. We thought we saw a marsh harrier and there were some roe deer running around, but otherwise it was fairly quiet.

As we were pottering around the local area of our cottage, we went home for lunch, before heading to Heacham and Hunstanton in the afternoon. Heacham just involved a quick drive down to look at the beach, but in Hunstanton we parked up by the lighthouse while OH went in search of purple sandpipers (which sadly were not waiting for him!). However, there were loads of fulmers on the cliffs which kept him enthralled for some time, while I chilled in the car and took some nice snaps of the lighthouse when the sun came out. We then drove down into central Hunstanton where OH continued his birdwatching and I continued pottering around the town and taking a few photos of the lovely sunset.

On Thursday we decided to head over to Wells-next-the-Sea - only one problem there, Wells doesn't seem to be open February!! I took some nice pictures of the boats and mud flats, we had a mooch around and then decided to head off to Fakenham where we found that the market was on and it was somewhat busy. Fortunately we parked up relatively easily, then had an interesting walk around the town and market, plus a bite of lunch.

Next up was a visit to Titchwell Nature Reserve - no trip to Norfolk is complete without going here. There was a very nasty cold wind blowing across the salt marshes, so we took shelter in the new and very posh hides for quite a while, before slowly heading back to the car and our cottage for another crab dinner.

Friday was our last full day, so we made our way cross-country to Salthouse in order to stock up with some more crabs. Once these critical supplies were on board, I dropped OH at Cley Marshes and took myself off to Holt for some civilised coffee and cake followed by a mooch around the shops. There's a fabulous department store in Holt (Bakers and Larners) which has a huge food hall and an equally huge and fascinating kitchen department. I managed to lose quite a bit of time here, but fortunately not too much money :o).

After heading back to Cley to retrieve OH, we headed home for a late lunch, which was meant to be followed by a walk down to the sea wall at Snettisham to see the birds come in to roost. Unfortunately we were both a bit tired and the time got away from us. We headed down to Snettisham, and had a short walk, but it was getting dark so we headed back to the cottage and yet another superb crab dinner. There really is no such thing as too much crab LOL! Needless to say we slept pretty well!

Sadly Saturday saw us packing our bags and heading home, but the owner of the cottage kindly let us leave late as she didn't have anyone coming in that day, which meant that we could have a leisurely breakfast and take our time. She also offered to let us stay an extra night, but in the end the weather was awful, so we decided to head home and see what Fatcat had been up to in our absence (not a lot!).

Norfolk - Part 1

2011-02-22T08:47:00.009Z

It's a while since we've been to Norfolk, we love it there, the big skies, the birdwatching and walking, the seafood, the peace, it's wonderful! We rented a cottage in Ingoldisthorpe which turned out to be the most perfect home from home. Often with rented cottages they're done down to a price, there are never enough hooks to hang things on or places to put things down, but this cottage was beautifully done with quality fittings and well thought out. I could easily live there, all it needed was a conservatory!

We travelled over last Monday, Valentine' Day. We took our time packing up and arrived late afternoon, after a fairly leisurely drive. It's only 3 hours from home and fortunately the traffic was not a problem. After we'd settled into the cottage we headed out in search of a take-away, after bumbling around Heacham for a bit we went into Hunstanton and found what we were looking for. In addition to the cottage being wonderful, there was also a great welcome pack which included milk, coffee, sugar, tea and a bottle of wine, which went well with the Chinese.

Tuesday morning was a bit grey, but we'd planned to head into Kings Lynn to the Tuesday market to stock up on victuals for the week, so the weather wasn't too much of a problem. We got parked in Kings Lynn no problem, but unfortunately when we got to the market place it was covered with a funfair, not the expected stalls selling food! Apparently for the last couple of hundred years Kings Lynn suspends their market for two weeks from Valentine's Day and has a funfair. Rats! Change of plan required. First though we had a look around Kings Lynn, plus some lunch and a spot of shopping.

