Easy and delicious spicy pickled onions recipe
Unless you already make pickled onions, let me share a secret. Pickled onions are ridiculously easy to make! They are great Christmas or anytime presents, especially if you use a decent quality vinegar. Poor old Danny’s acid tum can’t take malt vinegar so I always make a couple of jars for him every year using white wine vinegar or cider vinegar. I didn’t realise that I hadn’t posted my recipe until someone emailed me asking for one. This chutney is based on Oded Schwartz’s method from his superb book Preserving. I’ve added...
read moreHow to hot water bath tomatoes: canning/bottling
I’ve been bottling tomatoes like a woman possessed. This might seem strange as tinned tomatoes can be so cheap if you know where to go. But these are our own organic tomatoes, they are sweeter than the tinned ones and once made they sit in the barn waiting to be added to dishes until our first tomatoes ripen the next summer. Last year I bottled whole tomatoes and passata. Once we discovered that Bloody Marys made with homemade passata were to die for, we used up our winter supply within a couple of months. Danny was dead keen for me to...
read moreSuddenly The Bike was our only means of transport
“Have you got a fiver?” “No. Well yes. What do you need it for?” “The man is coming to collect the car for the M.O.T.” “But I need the car to collect Inca from The Animal Health Trust and I’ve got to pick up my prescription from Newmarket – I can’t go all weekend without pills.” “Don’t worry. We’ll figure out something.” I thought and thought and the only option I figured out was bike shaped. I would cycle into Newmarket on my bike. It’s only a six mile round trip. The problem is that apart from a few flicks...
read moreHow to make pomanders; part two
I got fed up with waiting for the pomanders to dry out – that I started making a couple of months ago . So I put them on trays in the only warm room in the cottage – the airing cupboard or as Danny calls it “the hot press”. This speeded up the process well. When we start lighting the wood burning stove this weekend they will be put near there to bask in the heat. Today it was wet and gloomy so I put made a big patch of homemade passata, put some bacon in to cure and discovered that the lemon pomanders had finally dried out. I...
read moreBlueberry and blackberry jam recipe
“Why are you letting the raspberries rot on the canes? The birds are getting the blueberries and I haven’t seen you pick more than a handful of blackberries this year.” Danny is generally fairly easy going so this remark was a bit of a surprise. He was right about the fruit though, I’ve been distracted by other things. What a terrible waste. Suitably chastised I slunk down to the fruit cage and picked a bowl of raspberries. The Autumn fruiting raspberries have a much better flavour than the summer ones and will keep on fruiting...
read moreHave you heard of Rootgrow?
This is organic friendly fungi that I have been using this summer, when planting perennials, roses and shrubs. KateUK mentioned it in a comment on the blog and when I spotted Rootgrow in the garden centre, I invested in a pack. Everything that I planted with a sprinkle of Rootgrow crystals has flourished. So if you are planting this Autumn you might consider investing in a pack to give your plants the best possible chance. Rootgrow is a mycorrhizal fungi that creates a secondary “root” system. So a plant has double roots to...
read moreDay off making jelly and a few secret jelly and jam making tips to create your own great recipes
“We’re making crab apple chilli jelly. It’s a deep ruby red. I’ll send you the photos later. Now what are you eating tonight. Sardines. Hum. How about sardines on toast. What about vegetables – do you remember them?” The Chicken Lady was on the phone to Rollo who has just started Uni. Back at base we were on a jelly making marathon. TCL has access to a large crab apple tree (secret location) and she had gone out early in the morning to pick the fruit. My role was to demonstrate the fruit steamer in action, bring some hot dried...
read moreTasty beef pot au feu recipe
I remember our best pot-au-feu recipe meal. Years ago Danny and I were in Paris. We had wandered deep into a residential area. Feeling peckish we were on the lookout for a good restaurant but could find nothing. The time was about 7 pm. It was Sunday and the streets were empty. Then we noticed that people were passing us with a spring to their step – all going in the same direction. Where were they going? Was it Church or could it be a restaurant? We decided to follow them. We turned a corner and saw the welcoming lights of a small...
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