Glass Of Mud Anyone?

What could be nicer than a glass  of freshly pressed apple juice. Juice from my own apples, pressed by me, grown by me, no chemicals, no additives, no airmiles, no packaging, truly organic, sounds great doesn't it. Well it is great of course, but this being my first foray into the ancient art of apple pressing, the results have been a bit, er, mixed.  As you can see from this picture, the juice looks a bit like muddy water. Not very appetising.

First of all, the press I bought online from Selections, is really too big for the amount of apples I have. I wanted the 12 litre size but they had sold out, but I have loads of apples, I thought, so I might as well get the bigger one.  Not loads enough it seems. Before you can press your apples you have to reduce them to a pulp and this reduces their volume dramatically. So a few bucketfuls of windfalls only half fill the press by the time you've pulped them.Lesson one. It's recommended that you use a Pulpmaster, a tool that you use in conjuction with an electric drill. But I found it quite a faff, and I'm sure I could have done a better and quicker job with the Magimix, despite what I've read about this not being the case. Most of what you can read on the internet about apple pressing and cider making is written by men, and I don't wish to sound sexist or anything chaps, but I can easily pulp apples in my Magimix without reducing them to puree. But then I use a Magimix all the time.

Then you tip your apple pulp into the press and away you go. The press itself works well, although I think I could either do with a smaller one, or a lot more apples. I'm hoping to have access to quite a few more as the season goes on, both from my own garden and elsewhere. Lots of people have apples that go to waste in the autumn so I should be able to find a source.

Now to the results. The apples juice looks like a mixture of mud and water. It's not very apple-y looking at all. I taste. A bit sharp, but fruity and fresh. And nicer than it looks. I need a second opinion. I take a glass of the liquid over to the office for David, a man who has even been known to give an honest answer to the question "Do you like my new hairdo?" so I know he'd say if it was really bad. He tastes and pronouces that it's a bit sharp but after a few sips you get used to it and it's quite nice.

Conclusion. It's a lot of trouble to go to for a few pints of apple juice, but this is my first effort, and now I feel I have an understanding of the process, I'm looking forward to having another bash. I only used a couple of bucketfuls of windfalls of asssorted variety, so next time, with any luck we should get better results. If anyone else offered my a glass of muddy looking liquid to drink I'd probably pass, but like anything else you've produced yourself I'm rather proud of it. If I never make another posting you'll know it's been fatal, but for now, cheers.

Harvest Time

Now seems like a good time to post a few pics of the current seasons crops.

I've been really busy with family stuff for the last few weeks so the garden is groaning under the weight of stuff that needs picking and storing. We've done very well on the stone fruits this year, the Victoria plum tree (above) has produced a large amount of fruit, and the damson Merryweather

 has, after several years of standing around doing nothing very much, produced a huge basketfull of fruit

ready for copious numbers of crumbles, and jam. Surprisingly, I find the fruits are also delicious raw, - I always associate damsons with jamming and cooking, -certainly the wild versions seem much more tart, but this cultivated variety is flavourful, rich and sweet. I would certainly recommend it, provide you're not in a rush as I planted this tree some four years or so ago.

The tomato plants have continued to crop well this year too,

so we will be having plenty of lovely tomato salad, with lots left over for makiing a delicous sauce for use all through the winter, I gave the recipe last year

I've also got round to buying a proper fruit press this year, so I'm hoping to be able to make the most of my windfall apples.

I tried to store my surplus crop last year, but I found that I lost quite a large number of fruits due to spoilage. Clearly any slightly blemished fruit will have to be used or juiced to avoid wastage, so my plan this year is to inspect all fruits for storage very carefully, and to use or juice the rest. I may even have a bash at cider making. I could be the Eddie Grundy of Latton, more details later.

I've reminded myself to post the results of this year's anti bird tactics in the fruit garden, after  last night's lovely pudding of Cherries Jubilee ( recipe tomorrow) made with some cherries from the freezer. I should have posted this a few weeks ago when I harvested them but here's my thoughts anyway. The  Buzz Off product, which is a thin plastic line that whirrs in the breeze and frightens away birds has proved useful though not revolutionary. I have found that it has to be used in conjunction with other barrier methods to keep birds off cherry trees, and my plastic bags and bin liners, whilst not aesthetically pleasing, do seem to do the job quite well. I've made a mental note not to put the bags on too early though, as I lost quite a lot of fruit from doing just that, and they either dropped off or rotted. But I still got quite a good crop of sweet cherries from the Stella tree

and also sour cherries from the Morello tree

 where I used only the line as protection, and no bags, since sour cherries are not quite so readily taken by birds as sweet cherries, (although they've stripped the tree bare in the past). So for me a couple of buckets of cherries as opposed to no cherries as in previous years, is a result. And at £3.99 for 30 metres it's well worth a go.