We then headed over to Cley to visit the smokehouse and a very nice deli that we knew were there. We picked up some supplies, but what we were really after were local fresh crabs. Not in season yet, we were told at two different places. Not to be deterred, OH had found another place on the internet, so we tootled down the road to Salthouse where we found Cookies Crab Shop and, hooray, they had fresh new season crabs! With the correct supplies now on board we headed home via Burnham Market where we found a couple of other good food shops (a butchers and another deli selling fresh mayonnaise amongst other things). By the time we arrived at the cottage we were fairly weary, but a cup of tea and some coffee cake soon revived us. The grand finale of the day was the crab dinner, scrumptious!!

To be continued ...

Guess What I Found?

2011-02-13T09:35:00.001Z

At the back of the cupboard, while I was rummaging around for the bicarb, there was a little pot of lemon decorations with just a few left in the bottom. They're ancient, but they look as good as new, I don't think things like this go off. Anyway, there were just enough to decorate what's left of the cake. Result!!

(note to the observant, no we did not eat all that cake yesterday, I visited a couple of friends and took a quarter of it with me :o))

Lemon Sponge

2011-02-12T13:39:00.003Z

OK all you naughty, naughty blog commenters, I'm holding you 100% responsible for this cake LOL! I've made my usual basic hot milk sponge with some lemon zest in the cake itself, then made a buttercream for the middle with added lemon juice and lemon zest and finally a lemon juice and icing sugar glaze for the top. It needs some crystallized lemon pieces to decorate it, but I'm fresh out, and I don't think it's going to last until I get to the shops :o).

Absolute Bliss and Contentment

2011-02-11T17:08:00.002Z

Can life get any better?

Bewdley

2011-02-11T10:13:00.005Z

We managed to get out for another day's outing yesterday, the destination this time was Bewdley. We'd seen reports on the news that the Severn was high and that they'd put the flood defences up and were interested to see what was involved - it had nothing to do with the fact that there's a patchwork shop there :o).

There was a huge Environment Agency presence, I'd dread to think what all the equipment and manpower costs each time they have to put the defences up and take them down again. When we arrived they were in the final throes of take-down, I think they put them up at the beginning of the week. We haven't had a huge amount of rain in the local area, but it has rained very heavily in Wales in the catchment area for the Severn, and the water was flowing extremely fast. It's hard to capture the speed in a still photo, but some of the shots of the swirling water should give an impression.

We also found signs of spring in the Queen Elizabeth II gardens in the middle of town, a gorgeous little hideaway of gardens that I can imagine are wonderful in the middle of summer. Sadly it was too wet for us to chill out on a bench.

We had a walk around the town first, then stopped for some lunch before heading to the patchwork shop. It's rude to go to these places without buying something, but I'm pleased to report that what I got was a bargain :o). It's a 5m piece of flannel which I thought would be good for a quilt (or two's) backing, you have to be able to feel it to appreciate just how soft and gorgeous this particular flannel is, and why I couldn't leave it in the shop when it was only £6 a metre (flannel usually retails at least twice this).

We stopped in at Bewdley Farm Shop on the way back to the car, what an amazing treasure this place is, I wish we lived closer to it! We ended up buying a dozen duck eggs, some smoked mackerel (made into pate for dinner), some cherries, some more seville oranges to make one more batch of marmalade and some potatoes - and it all cost less than £10.

When Life Gives You Lemons ...

2011-02-08T13:36:00.002Z

What do you make??? Lemonade? Lemon Marmalade? Lemon Curd? Lemon Meringue Pie? Gin & tonics? Such choice! I'm veering towards Lemon Curd to start with.

Coffee & Walnut Cake - Revised Recipe

2011-02-07T17:42:00.007Z

I have adapted my hot milk chocolate cake recipe to make coffee and walnut cake, it makes a lovely soft and relatively low fat cake that seems to last much longer than the original butter-heavy recipe. Because the cake mixture is a fairly runny batter, I tend not to put any walnuts in the cake itself, you can, but they will sink to the bottom.

