Beech Leaf Gin

At the end of our garden is a looooong beech hedge.  The other side of the hedge, in our neighbours' garden, the hedge is beautifully clipped and neat - a professional job.  On our side, it's neat up to as far as my arms can reach with extending loppers and/or shears.  We tend to let the clippings go dry for a week or so (weather permitting), then burn them off, toasting marshmallows over the incinerator by way of a delicious by-product.  This is inordinately helpful in persuading the children to help us gather the clippings, by the way.

However, it all did seem rather wasteful to me this year, with the result that I did a little research into what, if anything, could be done with young beech leaves.  Imagine my joy to find, in Richard Mabey's classic "Food For Free", a recipe for what he calls "Beech Leaf Noyau".  Well, Noyau is traditionally made with nuts, plus which it's the kind of word which makes people go "whaaaaa?", and hence makes you look insufferably smug, so let's just call a spade a spade, eh?  Agreed?  Okay - Beech Leaf Gin it is!

Further investigation revealed that Pam Corbin had also found Richard Mabey's recipe.  Richard's recipe was very loose, and Pam's was more precise.  However, I found a combination of the two produced this.

Find a large jug or vase, and pack as full as you can with new beech leaves.  These should still be that gorgeous, fresh, acid green of the very early leaves.

Pack the leaves down nice and tightly:

Cover with gin and weigh down to ensure that none of the leaves stay above the surface, or they will oxidise.  I put a layer of clingfilm over the surface and weighed down with a plate:

I found I needed a lot more gin than expected.  Oh, and as always when making things into gin - use cheap gin!  You do feel a total dipso leaving Asda with a trolley full of Smart Price gin, but it is the best stuff to work with.  Bombay Sapphire is delicious, but it has too much flavour of its own and doesn't do anything for your own creations.

Leave the gin to steep for 7 to 10 days, then strain through a jelly bag or muslin:

 - you may have to do this in stages as the unpacked leaves take up more space than you could possibly anticipate.

For each 500ml of gin, place 250ml water and 300g granulated sugar into a saucepan, and heat until the sugar is dissolved.  Allow to cool completely then add the gin.  DEFINITELY allow it to cool completely, or the alcohol will evaporate, and we don't want that, do we?!

Add a dash or so of brandy and pour into sterilised bottles, together with a leaf or two, just for decoration.

Use within two years.

Elderflower Cordial

There's something gorgeously satisfying about making such a deliciously refreshing and fabulously evocative drink as Elderflower Cordial out of a carrier bag full of stuff you've picked while walking the dog.

Apart from that, there are some things which, as you make them, you feel like you're bottling the very season itself, preparing to eke its memory out through the dark winter months.

This is one of them.  Raspberry jam is another - recipe WILL follow when the raspberries are ripe.

You can use this as it is, as a cordial, just adding ice-cold water and a couple of ice-cubes.  Squeeze of lemon if you like it tart.  You can make it into sorbet, ice-cream, whisk it into cream or drop it into champagne.  I did make Elderflower Champagne properly last year, but it was so explosive we became quite frightened of it, and had to spend hours hunting through the undergrowth for the ballistic swingtops.  So I'm sticking to cordial this year.

I've used a number of recipes over the years, but I've come down to a nice simple one.


50 elderflower heads
4 lemons
Water
Citric aciiiiiid
Sugar (for amounts, see below)

Put flowers in beeeg saucepan.
Zest lemon into pan.
Slice zested lemons and add to pan.

Pour boiling water over to cover.  At this point the flowers will go slightly brown, if the water is still boiling hot.  If you feel this may upset you, just let the water cool ever so slightly.  Actually, in all seriousness, if you leave the water for a minute before pouring over, I reckon you get a slightly fresher tasting cordial.  And the flowers don't all go brown.

Leave to steep overnight.

When you come downstairs in the morning, do not kick the cat out for weeing in the house.  At this stage, the tisane made by steeping the flowers has a definite base note of cat piss.  Don't worry.  This magically goes away.

Line a sieve or colander with clean muslin.  A note on this:  clean, but not brand new.  Wash it first as it has starch in when it's new!  I have seen recipes which advise using a new j-cloth.  Er, ick?  Those things are nasty.  Okay for wiping down surfaces, but would you really want to sip your drink through one?  Me neither.

Anyway, now that you've delayed matters while you washed your gitting muzzy, and lined your sieve with it, you can sterilise it by pouring boiling water over it.

Place the sieve over a large jug or bowl.

I repeat, place the sieve over a large jug or bowl.

This is worth repeating, as there are few things more upsetting than sieving all your elderflower tisane down the plug'ole and being left with a muzzy full of floppy flowers.