 I have found the Buzz Off line most useful over the strawberry bed, where it can be placed two or three feet above the plants, but I also cover the bed with plastic netting. In previous years I have often found that birds get under the netting,- it's quite annoying to have to rescue a corpulent blackbird who's spent the morning gorging himself on strawberries and can now barely waddle flatulently off down the garden - but I think the Buzz Off line has helped stop this from happening. Although the soft fruit is mostly finished, I still have the lines in place as I'm wondering if they will help to deter pigeons from the winter brassicas that I've just planted out into their final quarters. Once again I will be netting the plants, but I think the lines may have a bit of a belt and braces effect, and frankly anything that helps protect the plants is welcome in my book. I really can't be doing with pigeons, the only ones I like are on a plate with bacon and mushrooms, accompanied by a glass of red wine.

 

The past week or so of hot sunny days has really got the soft fruit season off with a bang. Every year I try very hard with strawberries and for the last couple of years I have done fairly well. Yesterday I picked  a big basketful,and very delicious they were, but for me, nothing can beat a great big dish of these that I picked today.

Raspberries are my favourite soft fruit. To the extent that I have extended the raspberry row the full length of the veg garden, about thirty odd feet. I have a six foot fence that separates the front garden from veg garden, and although I still have some gaps, I have managed to fill most of the veg side of the fence with raspberries. Raspberries, like most soft fruit are easy to propagate,  - new canes come up all around the current years growth, and surplus ones can be easily detached and dug up, and re planted where you wish.So splash out on some good plants from a reliable supplier like Ken Muir and extend your row as you please.

My fence faces north east on the veg side, which is why I chose it for raspberries as I find that whilst they won't thrive in poor light conditions, they do well in a cooler damp aspect. I expect that's why we so often see Scottish raspberries in the shops. I mulch them well, but they still need copious watering to ensure a good crop.

It's useful to bear in mind the conditions required by different fruits when planning a garden fruit supply. Even if you have a limited amount of space, if you think in terms of using the vertical space around the edges of your plot, you will often find room for a supply of delicious organically grown fruit that you can pick at the peak of it's ripeness and goodness. Pears should always be given a good sunny condition, especially the delicate varieties like Comice. Victoria plums are happy in most places but you can grow fine varieties that you seldom see for sale  like Coe's Golden Drop, against a warm sunny wall. But raspberries and redcurrants are quite happy in relative shade.  My red and white currants are now grown against the north fence of the  chicken run - that's the inside of the fence where the chickens are. I grow them as cordons, (that's basically just a single stem with fruits growing all the way up) and throw a net over them when they are ripening, which I would have to do anyway to keep blackbirds off. I don't find the chickens or the ducks  do much damage, possibly eating the foliage low down, but that just keeps the "leg" clean, - when I've picked as many as I want, or can be bothered with, I  take the net off, it's quite fun watching them jump up to try to get the fruit.

If you don't have the time to devote to a veg garden, do think about trying some home grown fruit, it takes much less time and commitment, and can be acheived in a relatively small amout of space. And when you're tucking into that bowl of home grown raspberries and cream, you'll be glad you did.

No Wonder The Neighbours Think I'm Bonkers

Can you  spot anything odd at the end of my veg garden?

It may just look like a load of bin liners tied to a cherry tree, but, in fact, it's a load of bin liners tied to a cherry tree for bird protection purposes

Once again, it's  time for this year's instalment of Will Kathy Get Any Cherries Or Not. Last year it was definitely Birds one Kathy nil. At the moment the fruits are no more than hard green marbles, but already they are being stripped from the trees. It does seem early even for the birds, and I am suspicious of squirrel activity. I have been experimenting with live catch squirrel traps, so far without success, but my brother in Wales has had great success with his , so I'm going to persevere, and will let you know how I get on.

But to deter the birds I am using the plastic bag technique as in previous years but I will be keeping a careful watch on them too. I have tied bin liners on the branches with the heaviest crop - I have to admit they do look a bit odd, to say the least, but I am determined to get at least some cherries this year.  