Ingredients:

185ml milk (3/4 cup)
50g margarine (4 tbsp)
375ml plain flour (1½ cups)
15ml instant espresso powder (1 tbsp)
20ml baking powder (4 tsp)
3 eggs
250ml caster sugar (1 cup)

Icing:
125g butter at room temperature
200g icing sugar
1 tbsp instant espresso powder

Method:

Preheat the oven to 200C (180/190C in a fan oven) and prepare a deep 8" sponge tin, or a pair of shallow 8" sponge tins.

You really need a Kenwood Chef or other decent stand mixer to make this cake well. You may not be able to beat enough air into the eggs with a hand whisk. Use the whisk attachment for the Kenwood, put the eggs and sugar in the bowl and whisk on Max for 6 minutes, until pale and fluffy.

While the machine is doing all the hard work, measure the flour, coffee and baking powder and sieve into a separate bowl - mix well. Put the milk and margarine in a saucepan and bring to the boil - keep an eye on this, stirring regularly, and the timer you put on for the egg and sugar whisking as you may not be able to hear it over the noise of the Kenwood :o).

Put the Kenwood onto low and slowly add the hot milk mix to the bowl. Make sure your dry ingredients are well mixed together in their bowl, then gradually add to the egg and milk mixture, still running the Kenwood on low. You will end up with a soft runny pale brown batter. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and make sure the mixture is smooth, then pour into the prepared tin(s) and pop straight into the oven.

Cook for 20-25 minutes for the smaller tins or 40 minutes if the cake is in one large tin. To check the cake is done, first press the top of gently with your finger - it should be firm and spring back into shape - and then double-check with a cake tester. If it comes out clean, it's cooked. Leave it to one side in the tin for 5-10 minutes to cool slightly, then remove from the tin and cool thoroughly on a cake rack.

While the cake is cooking, wash up the Kenwood bowl, then mix the butter, icing sugar and coffee together (use the K beater for this). Once the cake is completely cool (you can't rush this or the buttercream will melt), slice in half and sandwich together with half the buttercream, then coat the top with the other half of buttercream. Decorate with walnut halves or pieces.

Toasty

2011-01-30T21:18:00.002Z

Would you like that medium rare or well done, sir?

Flowers

2011-01-28T19:10:00.003Z

I received two lots of beautiful flowers two weeks ago, they are both still going strong, really quite remarkable!

These are from Jan:

and these are from Anne:

Busy Friday

2011-01-28T18:04:00.007Z

I had a good session in the kitchen today, I made the second batch of marmalade (looks like another good set) and also a coffee and a chocolate cake. We're visiting family tomorrow, I wanted to take something homemade because we seem to have visited quite a lot of late, and eaten them out of house and home. They make such good food, it's hard not to LOL! The coffee cake is for my crew, the chocolate for OH's dad.

While I was busy cooking, OH was log-splitting. He had a session yesterday where he straightened up the log and kindling stores, they'd settled somewhat since they'd been put up, and looked awful. Today was spent refilling. And once he'd finished that job, he washed the car. It was still so cold out the front (north facing) that the water froze on the bonnet before he had time to chamois it off!

And Fatcat had some top-level sleeping to do ...

Yup, it's set!

2011-01-26T09:05:00.004Z

Seville Orange Marmalade

2011-01-25T21:00:00.006Z

It's January in the UK and that means Seville oranges from Spain and, of course, marmalade making. I usually use the tins of MaMade prepared fruit, and they make a very good marmalade, but you can't beat the real thing. This is my friend Sue's mum's recipe.