Pour the contents of the pan through it (checking that you're not about to overflow the jug).  Leave to drain, don't squeeze or you risk cloudy cordial.  Ghastly, darling.

I ended up with 4 litres of elderflower water.  I had to use two jugs.  Unless you have enormous jugs (ooer etc.) you will have to use two jugs, too.

Put juice back in (cleaned) saucepan and add half as many kg of sugar as litres of liquid - so for 4 litres of liquid, 2kg sugar, etc.

I have worked out through trial and error that you need about 1heaped tsp of citric acid per kg of sugar, but this is a bit of a movable feast, and you'll find all sorts of quantities recommended, from a pinch to a couple of boxes.

Place over a medium heat and stir constantly until sugar is dissolved.

Bring to a gentle boil and simmer for a couple of minutes.  I like to add some of the flowers back into the cordial, as I think they look really pretty floating both in the bottle and in the glass (especially if they're not braaaaahn).

Pour into hot sterilised bottles*, while the cordial is still hot, but not too hot to handle!

* To sterilise bottles, give them a good wash in very hot water, or run through dishwasher, or preferably both.  Allow to dry, then place in a hot oven for 10 minutes.  If using swing top bottles, remove the swing tops before running through the dishwasher as the salts can corrode the metal.  I tend to just place them in a pan and pour boiling water over them, then leave to cool.**

** Three months on, my cordial is all still untainted, so this seems to work fine.

Gluts and what to do with them.

No, seriously - nothing since JUNE?  Appalling.  Sincerest apologies, dear readers.

There's too much to catch you up on all in one go, so it will have to be dribs and drabs or it'll never get done.

So.  Gluts.

I have to confess that this year's glut is not mine.  No.  Not anywhere close.

My veg patch is no longer an award-winning veg patch.  It is an award-winning avant-garde bindweed sculpture - or it would be if anyone was stupid enough to give awards for bindweed.  It is so bad that the only solution I can see is repairing the perimeter and filling it with chickens through the winter, who will peck and scratch and clear it to ground level.  That's the theory.

I have been investigating this idea, a-googlin' like a good'un.  Half the advice says this is a BRILLIANT plan, chickens love bindweed and will eat the shoots, leaves and any bit of root they can find.  The other half says it is IDIOCY, the chickens won't eat the bindweed as they HATE it, and THEY WILL DIE.

I am assuming the THEY WILL DIE people are mad.  We'll see.  I am not going to embark on mass chicken-cide, by the way.  I will Be Clever, and Feed Some Bindweed To A Chicken First.  See?  Clever.

H'Anyway.

Gluts.

My dear friend S, she of Unexpected Trout fame, on her return from holiday, found herself with a patch and a greenhouse veritably groaning with vegetables.  Being the all 'round fab person she is, she rang and offered me as much veg as I could carry, basically.  After a brief (well, I say brief....) diversion via the trampoline (children) and a bottle or two of Pinot (adults), I left hers with a bucket full of tomatoes, three green peppers, three humungous cucumbers, a head of celery and a carrier bag full of onions.  See, I told you she was fab!

My part of the deal was that nothing would be wasted.  Heh heh - wasted!  As if!

Obviously, tomatoes were of the essence, as they are the quickest to go off.  If they get a chance, that is...  Once we'd finished eating as many as we could just as they were, with a bit of salt and a bit of balsamic, I did a couple of things.

Part one - Roast Tomatoes.

This is one of my favourite things to do with tomatoes.  It takes almost no preparation, and is the most delicious, simple meal, served with fresh crusty bread.  It's also a great as an accompaniment to all sorts of stuff, and, if you really make TONS of it, you can blitz the leftovers into a perfectly gorgeous roast tomato soup.

Here's what you need:

Tomatoes - lots, all different sizes and varieties, or all the same.  Doesn't matter.
Oil
Balsamic vinegar
Worcestershire sauce
Salt
Herb of your choice
Big stoneware dish
Hot oven

Here's what you do:

Preheat the oven to about 180c - if you're cooking something else which requires a specific temperature, though, just use that.

Give the tomatoes a rinse, if you're worried about that kind of thing.  Yes, I didn't.  Bothered?  No.

Using a sharp little knife, take out the bitter core under the calyx (unless the tomatoes are really ripe, in which case don't bother).  You only need to do this, in any case, with the larger tomatoes.  Seriously don't both with the cherries and medium sized ones.

I always leave all the tomatoes whole, even if some are the size of five pence pieces and some are as big as apples.  I like the way they cook at different rates.  But if you're fussed about them all being uniformly squishy or otherwise, and you can be bothered, cut them all to the size of the smallest tomato.

