Hello Friends,
I always say that gardening New Year starts in October & I'm in good company because Monty Don said exactly the same thing in a recent edition of 'GW'. Although there are still usually last bits to harvest in October, there is absolutely LOADS that can be done to get next year's growing plans underway. Today I thought ahead to next summer's strawberries.
This year's strawberries were very nice, but there weren't enough of them. There never are, & this is because for years, I've been growing them in a designated strawberry tub......which unhelpfully, strawberry plants just don't enjoy living in. Time for a change. I visited a community allotment earlier this year & saw a built up strawberry bed there which gave me an idea. I can't replicate it...... there are no carpentry skills in this house, unless Albert Whiskers has a secret little toolkit we don't know about......but it did give me an idea, so next year, I'll be constructing a new condo for our strawberries. I'll need lots more plants first, though, & as my favourite kind of plants are free ones, I started pegging down strawberry runners this year as soon as they appeared.
I say 'peg', it wasn't even anything that sophisticated. I just pulled the runner over to a neighbouring trough & couple of large pots, made a little dip in the soil & gently pressed the crown of the new plants in.
I snipped the runners & lifted the new plantlets today & found they'd made pretty good root systems.
Definitely worth potting up, as well as this year's plants, which I lifted out of the now defunct strawberry tub. One or two had succumbed to the Evil Weevil. I found a few of the telltale grubs in amongst the old compost, but I just spread it over an empty bed. Our robin will be jumping for joy when he finds those!
I used cut-down recycled yoghurt pots for potting them up, & stood them in shuttle trays so that I can move them around the greenhouse easily. It always surprises me to see these things actually on sale! Who would choose to buy more plastic when most garden centres have a stash of these trays by the tills ready for taking free of charge?
That's 48 new plants potted up to over-winter in the greenhouse, ready for my new strawberry construction thingy when I make it up next spring. It's not all about looking ahead, either. I've enjoyed watching skeins of geese wheeling around overhead as I worked, another sure sign of autumn.
Albert Whiskers joined me in the greenhouse, but his attentions were soon called away to do a spot of border-patrol. Although he has zero interest in my plans for next year's strawberries, that didn't mean any old neighbouring moggy could swan in giving them the eyeball. Hungry Blackie & The Tabster were soon shown the way back through the fence, along with a suggestion that they might like to reverse a bit quicker if they didn't want a bash. Having won that little stand-off (two cats at once, you see), he had to retreat indoors for a bit of a lie-down........
........and he hasn't moved a whisker since!
To all my gardening friends, Happy Gardening New Year! To all those who keep meaning to grow a teensy bit of something or other, plan it now, & then it will be more likely to happen. And if you have a barrel of old crusty-looking strawberry plants which you haven't even watered since you ate the last berry, go & have a look to see if you have any runners to pot up......& treat them better next year!
Back soon,
C x
Hello Campers,
Well, what a humungous crop of apples we've had from our old tree this year, which is good because the pears have been pants, but even the ever-resourceful me is going to struggle to use them all up creatively. The Big Hairy Half of the Relationship went up the ladder brandishing the apple-pole at the weekend, while I stood underneath catching them & loading them into a crate on the wheelbarrow......a very useful crate which had been fly-tipped behind the bottle bank at Waitrose, to be rescued by me (surely I can't be the only person who goes to the recycling banks & then comes home with stuff?)
We stopped when we'd gathered this many. This is only about 1/4 of the crop, & that's without counting all the windfalls I've been picking up over the past month. Back in the kitchen, I went into sort of 'triage' mode. Apples were divvied up into 'ICU' (for using asap....you know, the ones with all the little nibbles out of them, bruises, that kind of thing), then 'Walking wounded'....those which wouldn't keep long-term but are fine to put in the fruit bowl to eat when I fancy one.
They're really nice apples, actually. They cook well, but left to redden, they are also good eaters. It's a big gnarled old tree we inherited when we moved in. I wrapped the best apples for storage. I'd love some of those lovely old wooden apple storage racks but they are such silly money that I always use a budget option for this job. Newspaper!
