C's BBQ Pear Sauce

Hello Friends,
I've finally sat down with a pretty horrible cup of tea to catch up with my blog & hopefully let the Eau de Vinegar from this morning's efforts evaporate from my person. Albert Whiskers is fed up with it settling into his fur & has stomped off through the cat flap to smell the flowers.

We have another pear glut here at the People & Cats Republic. So far, (aside from eating them simply as fresh fruit), I've baked two pear & cinnamon loaf cakes, made blackberry & pear compote, a crumble base & ten jars of pear & blackberry jam. As I've achieved this mainly just from picking up windfalls, our pear tree still looks like this:

So this morning, I've made a batch of my BBQ Pear Sauce. I came up with this recipe last time we had a glut of pears & the Bigger Hairier Half of the Relationship loved it. I thought it needed tweaking slightly, so here is the recipe with the tweaks, which were just to intensify the flavours a little where I thought this was needed. It's my own recipe, so I'm happy to share it, although it's always nice to get the credit (if it turns out nicely.....if not, you can blame it on whoever you like!)
You don't need much kit - a large pan with a lid (I used our big stock pot), a wooden spoon, a sieve, a large bowl, a jug & some jam jars with lids, which you need to wash thoroughly then lay in a roasting tin or similar ready to sterilize. If you want to get all fancy pants, you could add a spatula. Oh, & a stick blender or liquidiser. 

C's Pear BBQ Sauce
Ingredients
3lbs pears
1lb onions
8 large garlic cloves
A piece of root ginger (about 5 cms x 2 cms)
8 small - medium dried red chillies
4 tsp smoked paprika
2 tsp English mustard powder
2 tsp ground allspice
7 oz raisins
4 tsp salt
2 tbsp black treacle
1 pint malt vinegar
1lb dark brown sugar

Method
Heat the oven to Gas 2 & pop in the tray of clean jars to sterilize. They'll be in there a good long time, so turn it down to the lowest setting once you've done the prep.
OK. Prep time. Nothing tricky here. Peel & roughly chop the onions & garlic. Put in your large pan. Finely chop the root ginger & de-seed & snip up the chiilles with scissors. Add to pan. Now peel & core the pears & roughly chop those. Add to pan, followed by all the other ingredients. That's it!

Now bring the pan to the boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Put the lid on & simmer for about 45 mins until the pears & onions are soft & mushy. Give it a quick stir every now & again just to check it isn't sticking. It shouldn't do, but if this did happen, you can just stir in half a mug of water.

Remove pan from heat & using your stick blender, zizz the mixture up until smooth, when it will look like this.

 Now stand a sieve over a large bowl & ladle the mixture into it. Work it through with a spatula or large spoon.

This will need doing in batches. As your bowl starts to fill with lovely smooth sauce, transfer it to a large jug ready for bottling. The little bit of fruit/veggie fibres left in the sieve at the end can go on the compost or in the bin, they're not required.

Remove your hot clean jars from the oven & fill them with the sauce. Wipe the rims of the jars with a hot clean cloth & pop the lids on.

By rights, the filled jars should now be sterilized by standing them in a pan of water on a folded tea towel & bringing to the boil for a set amount of time. I don't do this myself, because this sauce doesn't tend to last all that long in our house, mostly because I don't think there's actually anything that the Resident Sauce Hoover wouldn't eat it on, but if you were wanting to store it for longer than about 3 months or so, you should really do the sterilizing process, which you can find in any instructions for bottling. Oh, & keep it in the fridge once it's been opened.

It's fab on hot dogs, burgers, cheese on toast, chicken drumsticks, pulled pork, veggie sausages, you name it, & I've also used it spread over the bases when making pizzas. I'm thinking this is a good year for pears. I tried to offload some on a neighbour this week & she didn't need any because her pear tree is also laden, so if you have a glut yourself, or can scrounge some, do give this sauce a try. You can easily half the recipe if you would rather make just a few jars.

Well, I must sign out now, & go & see what's happening in the garden. Whatever it is, it seems to be involving a lot of loud shouty yowling & thoughtless crashing of felines through what's left of my rudbeckia & cosmos plants.
Bye for now,
C x
P.S For AW fans......here he is on his new blanket, knitted by a friend up in North Yorkshire.

And it's off the blocks with the cauldron.........

Hello Friends,
It's that time again. The trusty cauldron has come out ready for turning home-grown & foraged loveliness into jars of Good Things for the pantry. I've kicked it all off with greengage jam. Our greengage tree is really temperamental, but I think it must have heard our discussion about whether to keep it or have it chopped down, as it grudgingly decided to produce a small amount of fruit this year. I spent 40 mins with the apple-picking pole coaxing reluctant greengages down into my colander.....probably not the best of activities for a short person with a knackered back, but when jammin' calls, there's no stopping me. 