Slug on some olive oil and some balsamic vinegar, plenty, and a generous dash of Lea and Perrins (there really IS no alternative Worcestershire sauce, in my everso 'umble).  Scatter on some seasalt.  I'm usually fairly freehanded with the salt on this one - the tomatoes can take it.

As to herbs.  At the moment, the garden is filled with a profusion of flowering oregano which, as it happens, goes extraordinarily well with tomatoes.  So that's what's gone in.  But you can add whatever you like.  Basil, of course, is lovely, but remember it'll go black, so either add towards the end of the cooking time or cheat and use a couple of dollops of pesto, if you don't have anything fresh to hand.  And, of course, there's always chillis.  Mmmm.

Into the oven with them, and cook for anything from 30 minutes to an hour, depending on their size and how cooked you want them.  I like mine collapsed and just starting to blacken.

DO enjoy.

aaaand on to......

Gazpacho

Oh, just yum yum.  I have as much of a passion for gazpacho as I have a dislike of minestrone.  I used to confuse the two as a child.  I'm ready to be converted (not away from gazpacho - heaven forfend - but towards minestrone) if anyone wants to cook me a particularly yumsome one.  Never say never.

So this was the pile of vegetables which I was looking at:

As you will appreciate, gazpacho was rather an obvious choice.  I apologise for my lack of originality here, but, frankly, I don't give too much of a flying one as it was bloody lovely.

I had about 3/4 of a kilo of toms, so you can multiply or divide your quantities, and of course increase or decrease individual ingredients according to taste.

So for 750g tomatoes, take
2 red peppers
4 sticks of celery
1 cucumber (peeled)
1 onion
3 cloves of garlic
1 lemon - juice only
1/3 of a glass each of white wine vinegar and olive oil

Cut everything into manageable chunks, pile it all into a huge bowl or saucepan and blitz with a handheld blender.  You may need to add some water - depends how you like your gazpacho.  Also, depending on how scary your blender is and how smooth you want the finished soup, you may want to blend it bit by bit in the beaker, rather than all in one go in the pan.

You know me - do what you want!

Once it's blitzed to your satisfaction, chill down and serve cold, with a swirl of extra olive oil, a squish of lemon or a spiral of balsamic vinegar.  You can even add sour cream, if you like.  And it's delicious served really cold with hot, buttered toast.

Annnnnnd finally...

Mixed pepper crisps

I keep making these and eating all of them before anyone else gets a chance.  In the photograph, I have cooked them for somewhat less long than usual.  I was being clever again.  I didn't like them as much as usual, so I didn't eat all of them.  I left three bits for other people.  I know.  Clever AND kind.

Pointless to give quantities - how many peppers have you got?  How many do you want to eat?  How many people are you feeding?  I actually did seven peppers once, and ate the whole lot.  WHAT a pig. But a healthy pig....

So:

Peppers
Salt
Dried chilli flakes

De-seed the peppers and cut into large chunks - if your pepper has three bumps on the bottom, cut it into three, then cut each third in half.  If it has four, cut into four then each quarter into halves.

Place in a large stoneware dish, or on a baking sheet.  Sprinkle over a little olive oil - not too much or they won't crisp - some seasalt and the dried chilli flakes.  How much depends on how hot you like it.

Bake in a hot oven until crisp - about 45 minutes, but keep an eye on them as they can go from gently roasted to incinerated beyond recognition within seconds.

I have to confess that even when incinerated, I will still eat them.  I think it's the chilli and the salt that does it....

Posting NOW without tweaking.  There may be gaffes and improvements and tweaking of photo placements which could be done, but really, sometimes, carpe f***ing diem, my darlings.

The British Beach, Bloody Good Fish, Bake 'Em Anywhere Scones and Emergency Jam

Monday

Simon has just gone out to watch England v France, for the second night running….  Yes, he went out last night, even though we both knew last night was Sunday, and the football was on on Monday.  Lord only knows what we’ll be like when we really start losing our marbles properly.

Beach in Looe this morning, with a visit to Pengelly’s for fresh fish.

If we were doomy gloomy types (which we sometimes are…), the beach would have been an utter nightmare.  Sitting there, with an umbrella of dark grey cloud, watching the bright blue sky over to the west - in fact, over Polperro.  And the dog beach was shut because the steps finally slipped into the oggin, so His Royal Hairiness had to be returned to the confines of the still-slightly-sick-smelling Shazmobile.

However, the girls’ sheer joy at being beside the seaside beside the sea is so friggin’ tangible that you can’t help but be swept up by it.