I am also trialling a new product (at least it's new to me) made by Agralan products, who are a local company based near here in Ashton Keynes. They sell quite a few green gardening products, so I was quite keen to give them a try. The product is, Buzz Off  and the idea is to stretch a thin plastic line tautly between two points and when the wind catches it, it makes a noise that birds can't stand, and they fly away, hopefully cherry-less. At first I couldn't get it to make any noise at all, but I soon realised you have to have quite long lengths, around 5 yards/metres for it to work, and eventually I was able to detect a kind of whirring noise a bit like distant helicopters. Presumably birds don't like helicopters.

So having set up the lines last night I went out to check the situation this morning, expecting to feel like an extra on the set of Mash (helicopter background, do keep up...) but surprise surprise, there was no wind, not a breath. Boiling hot day, no wind. The plastic bags seem to be ok so far, and when the wind did eventually blow a bit, the lines did work too. In fact it takes very little breeze to set them going. It would be great if this simple measure really made a measurable difference. I wonder if it would work on the strawberry patch?

 I will report back on how effective these measures are. I really would like to get a few cherries this year...

Fruit Tree Blossom

Just had to take this photo of my Bramley apple tree in full flower. I love fruit tree blossom, it would be worth having for the blossom alone, but when you consider you get buckets of fruit in the autumn as well, it makes me wonder why on earth anyone grows the Japanese flowering cherries you see on every street corner. They are lovely in their way of course, but I don't think they're half as pretty as the fruiting varieties, and the scent on this Bramley today was quite delicious. I have to walk past it to get to the greenhouse, and it's a joy.

I have an image in my head now, of everyone in London clogging up the streets in September with wheelbarrows to collect all the free fruit and nuts growing along the roads.

Pears

Have you ever seen Eddie Izzard talking about pears? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hh5a0ucs8kQ
He's so right - you do the test squeezy squeezy thing, and they sit there in the bowl hard as rocks, waiting conspiratorially for you to go out of the room for five minutes, and when you come back in they're black mush.

Pears are the last fruit to ripen in our garden, and I've just picked a large basket full.  This year's crop is good but not overwhelming, but as they simply don't keep in the way that apples do, the pear recipes will have to be rehearsed pretty quick.  They are the one fruit you must pick slightly underripe. If you leave them to ripen on the tree they will go "sleepy"  and before you can say Jack Robinson you will be sitting in a pool of pear puree.

 My tree is a Conference, which in my opinion is much better than its reputation, and is always delicious when home grown and ripened. Pick them all when the tree begins to drop a few windfalls, usually at the end of September or beginning of October depending on the weather. Keep the majority in a cool garage, and bring a supply into the kitchen in dribs and drabs, and they will ripen beautifully. But they won't last indefinately, and you may well need to give some away, or use them us in other ways.  You can make jam with them but I don't care for it much - it can take on a grainy texture if you're not careful. They do bottle very well in a light syrup though if you have some Kilner jars. If you're really snowed under you could incorporate them into a chutney, but I'd have to be very inundated, pear-wise to consider wasting their charms on chutney.

There really is little to beat the joy of eating a ripe pear, with the juice running down your chin.

Pear and Almond Flan

My daughter and I have been making this nice almondy flan topped with plums all through August and September but now we're out of plums I thought  I would see how it does with pears and it's pretty good. You can serve it cold as cake with coffee, but it's much nicer just warm, with thick cream as pudding. Sarah uses ready made shortcrust which is excellent, especially if you're a VBP (Very Busy Person, which she is), but I have time to make my own and this is my usual recipe for sweet shortcrust.

Ingredients

1 pack of butter (8ounces) cold from the fridge
1 pound plain flour

4 oz caster sugar

2 egg yolks

2 eggs

10" metal flan tin

Whizz the butter, flour and sugar in a processor to breadcrumb stage. Add egg and whizz briefly, just enough to combine. You may find it best to tip it into a large bowl to press together with your hands. Don't handle it more than you have to though. Roll it out on a very floury surface, and use to line a metal flan tin. I never rest it or bake it blind, and I don't suffer from either shrinkage or  flabby bottoms. It will only shrink if you over handle and stretch it, and I don't find I  need to bake blind if I use a  loose based metal flan tin, which will conduct the heat evenly and ensure a firm, crispy bottom, which is what we all want. This pastry is good for all sweet flans, custards, lemon tarts and mince pies (there I go again, talking about Christmas in October)..You will only need about half of this amount for the flan but it's a good idea to make extra and freeze it in a slab ready for the the next tart or mince pie session. I always make a good quantity so that I have some in, should an unexpected pastry emergency arise.