I just line a crate with newspaper, then making sure each apple is clean & dry, and more importantly, in good condition, I wrap each individual fruit in newspaper. The crate needs to be stored somewhere cool & dry. I've done it this way for a few years & while it's normal for me to find one or two have gone mushy, the majority of them store just fine, meaning that I can eat my way through them or use them for cooking for much longer.
We turned 3lbs of the ICU bucket into brown sauce on Saturday. I've also made blackberry & apple jam, apple chutney, Cranks' apple & ginger chutney (just bubblng on the hob as I type), apple sauce, apple & cinnamon muffins, as well as eating stewed apples with oats for breakfast. Am still aiming to make apple & ginger loaf cake, apple buns, Norwegian apple cake, plenty of apple sauce for the freezer & apple & ginger jam. The Carnivore-in-Chief has also roasted a shoulder of pork on a bed of sliced apples and I've used some in a curry sauce. When I've exhausted all my regular recipes, I shall look for some new ones.
You see, there will be appley endeavours all week.......but our tree still looks like this......
.....there are HEAPS more!
Albert Whiskers hadn't encountered the apple-pole before. He came out to give the proceedings the once-over, but. when he'd established that none of it was going to result in his dinner being plated up any earlier, he soon trotted off for a rest, so as to work up the energy for his Really Big Snooze later on. I have never known such an utterly bone-idle cat!
Nearly bottling time, house smells gorgeous!
Talk to you soon,
C x
Morning Campers!
What a fab sunny day! Definitely no heating going on here anytime soon!
Now onto the heart-racingly exciting topic of courgettes (I know! I might have to have a sit-down in a minute!) If you are a home veggie-grower, you'll know all about the annual courgette glut. The plants go out around late May Bank Holiday & sit there in an impressive sulk for about a month, before deciding to grow......or not. We've had quite a glut of them this year & they haven't quite calmed down yet.
Made this courgette curry yesterday. It's tasty, low calorie & if you grow courgettes, as cheap as chips. If you have a glut of tomatoes too, even better, as you need both.
Here's what you do:
Slice 700g courgettes & 1 large onion. Skin, de-seed & chop 450g tomatoes. Crush 3 cloves garlic. OK, that's all the prep.
Heat 2 tbsp oil in a large pan & sizzle half tsp of cumin seeds & half tsp of black mustard seeds for 30 seconds. Add the onion & garlic & fry until just starting to turn golden. Now add half tsp turmeric, 1 tsp ground cumin, 1 tsp ground coriander, quarter tsp chilli powder & half tsp salt. mix well & continue to fry for a couple of minutes. Next tip in the courgette slices, stir well to coat them with the spices & cook for 5 mins or so.
That's my favourite bit, as they start smelling really good. They should start to cook, but not to burn, so stir them gently now & again so they don't catch. Now add the tomatoes which you prepped earlier, 1 good rounded tbsp of tomato puree & 150ml water. Stir well. Bring to the boil, then reduce heat, cover pan & simmer for about 12 mins, stirring occasionally. Add 1 tsp garam masala, replace lid & simmer for a final 4 or 5 mins. If you have any fresh coriander, you can chop some on top of the curry to serve.
This is really easy to make & freezes well, so if you are at that point where you feel you will actually turn into a striped green vegetable if you have to eat another one anytime soon, you can pop the curry away into the freezer for later in the year. It is good as a healthy side dish, or as a meal in its own right with rice, on a jacket potato or with the garlic flatbread recipe I shared a few posts ago. I think this is quite mild spicing. You can always turn the heat up if you prefer something hotter.....I should do that here, really, as the Bigger Hairier Half of the Relationship is blessed with an asbestos mouth!
There follows, I am surprised to say, a picture of a Genuinely Very Helpful Cat. I've got the cauldron bubbling this morning (apple chutney) & he's generally mithering around under my feet in case his dinner might be coming out 6 hours early. Today however, for the price of precisely 5 'Dreamies', he was content to sit on his blanket & contemplate the meaning of life.
Hope there is some of this autumn sunshine wherever you are, today. Until next time.......& honestly, each time I look at my Blogger stats, I can't believe how many people read my ramblings......
