Mid Merlot Harvest

So many backlogged blogs remain stubbornly in my mind and not on the page. Since returning from Italy we have been inundated with crops to process, at present the vines are the priority, and not just our own harvest but we seem to be collecting other growers grape excesses via our local Freecycle. (Luckily, we have also received help with additional equipement by the same route).
So, the kitchen has become a cross between a modern laboratory and a witches' cauldon, with bins bubbling with fermentation and large pots steaming with sauces, jams and chutneys due to the tomato glut (next blog). Fruit flies abound, but hopefully have been kept out of the brews, as with all brewing, cleanliness is next to goodly-ness! In haste, more soon.

Mixed and Muddled Messages (and Sarah Palin)

It would be laudable to write a blog with a single theme, one coherent message, a dedication to a sole subject, but my life never seems to be that simple. Instead I am multi-tasking and I feel like some Earth Warrior Mother, a many-armed Durga with spade, ladle, watering can, basket and magic wand in hands. And, of course, because I have no time for myself, I’m waking each morning inspired with ideas, imaginative goals and creative projects so numerous, that if I don’t find a few minutes at least to write these down I’m going to have trouble even remembering them, never mind fulfilling them. I want to make collage, paint, photograph, read, explore but instead I must gather, preserve, dig, cut and cook. I start one job, only to be distracted by another and so on all day long until by bedtime (or more correctly blog-time) I’m surrounded by a maze of half completed tasks to unravel. And my mind is similarly tattered, hence rambling subjects here tonight. August for a self-sufficient dreamer is Hell!
There is an expression in English, “to carry coals to Newcastle” this city being the main supplier in the 19th Century. In other words, a redundant enterprise and quite pointless. So blogging today’s lunch recipe of green fried tomatoes for my audience of mainly Americans would be the equivalent. Anyway, the Internet is fully loaded in this regard, or else, find the recipe at the back of Fannie Flagg’s book. But for anyone who hasn’t tried this Southern treat, I recommend it. Better than chips or French fries, but in that ballpark (to keep the analogy Stateside), certainly no diet food and better, just occasionally, for that. Is there anything more rewarding than upturning a barrel of new potatoes with it’s secret hoards spilling out into the previously concealed sunlight? I don’t think so. And then there’s the taste, heavenly. These are the moments for which one gives up all those painterly pursuits.
See, there is another subject; Sage Elixia, see above in bottle, it will have to wait, another time.

I’m so pleased that the British (and friends) have at last joined the debate to counteract the appalling propaganda by the American right on the National Health Service on Twitter #welovethenhs. At last, some truth from the people who have first hand knowledge. I can’t express the disgust that has been prevalent this side of the pond in what has been argued by people like Sarah Palin and the others with axes to grind and vested interests to protect. This type of mis-information is closer to Stalin's reign of terror than a modern democracy. (as I speak #welovethenhs is under attack from the right, spamming and swamping, they have a bot in charge, one would like to think that a robot was all they could find to support the case, these people are really running scared!)

Major Marshall’s Chutney: (Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end, but it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning)

Each day this week we’ve hit the ground running, no early morning chats putting the world to rights over a leisurely cup of tea in bed, no checking over-night e.mails and responding, no singing in shower, just straight to work on the harvest. The last Early River’s plum chutney is made and it’s my personal favourite, Major Marshall’s Chutney. Slightly more Indian than Anglo-Indian, a touch of the Raj brought home, one imagines, by an officer suffering sub-continent gastronomic withdrawal, but with only English summer garden produce to hand and perhaps a campaign chest of spices.

Major Marshall’s Chutney

6-8 lbs Plums stoned and halved
Pickling Spice (see below)
2 lbs red onions
2 lbs red tomatoes –skinned (green are good too –un-skinned)
1 ½ pints of red wine vinegar
2 lbs tart apples
1 lb dried apricots
1 lb golden syrup (one 450gms tin)
1½ lbs Demerara sugar
1-2 tablespoon tomato puree
6 tablespoons pickling salt