Filling

1 pack butter (8 oz) at room temperature

6 ounces caster sugar

8oz ground almonds

few drops of almond essence

2 oz plain flour
2 eggs
2 large conference pears reasonably ripe

Peel and scoop out the core from the pears, and slice.
Whisk together the butter and sugar until pale and light, ( I use a Kitchenaid table mixer), beat in the eggs, add the ground almonds, essence, and flour and briefly combine. Pour into your prepared flan case. Top the flan with the fruit slices, and press gently  in. Bake in a medium  Gas 3 150C oven for about 40-50 minutes. Serve warm with clotted cream.

Do try this with plums or apricots when in season as well.

Life is just a bowl of cherry...

In view of my much vaunted Tesco Plastic Carrier Bag Anti Bird System, I thought I would post a photo of this year's fantastic crop on my Stella cherry tree. Yes, this is the total crop, not an example of a choice fruit, not one of the biggest fruits, but the complete and utter total crop. It's all I was able to find when searching this morning,.. Oh no , tell a lie, the total crop is more like double that at least......

Hmm, well of course it's my own fault, for not keeping an eye on proceedings, and being too busy doing other things, but it's a disappointment, since there were very many more fruits on the tree before the birds got to them. By way of excuse, here is an example of a mere fraction of

my strawberry crop for this year -

so it's not all bad news. Even the Tesco carrier bags can't be expected to do the job on their own, and I should have a) put out more of them, and b) kept a more careful watch on them. So where I had been intending to offer you a lovely recipe for the famous and delicious French cherry pudding Clafoutis Aux Cerises, or in my case Au Cerise, I felt that a single cerise in a large plateful or Clafoutis was going to be a bit heavy on the carbs. I was going to offer the recipe, not because I particularly love it, although it's nice, but because it reminds me of the yorkshire version of it that we used to have as children, which was I suppose Clafoutis Au Rhubarb. My dad used to make a Yorkshire Pudding, strewn with chopped rhubard just as it went into the oven then sprinkled with sugar as it came out, and served with cream or more likely evaporated milk. In fact my dad was quite a fan of batter in general, quite apart from the compulsory Yorkshire Puddings, he often made us apple or banana fritters, - just chunks of fruit dipped in batter, deep fried and sprinkled with sugar, - I think he felt it was good value and filled up three hungry children at little cost, (he was a Yorkshireman after all) the rhubarb being doubly beneficial being a garden crop that was effectively free.

Anyway, to gloss over the lack of cherries, and concentrate on my surfeit of strawberries, I feel I could effectively drown my sorrows with a Strawberry Daiquiri, a delicious if old style summer drink that I thought of when looking for ideas on what to do with strawberries besides ice cream, jam, and well, just eating them. I came across Hugh Fearnley's recipe for Strawberry Granita - as strawberries don't keep very well, you can use up some less than perfect ones (chuck the mouldy ones though) by making his Strawberry Granita and using a scoop of it to make my Strawberry Daiquiri thus ..

1 cup of Strawberry Granita ( basically you put some sweetened strawberry puree in the freezer and when it's nearly frozen solid you scrape it up with a fork to make a kind of strawberry snow)

Half a cup of white rum

Juice of half a lemon or lime

An assortment of umbrellas and other vulgar 50s cocktail decor

If you use Hugh's proper granita you can just stir in the rum and lemon juice and that's all you need to do, apart from drinking it, or if you're using frozen strawberry puree just whizz it all together in a food processor,and tip into suitably 50s style cocktail glasses.

Drink through a straw whilst putting your feet up and enjoying some old Fanny Craddock cooking programmes, ( don't worry you're not required to actually eat any of Fanny's gruesome confections, it's entirely for amusement) or if you're not up to that, Marilyn Monroe in the Seven Year Itch would do as well. Perfect summer entertainment. But then, as must be apparent by now, I am very easily amused.