Love from,
C x
Hello Campers,
What a fab afternoon it's turned out to be. Blue sky, sunshine & am regretting throwing my sandals in the wheelie bin last week :-(
Some great pickings this morning......runner beans, more courgettes ('Defender' - shall have to grow this variety again, as they've been nicely prolific & generally un-arsey, unlike some I've grown in recent years), another mug of blackberries to add to my tub in the freezer & an unexpected scallop squash. The most exciting 'picking' today was our first two corn-on-the-cobs.
I know, I know, I'd hardly be excited if I'd popped them in my trolley at the supermarket, would I? But this is the first time we've ever tried growing sweetcorn & it seems to have been successful. I'd heard that there is no corn cob better than one which has been picked & thrown straight into a pan of boiling water & it's true! Really sweet & juicy & we're already planning to grow them again next year.
The only downside to today is how tired I feel, thanks to a certain badly-behaved cat. He rocked up at our bedroom door at 5.30 a.m today clawing & chuntering to be let in. You might think that 5.30 a.m isn't all that early, & it's true, I'm often awake by then, but I'd had very little sleep the previous night.........due to the same badly-behaved cat doing 2 prolonged sessions of door-clawing at around 1 a.m & again at 4 a.m. The 4 a.m shift started with standard clawing, then he became more imaginative. He tried shouldering the door - he's a chunky lad, so that produced a loud 'dumf' each time. He scratched at the door itself, then the door frame as he tried to winkle his claws in between & lever it. All methods having failed, he attempted to tunnel underneath........very noisily, adding a range of cross meows into the mix......for about half an hour without stopping. So that's two useless nights' sleep. Fully expecting to be awoken tonight by tapping on the window & he'll be there, having somehow abseiled off the roof on a length of my patio bunting. Naturally he's lying out on the lawn now like butter wouldn't melt, while I'm sitting here like Mrs Eye-bags. Rubbish!
C x
Hi Friends,
Today's pickings........watercress. Could have harvested more stuff to be honest, but it was wazzing down with rain & I feel like a beanbag in my cagoule. I've already bored everyone with my 'old washing-up bowl' method of growing watercress, so suffice it to say that my old washing-up bowl is still producing, though not as much as earlier in the year. As I could feel the rain running in rivulets down the back of my top, I just picked one bunch.......
......but that's all you need for a small batch of soup, so perfect.
One portion for lunch, two for the freezer & no wasted watercress.
Cat Help: Well, actually, he was GENUINELY helpful today. He helped by staying asleep on the sofa all morning instead of lying smack in the middle of the kitchen floor waiting for the fridge door to open. When he did go out, he did his usual wet weather thing of peering through his cat flap in the back door at the pouring rain.........then begging to be let out of the front! Ever the optimist, he always thinks it will only be raining out the back & the front drive will be dry. Wish you could see his face when he trots out & realises he's made the same old mistake again!
Have a good Friday night, all.
C x
Hello Friends,
Oooh, how much do I love Autumn? Absolutely my favouritest time of year bar none! Now we're back from our camping trip, I need to spend a bit of time each day picking & gathering so as not to waste a single scrap of our home grown harvest. Just a day or two when the weather's hot can mean lovely free organic food going past its best, so I need a boot up the bum.
Today it was chillies. I've already picked & frozen all the jalapenos, as well as a box of hot green Superchilli. The ones I left on the plant are now ripening nicely, so I've snipped all the bright red ones off today & strung them for drying.
It's really easy to do, with a needle & double thread passed through the stalk & feels a bit like making paper chains (which is what we used to do before we spent Oct - Dec fending off the creep of flashing plastic battery-filled tat shipped in from the other side of the world!) Of all the varieties of chilli I've grown so far, this one - Superchilli - has been the easiest, so if any novice growers fancy trying a few chilli plants, I can recommend it. The chillies are not as long as some of the cayenne types, but they are juicy & beautifully glossy.
There are still plenty of green fruits still to ripen, so I've left those on the plants - they should hopefully all be ripe by the end of the month, & if not, no worries, I'll freeze some more green ones. Nothing will be wasted.
The 3rd variety I grew this year....well, that was a new one to me - 'Pot Black' - & they were temperamental. The pack contained 5 seeds & not all of them germinated. I ended up with 2 decent plants. Once they'd decided to grow, they've been quite interesting. As the name suggests, they're a black-fruited variety......