Ingredients:

3lb Seville oranges
2 lemons
6 pints of water
6lb sugar

Yield: 10lb marmalade

Method:

Prepare the fruit by cutting them in half and juicing them, then remove all the pith and seeds and place these in a muslin bag which will be hung in the fruit while it is boiling. Next take the skins and finely chop them, either with a knife or, as I did, in the food processor, and add to the juice. If you use the food pro you'll need to check through for bigger lumps that need finishing by hand. Add the water and bring to the boil. Simmer the fruit quite hard (no 4 on the front ring) for approximately 2 1/2 hours or until the volume has reduced by half. The peel will be soft by this time.

During the last half hour that the fruit is simmering, place the sugar in a large bowl in the oven to warm through. Once you are happy with the fruit, add the sugar and bring to the boil, stirring all the time. Boil on a good rolling boil (no 5 on the front ring) for 20 minutes, then test for set.

Walking Again

2011-01-25T19:32:00.004Z

We decided some fresh air was in order today, so we went on our usual 5 mile canal walk. I very nearly left the camera at home as it was a dreary old day, but OH decided it should come along, and look what we'd have missed if I had prevailed! It's always interesting to see the guts of the canal, they were replacing the gates on this lock. You can see the new big gate on the narrowboat above the lock, the top of the gate with the grab rail is in the bottom of the boat, and the bit sticking in the air is the bottom of the main part of the gate. The old double gates which have been removed are on the narrowboat below the lock. They were working on the double gates that they'd already hung, I think they were trying to get a good fit when we walked past, there was much opening and shutting of the new gates, followed by the sound of power tools!

I LOVE my Apple!! (Long wordy post, read on if you're a geek LOL!)

2011-01-23T07:20:00.007Z

They say there are none so zealous as the reformed, and I am a complete convert. I will never ever buy another Windows based machine. I've wanted to try an Apple for years but have never been able to justify the expense, now that I own one I can see clearly why they cost what they do. I'm sure there is still a premium for the name, but the components are all high quality and the screen is amazing. I suspect this is where a lot of the expense is, they really are the Rolls Royce of computers, a bit like my Bernina is the Rolls Royce of sewing machines. And using them is a joy (as if I didn't already spend too much time in front of the computer LOL!).

So, examples of why the Apple is so great. When I first unpacked it, there was just one cable to connect, the power lead. I simply plugged it in and turned it on, turned on the wireless keyboard, filled in a user account name and password, filled in my wireless internet passcode, and hey presto, it was online and working. It was that quick and easy. The first thing I set up was my email, Apple Mail was very intuitive and I like the way the software handles multiple email accounts, it's much better than Outlook ever managed. All in all it took me a couple of days to get everything installed and working, but this included importing old emails and archives from the PC, copying over files, installing Parallels and Windows plus my old Windows software (it took me half a day to get the business bookkeeping system installed and the old backup file imported - Microsoft again!) and getting things like calendars synchronized, plus various bits of software I need to maintain the business website. I also imported all my iTunes music and resynched my iPod so it's now linked to the new machine. Printer setup and sharing has worked effortlessly, as has file sharing with the Windows laptops we have.

I have an Epson scanner that is at least 6 years old, previous computer changes have involved a long hunt for the software disks, at least half an hour of software installation and several reboots, followed by another half hour trying to get the scanner and computer to talk to each other. With the Apple I simply plugged it in, the computer asked if I wanted to use the device on the Mac or the Parallels Windows environment, I selected Mac, pressed a button on the scanner and up popped Image Capture, a utility included with the Apple operating system, and a scanner warming up message, along with Epson 1250 scanner on the Devices list. A few clicks and whirs later and there was an overview of my scanned document with options to save in various image formats, or PDF. Amazing. It took 10 minutes or so to get the hang of how Image Capture works, but it was that simple to get the scanner up and running. A quick unplug and replug-in of the scanner enabled me to connect it to the Parallels Windows environment where it picked up the scanner and installed the drivers which it must have found on the Apple side of the system. Windows then rebooted (surprise!!), but once we were back online the scanner was available to Adobe Acrobat with no further input required.