By the time I'd stoned them, I'd got about four & a half pounds, definitely enough for some jam, so that was the Big Yay Moment, when the cauldron made its first appearance of the season. There's something nostalgic about the smell of boiling jam. Both Mum & my Nan made jam (this is Nan's pan) and it appeals to the squirrel in me, as I love a full pantry, bursting with tasty jars to tart up our meals for the year ahead. I've been jammin' since I was about 12 years old.

Anyway, my basket of greengages made 9 jars of jam. A lovely fruit..........they always look so sour, being green, but a ripe one has a taste unlike any other plum, almost honeyed. All now carefully stowed away in the pantry.........perfect timing, as I opened the last jar of 2016's batch this morning to top a slice of rather nice sourdough toast!

"After the Lord Mayor's Show comes the muck cart" as my Grandad used to say in his broad Suffolk accent.........it was an expression for when something nice, wholesome & good is followed by.......something the exact opposite...........as in having to admit that we still have not yet administered that worming pill to Albert Whiskers. You see, you were reading about lovely jam & now it's all about worm pills. We do not have a good track record of getting pills down cats. The pill is still sitting in its wrapper on top of the freezer looking at us accusingly. We have never had to pill Albert Whiskers before. Will he be the type of cat who happily gobbles it down with his meat? Or will he be like Pussy Willow, seeing through every single one of our increasingly cunning & desperate attempts to trick him into eating it? Hmmmm. AW fans, watch this space!
Cheers all,
C x

Wild plums - (jumps up & down with excitement!)

Hello Friends,
People who know me (even just a little bit) know that the last place I'm ever going to be found heading towards is the gym........but I do like walking, & apart from the general fitness thing of walking, & the fact that it's always good for sorting my head out, one of the best things about it is that I see stuff. Sometimes it's cats, wildlife, amazing plant specimens in the most unusual places.....& sometimes, that best of all things - FREE STUFF!! I do enjoy a bit of foraging, but this little find didn't even require the special plastic bag or knife to come out, or risking life & limb against wasps, nettles or plummeting headlong into a ditch. No, these lovelies were simply sitting at the boundary of a villager's garden next to a blackboard chalked with the enticing message- "Free windfall cherries". 

Oooooooh! Fab or what? My only problem was that they didn't look like cherries. My Nan had a cherry tree in her garden & the cherries were a much brighter red & shinier. Took some home with me, anyway, to investigate. As soon as I'd cut one open, it was obvious they were wild plums, slightly sourer than the large cultivated varieties, but not remotely jaw-clenchingly so like sloes & bullaces.

Having put aside a saucerful for baking into cinnamon & plum muffins, I cooked some into compote & froze it for topping Autumn porridge. The remaining kilo has been halved, stoned & frozen where it will wait for our apple crop, ready to be turned into spiced wild plum & apple chutmey for Christmas. So no cherries, but I'm not going to turn my nose up at 4 lbs of wild plums & will walk that way again in case there is more free bounty! Thank-you unknown person with the free fruit & friendly blackboard.

Albert Whiskers is making the most of the between-showers summer sunshine. 

His 2nd best spot (when my deckchair is unavailable) is this sunny gap at the back of one of my big flower borders......it's not a great photo as the shadows were wrong, & I only have my phone camera, but AW fans will just be able to make out his supine form behind the plants. He's been trying it on a bit with food fussiness this last week. The Big Hairy Half of the Relationship (who is generally in charge of cat feeding) has countered this by only feeding him half a pouch at a time. AW is then so utterly shocked at the titchy size of his dinner that he gobbles it in one & demands the other half immediately. This little rip-off tactic seems to have nipped a season of food silliness in the bud, anyway, I'm pleased to say, as we aim to be a zero food waste household & that extends to cats.
Hope everyone is seeing at least a few rays of sunshine today.
Until next time,
C x

Nom Nom! Pesto time again!

Hello Friends,
I don't know HOW today has disappeared so fast. And as for this year, it seems like only a couple of months have passed since I was making last year's pesto. My Mum always says that feeling that time is whizzing by faster is a sure sign of getting older. On that positive note, I think I'll go back to the pesto........

Our basil crop is fab this year. It's always one of two extremes here, either a greenhouse border edged with fragrant green lushness.......................or a tragic terracotta pot hosting a collection of stalks & reluctant leaves. So glad 2017's another good year, as we love pesto & it's so easy to make & can be pretty much adapted with whatever flavours you want to put in.

 I use the quantities from Delia Smith's Summer recipe book, but although I really like the authentic one, I've used walnuts & cheddar today, instead of pine nuts & pecorino or parmesan, as they are what I had in. You need 50g fresh basil leaves to make one quantity but I usually wait until I can get a really good basket of basil & scale it up.

