Big Apple Autumn 2009

Another wonderful Big Apple Festival this year! We supped cider and perry at Gregg’s Pit orchard…..

…whilst watching Morris Men dance.

We admired the vast variety of apples on show…

..and watched fruit being pressed ready to make next year’s cider.

My husband also managed to fit in a spot of cider and perry-making so we have our own little batch to look forward to – although I’m not very good at the whole waiting thing….. especially where cider is involved

Food Fest

Well, the Abergavenny Food Festival has ended for another year and we’re left with happy memories, a full fridge and even fuller bellies.

I didn’t take pics this year (was too busy shoveling food into my mouth) but you can get a sense of things from last years photos here.

As usual, I blew the weeks food money in a single weekend but it was worth it! I got to try my first ever oyster (which I loved, much to my surprise), bought indecent amounts of cheese and ‘sampled’ every perry available. We certainly had a merry time!

Highlights included Kid Me Not Goat’s Milk Fudge, Simon Weaver’s Blue Brie, Menai Oysters, Wernddu Perry (yes, I know I’m biased but it really is good), Gorwydd Caerphilly (the best Caerphilly cheese in the world), Lahloo Tea and the wonderful Made in Monmouthshire area which I hope to be part of next year.

Whinberry Jam

Before I moved to Wales I’d never heard of whinberries but I’ve recently learned that they’re a type of bilberry that grows wild on the mountain sides around here. They’re also very tasty! Depending on where you live, you might know them as Bilberries or Whortleberries instead. If you’ve not encountered them before, they’re related to blueberries and have some similarities – although they’re smaller and I think they have a richer taste which reminds me a little of elderberry wine. A traditional way to use them in Wales is to make Whinberry Tart but, seeing as my pastry making skills leave a lot to be desired, I decided to make jam instead. Here’s my recipe:

Whinberry Jam

makes approx. 3 medium size jars

• 650g whinberries
• 500g granulated sugar
• juice of 1 lemon

First wash the berries, picking out any bits of stalk and discarding any over-ripe berries. Place the fruit in a pan over a low heat and gently crush the berries to release some juice. Add the lemon juice then simmer gently until the fruit is soft and squishy but with some still retaining their shape. Add the sugar and stir until dissolved. The sugar will dissolve quicker if you’ve warmed it in a low oven beforehand. Once all the sugar has dissolved, bring to a boil and boil rapidly for 5 minutes. Test for set and, when ready,  pour into warm, sterilized jars and seal.

I’m quite taken with these little berries and hope to experiment with some more recipes in the next few weeks. As the season is fairly short, I’m thinking of bottling some or perhaps making whinberry muffins which can be frozen. If anyone has some recipes they’d like to share, please do!

Coping with the glut…

Our courgettes are coming thick and fast at the moment and it’s something of a race to use them up before they reach marrow-like proportions – seriously, I swear all I have to do is blink and they double in size! I try to pick them when they’re still quite small and tasty but, if I do miss one or two and they become big and watery, then it’s no great shakes as they’re fine for chutney – which is what I’l be making later today.

One of my favourite things to make with courgettes is ratatouille – primarily because it’s so yummy but I also take great delight in the muddle of colours whilst I’m cooking it. It’s a real feast for the senses!

I thought I’d share my recipe here, in case anyone else is trying to get through their own body weight in courgettes. My version doesn’t contain any aubergine, purely due to the fact that I’ve never managed to grow any successfully and by omitting them, I can increase the quantities of courgettes. If you do want to include aubergine though, simply dice it, place in a colander, sprinkle with salt, weight it down with a plate and can (or something similar) then leave for an hour. Rinse and squeeze out any excess moisture then add to the casserole along with the courgettes.

Ratatouille

serves 4 generously

• olive oil
• 2 red onions, chopped
• 2 cloves of garlic, crushed
• 2 peppers – 1 red and 1 yellow, roughly chopped
• 5 – 6 small courgettes, roughly chopped
• 2 tins of chopped tomatoes or 10 medium sized fresh tomatoes, skinned and chopped
• a generous sprinkling of herbs – dry or fresh – I like oregano, parsley and thyme
• black pepper
• pinch of sugar

Heat the oil in a large flameproof casserole. Cook onions until soft. Add courgettes, followed by the peppers then the garlic, giving everything a good stir between each addition. Saute for 5 mintues. Stir in the tomatoes, herbs and seasoning. Add a pinch of sugar. Cover and simmer for approximately 1 hour. Check occasionally to make sure the ratatouille isn’t sticking – if you need to, add a splash of water or red wine vinegar. When cooked, leave to cool a little before serving – this tastes best when warm, rather than piping hot. It tastes even better the next day and I often make it the day before I plan to serve it. I like to serve it with homemade focaccia bread and brown rice.

Another easy way to use up an abundance of courgettes is to make a courgette frittata. Here’s a basic recipe but you can add other vegetables too – such as onions, tomatoes, garden peas, potato etc – and you can also swap the parmesan for whatever cheese you have to hand. Feta is a particular favourite!