Picking Spice
½ teaspoon anise seeds (optional)
10 allspice berries
1 teaspoon of dried garlic (or four or five whole fresh cloves)
6 thin slices of fresh fat ginger
6 bay leaves
8 green cardamoms roughly crushed
6 dried chillies or 2 teaspoons chilli powder
2 two inch lengths of rolled cinnamon
6 cloves
2 tablespoons coriander seeds
2 tablespoons dried methi (fenugreek leaves) optional but good
1 teaspoon fennel seeds
2 whole mace blades
2 teaspoons mustard seeds
15-20 mixed peppercorns
Muslin to wrap all the spices and tie in a bundle (faggot or bouquet garnis)

Mince the onions, tomatoes and apples in blender to rough chop. Mince the apricots to fine chop. Add all the fruit to very large pickling pot or kettle and add rest of ingredients. Add spices in muslin faggot. Cook on moderate heat until well-reduced and makes a furrow on the surface with a wooden spoon. You may need to check spicing for heat and strength and remove faggot when personal taste has been acheived. Bottle in sterilised jars. Ready immediately if you, like me, can’t resist, but will age nicely for months to come and only get better. Good with everything!
I’m afraid the rest of the story is in pictures only until I have time to write with poise, I leave you caught red handed!


Enough to start my own shop?

Plum Jam on the go.

Plum Wine starting to ferment.

Early Transparent Gages - next on the list!

Plum-full of Plums

Another day at the plum-face, the kids returned and were immediately sent down the mines, where they picked, shoveled and carted the red gold, working alongside the nearby bees and butterflies harvesting their own winter fuel. Many hands made littler work and by nightfall we had 60lbs weighed up, halved, mashed and ready to ferment. Unfortunately, this seems not to have made the smallest dent on the quantity still available on the tree. Is this some sort of endless ‘Jack and Beanstalk’ trick? The kids have a gig tomorrow night, so sadly, no more child (-ish) labour available, a shame we had a laugh, helped along by last year's plum wine laced with brandy, wild stories and dirty jokes. I’m fast running out of plumy ideas and recipes. May have to advertise for takers.



Escaped the conveyor belt production line and came up for air just long enough to cook beautiful borlotti beans and pasta feast for the comrade workers.

Tuscan Plum Tart and Other Miscellaneous Plum Madness

I’m almost too tired to type. So far this ‘Early River’s Prolific Week’ I have made 20 lbs of 62% fruit/38% sugar Plum Jam, five litres of Plum Gin, 30 bottles of Old Dower House Plum Chutney, 20 bottles of Old Fashioned Plum and Beetroot Chutney, three Tuscan Plum Tarts, hence this post. I’ve been asked to publish this recipe, went down a storm at L’s birthday picnic last weekend.

Tuscan Plum Tart (taken from Darina Allan’s Ballymaloe Cookery Course)

7-10 oz sugar
4-5 fl oz water (I use Plum Wine but water is fine)

2lbs Plums
5 oz soft butter
5 oz vanilla sugar (homemade is cheaper and easy) or plain sugar will happily do
8 oz self-raising flour
3 free-range eggs

one 10inch sauté pan or cast-iron frying pan

Preheat oven to 170c/325F/Gas 3
Put sugar and water into pan and boil over medium heat to caramelise until golden. Leave to cool and set.

Halve and stone plums and lay cut side on set and cool caramel in a single tight layer.

Put butter, vanilla sugar, flour into mixer and wiz, add eggs and stop as soon as smooth. Spoon over plums evenly.

Bake carefully for an hour, testing centre for firmness, sides should shrink a little from edge of pan. Cool for 4-5 minutes, invert onto plate. (I sometimes prick the sponge through the plum stickiness and drizzle with a spoonful or two of Plum Gin for extra yumminess). Finish, enjoy!

Tomorrow, it’s Plum Wine Day, another 60 lbs to stone for 20 litres of wine. (Thank God ‘River’s’ is a free stone). Two more heavily laden gage trees to go.
Below, Blackberry and Black Peppermint Sorbet freezer bound and bottles and sugar queuing up for processing by the kitchen door.

The Plum of Life - Sweeter the Older it Grows

It’s been a strange week. Swine flu is sweeping London, sadly with more fatalities than expected, which puts in mind questions of life and death, making the most of what one has, maybe even daring to think of precious times one can lose. It’s also been a week for looking back, I fear I might be the last person on earth to discover Friends Reunited and in doing so, and at last being reunited, I feel some things never change, for instance, I seem to still be bucking authority, will I never grow up, and do I really want to?
Tonight we consoled ourselves with fine wine and dining, fiddling as Paris burns perhaps (coincidently, Dan ‘s combo is called Nero, I must suggest this as an upcoming album title!).