I save small plastic pots from buying hummous, olives, etc, for dividing up & freezing pesto. I'm not sure freezing is recommended, but it seems to work fine & still has plenty of flavour when it comes out for livening up our pasta in the middle of winter. 

Albert Whiskers has been for his MOT today.......jabs, check-up, etc. He was dispatched with a small packet containing a worm tablet. Much sinking of heart........we do not have a good track record of getting tablets down cats. If I have not yet done a blog post to date on the Sorry Tale of How We Once Spent A Whole Afternoon Of Our Lives trying to get a worm tablet down our grey tabby, Willow, then I may have to subject you to this story. Even after 15 years, it will provide catharsis. Albert Whiskers is not nearly as clever as Willow, who had the mind of a criminal genius. I am still feeling fairly positive that a pill wrapped in a piece of pastrami, especially if we pretend it's come out of Steve's sandwich, will do the trick!
No thunder yet. So far, the big storms & mega-rain forecast for this afternoon have amounted to about 6 pathetic plibs of rain. Shall have to get the hose out & water the veggies after all at this rate, so boo to that.
OK, must go & get bread out of oven,
Till next time,
C x

Zinnias, green beans & Security Cats.

Hello Friends,
Well, how's this for a lovely zinnia?

I could fancy putting a streak of exactly that colour in my hair. Zinnias are so cheerful. Have to hold my hand up & admit, however, that this isn't one of mine. It was a gift from my good friend Hel. And a good thing too, as I am cursed when it comes to Zinnia growing, despite really liking them.

Every year, this is what happens:

1. Mum give me a packet of zinnia seed.
2. I sow them in my greenhouse with my usual Spring optimism that this will be THE year.
3. They germinate. 
4. They become strong little seedlings. (I am planning my summer containers at this point..........)
5. I go down to the greenhouse & discover an Evil Snail has eaten them ALL overnight.
This is despite the greenhouse door being closed in early Spring & regular mollusc patrols performed by Yours Truly.
This year's Evil Snail was worse than ever because it ate only the leaves....but all of them....so that I was greeted by an entire tray of perfect little sturdy upright stems with no hope whatsoever of re-sprouting. Said mollusc was later discovered tucking into a marigold for dessert & was launched into space with my throwing arm.........a better fate than ending up underneath the Bigger Hairier Half of the Relationship's Size 11s......& far better than it deserved.
So that, yet again, was the end of my patio tubs bursting with tootie-fruity coloured zinnias (except for this one!)

Veggies doing quite well. I grew climbing French beans this year, instead of my usual runners. Just fancied a change & had been getting a bit of pea & bean wilt. I chose a variety called 'Fasold' & so far they're earning their keep. I've got 2 bags blanched & in the freezer, we've eaten quite a few & they look like they're going to keep coming for a while yet.

I only popped out earlier to see if there was a small handful to add to a stir-fry & picked a colander full, then as many again. They're quite attractive plants with lilac-coloured flowers, which so far, the Naughty Sparrow Army has left alone in favour of peanuts for a change!

It's that time of year when cats seem to do a lot of swaggering around outside their house getting all territorial. Now, Albert Whiskers is without his love nuggets but this hasn't stopped him spending a large proportion of his time guarding his property. Big Grey Fluffy rarely wobbles his way up our end of the street these days & most of the local cats are too small & insignificant to bother with, but there are one or two.........a very large exotic-looking lad (maybe a Himalayan?) who lords it up & down the street despite living elsewhere, & Splodgy who has put on some size now........I'm not surprised given his skill in silently sneaking through neighbouring cat flaps & sinking his robbing gob into dinners that are not his own, So this is how Albert Whiskers has spent most of today. If he had a little high-vis jacket, he could be an actual real Security Cat.

 This behaviour will continue until all Cats Who Have Annoyed Him have stopped their silly nonsense & gone home!
And now I must get wokking those green beans.
Cheers all,
C x

Do herons eat frogs?

Morning Friends,
Well, do they? I researched the answer to this question a couple of months ago when our local heron was spotted eyeing up our pond with the same level of intensity the Big Hairy Half of the Relationship reserves for menus featuring smokehouse ribs. I needn't actually have squandered the electricity on powering up the laptop, as the very next morning, the beaky raider visited three times. Knowing that we had lost almost all our frogspawn to heron attack in 2015 & 2016, the Rib-Fancier twice encouraged him to try his luck elsewhere. Before being chased off a third time, Mr Heron made a swift grab beneath the water & launched himself skywards with a frog in his beak.......a grim scenario ably illustrated by my youngest Neff - thanks, Leo - great picture!