So, several hours, huddled in a scarf, taking the odd photo...

(including one of my foot - why?  Nobody knows...)


...and finally succumbing to slipping into my pyjamas (which I had slipped into my handbag at the last moment, justincase), slid by in no time.

Fish and chips for lunch.  Yessss.  Well, fish and chips for O & S, a pasty for M and a portion of chips with mushy peas for me.  No batter, see?  Oh to be able to eat wheat in Cornwall of all places.

Then we picked up our Pengelly’s fish, bought on the way down to the beach.  So, bearing in mind, Pengelly’s fish monger is slap bang next door to the main fish market in Looe, and they have the pick of the day’s catch, and we were there nice and early, this is some seriously good fish.  We have fresh mackerel (oh mama) for dinner tonight.  We’ll just roll the bastard in oats, grill it, and serve with samphire which will have been verrrry briefly tossed in hot butter.  Lazily, I got the monger to fillet them before he monged them to us – heh heh.  Yes, I know it’s easy but I’m on holiday.

We also have monkfish, for dinner tomorrow (except we have fallen amongst thieves and been invited out for Coddy Shack shish and fips tomorrow night with the incomparable J&G*, so monkfish will have to wait until Wednesday), to be served with streaky bacon and tomato salad, plus endless amounts of fresh mixed crab meat, cockles, mussels, tiger prawns and shrimps to take on our walk to Talland Bay tomorrow – assuming it doesn’t piss down all day, which it’s supposed to…  We shall see.

* Coddy Shack Fish and Chips – FABULOUS!!!  Go there!!!!!!  Now!!!!!!!!!!  I know, too many exclamation marks, but you will understand when you go.

So, the day is drawing to a close, and as the girls delight in their mackerel in oats with sautéed samphire, I realize that if I don’t put the following recipes down now, I will forget them.  Because in the interim, I have improvised strawberry jam and scones!

Actually, I photographed Marguerite Patten’s scone recipe from the 70s before we came down here, but there’s no scales here, so this is a recipe for scones which you can do wherever you are!

The basic measure is spoonsful, and I used dinner spoons.  Yeah, er, dessert spoons?  You know, the kind of spoons wot you eat off of, which are not soup spoons or teaspoons.

SCONES

Take 8 heaped spoonfuls of self-raising flour – I used Dove’s Farm Gluten Free, by the way, and it worked fine.

Stick this in a bowl and add a pinch of salt, a heaped spoonful (the same size as the flour spoons, including height of heapage) of butter, and two teaspoons of baking powder.  If you’re using plain flour, use double the quantity of baking powder.

Rub, or fork, the butter into the flour.  Add a heaped spoonful (blah blah as above) of sugar.

Add enough milk to form a soft dough.  If using gluten free flour, you will not be able to roll the dough out because it will be too sticky and will not hold together.  In this case, oil your hands and make scone sized lumps of dough – place them directly on the baking sheet.  If using proper flour, I dare say you could roll it out and cut shapes. 

Bake in a hot oven (my photographed instructions said 425f, but I had no idea what that means, being eddicated abroad, like, with no Imperial points of reference and no conversion chart about my person, so I did 230c) for about 10 mins.

JAM.

Take one punnet of strawberries, top them, and slice into four or five slices each, straight into a hot saucepan.  Add a couple of teaspoons of elderflower cordial (recipe to follow - or did I already post it - anyway, recipe on here somewhere) and a splash of balsamic vinegar, plus about 3 or 4 teaspoons of soft brown sugar.  Bring to a rolling boil and keep it there for 5 minutes without stirring.  Turn the electric ring (gaaaaaah!!!) off, and stir occasionally as it cools down over the next 10 minutes or so.  If using a proper hob (i.e. gas – sorry, but really?  Electric?  For proper cooking?!) just take it down so it’s not bubbling crazily any more, then lower the temp every couple of minutes over the next 10 minutes.  Pour into a teacup and allow to cool.

Yes, you could sterilize a jar and do all that stuff, but let’s face it, if you just made the scones, too, it’s not going to last long enough to go off, is it?  In fact, I have to stop writing now because I need to wrestle the teacup off the two children, one of whom abhors jam in all its forms…  Or not any more, it seems.

Remote Blogging, and why Plan AA is normally the best plan.

Remote Blogging, and why Plan AA is normally the best plan.

So here we are in Polperro.  Hurrah.  Hang on, more emphasis required - HURRAH!!!

That’s better.


I'm writing this now but will have to post it many days hence, as we are luddite-like in our technological isolation, here.