My total expense on software for the Apple has been £60 for the Parallels program which enables me to run a Windows virtual machine. I have a legit copy of Windows XP, so installed that plus my bookkeeping software, Adobe CS3 suite and my quilting and embroidery software. All of these run perfectly and seamlessly within the Mac environment. The Mac comes with photo editing software, email, calendar, address book and more. I'm using the Mac version of Firefox for surfing the net (I use the Xmarks add-on to synchronize and back up my bookmarks) and I've been using Open Office for Word and Excel type documents. The only thing that I'm currently missing about my old setup is the way Outlook handles tasks, specifically repeating tasks, and the way it integrates the calendar and tasks with email, so you can have an overview of the week ahead. I'm investigating various options and I think I'm getting closer to a solution, I'll post about that separately when I'm happy with it!

What else can I tell you? If you've read this far you're probably tending towards the geek (dark) side anyway, so I might as well crack on. You don't need to shut the Mac down completely unless you're not planning to use it for several days, just press the on/off button and the machine goes to sleep, to all intents and purposes it's off, but another press of the button and it springs back into life. No waiting ten minutes for your Windows PC to boot and load up all the junk it thinks is necessary for full operation. On the Mac everything you had open when you put it to sleep is still there, just waiting to go again.

I'm also enjoying having an all-in-one machine. The iMac comes with a built-in webcam and speakers, so that's three extras I've got rid of with the old machine - webcam, speakers and headphones/mic. Add in the fact that the iMac is virtually silent and you can begin to see where I'm coming from. I need to have an ebay session soon, I can't see me using half of the old peripherals again. The magic mouse that comes with the iMac is also very tactile and easy to use. It's smooth on top, but sensitive, you stroke the mouse to scroll through pages, the whole mouse clicks with a very satisfying click when you need to select something and you can also set it up to right click if that's what you're familiar with in Windows. The Mac way is to hold down a keyboard button and click to get the context-sensitive menus, but I prefer right-click, and it offers it to me - there's none of the arrogant "you have to do it our way" that you'd get if it was a Windows machine. The wireless keyboard that came with the iMac is lovely, very flat and compact and much more comfortable to use than a standard PC keyboard, but it didn't have a numeric keypad, so I have invested in the full Apple wired keyboard which has the same flat but responsive feel and the extra buttons I missed on the compact version. The wireless keyboard apparently works with an iPad, so I may need to invest in one of these in due course :o). Or I may ebay it, I'll see.

Oh, I knew there was something else that hugely impressed me when I set it up, it's the Time Machine backup software that comes with the Apple operating system. I connected up the old hard disk from my Windows PC to access files (the Apple read it immediately, no problem with copying over all my old documents), and it offered to use it as a Time Machine backup disk, which is what alerted me to the presence of this piece of software. I declined on the old hard disk (didn't want it wiped out!), but I bought a new compact 500gb one from Amazon (using my Nectar points, so nil cost to me), plugged it in to the iMac, accepted its invitation to use the disk as a backup disk with Time Machine and that was it. The iMac went off and did a full backup and is now doing incremental ones every hour, keeping those for 24 hours, keeping a daily backup for a month and weekly backups for the rest of time (it'll only start deleting old ones when the disk gets full). All it took to get me to this fully backed up point is the time to open the disk packaging and plug it into the USB port.

I'm sure I could go on ad nauseum about this wonderful new toy of mine, I readily confess to being a gadget addict and the Apple iMac speaks to me on so many levels. It is a beautiful piece of technology, it is a joy to use and it has even made certain computing jobs (the business bookkeeping springs immediately to mind!) if not a pleasure, certainly much easier than before. I'm not sure how it's managed this, but it has, I think it has a lot to do with the quality and ease of use of the mouse and keyboard. I'm a fast typist generally, but this keyboard lets my fingers fly!

And there I shall leave this rhapsody, I hope Apple's going to offer me a commission :o).