Strawberries,Clotted Cream and more

Strawberries! I have made strenuous efforts with the strawberry patch this year, after last year's disaster, when I planted out the plants, they duly flowered but we got no strawbs, not a one! I put it down to a plague of rodents, though it may have been birds as well, so this year I have made an impenetrable (I hope) cage of chicken wire and netting, and treated the plants with my favourite nitrogenous fertilizer earlier in the season (diluted urine shock horror - don't tell the neighbours) and regular sprayings of seaweed solution. It's looking good so far with lots of flowers and fruit set.
However, as they are still green and it will be a week or two before we can enjoy them and I happened upon a huge display of half price strawberries in Tesco's yesterday, I decided to buy 8 pounds for only £8 (bargain or what), together with a big bag of sugar, and this morning have made a batch of jam. We had some of the strawbs after dinner last night, and although they were nice enough, I just don't think you can buy strawberries like you can grow. I think they have varieties that are chosen for their long shelf life, and transportability and so on, and not the best tasting ones that you can choose at home. Most of my plants are Cambridge Favourite, and they do taste wonderful (when I get any of course). But I have a mixture of plants from friends and various sources, and they're all lovely when you pick them at the peak of their flavour and ripeness, still warm from the sun, yum.

Here's my jam recipe - I use Certo for strawberry jam, it allows a fast set and so keeps the delicate flavour. I don't use pectin for any other preserves, but I do find it best with strawberries. It's the standard pectin recipe, taken from the Certo website.

Strawberry Jam
2 ¼ lb. Strawberries
3 tbsp Lemon Juice
3 lb. Sugar
½ bottle Certo

1. Prepare the fruit and crush thoroughly. Add the lemon juice and the
sugar.
2. Heat slowly until dissolved, stirring occasionally.
3. Add a small knob of butter or margarine to reduce foaming.
4. Bring quickly to a full rolling boil and boil rapidly for 2 minutes,
stirring occasionally.
5. Remove from the heat and stir in the Certo - skim if necessary.
6. Allow to cool slightly to prevent the fruit from floating. Pot and cover in
the usual way.


And while you're making strawberry jam, you may start to think about eating it, and what better way of eating it than a lovely Devon Cream Tea. I live in Wiltshire now, but I lived in Devon for many years, and when my children were small we used to make family trips to places for Cream Teas and give them marks out of 10. In fact we became quite exacting about it and in the end we had different categories for the scones, jam, cream, tea, service, and even toilet facilities, always an important consideration with small children, (and older ladies, come to think of it....)
Anyway, my daughter has just emailed me for a "proper" scone recipe, so here is my definitive one. I always use Cream of Tartar for scones as I think it gives a better result.

The Ultimate Scone!

one pound self raising flour (about 450gr in euros)
good pinch of salt
*1 heaped teasp bicarbonate of soda
*2 heaped teasps cream of tartar
3 oz caster sugar (about 2 good tablespoons)
3-4 oz butter (about a third of a packet)
about half pint of milk (I think that's about 250ml in modern)
*or you can use about 3 heaped teasps of baking powder instead of these two ingredients

Mix first five ingredients together. Quickly rub in the butter. Stir in the milk to make soft consistency. Press down gently and cut rounds. Bake in very hot oven about 10 mins.

Notes:
The main thing is to handle the flour as little as possible, so you get as little gluten forming as poss(as opposed to breadmaking where you want as much as poss gluten causes the chewiness in bread).

Don't bother using chilled butter as you might in pastry, it rubs in quicker if it's soft so you handle it less. Or whizz it briefly in the food processor

The amount of milk will vary with the absorbency of the flour - you want it very soft, softer than pastry, but firm enough to hold together and not turn into anything like a cake mixture.

Don't bother rolling it out, just pat it with your hand on a generously floured surface, you want it very thick, almost as deep as your scone cutters. I like a floury top so I don't eggwash. You can if you like. Once the liquid is in, the raising agent starts to work, so you need to get them in the oven as quick as you can. If you haven't got some proper cutters, use a sharp knife and cut them into squares. Just as nice, and you don't have no leftover bits to re-cut. Don't use a cup or a glass, sharp cutters really help the rise.

I have a feeling that cream of tartar goes "off" well not really off, but less effective, after a while say a few months so is best used fairly fresh, a good excuse for baking loads of scones!

Storage Because the raising agent only starts to work when it's wet, you can make a bag of the mix and store it in the fridge (or freezer) until you need it. So in true Domestic Goddess fashion you can have a plate of home made scones on the table in 15 mins start to finish. Label the bag (as if you wouldn't) to avoid UFO syndrome (Unidentified Frozen Object). Far quicker than going out to buy some and about a tenth of the price. I've done this and people are amazed!! They don't keep very well, best in a plastic bag for a day or so, but they do freeze very well and refresh in a warm oven in 10 mins or so.

So all you need now is a big (and I mean big) pot of Devon Clotted Cream. There's little in life so dispiriting as a small pot of clotted cream. A Devonian would say you could get away with Cornish cream if it's all you can find, but it's not the same...