It’s raining absolute cats and dogs, and right at this minute, I’m very glad I’m not one of the seagulls who live on the very tall, exposed chimney stack which I’m keeping an eye on out of the kitchen window, but I’m also feeling almost as content as it’s possible to get.

We arrived two days ago, after what could be described as one of the worst journeys we’ve ever had.  

We were allowed in the cottage from 3pm.  Working backwards, we figured out that we should leave home by about 12ish, maybe 11.30, to allow for stopping at the butcher’s in Tideford (Paul Bray & Son, if you happen to be passing) on the way here.  I further figured out that this would allow me to teach my Friday morning Zumba class, get home, shower, and head on down.  Timing could not be more perfect – tight, but perfect.  So we got the packing mainly done on Thursday, and while I sloped off to teach on Friday morning, Simon heroically loaded the car, in the sure and certain knowledge that no doubt I would arrive home from class and criticise his loading.  I know.  Unreasonable.  What can I say?  I never claimed to be an angel.

So I raced home from the village hall, showered in double quick time and packed the last few bits I couldn’t pack earlier (shampoo, conditioner, hairbrush, sweaty Zumba gear for washing!), made myself a sandwich to go with the ones Simon had made for the girls, and we all - me, Simon, girls and His Royal Hairiness - leapt in the car with a loud hurrah and general shouting of “WE’RE OFF!”, well on schedule and gagging for a week’s R&R in beloved Cornwall.

Which is when problem 1 reared its ugly head.  The.  Car.  Would.  Not.  Start.

I know, right?!  HiLARious.  We thought so, too, as you can imagine.  Totally dead.  Not even the slim ray of hope of the sad chug-chugging, which eventually dies out, anyway.  Nothing.  No-thing.  Not a thing.

So began an entirely grown up and relaxed (was it BOLLOCKS!) discussion about how to approach a solution to this shitty problem. 

Clearly, it was a dead battery. 

Various options swum into view, and swum on by. 

As it happens, we have a fresh, new car battery (long story, but to cut it short, thanks, Dad – wouldn’t it have been perfect if that had been the solution!?) sitting in the hall at present.  Did we know how to attach it?  No, we didn’t.  Arses.  So although it was probably fairly straightforward, we decided that this particular moment of crisis and extreme tension was probably not the time to get our CSE in Basic Car Maintenance. 

Luckily, despite many other areas of things having gone west of late, we still have AA membership.  Without any further ado, I went back in the house, looked up the number (yeah, it should be on my phone, I know), and rang the very nice men up.  I explained the predicament, with a bit of giggling and wringing of hands, followed up by a slight break in the voice – you’d have liked it, I promise – possibly my finest performance to date – and the very nice man said that he’d send on of his very nice colleagues along, and he’d be here within 45 minutes.

Good.

Meanwhile, I had thought that we would try using Car B and some jump leads to start the battery of Car A, and if we got it started, we could ring and cancel the very nice man. 

This was clearly a good and sensible plan.  However, meanwhile, gorgeous husband had had the bad and senseless plan of trying to bump start the car on the drive, which, although (in his defence) is quite steep, is also (in blatant attack) about 2m longer than the car – i.e. by no stretch of the imagination long enough to get a bump start.   This daring plan had therefore resulted in Car A being half way across the road, and diagonally across the drive, absolutely buggering up any chance of getting Car B close enough to the bonnet of Car A to attach the relatively short jump leads.

Sigh.

Back to Plan AA. 

I was supposed to drop off a key with my lovely friend A on the way to Cornwall, so I rang to explain our delay, so that she wouldn’t think we’d buggered off without dropping it off.  Very kindly, she offered to come and give us a jump start.  Who were we to refuse?  So she whizzed up, we got the cables connected with just about enough space for a careful car to pass us up the lane, and followed all the instructions.  Nothing.  Either the battery had had it, or the jump leads were SHIT.

Back to Plan AA.

Right, girls, out of the car, come on, bring HRH, we’re going to go and eat our sandwiches in the kitchen instead of the car. 

So this we did, in bizarre suspended world, bit of cricket on the telly, trying not to get the kitchen all crumby for coming home to.

Meanwhile various other friends, and bless you all, offered their services and the services of their faithful car batteries for jump starting, but we were by now too fearful of failure to waste anyone else’s time.

At 43 minutes after the original phone call to the AA, Gorgeous Husband started commenting that it would be nice if the world could actually surprise us for a change and someone could fucking well turn up on time.  I was quietly (well, I say quietly…) rolling my eyes and sighing at this, as the tirade continued until about 10 seconds before the deadline when – knock knock knock woof woof woof!  YES!  AA Man.  Bang on time.