This recipe uses everything fresh and seasonal from the garden.

Duck Legs with Drunken Plums
Tablespoon of olive oil
1 teaspoon of balsamic vinegar
4 large duck legs
2 ounces of speck /pancetta
2 tablespoons of minced herbs : rosemary, sage, thyme and winter savory if available.
2 teaspoons of herb salt (homemade mix of celery seed, lovage seed and fennel seed ground in a little salt is good)
12 new shallots
2 small new leeks
12 large juicy plums
1 bay leaf
2 cups of Prosecco or dry wine wine
1 shot of Brandy or Grappa
1 cup of chicken stock

Marinade the skinned and de-tendoned (is that a word?) legs in a mix of oil, vinegar, herbs and herb salt for a day. Fry speck, shallots, and leeks carefully not to brown too much, followed by the drained and dried legs. Remove and keep warm. Deglaze with the strained marinade, brandy and wine. Add chicken stock and return duck and vegetables to the pot adding plums. Cook in very slow oven for two to three hours. Enjoy (while you still can!) with Barolo or a nice Barbera D'Asti and a side of podded baby broad beans. Wishing you all good health in these infectious times.

Above plum 'Early Rivers' photo taken two or three weeks ago. Early Rivers (Rivers' Early Prolific) is a small, deep purple skinned plum with a golden-yellow coloured flesh. It has a very rich flavour, and can be used for both eating and cooking, making an excellent flavoured jam. The plum can be a little sharp early in the season, but as it becomes very ripe it becomes very sweet.
Raised in Sawbridgeworth, first introduced in 1830

Oh to be in England now that fruit time’s here.

While the populous prepares for summer holidays abroad; sweetness abounds in the kitchen gardens and allotments of England. It’s fruit time and whether it is our climate or latitude, lack of distance traveled or old varieties grown, there is nothing like it available though out the year from the supermarket. Soon, I will wake each morning and tipsy-toe through the dewy orchard grass to pick my breakfast apple. Firstly, in August, the early super-sweet Worcester-types of Discovery and Pearmain, then later the sub-sweet and crispy Laxton's Superb and Ashmead's Kernal (developing nicely above) and as the earth grows cooler under foot the strongly individual Pitmaston Pine Apple.

July brings abundant soft fruit. I grow five varieties of gooseberries and have inherited a jostaberry patch (a cross between a gooseberry and a black currant) at the allotment. I start thinning by picking in June, allowing these early sour fruits to be used for preserves and stewed for dessert concoctions. Sweet pickled green gooseberries are wonderful with lamb. My family and friends are all too familiar with my favourite leg of lamb recipe, La Coscia della Sposa or the Bride’s Thigh, a marathon of three day marinating and massaging (hence the bride's thigh), short wood smoking and slow cooking resulting in butter-tender, aromatic meat, which I serve with said gooseberries and a rich meaty redcurrant gravy. An easy (ish) version of this recipe can be found in Marlena De Blasi’s Regional Foods of Southern Italy.

I had the fortune, in the allotment stakes, to be neighbours with Jack, a brilliant and intuitive vegetable gardener, who grows the most delicious currants, and who slightly madly doesn’t like to eat them! His loss is my bonanza through his generosity. He is great company, a good teacher of technique and his fennel is the best, succulent and delicious. Using his raspberries, I made the sorbet recipe below, Jack: “you have them, I don’t like the pips” I’ll make him some High Summer Fruit Spreading Jelly in return, recipe below.

As a child, summer meant ‘pop’ through a straw. Both of the following recipes include small amounts of pop instead of water, because I find they impart that summer taste from childhood. I can’t drink modern pops, too sweet, surely the sugar industry has been lobbying the drinks companies, or is it my imagination that these lovable nectars have become ultra sticky since my 1950’s memories.

Finally, a quick mention of fruit alcohol, as it is tasting time for the 2008 brews. Last year I made cider for the first time and then promptly forgot about it, a good move as it turns out. While entertaining some cider-loving friends from Devon, I remembered the bottles and our guests were impressed by it’s quality, ( here I'm pausing to puff my chest out with pride) it's complexity and (get this) it's sophisicated taste. I just wish I could remember how I made it! We have also been polishing off the 2008 Merlot, not a keeping year as the fruit never developed the sweetness required, but easily quaffable.