......& they turn scarlet when ripe.
Can't comment on the flavour yet, but they are supposed to be quite a hot variety, so am hoping they'll be great in all sorts of dishes.
How did it get to be the middle of September already? I saw tins of biscuits in a shop last week with Christmas baubles on them, which means that Easter eggs are probably being put out as I type!) I intend to prioritise getting the rest of our fruit & veg in so will be putting a bit of time in every day until the end of the month. Doubtless I shall have plenty of Cat Help - the singularly most UNhelpful 'help' that could ever be offered. Albert Whiskers enjoys helping. I mean, he REALLY does. He went into full helpfulness mode recently when I decided to clear the duckweed out of our pond. I got out everything I needed, turned my back for less than a minute while I put my rubber gloves on, turned round to pick up the fishing net, & this is what I found.........
.......& he was most disgruntled when he was asked to move. He really is the most attention-seeking cat ever!
Another glorious day of sunshine here as soon as that mist had cleared. Hope you're all seeing some rays. Aiming to be back tomorrow.....that's if I haven't disappeared under a ton of windfalls, which I can't rule out.
Until next time,
C x
Hi Friends,
Massively busy time of year for gardeners. If I'm not watering it, feeding it, staking it up & picking it, you can be sure I'm in the kitchen peeling it, chopping it & turning it into tasty things for the months ahead. I have always turned into a sort of greedy squirrel at harvest time, never happier than when the pantry is bursting with colourful jars & bottles of yum. My Nan's old cauldron barely has time to be put away before it's out again.
I first got interested in making chutney in my teens, when my Nan used to use her unripe tomatoes to make her annual green tomato chutney. It was mild, sticky with sugar & sultanas & it went with absolutely everything savoury. Nan lived through times where no food was thrown away, & this definitely applied to green tomatoes! She gave me the recipe, but as I got more confident with preserving, experimenting with more fancy creations, I lost it. Shame, because although there are plenty of recipes for green tomato chutney, I'd have liked to have been able to share 'the One'.
No need to be peeling a ton of green ones at the moment, though. Everything is ripening up & it's red ones all the way! First wodge of the tomato glut went into the cauldron for a Smoky Tomato Chutney. I seem to have been preserving for ever, but the alchemy of it never fails to amaze me...........
You start with this......
.......you simmer it for precisely as long as it takes (no messing about with sugar thermometers & 'setting points' here!) & it turns into this........
..........all ready to be dolloped onto bacon sarnies, sausage cobs, autumn BBQs, whatever you fancy. Everyone seems to like this one. Some people (you know who you are.......I'm kind of thinking around 120 miles down the A1.......) seem almost ridiculously excited to be given a jar...................which is just as well, as if the tomatoes continue ripening at this rate, I may have to make another batch!
Will doubtless be filling more jars next time........when I also have a photo to share of Albert Whiskers being spectacularly unhelpful. Zero change there, then!
Enjoy the last of the Bank Holiday,
C x
Hello Friends,
I haven't managed much time in the greenhouse recently & with a squash now sprawling right across the door meaning I was almost having to climb in, it seemed a good day to get the big girl's pants on, venture in & hack back the jungle.
Was soon trotting back down to the house to fetch colanders & containers for harvesting all the lovely ripe tomatoes that were ready, plus courgettes, scallop squash, jalopeno & superchillies, as well as the first of the runner beans. De-leafed the tomato plants, composted anything which wasn't playing, & generally cut things back to maximise food crops rather than lots of leaf. The cucumber plants have reached that stage where they want to frizzle up & succumb to red spider mite more than they want to provide their hard-working humans with actual cucumbers. I've chopped off a bucket full of manky bits (technical term), & am intending to give them a dose of seaweed once the sun's gone down, I think they will perk up.
The rest of the veggie garden isn't doing too badly. We haven't grown sweetcorn before, but having split one of our big raised beds between that & runner beans, both seem to be doing well. The corn cobs are forming & the flowers seem to be spraying pollen around like mad. The Bigger Hairier Half of the Relationship is intending on lifting a few of his maincrop potatoes this week to see how 'ready' they are & I've got new sowings of spring onions & lettuce to extend our salad-picking for as long as possible.