Girls!  LOO, NOW!  CAR, NOW!  Chug chug chug, vroom vroom vroom, ooh, that WAS flat, don’t stop for petrol for 45 minutes, give it a good chance to charge up, thank you very much – girls, wave goodbye to INCREDIBLY nice man and HURRAH!  WE’RE OFF!!!!

Goodbye home!

M3, A303, hello, Little Chef – whoosh – hello Popham little planes – whoosh!  Oh oh… helllllllooooo sssslllllooooowwww ttttrrrraaaafffffffiiiicccc.  Oh bugger.  Crawling crawling crawling.  From well before Amesbury for hours…  Hhhheeeellllloooooo, Ssssttttoooonnnnneeeeehhhheeeeennnnngggggggeeeee….  And so it went on, for HOURS.  And we tried swapping the A303 for an early leap onto the M5, but within a mile we’d hit another jam.  It was uncanny.  Wherever we went, so did everyone else.

In order for this blog not to end up as long and boring as the journey, I am going to cut it short.  Suffice it to say that it DID take hours, Littl’un eventually gave up and threw up volubly all over the back of the car, including dog bed, golf clubs, colouring in book, Gorgeous Husband’s hat, seats, carpet blah blah blah bleugh bleugh bleughed. 

We had meanwhile realized several things.

1)   We were going to get to Tideford well after the butcher closed, leaving us with nothing for dinner.  This problem was easily solved thanks to Steve Jobs’s Excellent iPhone invention.  Googled the butcher (which is illegal in 99 states) and rang the order through, arranging to collect it from the pub if they’d all gone home.

2)   Slightly more worryingly, we remembered that the key for the cottage is housed in a tiny key safe screwed to the front door.  We hadn’t been given the combination for said safe.  VERY safe, in that case, no?  Further googling, however, produced a number for the owner.  Who didn’t answer.  So we spent most of the (long) journey somewhat concerned that we would arrive and not be able to unload and get in, and as our phones don’t work in the village, we’d be bleddy stuck, m’loves.  In the event, we got the number at the eleventh hour, but it was a bit sticky for a mo.

Anyway.  Whatever.  We got here in the end, and the chippy, which threatened to close while we were in the pub, actually stayed open until we finished, so we had fresh hot chips with our gorgeous Cornish steaks and salad.  So that's enough moaning from me - there was other stuff, but with a tummy full of excellent steak, a glass full of good quaffing wine and a snootful of good Cornish sea-air, me old love pops, I'm now, frankly, beyond caring.

Night night.

The Unexpected Trout, and How To Approach It

As I mentioned in my last post, my good friend S was kind enough to phone me up and offer me a spare, VERY freshly caught, trout.  Even more kindly, she actually delivered the glorious offering!  It was fresh as.  Still stiff as a board, clear and bright of eye, and in need of very little in the way of being buggered about with.

Being an entirely unexpected trout, I also didn't have obvious in the cupboard with which to tart it up - which was very good news as I may otherwise have been tempted.

So here, in a nutshell, is what I did with it.  I pass this information on in case you, too, should ever be the recipient of an unexpected, but by no means unwelcome, trout.

First, you will need to gut your fish.  This is neither difficult nor unpleasant.  I know that may come as a surprise, but provided that your fish is nice and fresh, fish guts just aren't that smelly.  Disappointing, eh?!

So, incision down its front, hand in, guts out.  They'll be attached to the fish up the top end, so you can snip them out with scissors, or just slice with a knife (but mind you don't nick your knuckles - it's a bit tricky to see what you're doing up in there, if you don't want to ruin your fish).

Clean out the fish by giving it a bit of a wipe with a clean cloth or some kitchen towel.  It shouldn't need more than that.  Remember, fish guts: Disappointingly unsmelly.

I would recommend bagging them up, though, and tying the bag firmly before binning, as although they're not that smelly yet, once they've sat in your dustbin in the sunshine for a couple of days, they will MING!  I hate smelly dustbins, so if there's a bit of a wait until bin day, I tend to freeze anything potentially ghastly, and chuck it straight out on bin day.  At least, that's the theory.  In practise, I regularly stumble across bags of frozen fish guts, chicken skin, old bones...  But anyway, I digress (makes a change... or not).

At this point, I put the oven on (about 180c) and Maddy and I took a stroll up the garden.  We're not in full flow yet, but there's still plenty of fresh stuff growing out there to be going on with.  We picked flat-leaf parsley, chives, fennel tops and wild garlic.  Together with a whole sliced lemon and a knob of butter, these filled our fish very nicely.  A rummage in the fridge produced some celery, so that got chopped up and scattered about, too.

