A strawberry curd is born!

Whilst picking up some groceries on the way home from work last night, I decided that the strawberries looked (and smelled) decidedly delicious!  So I picked up a punnet or two and returned home with another mad urge to create a new fruit curd. 

I hunted around the cupboards and fridge to see if there was another flavour that I could pair up with the strawbs, but in the end decided that it would be a pure strawberry curd with no interference from any other overpowering ingredient, apart from the usual hint of lemon juice and zest.

As the fruit was bubbling away on the hob, the aroma wafting around the house was just mouthwateringly joyous!  I couldn't resist dancing around the kitchen with Vivaldi's Four Seasons playing on the i-pod while I inhaled the heavenly fruit fumes!  The finished curd is absolutely sublime and I can imagine it livening up any English cream tea in place of the strawberry jam.  In fact, if I can muster up some vegan fruit scones later on today I may indulge in an English cream tea in the garden, but instead of having whipped cream on the scone alongside a mug of tea, I may ring the changes by having vegan cream in a mug of coffee instead.  Yum!

Banana ketchup ready for an outing

These little bottles of loveliness have been maturing in a dark and cool cupboard for about a month, and today I decided that they were ready for labelling and taking into work, where colleagues have already tasted a sample of this product and placed orders. 

Thanks to Clive on my favourite food message board for the recipe!

http://wildfood.info/index.php

I know it's only a seven bottle order, but it's the largest order I have shifted yet, and I don't feel in any way embarrassed about feeling so excited about it on such a small scale!

I just hope my buyers enjoy this product as much as I enjoyed making it!

Another fruit curd experiment

Something I have been meaning to conjure up in my kitchen for quite some time is a vegan rhubarb curd.  Tonight I finally caved in and, after a really busy day at work decided to don my apron quick as a flash, get into my kitchen pronto, and as a result the rhubarb curd has been born!  And with enough time spare to cook and eat dinner, watch a bit of telly and do a bit of blog updating.

So far my vegan curd making reportoire includes a basic lemon curd, an orange curd, a mixture of the lemon and the orange curd, grapefruit curd, mango and lime curd, peach and almond curd, and a blueberry and lemon curd.  Not quite sure what my favourite of the bunch is so far!  All have been very delicious.  And while this curd cools I still have to decide if rhubarb is up there with the others as a winning flavour.

This evening's resulting curd is actually more of a lemon curd with background rhubarb flavours.  I made it with the only rhubarb available to me - tinned in a light syrup.  Next time I will try with fresh.  I am really pleased with the taste at this early stage, but the appearance lets it down somewhat.

Here it is cooling in a jug next to a bowl of apples.

Now when I think of rhubarb, I think of bright, colourful, attractive pink stems, mouthwateringly gorgeous to the eye.  But actually when cooked you realise how they are mainly green in colour.

So here is my jug of mushy peas, I mean lemon curd with rhubarb!  I will be sharing a sample of it with colleagues at work tomorrow to get their view on it.

I am in awe of my home desk !!

Having worked in an office environment for the past 22 years, and having hated almost every minute of the stagnant sitting around staring at a computer screen, I never believed that I would ever get a desk for my home.  But seeing as my pickling venture seemed to have started to take over our newly acquired pine dining table in the form of laptop, notepads, pens, lists (endless lists) and cookery books, something had to give.

So off to Ikea I went and came home with a shiny, new Expedit desk with attaching bookcase.

I love it! 

It sits next to my three floor to ceiling Billy bookcases which we bought when we moved into our house in April of this year.  That was a funny trip to Ikea and back I can tell you.  We didn't actually go there to pick up the bookcases.  We went there for six dining chairs and some other smallish items plus a couple of sheet glass mirrors for our bathroom and shower room.  I'd had my eye on these bookcases for a while, perfect I thought to house my close on 200 cookery books.  Actually if I recounted them since the last time I counted them it's probably now close on 300!  But my other half isn't into books at all and can't understand the fascination of having a room full of the things, so I didn't mention the bookcase thing to him until we got to the warehouse section of Ikea with a bit of space on our trolley, and secret location of bookcase slip squirrelled away in my grubby paw.  'Ooh, I reckon we should get some bookcases while we are here, we really could do with them, while we are here, save us coming back again' to which he replied in a weary-sick-of-trapsing-around-Ikea voice 'Okay'.  So we piled three onto the trolley and off we went to the car park.

Once we reached his tiny Corsa with our trolley load of goodies we started to wonder how we were going to get it all in.  We've all been there, done that, surely?  There is only one thing for it.  Look on the bright side and start cramming it all in.  If the worst came to the worst I could busy myself in Asda next door while he took the stuff home then came back for me.  'Nope, what a waste of petrol, come on we can do it!'  And do it we did, just about.  There's me, crammed in one quarter of the back seat, head shoved against the side window with seat belt strangling me, a dining chair in box on left shoulder, feet smothered in tinted glass lamps, and left arm outstretched holding still the mirrors for fear that if we had to brake suddenly they would slide off and decapitate the driver!  The Billy bookcases were wedged firmly between rear windscreen and dashboard.  This meant that the radio had jammed itself on.  Once the keys were in the ignition we had Magic at full blast permeating our eardrums and no way of switching it off unless we re-jigged the furniture situation.  That was never going to happen.  Then getting out of the parking space was fun.  There was no room to put the gear stick into reverse.  So we had to escape our space by driving through the (lucky for us) empty space in front, first driving over one of those brick, square, earth filled things with a tree growing in it.  Then off we went!  Every bump we went over the radio was turned off by the Billy.  The next bump it came back on again.  The next it went off, the next it went on, etc...etc...

By the time we got home, after half an hour driving along like a sardine in a can, I couldn't help but laugh.  Quite hysterically actually.  The journey had been like being in a Carry On film.

So the Billy bookcases are up and now so is my desk. 

Unlike the one at work, I do actually love this one.  I have my business cards in a little holder, a lovely desk lamp, a little toy cat curled up on a tartan cushion to keep me company.  I named him Glenmorangie Benbecula MacSnufflekins just because I could.  Glen for short.  I have a diary, note pads galore.  A lovely little cactus, which I haven't yet named.  A pile of cookery magazines about a foot high, still to be waded through.  Pen pot, of course.  The all important glass coaster ready to welcome that all important first mug of tea in the morning, or sometimes it seems even more important glass of wine last thing of an evening. 

This spare room was going to be called 'The Retreat' when we originally bought the house.  Somewhere we could have a sofa bed where we could recline in peace, somewhere we could lay back and read or listen to music or the radio.  Somewhere I could peruse my cookery books and really spread out and enjoy myself without getting in the way of every day life.  But it is now 'The Office' and I never thought I would say it but it makes me happy.  If I get an idea for a recipe whilst looking online for inspiration, I can stretch out my right arm and grab whatever cookery book I need, or food reference book, to help me get to where I need to be. 

I love this desk.  In fact I love this room.  And this house.  Long may this feeling continue.

Welcome to The Pickle Station !!

My first blog post!  Gasp!

I have been waiting for this moment for a long time!!

Okay, so I never really started out wanting to create an online diary, but I have wanted to start up my own food business run from home for a long, long time, and I think that the two go hand in hand quite nicely. 

So now that The Pickle Station - my own pickling, preserving, bottling and general food producing offspring is born - here I am, with blog!

I hope you will join me in my culinery adventures and enjoy reading all about what I have been getting up to in my kitchen. 

Catch up with my delicious updates here at The Pickle Station's official blog!

Happy reading!