Now, I promised a couple of people I'd share my recipe for garlic flat breads. I've mentioned before that we aim to be a zero food-waste household, so I like recipes which use up ingredients that sometimes lurk in the fridge till they are past their best. These flat breads are great for using up surplus milk (even if it's on the turn) & those half lemons which get carefully stored in a container only to turn up two weeks later too sad & dry to yield any juice.
Garlic flat breads
400g self-raising flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 garlic cloves
Half a pint of milk
Half a lemon
An hour before you want to make these, put your milk in a bowl or jug & squeeze in the juice of the half lemon. Give it a good stir, pop a saucer or something over it & leave at room temperature. By the time you want to use it, it will look thicker, a bit like yoghurt or buttermilk.
Grease a griddle or large non-stick frying pan with oil.
Sift the flour, baking powder & salt into a bowl & make a well in the middle. Crush the garlic into the milk/lemon juice mixture, then pour most of it into the dry ingredients. Mix it in until it will form into soft ball of dough. If it is too dry, add the last bit of the milk/lemon mixture, if it's too sloppy, chuck in some more flour. Turn it out onto a floured surface & divide into 8 pieces. Roll each piece into a rough oval shape. (You're aiming for something around the size of a modest pitta, not a massive naan bread).
Heat the griddle pan & cook each flat bread for around 2 to 3 mins on each side. They are easy to lift, so you can have a peep underneath to see if they're getting brown. When they are looking & smelling distinctly tempting, that's usually time to flip them over (I use Great Great Aunt Bessie's ancient palette knife!) & to cook the other side. I can fit two at a time in our frying pan, so they don't take long. Have a clean tea-towel by your side to wrap the cooked ones so that they'll stay hot while you do the rest.
Then enjoy! We like these with curry, but they'd go with pretty much anything & are a great way of stretching a meal if you suddenly have extra bodies to feed. They cost just pence to make & are very more-ish. If you are as evangelical about using up leftovers as I am, you will also experience that smug glow of virtue for having used up surplus or 'past its date' milk & the half lemon that you bought last month when you thought you might do a daily liver cleanse but then discovered the health benefits of cava & crisps!
Albert Whiskers has calmed down this month. Whatever the Cat Turf War on our street was, it seems to have sorted itself out now. He got a clean bill of health at the vet when he went for his annual check-up & boosters. He purred the whole time he was there! So far, the range of his August activities has run the whole gamut from this.........
.............. to this...........
........so thoroughly earning his keep, as usual!
Hope you're all enjoying this scrummy sunshine.
Till next time,
C x
Good Morning Campers!
Wish I WAS camping.......a glorious week of weather & not a tent flap in sight!
I spent yesterday morning in the broad bean patch, picking the last of the crop (which would have been 4 times bigger had the local sparrow army not decided to hold a 'Who can peck off the most bean flowers in the shortest time' contest). I remember the first time I ever tasted a broad bean. As a very small child, I spent a week with Grandma as a break from my new baby sister (with hindsight, they were probably all having a break from me) Grandma gave me a home-grown broad bean to try & I thought it was one of the most disgusting things I had ever tasted. Now, of course, I love them & will be growing them every year.
I picked the last few beans & podded them over a coffee on our courtyard, then went back to clear the bean patch ready for sowing baby turnips. The plants were as tall as me (not difficult!) & it was only in pulling them all out that I realised what a great little wildlife area it had been - a mini-safari.
First, I noticed how many ladybirds there were. I hadn't really seen many this year, but the greengage tree, which overhangs the bean bed, has aphids, so the ladybirds have moved in to dine in style. All the ladybirds were different......(Albert Whiskers photo-bombed this picture. I made the mistake of rattling the chicken manure pellets & he instantly appeared in the hope of 'Dreamies').......
............including this big lad below.......
....who looked like he'd already eaten all the aphid pies. Could he be a Harlequin? I don't know.
Then, a few plants later, who turned up but this beauty?
I assume this is a moth caterpillar. It certainly isn't the green caterpillar of the small white butterfly. I'm well up on them, having experienced what their robbing gobs can do to a row of cabbages! The photo doesn't really do justice to the chevron markings in different shades of green.