Then it's the papillote bit, which sounds complicated.  Here's how.  Greaseproof paper on to baking tray, fish on to greaseproof paper.  Slide fish down to bottom half of paper, bring top half over fish and roll the two edges together like a Cornish pasty.  Thassit!  If you don't have enough paper, it won't hold, and if you've got too much it's liable to come unfurled, so make sure you've got about 3 - 4 times as much paper as fish - one to sit it on, one to bring over the top and one full one (i.e. two, because it's doubled) to roll up.  See, now I've made it sound more complicated than it is - don't worry about it.  Just do it.

Bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes.

Remove.

Eat every last bit, including the herbs you stuffed it with, and the cheeks, which are particularly delicious.

Fish.  Board.  Knife.

Incision.

Guts.

Guts coming out.

Nice clean fishy.

Stuffed.

Greaseproof paper.

Papillote.

Unwrap.

Eat.

Keep eating 'til all gone.

The Merry Old Month of May

Another large gap in the blogposts.  Tut.  Well, what can I say?  Fits and starts, my loves, fits and starts.

The weather, as you may have noticed, went through a long patch of ghastliness.  In fact, until this week, it has been an absolute shower in every sense of the word, since The Worm Post.  Curiously, despite the non-stop month or six weeks of rain, two days of sunshine has already produced cracked ground.  Just goes to show, they boooys at Met Office don't tell no looooys.

SO!  What have I been doing during this spate of non-blogginess.  Well, there was a frenzied spate of needle-felting, for the craft stall at the school fair:

Needle-felted brooches

Which resulted in a gush of creativity, and pins everywhere, which resulted in:

Pincushion

And led to iPad cover production:

I have also spent no small amount of time laughing at my daughters.  I mean "with", of course.  The post script of this, in particular, made me guffaw.  It is from our 7 year old daughter, inviting us to the Brownie Jubilee celebration:

Cooking wise, I am minded to enter our local farmshop's amateur chef competition.  I think I will, but am dithering over my menu.  It has to be two courses, including as much local produce as possible.  Of course, truffles feature very highly in my ideal choices of dishes - but will the truffles cooperate?  Will there be truffles by July?  Nobody knows.  In 2010 you couldn't move for truffles by May, but in 2011 they didn't put in an appearance until August.  Dicey.  Equally, I can't make my mind up over starters or puddings (a main course is compulsory).  Oh decisions, decisions.

Meanwhile, my friend S has just popped over with a large, freshly caught trout.  What an absolute treat - I can't wait to cook the chap.  Or chapess - how does one sex a trout?  Only remains to see if we can wait until dinner time, or scarf it down for our lunch (*update - didn't have it for lunch - decided not to rush at it with fork in hand).  Mmmmm.  Am picturing it stuffed with wild garlic flowers, and baked en papillote with lemon and butter, but something else may spring to mind.  Oh, hmm.  The fennel is just coming up beautifully frondy.  Damn.  Hmm.  And damn and hmm again.

The Players' Summer Play (performances to take place tomorrow night and Saturday, complete with barbecue and Pimms tent) has also been taking up no small portion of my time and attention.  We are all still finding the play and each other very funny, so are all rather concerned that unscripted giggling may be a problem during performances.  We have also only just started rehearsing with real liquid in our glasses, so are constantly sloshing Dandelion and Burdock all over ourselves, each other and the set.  I think I might rethink my costume, and wear a cheaper, machine-washable dress...

Set building

Set built!

And now to the real, proper stuff!  The Veg Patch!


Everything in the greenhouse has been going swimmingly.  Rather too swimmingly, in fact, given the state of the weather outside and the fact that nothing has been able to go out until now.  Or at least, I have not been tempted to get outside with a spade, in wellies, raincoat, hat etc.  But things have moved on while the weather stopped person progress.  The courgettes are covered in flowers and buds, although I can't see any bulgy bits behind any of them, so I am concerned that they may all be boy-flowers.  There could be a lot of courgette-flower fritters coming our way.  I've never tried these, but this could be the year.  I think you're meant to stuff them with ricotta, which I've always found to be an almost entirely flavourless thing, so I'm tempted to go for a spiced paneer, instead.  I'll let you know... (must stop ending sentences and indeed paragraphs with three little dots - sometimes a full stop just seems too final, though.  See what I mean?!).  I'm looking forward to letting some of the courgettes go over into marrow status, and stuffing them with eastern spiced minced lamb, too.  Stuffed marrow sounds so utterly pedestrian, but is so utterly divine if you stuff it with something sufficiently flavoursome.  But first I need courgettes.  I have read that you take the boy-flowers and rub their pistils on the stamens of the girl-flowers.  Good GRIEF!  The sheer, unadulterated sexuality of it all!  No wonder the Victorians preferred ferns.