By the way, an apology, my recipes are always in mixed measurements, metric, imperial and the useful American cup, can never decide on just one unit which must make following both frustrating and infuriating!

Raspberry Sorbet
One kilo soft ripe raspberries
One cup of Barr’s Soda Cream With A Twist Of Raspberry
Poach very ripe raspberries until they turn to juice.
Add two tablespoons of Cassis or Kircsh to the well-sieved liquor
Pour into ice cream churner. Refrigerate.

High Summer Fruit Bread and Butter Jelly
Half a kilo very ripe raspberries
Half a kilo red and white currants
Half a kilo mixed other red juicy summer fruits (I used ripe cherries, gooseberries, plums, jostaberries and strawberries)
Two cups of Barr’s Dandelion and Burdock
Two large leaves of Borage
One teaspoon raspberry balsamic (optional)
Poach all the above ingredients (except balsamic) until all turns to juice. Turn into jelly bag and strain (don’t be tempted to squeeze bag) Measure liquor (should be about a litre) and add sugar to taste (approx 12/14 ozs ie 60% fruit juice to 40% sugar depending on sweetness of fruit for a sweet/acid balance) Add balsamic. Bring to a rolling boil for a minute or two. This should reach setting point within that time due to the lack of water used. Bottle in sterilised jars. Spread on real bread and butter. Enjoy, sitting out under blue skies.

The No-Mow Lawn

There are certain times of the year when we take a break from mowing. In Spring when the bulbs are flowering under the orchard we mow meandering paths through the lush glass and nodding heads of daffodils. Then it's full stream ahead with our lithium battery mower until the end of May, while the grass grows as fast as the blades can whirl. If we are lucky to experience a hot and dry June like this year, we retire to the terrace with the cocktail shaker and admire the lawn weeds, that come into flower under the baking sun. Bird's-foot-trefoil, red and white clover, hardy geraniums, ox-eye daisies, self-heal, wild thyme, speedwell, scarlet pimpernel, harebell, willow herb, lady's mantle, everlasting pea, red champion and ragged robin have all made our lawn less grass more meadow. In fact everything a well kept lawn shouldn't be, but the bees love it and so we excuse ourselves on their behalf!

Soft fruit blog soon, along with the best Raspberry Sorbet recipe ever, a promise! One added benefit to a no-mow lawn, Nick has time to manicure the vines.

Lazy Blogger, Busy Gardener, Glorious May!

This post is an apology for not finding the time to blog properly and a thank you for all your kind comments that have, unforgivingly, gone unanswered recently. I love the month of May. We've been eating al fresco, without the annoyance of high summer wasps, driving with the top down, rediscovering summer shorts at the back of wardrobe, lazing under parasols with the Sunday papers and everything in the garden is, literally, rosy! The vegetable garden is on the verge of being magnificent, which I've photographed and will be posting soon (feeling particularly chuffed about managing single headedly this year) and we stand a good chance of being self sufficient by June. So, just a few photographs of the garden flowers to tide you over until I can give you my full and undivided attention, in the meantime, I hope you are enjoying your own variety of "that lusty month of May"

Spring Has Sprung

My birthday is on the first day of Spring. I was serenaded each teenage birthday, causing typical youthful embarrassment, by my Dad singing Harry Secombe’s ‘If I ruled the world, ev'ry day would be the first day of spring, ...’ in his sweetheart tenor voice, oh, how I miss it now. Nick and Dan once made me a fabulous birthday card, the surface made of Astroturf with carefully wrought springs bobbing up and down with paper birds, inside this verse,
Spring has sprung
The grass has ris
I wonder were those birdies is
Some say the birds are on the wing
but that’s absurd
the wing is on the bird.
There is something so glorious about receiving a card, hand crafted, just for you… and clever to boot!
This weekend I feel Spring is nearly here, it gladdens the heart. There are snowdrops under the apple trees and my neighbour’s orchard is festooned with crocuses. I read long ago, that one is most happy and content at the same time of year when one was born. Maybe that’s why Nick wants to grow grapes for the harvest time, his birthday, and I’m transported by a simple vase of daffodils?