Well, I'd just about got all the beans out by this point, but under the watchful eye of the critter in this next picture. Can you spot her?
Wood pigeon nest! She watched me the whole time, but didn't once leave the nest, not even when I was trying to wrestle a polytunnel over the newly sown turnips. This is a later nest, as we've had one up behind the pear tree again this year, too.
Later, I popped back down to the shed to clear up & there was a distinct drumming noise from the shed roof. Der-dum, der-dum, der-DUM........ Most odd. Too rhythmic for it to be apples falling off. Assumed (like most weird noises around here) that it would be cat-related. I went out to have a look & disturbed the culprit - a large sparrowhawk using our shed roof as a plucking-post. Enough to send Chris Packham into a frenzy of trouser-rubbing! It flew off when it saw me, lunch firmly between its claws. I don't like to think of 'our' sparrows being prey, but that's nature, & I'd be lying if I didn't just slightly hope that the victim was the Chief Bean Flower Scoffer. I quite regularly see a sparrowhawk in the garden, so assume they nest nearby. I had already found part of a wing & plucking evidence earlier this week & would normally have blamed Albert Whiskers, but he is a very lazy cat & he was also at the vet at the time the 'evidence' appeared, so he's off the hook on this occasion.
So that's the broad beans finished & out, & the baby turnips sown. Everything else cropping reasonably well.
Anyone out there who thinks it's too late to sow any food.......it isn't! You can still sow all manner of lettuce & salady stuff, spring onions, beetroot, turnips, radishes & some of the oriental stir-fry greens. Tastes better if you've grown it yourself, honest!
Till next time,
C x
Hello Campers,
Well, I've had a very pleasant afternoon making hot pineapple chutney & I thought I'd kick in my recipe in case anyone else has any hot pineapples going spare or a boring sandwich which needs some summer sparkle.
I have a world mango shortage to thank for the creation of this recipe. A couple of years ago, I really fancied making some mango chutney. Our local market always has them, so but on this occasion it was completely mango-less. Tried two supermarkets. Nope! I didn't find out until a few days later that there had been some sort of a problem with a big mango crop & imports had been much reduced.
Anyway, the Big Hairy Half of the Relationship suggested I use pineapples instead. I snottily replied that they'd be a fat lot of use in MANGO chutney & stomped past a market stall positively heaped with pineappley loveliness before deciding that I'd give it a go. And having now refined the recipe further, it's good stuff! Here it is, in case anyone fancies having a go:
Hot pineapple chutney
4 pineapples (you need about 5lbs of chopped flesh after peeling & coring)
1kg cooking apples
900g white granulated sugar
350g onions
3 garlic cloves
50g fresh root ginger
4 -6 scotch bonnet chillies (or other habenero type)
2 level tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground allspice
1200ml white wine vinegar
(Makes about 6 or 7lbs)
Put your preserving pan next to the chopping board & prep all the ingredients straight into it, as this saves on faffing around & washing-up. Peel & core the pineapples & chop them roughly into 2cm pieces. Peel & roughly chop the onions. Finely chop the garlic. Get the rubber gloves out for de-seeding & chopping the chillies, as Scotch bonnets are fiery beasts, but have a great flavour. Peel & finely chop the root ginger. Peel, core & roughly chop the apples. If they start going brown as you're adding them to the pan, just pour over the vinegar. Add the spices & salt. You've now go everything in the pan EXCEPT THE SUGAR which is correct!
Bring the pan to the boil, then reduce the heat to simmer for 20 mins so the fruit begins to soften.
(This will give you time to wash your jars in hot soapy water & get them in a low oven to sterilise)
Now add the sugar & stir until dissolved. Bring the pan to the boil, reduce heat to a steady simmer & cook, uncovered, for around an hour & a half. Stir it every now & again to prevent it sticking. When any spare liquid on the top can be stirred in, & it is thick & sticky, it is time for bottling. Don't overcook it, as it continues to thicken a little on cooling & storing.
Then bottle as usual in hot sterilised jars. Have a clean cloth wrung out in very hot water to clean up the tops of the jars, then seal asap with clean lids.