Courgette Frittata

serves 2 – 3

• 2 – 3 medium courgettes, sliced
• 6 large eggs
• 50g parmesan, grated
• olive oil

Gently fry the courgettes in a little olive oil until soft and golden. Beat the eggs and stir in the parmesan. Add the cooked courgettes and stir gently. Turn the heat right down then pour the frittata mixture back into the frying pan. Cook gently, running a spatular or similar around the edge every now and again to prevent sticking and give a nice rounded edge. The cooking time depends a lot on the size of pan your using but the friattata is ready when all the egg is set. If necessary, you can speed things up a little by finishing off under a medium grill. I usually serve this with salad and lots of crusty bread. It’s also tasty served cold.

One final and very simple idea is to roast the courgettes along with some other summer vegetables. This is my basic recipe but again, it can easily be adapted to whatever herbs and veg you have handy.

Oven Roasted Vegetables

serves 4 as an accompaniment

• 1 red onion, cut into wedges
• 2 red peppers, cut into chunks
• 2 – 3 small courgettes
• 4 tomatoes, quartered
• a few fresh rosemary sprigs
• olive oil

Preheat the oven to 200C / Gas Mark 6. Place chopped vegetables in a large shallow tray and pour over olive oil. Mix well then tuck in a few sprigs of rosemary amongst the vegeatbles. Season with salt and pepper and bake for approximately 35 minutes or until vegetable are starting to char a little around the edges. This goes really well with lamb and, if you’re using chops or cutlets, you can nestle them in amongst the veg and cook the whole lot together.

Gooseberry Jam

Now that the soft fruit season is underway here in the UK, I thought it was time for a spot of jam-making….

Gooseberries are great for jam as they’re naturally high in pectin. The colour of the jam will vary depending on the ripeness of the gooseberries – early small, hard fruits will give a green jam whilst plump ripe fruits give a pinkish colour. The batch of jam pictured below is quite a dark pink due to the fact that I used unrefined granulated sugar – not for any particular reason, just because that’s what I had in the cupboard. Anyhow, on to the recipe…

Basic Gooseberry Jam Recipe

A quantity of gooseberries

An equal amount of granulated sugar

Water

Top and tail the gooseberries and place in a preserving pan or sturdy saucepan. Pour in enough water so that the gooseberries are not quite covered – if you prefer to measure, I usually use 500ml water for every kilo of gooseberries. Simmer the gooseberries for 10 – 15 minutes until they are soft and squidgy but still hold their shape. Add the sugar and stir until dissolved. It helps if you gently warm the sugar in the oven prior to adding to the pan as it will dissolve quicker this way. Once the sugar has dissolved bring to a rolling boil and boil rapidly for 10 minutes. Test for setting point then pour into sterilized jars and seal.

The recipe can be adapted in a number of ways:

You could make strawberry and gooseberry jam by substituting half the gooseberries with strawberries although only add the strawberries to the pan once the gooseberries are almost soft.

To make elderflower and gooseberry jam tie up a few elderflower heads in a muslin square and simmer with the gooseberries. Remove before adding the sugar.

Some people like to add a little butter when they add the sugar.

a colourful first harvest…

Radishes from the garden – destined for tabbouleh for tonight’s dinner – although I couldn’t resist scoffing a couple fresh from the ground with a light sprinkling of sea salt. Delicious!

Dawdle Days

Judging by the amount of groups, events and activities organized for them, children these days seem to require an awful lot of entertaining! Take the small town where we live for instance – if we wanted, my daughter could go along to an organized event every day of the week: toddler groups, soft play, baby gym sessions, storytimes and rhymetimes – to name just a few!

As it is, we go to two toddler groups and one music class a week plus the occasional trip to the soft play centre. Now, please don’t mistake me, I think toddler groups, soft play centers and the like have a lot to offer – they’re a great place for toddlers to fine tune skills such as balance and co-ordination, use up some excess energy and interact with other children. They’re also great for mums as they offer opportunities to socialize and usually provide one of the (all too) rare occasions in the week when you get a cuppa made for you!

However, I don’t think that they should be the be all and end all: it’s important for children to have a bit of variety, a bit of randomness and a chance to entertain themselves. I guess I worry that, if kids are continually entertained – either by tv, organised play or all-singing all-dancing electronic toys, then how will they learn to use their imaginations and be creative? If they’re continually cosseted in risk-free ‘safe’ environments, how will they learn to assess risk? If we constantly organize and ‘manage’ their play, how will they learn self-reliance and spontaneity? If they’re always indoors, how will they learn to appreciate the natural world?

Personally, I choose to leave my daughter to her own devices from time to time in order that she at least gets chance to make her own entertainment. It doesn’t always work – if she’s tired and grumpy, she’ll refuse to play on her own and will soon be tugging at my legs. But more often than not, she’s quite content to play alone and I’m pleased to say that she’s quite an imaginative little thing. She’s particularly fond of playing with her ragdolls and will sing to them, pretend to feed and dress them, make them dance with each other or give them a ride on her rocking horse. I can’t resist sneakily peeking in on her sometimes as it’s just so heartwarming to see! 