I just love the expression on the frog's face.....I bet he looked exactly like this. Our garden is long, but narrow, with high privet hedges on both sides plus trees. Naughty heron visitors can only just clear enough height for take-off & then need to perform a tight turn before heading off to the river to feed our amphibians to their heronlets. So we got a good look at its long legs skimming the edge of our hedging, while it flapped madly to achieve its escape, with its scissor beak kept clamped around the latest of our pondy community to provide somebody's breakfast.

So......I'd already covered the area of the pond where the frogspawn was waiting to hatch. Following the frog kidnap & almost certain gobble, I covered the rest of it with netting, leaving a small gap for frogs to get in & out. I counted 24 breeding pairs this year. Heron sightings stopped. The tadpoles hatched & the frogs did what they always do. They hung around for a bit before taking themselves off back to the borders & potato patch ready for summer slug patrol. A few smaller ones stayed in the pond for tadpole-sitting duties. I removed the netting, to allow access to birds & hedgehogs for drinking & bathing.......as well as idle cats who can't be bothered to walk to the kitchen for the lovely clean water in their own bowl.

It's only a small pond - for wildlife, we don't have any fish in it. With the river Trent very close by, as well as the village ponds, you would probably wonder why a heron would even bother to have our pond, with all the difficulties in taking off again, on its breakfast radar. The very morning after the netting was removed, I was watering the greenhouse plants when there was a humungous PLONK on the roof. It was so loud I jumped & managed to spray the hose down the inside of my boots. I looked up & there was the heron sitting right above me. He stretched his wings out fully before taking off & with the amazing beak as well, it was astonishing to see how big they actually are at close quarters. Was this already a return visit? I suspect so. The pond had a murky film across the surface entirely consistent with a large pointy beak stirring up the muddy depths. And there were no frogs. 

The tadpoles, however, have thrived this year. They're enormous, & have already got their back legs.

Although we are visited by frogs of all sizes, I'm conscious that breeding has been unsuccessful here for the last two years because all the frogspawn was lost to heron-slurpage. I think we should definitely see some tiny froglets this year.....& soon.

Now, we do have an anti-heron-device. It is visibly disturbed by Albert Whiskers & won't land if he is in the garden. It circles warily before going off to bother somebody else's wildlife. The problem is that herons visit early in the morning, at a time when Albert Whisker's objectives are almost entirely to do with getting on the bed & securing his breakfast. Sadly, guarding the place from heron raids doesn't even feature on his list. If he thought it was robbing his 'Dreamies' or getting a stroke it wasn't entitled, too, it would be a different matter!
Ah well, herons have nests to feed too, & despite the frog-thefts, they still remain one of my favourite birds.
Cheers,
C x

In which Mrs Tightwad plants her climbing beans

Hello Friends,
Election campaigning was suspended today, following the tragic killing of concert goers in Manchester last night. As I'd planned to make a start on my rounds, I unexpectedly found myself with a clear day in my diary, so used it to progress the veggie garden (or National Collection of Weeds, as would be currently more appropriate). 

Our climbing beans (variety 'Fasold') have been hardening off for the past week or so & the weather forecast looks OK for the next week, so off they went, into a bed prepped by the Bigger Hairier Half of the Relationship at the weekend.

As you can see, I've been up to my recycling tricks again. If you have access to a supply of used 'disposable' coffee cups, bring them home, rinse them & stash them. Then you'll never be tempted to pay actual money for the 'root trainer' trays which Monty Don was demonstrating on 'Gardener's World' recently. Beans like a deep root run & they get just that with recycled coffee cups, which are free & are generally off to landfill anyway, so it's win-win.

So, into the earth they went. I haven't grown this variety before but the seed packet said 'Huge crops', which is what I like, as we positively welcome gluts here at the 'People & Cats Republic'.

Other little bits of 'Pay now't resourcefulness - old CDs re-purposed yet again as sparrow scarers, an old fence post as the top brace-pole & lots of my horsey friend's invaluable & completely unbreakable Amazing Orange String! And at the top of the structure? 

A metal frog! Well why not? He came off a broken tap handle & I couldn't bring myself to throw him away. I wonder if our garden frog population will look up & think "What a hero, to get all the way up there!"
Albert Whiskers ate his breakfast jelly & spent the rest of the morning on my deckchair. I put it up. He suddenly appeared out of the bushes. I popped in to put the kettle on the hob. In less than a minute he was on my chair. I went out & moved him (much growling & chuntering ensued.........swear box, Albert Whiskers) and had the seemingly bright idea of putting my glasses & book on the seat so he couldn't get back on. What a pointless exercise. Came back out with my coffee & he was sitting on them! Repeat x 3. <sighs>

He'll be trotting in soon, demanding another top-up of jelly.
Broad beans tomorrow. Will I ever catch up?
Have a peaceful evening all. I think I'll light a candle for the Manchester bomb victims tonight & for all those whose lives have been lost or destroyed by extremism & zealotry.
Talk to you tomorrow.
C x