This quantity made 7 jars & a taster-pot today. Just a note about the chillies - I use the Caribbean varieties of chillies for this recipe - scotch bonnet or similar habanero-types. They are very hot, but have a distinctive flavour in comparison with other hot chillies, such as the more usual cayenne types. I grew scotch bonnets a couple of years ago in our greenhouse & I've used up the last of the crop from the freezer today in this recipe. I used 6 of them, varying sizes. The biggest was the shape & size of a large strawberry, the others were smaller. I de-seeded them all (with my hands encased in matron's gloves!). I love spicy food, but there is only one inhabitant of 'The People & Cats Republic' in possession of an asbestos mouth & it isn't me or Albert Whiskers! If you don't like a hot chutney, then replace the scotch bonnets with a milder chilli variety, or just make something else.
This chutney is fine to eat straight away (which is just as well as the Big Hairy Half has been DIGGING IN WITH A SPOON!!) but like all such preserves, will mellow after even a month of storage.
Oh well, time to go & see what Albert Whiskers is up to......he hasn't wandered far from the back garden since coming home with a bitten ear this week. Unusual for him to be so sensible!
Till next time....enjoy the sun,
C x
Hello Friends,
Our furred friend Albert Whiskers has now been with us here at 'Hagstones' for two years. I thought it was three. That's the thing about Albert Whiskers. You soon feel you have known him forever.
He still looks pretty rough, doesn't he? He's very good natured, though, on the whole, despite the occasional chomp of his humans (not usually me!) which is for bowl-filling or general attention-seeking purposes. His behaviour hasn't really improved. Still arguably the worst behaved cat we've ever had. As if last night's tropical temperatures were not difficult enough to sleep in, I also had to contend with a 3 a.m meow-fest from the front drive, as he obviously decided it was far too hot to waste energy going round the back to enter via his own door!
I'm afraid Albert Whiskers has stayed out all night for the last 3 days. It's unusual for him. He likes his bed & the chance of a few 'Dreamies' while he's watching TV. The last few nights have seen him taking up position smack in the middle of the pavement at the end of our drive guarding his property as if his life depended on it. I assumed it was a new phase of local cat turf wars, but wasn't aware of any new cats recently.....particularly none that would bother our own large rugged lad. The neighbourhood moggies are:
- Taz - Small young black & white. An irritant & gets the occasional chase or bash, but no threat.
- Abbie - Teeny tiny brindle tortie. Threat level minus 3. Her human has complained about Albert Whiskers helping himself to Abbie's 'Whiskas' & hissing at her when she tried to get some of her own food!
-Big Grey Fluffy - Must be quite old now as he was on the scene years ago when we still had Willow. Siegfried's old sparring partner. Looks huge but most of it's wobble & fur. AW likes to know what he's up to, but no apparent conflict at present.
-The Tabster - Not bothered about him.
-Little Tabby Pink Collar - Not bothered about her.
-Hungry Blackie - Not bothered about him UNLESS the hanging around the kitchen door hoping for scraps tips over into taking the p*ss.
-Limpy Ginge - Really cute smallish ginger & white. Have horrible feeling Albert Whiskers may be implicated in the 'limp'. No threat.
-Tabby White Paws -Last big turf war was with TWP.Last seen rolling around the road with AW, locked in combat, screeching fit to wake the dead. Was soundly vanquished (Albert was chuffed with that one!) & has not been seen since.
-Splodgy - Not really bothered about scrapping. Chief concern is stealth raids through cat flaps belonging to others & robbing food. Only seen 3 or 4 times a year.
-Big tabby from further down the road - Looks like he might be handy, but never actually ventures further than his own gatepost.