As well as time to herself, I like us to have ‘dawdle days’ once or twice a week – days where we have nothing planned and can just go with the flow – no groups to attend, people to see or classes to go to. We can simply spend hours making daisy chains, painting pictures, baking biscuits, exploring the river banks or generally just mooching about.

This morning was a good example of one of our dawdle days. It was wonderfully laid back and completely unplanned. I needed a few bits and pieces from the market so on the way back we stopped at the park for an hour. Baby Small had brought one of her dolls with her and after she’d played on the swings and slide, she insisted that dolly did too.

When we got home I fancied a spot of baking so checked to see what we could make with the limited ingredients I had to hand (remember this was unplanned baking!) and opted for snickerdoodles. Can you guess which ones mummy made and which baby made?

Sometimes the best days really are those that are completely unplanned! Oh and if you’ve never tried snickerdoodles, do give them a try! You’re in for a treat…. 

 

xxx

Our Easter Weekend

What a perfect weekend! 

We baked…..

….and baked…..

….and baked some more!

We feasted with family…

and walked some of it off…

…and then some more…

and then some more (well, it was a big meal)!

We created….

…and displayed.

We marvelled at the sights of spring…

and the scents.

We drank in the views…

… and had a thoroughly fabulous time! I hope you all had a wonderful Easter too. 

xxx

Recipe: Rhubarb Jam

I’ve really been enjoying reading your comments in response to my little giveaway. It seems there are so many reasons to love spring – the flowers, the little lambs in the fields, the smells, the freshness, the sunshine, the longer days, the feeling of newness, the colours…. it’s all so wonderful! I also have a culinary reason to add to the list too as, for me, spring marks the start of the jam-making season and that’s definitely a cause for celebration! 

I’d been keeping an eager eye out for the arrival of English rhubarb at my greengrocer’s for a while now – I’d hoped to get hold of some of the early forced stuff but my grocer told me that the supermarkets pretty much have a monopoly on it and it’s very hard for independent sellers to get hold of any… so I waited…. then imported rhubarb began to fill the shelves and, although tempted, I waited….. then, finally, this week, my patience paid off and I was able to bring home a rather large bag of the stuff – I would have bought more (crumbles were beckoning) but it would have pretty much blown my food budget out the window, so I contented myself with enough for a batch of jam. I will definitely be going back for more though….

Rhubarb makes a wonderful jam – light and fruity and incredibly moorish. Some people regard it as a tricky jam to make, probably due to the fact that rhubarb is very low in pectin. However, if you’re worried about achieving a good set, you can always use jam sugar (the stuff with added pectin) and you shouldn’t have any difficulties. 

Here’s my recipe – you need to start this the night before you intend to make the jam:

Rhubarb Jam

Makes 6 x 225g jars

• 1kg rhubarb (trimmed weight), cut into chunks.
• 1 kg sugar (granulated or jam sugar)
• Juice of 1 large juicy orange 

In a large non-metallic basin, layer up the sugar then rhubarb, ending with a layer of sugar. Pour over the orange juice and leave overnight. 

When you are ready to make the jam, transfer the ingredients to a preserving pan or large saucepan and bring gently to the boil, stirring until the sugar has dissolved. Boil rapidly and test the set after about 5 minutes. When ready, leave to stand for a few minutes then pour into warm sterilized jars and seal.

A seriously simple salmon dish and some thoughts on the visual nature of cooking….

I have quite a small budget with which to feed the three of us so we usually eat quite frugally. However, when it’s time for the monthly Farmers Market, I usually can’t resist all the wonderful produce on offer and splash out on a foodie treat for us. This month I was tempted by some beautiful hand-reared, RSPCA approved salmon from the fishmonger’s stall.  

Cooking is something that can stimulate all the senses and I particularly like the visual aspect of cooking. One of my favourite dishes to cook in summer, for instance, is ratatouille as I love the jumble of bright, contrasting colours in the pan – glossy red tomatoes, dark green courgettes and sunshine yellow peppers. I never see cooking as a chore – in fact, I find it quite a mediative process. I like to take time to admire the beauty of the fresh ingredients and to reflect upon nature’s bounty.  This salmon provided a perfect opportunity for such reflection. It was such a visual treat with its shimmering silver skin and vivid orange flesh. Beautiful! 

I always think that good quality food needs very little doing to it so I cooked the salmon quite simply, baking it in foil with a little welsh butter and some herbs. Here’s the recipe:

Salmon baked in Foil

Serves 2

• 2 portion sized salmon fillets 
• herbs (I like to use dill or rosemary)
• butter
• seasoning
• 2 large pieces of kitchen foil

Preheat oven to 180 / Gas Mark 4. Grease each piece of foil with a little butter. Place the salmon on top. Sprinkle with your choice of herbs, fresh or dry, then dot with butter. Bring the two side edges of the foil together and scrunch up to seal then curl up the end edges to make the parcel. Bake in the oven for 20 minutes. I like to serve it with a green vegetable (sauteed curly kale in this instance) and either fluffy basmati rice or new potatoes.

Yum!