Addendum 1 Feb: a couple of other things that I need to comment on! Firstly, the ease of getting pictures from the camera to the computer. Simply plug in the camera, switch on and up pops Image Capture (mentioned before with the scanner). Check that the correct folder is selected and click the Import All button. In less than 10 seconds from switch on your pictures are off the camera and in the correct folder on the Mac. I was lucky if I got Windows to notice that I'd plugged the camera in in under 5 minutes, let alone fiddling around with the copy and paste.

Secondly, today we had a power cut. It wasn't off for more than a few seconds, but it was enough to reset the microwave, the Sky box and various other electrical bits. Not the iMac. I'm not sure if it has a little battery backup and how long it would last, but it seemed oblivious to the fact that the power had failed. Pretty amazing.

Black & White Village Trail

2011-01-20T17:07:00.004Z

Despite still feeling a little shaky this morning, we decided that a change of scenery and some fresh air were in order. We headed first towards Leominster, then on to Pembridge to pick up the Black & White Village Trail, a gorgeous scenic route in rural Herefordshire. We didn't drive the whole route, but picked out a few villages to stop in. The first stop was Eardisland which claims to be the prettiest village in Herefordshire. It certainly is lovely, even in January. It was a very bright and cloudless day, gorgeous sunshine, but because the sun is so low in the sky, also very glarey and difficult to see. The camera struggled with the high contrast between shade and sunlight, but it did its best :o).

After Eardisland we stopped in Pembridge where the fabulously ancient town hall is the village's centrepiece. Here we also walked up to the church of St Mary with its separate bell tower and along through the village looking at other ancient buildings.

After Pembridge we drove to Weobley (pron Webley) where we found a lovely gift shop & tea room, so stopped for a cup of tea and a slice of coffee cake. We'd been good and taken sandwiches and coffee to eat along the way, but we also had to do our bit for the local economy - well that's our excuse and we're sticking to it LOL!

As you can see from the photos of the church, it was a cold day, the frost didn't disappear all day unless it was in direct sun. Tomorrow's weather suggests we may get a flurry of snow, I'm not sure we will, they like to tease us on the weather reports, but we're planning a day in front of the cricket, so that should work out nicely in any case :o).

Stratford Upon Avon

2011-01-14T13:56:00.003Z

This lovely town is only half an hour or so's drive from home, so yesterday we decided to have an afternoon out. It wasn't brilliant weather, but it was at least dry. We had a short walk along the river then stopped for a cream tea. We also popped into a couple of shops and generally mooched around. We were only there for a couple of hours, but it was a nice change of scenery.

Silence is Golden ...

2011-01-04T20:29:00.005Z

The reason I've been quiet the last few days? It can be explained in one word - Apple. I have a new toy :o).

The Snow's Nearly Gone

2010-12-29T14:44:00.003Z

The last couple of days have been above freezing with some heavy rain overnight and the snow has been slowly melting away. We had a bit of fortune in the hardware store earlier today, we asked if they were getting any more snow shovels, expecting them to laugh us out of the shop, but the chap said there were some coming in today. He'd only just finished telling us this when in comes a chap with a whole armful, so we snaffled one quickly even though they were twice the price they were before the snow came. This will probably ensure that we don't have any more snow this winter, but OH did use it to clear the front path as it was getting very slippery. As you can see from the photos, we've got fog now, it's been like this for a couple of days and is set to continue until the weekend, unfortunately that's what you get when warm moist air sits above frozen ground. I have to say, though, it's nice to be able to open the conservatory door again (which has been blocked by icicles for the last couple of weeks) and to see some greenery. Fatcat will also be pleased that he's no longer limited to two square feet of bark chippings outside the front door!

Oh Boy!!!

2010-12-29T14:33:00.003Z

My christmas present from my dad arrived today (DHL delays due to weather), all I can say is that my trousers are going to be getting even tighter before this festive season is over! You should have seen OH's face when I opened up the box LOL!

Houston, We Have a Problem

2010-12-27T13:11:00.002Z

I think the guttering needs fixing ...