So that was the puzzle. No-one of any threat to Albert Whiskers, yet every night he has been taking up position, wired like a sentry, waiting for whatever or whoever it is. I happened to peep around the bedroom curtains a couple of nights ago & that solved the mystery. Albert sitting up on the wall while a dark shadow padded down the street...........Genghis!! I'd forgotten about him. This cat is a local legend. I can go for months without seeing him, but he always reappears. He is a large, lean, but muscled black Tomcat. From the size of him & particularly the width of his head, I'd guess he's still very much in possession of his love-nuggets. His territory is extensive. I've seen him at the far southern end of our village, as well as our 'town' end & he is also known to wander the edge of town on the other side of the roundabout. That's a busy junction with a major A-road, so I assume he crosses underneath, using the subway. I know there have been feral cats/kittens in the village & wonder how many of them have been sired by this big wandering boy. I have never seen him sitting down or standing still. He roams constantly. He's always on the move, not rushing anywhere, but silently, purposefully. It's most noticeable when I've seen him coming up or down the old A46 Fosse Way. It has a narrow pavement on its far side & he will have his head lowered, looking straight ahead, putting one paw in front of the other, just walking. He's crossed our garden on several occasions. I have tried to get a closer look at him to see what condition he's in, but he doesn't welcome human contact. He would run away from Siegfried, but Siegfried lived a similar lifestyle for many years & no sensible cat, whether feral or otherwise tended to take him on willingly. I hadn't seen Genghis for ages, & wasn't aware that Albert Whiskers had even met him, but seeing his black shadowy form padding past our house the other night while Albert watched from just out of reach, explained why our own ex-street cat boy is on permanent nocturnal watch. I don't know where Genghis came from, whether he ever had a proper home or if anyone ever puts any food out for him. He is a good size. He's probably a crack hunter. I guess that the only thing that would change his lifestyle is trapping & neutering. That would probably not be easy. Part of the legend of Genghis is that he is only rarely seen & never in the same place as last time. Long may he prosper! (And there will always be a spare dinner at our door if he ever turns up in need of one).
So that's the tale of how Albert Whiskers came to be (hopefully temporarily!) a nocturnal guard cat.
Hope you are loving the summer weather.
Till next time,
C x
Hello Friends,
Well, there won't be any vampires stopping by at the People & Cats Republic tonight! If any tall, fanged, black cloaked individuals are thinking of flying by for a sneaky chomp of neck, they are going to find themselves well & truly repelled. Oh yes! You see, we have grown rather a lot of this......
........ & with the help of this.........
I've turned some of it into Garlic Pickle. It's an interesting preserve, this one. It's not the pickled whole cloves of garlic which appear in delis, along with the olives & sundried tomatoes. It's a sticky, quite spicy, very pungent preserve, almost jam-like in consistency. It's not difficult to make - maybe easier if you have some experience with preserves, as it'd be easy to overcook (garlic toffee, anyone?). The worst part is peeling 250g of individual garlic cloves, because that's quite a lot.
Put some good music on & just crack on with it. (Don't listen to the latest on the Tory leadership bunfight like I did........perfectly horrid way to spend more than a nano-second of my time but had got too garlicky to tackle changing the station). No need to chop the peeled cloves by hand. They can be speedily zizzed up in a gizmo. Then everything just goes into a large pan. It's quite a flavoursome mix of ingredients - mustard seed, fenugreek, lemon juice, cayenne, cumin seed, turmeric, as well as a bit of salt, some oil & sugar - & it just needs a fast simmer until thick & ready for bottling.
It even LOOKS stinky, doesn't it? Well, I can tell you that this pan of gloop made 5 small jars of pickle, which are currently sealed, labelled & cooling on top of the freezer...........
......but they won't be for long. Emma Macdonald, the author of this recipe book, suggests that it is nice used very thinly as a savoury spread on hot toast (a bit like 'Marmite'). I've tried that, & it's very nice.......................as long as you are not thinking of actually exhaling anywhere within a 20 mile-radius of any other life-form for the next 2 months. Yes, this stuff could fell an ox. It could fell a field of oxen. It could probably fell the field too. The Bigger Hairier Half of the Relationship, however (could you see where this was going?), is seriously in love with this stuff & will eat it on anything & everything, as well as straight out of the jar on a spoon! There may JUST be some of this batch left by the end of July (but only because I've told him that peeling all the garlic took me AGES & he's to make it last!). I'll be astounded if there is anything left by the end of August.
As for my trusty furred helper, Albert Whiskers, he's made himself scarce today. Suspect the fumes from the Evil Pan were making his fur & whiskers curl, but he'll be back when his cavernous tummy starts rumbling!
Cheers,
C x