Which reminds me - look at this fab fern just getting ready to uncurl its fronds - isn't it GORGEOUS?!

The runner beans were also doing too well in the greenhouse, with the result that they were all twined around one another and rambling all over the place, risking their tender little tips being trodden on.

Strawberries are on their way nicely - I do wish they'd talk amongst themselves, however, and all try to ripen around the same time so we can get a full pudding out of them!

I always find the tomatoes peculiarly satisfying.  Perhaps it's because they are expensive in the shops, and very easy to grow.  Perhaps it's because they justify the greenhouse all by their little round, red selves.  Or the profusion of varieties.  Maybe it's the MASSIVE glut of tomatoes from August, resulting in endless salads, meals of roast tomatoes all melting with olive oil, and fresh bread, and the sheer stupid luxury of being able - no, HAVING - to make your own tomato ketchup before they all go off.  It could also be the gentle contentment of usually still being able to pick the last stragglers well into November.  Either way, as soon as it's cool enough to work in the greenhouse (there's no pleasing some people, is there!?), they will be put into their final growing spaces.  Magic!

I put a couple of trays of broad beans, peas and mangetouts (I suspect I get rather too much fun out of referring to these as "the legooooooms") outside the greenhouse to harden off.  In the event, this was more of a case of chucking them in at the deep end, as they never went back in the greenhouse overnight, and pretty much had to learn to fend for themselves from day one Out In The Cold.  The pea and mangetout contingent had followed the runner beans' examples (they must have been peering through the glass at night) and were all cuddling and twined around each other like the teenagers they had clearly become.  One even had a pod on.  Stop it.

Legoooooms in their so-called hardening off position

and broad beans in their proper place.

Anyway, this sudden bout of decent weather (26 degrees centigrade - yesssssssss!), out of the blue (clear blue skies, that is), has obviously led to some phrenetic heavy gardening.

This is what the near end of the veg patch looked like on Monday morning:

This is what it looked like on Tuesday night:

Impressive, eh?

Yes.  I am knackered.  My hamstrings are like bowstrings (not bowed, TIGHT), and don't even talk to me about my back.  It is stiff and sore and SUNBURNT!  Damn it.  Hence skulking inside blogging on a sunny day.  I can only thank my lucky stars for Zumba.  It has kept my muscles moving.  Without it, I think I would have convinced even a decent coroner that rigor mortis had set in, today.

My lovely husband heroically dug the area over, but obviously it then needed breaking up, and several bucket loads (no, I am not exaggerating, I promise you) of DEVIL'S GUTS (see a previous post) roots needed pulling up, digging up, teasing out and generally removing.  I think it was actually four buckets full by the time I had finished, and when I dug the trench for the beans, another bucket load came out.  Initially, I figured I must have missed these first time 'round, and was tutting at my lack of care.  It was hard, however, to see how I COULD have missed the bastards - there were just so many.  So a second, rather more worrying, hypothesis posed itself:  The bastards (yes, I know that's two bastards in two lines, but they ARE bastards - oh, now that's four bastards in three lines - oops, five) (where was I?) - oh yes - the bastards (six) had Grown Overnight!  Hoping I'm wrong on this, or I'll never beat the ... bastards (shhh, seven).

SO, anyway, this large patch of ground then needed breaking up.  The fork works to a certain extent for this, but in my experience, it still leaves clumps too big to actually plant small plants in.  The best way, again, in my experience, is to break it up with a cultivator.

The patch which needed breaking up measured about 2m x 8m.

This is The Cultivator:






















This is the blister caused by the shotgun wedding of the Large Patch and the Small Cultivator:

















In my experience, the best way of breaking up a large patch of ground is NOT a bloody tiny little cultivator.  I shall try to improve my experience and report back.  Some kind of large mechanical device or Some Staff, I suspect, would be better.  Where's that bloody lottery ticket gone?

Anyway - here's how it was looking this morning, before it was too sunny for me to haul my crimson body outside:

Peas:

Runners:

I tell you, if slugs get any of this lot, the repercussions will be severe.  Pleasant boozy death by slug pub:  No.  It will be scissors for the sods.  And then, curtains.  Not in a nice, soft-furnishings kind of way.

Oh... and I've put in a bid on a hen house on eBay...  Shhhh and watch this space.........!


p.s.  God Save The Queen!