Boxing Day

2010-12-26T16:48:00.003Z

It was another cold night last night, still -8C at 10 o'clock this morning. The crazy thing is that this is starting to feel normal and we're getting quite blase about it. I don't think it had anything to do with the temperature, but we had an absolutely gorgeous sunrise this morning, the pictures don't do it justice, but here are a few to give you a flavour.

Happy Christmas

2010-12-25T15:58:00.005Z

I'm writing this post a day late, but I hope everyone had a very happy christmas. We have had a lovely weekend, we've been very lazy, but then it's also been very cold so we think we had a good excuse for staying in in front of the fire :o). At 9am it was still -10.3 and although it did creep above freezing in the late afternoon, it dropped like a stone again as soon as the sun went down.

We both had some lovely presents this year, I will be doing a separate post on the quilting blog about the quilt that I made for OH, it has been a top secret project so there hasn't even been a sniff of it before now :o). My main present will be a new computer, yet to be bought, but I also had a beautiful perfume atomiser from OH, which we spotted when we went to the Cotswold Perfumery in Bourton-on-the-Water. This was on one of our days out with my brother & his family, so has some lovely memories too.

For Christmas lunch we cooked a goose, something we have thought about in years gone by, but never done. My local butcher obtained a Gressingham Goose which came beautifully packaged in a sturdy box along with a meat thermometer so it was cooked to perfection. There was a minor panic when we realised it wouldn't fit in the oven on the tray and rack we'd put together, but a bit of rummaging through the kitchen cupboards and we came up with an alternative which just went in, as did the goose. It was a tight fit though, geese are much longer and thinner than turkeys and it never occurred to me that it might be too big for the oven LOL! After that it was pretty much smooth sailing, though we did eat slightly later than originally planned. It ended up somewhat smaller than when we started, if anyone needs any goosefat, just let me know, I've got about a litre of the stuff! On second thoughts, maybe I should save some, you never know when the central heating will break down and you'll need an extra layer to keep the cold out ;o).

MORE Snow!

2010-12-22T10:12:00.006Z

We've had another 4"-5" of snow overnight, and it's just started coming down again. It looks like the temperature is set to stay below zero until after Christmas, so we'll definitely have a white one this year. I've just phoned to order some more central heating oil because I've heard there are problems with supply, we've got a delivery slot scheduled for 14th January. I'm glad I got in the queue!


Can you see the little lumps that used to be my christmas trees???

This is Getting Ridiculous

2010-12-20T09:40:00.004Z

The temperature plumbed new depths last night, I have never seen it anywhere near this cold in all the years (17 of them!) I've been living here. It was below -7C by 5pm and by bedtime it was -12.5C. The website maintained by a chap in Alvechurch (where we went to the butchers a couple of days ago) recorded -13.7C. I had to Google what temperature central heating oil froze at, I was relieved to find out it doesn't start to solidify until about -40C. Thank goodness for that! I'm also glad we've got the WBS running more efficiently, it makes a big difference being able to shut the air down properly.

A Warm Dish for a Cold Day

2010-12-20T09:35:00.004Z

Yesterday we did our first experiment in the potjie, and it was a great success. Our only mistake was cooking the meat in the morning, then letting it cool down before putting it back in the oven with the veg in time for dinner. They were somewhat al dente, despite it being in the oven for nearly 2 hours, but apart from that the flavours were wonderful and the meat was perfectly cooked. For those with the potjie book, we used Patrick & Beverley's Curry recipe (and made the first use of my masalas from the Spice Emporium).

A Walk in the Snow

2010-12-20T09:24:00.004Z

(another picture heavy post)

Yesterday we went for another walk around the village to see how the snow had settled. We walked up the main road to the church, then through the footpath behind the church and back over the fields. Because it hasn't been above freezing since the snow came down it was still all light and powdery, like icing sugar, absolutely perfect for walking in. As a picture paints a thousand words, I'll let the scenes speak for themselves.