My home laptop has died......

Followers may have noticed I haven't been updating these past couple of weeks.

My once reliable Toshiba laptop finally gave up the ghost two weekends ago, after showing signs of overheating and keep shutting down.  It is with the repairers, and I hope they fix it soon because I am getting blog withdrawal symptoms.  I really miss taking photos of my food and uploading them.  I shopped on Sunday in our local second hand and charity shops and now have a whole hoard of photography props and a lightbox, so when I get my laptop back, photos should be of a much better quality and I want to get practising!

In the meantime I have still been very busy in the kitchen.  Last weekend, not only did I produce 22 jars of piccalilli using a mixture of vegetables grown on our allotment, I also made a very successful lime curd at the request of a work colleague's mum.  She sells cakes in her husband's cafe and wants to try sandwiching Victoria sandwich cakes with the lime curd.  I bought a taster in for other colleagues to try and it was a real hit!  So that is another flavour to be added to my vegan fruit curd reportoire.

The best bruscetta topping ever

When I met my other half four years ago, and we were discussing food one day, as we normally do, and he mentioned that he 'doesn't do capers' I knew I could sway him out of that mindset with the best bruscetta topping ever!

I do not know for the life of me where I first heard about this recipe, but I do know for certain that I first tasted it after creating it with my own fair hand circa 2000 in a shady garden in Stansted Mountfitchet, on a small plot of land purposely built by me and my partner at the time for BBQ's and picnics and balmy evenings spent listening to music whilst our two cats Tigger and Sooty mooched about around our feet..

Here's a little snap of my dearly departed Tigger, relaxing and enjoying his new home in Shefford in 2009.

And here is Sooty, or 'Scoot Moot' as we seem to have got into the habit of calling him these days, donning a chef hat, looking a little bit fed up with the whole hat wearing situation! 

So the best ever bruscetta topping has to be a mixture of very ripe and fresh tomatoes, chopped up into tiny dice, skin and pips and flesh and all, a good amount of chopped fresh parsley, capers that have been drained and rinsed and then chopped up finely, a good slosh of really good olive oil and some salt and pepper.  I like to add a dash of red wine vinegar and a pinch of sugar too.  Mix that up well and then you are ready to top your bruscetta.  Take a baguette, slice quite thinly and then toast lightly and rub with garlic and drizzle with olive oil.  Then pile on the tomatoey caper mix. 

I have converted my other half.  He now agrees that this is pure heaven on a plate.  I really do urge you to try it.  And a freezing cold glass of Chardonnay on the side wouldn't go amiss either.

Less pickling, more scarecrows!

Today I was going to make a batch of lime curd, at the request of a couple of work colleagues who would like to purchase some, and also because I quite fancy trying some myself.  And I did intend to make a vegan chocolate cake from this delightful little book but at the last minute we decided to venture four miles up the road to a little village called Shillington which holds a scarecrow festival every other August bank holiday weekend instead.  We have never missed one and this year was no exception.  Curd and cake can wait until tomorrow.

Instead of walking around having a look at all the exhibits we drove around.  Partly because the weather was looking a little bit threatening rain wise, but mainly because I am struggling a little bit with a back injury.  But being confined to the car did not mean that the scarecrows were any less enjoyable.

Here are a few snapshots of my favourite crow scarers.

I think this is the most unusual scarecrow that I have ever seen, in the form of a snake.  A first I reckon.

Check out Gordon Ramsey outside The Crown pub.  We pulled up in our car just as Michael and Julie were sticking GR's face on.  One of my favourites.

I rather liked this little four man band.

Check out the mankini clad scarecrow stood outside one of our favourite watering holes.

It's food related so I love it.  I told the owner of the house so too, and she seemed well chuffed with my comments.

Not sure if it is obvious from the photo but this witch's cauldron was actually bubbling and letting off steam.

And there were crow noises coming from these crows!  Either that or the trees around us were full of actual crows!  Who knows???

Finally the scarecrow that my 8 year old nephew told me to look out for.  The Giant.  I didn't really need to look out for him.  He sort of leapt out on the horizon as we drove along the road from about half a mile away, all massive and daunting in front of us.  There are a few little tiny people on the left hand side of the shot, who were busying themselves with some ale or wine or something, that will maybe put the whole massiveness of the beast into perspective.  Isn't this just the biggest scarecrow you have ever seen in your life?  All praise to whoever put him together.  Maybe some film producer somewhere would like to recreate 'Children Of The Corn' Shillington style???

Roll on 2013 when we can enjoy our next surreal corny experience, ooh arr ohh arr!



Fiddly little shallots

A couple of weeks ago we harvested our entire shallot crop from the allotment.  They have since been drying out and taking up quite a bit of space on the dining table in a large bowl. 

Last week at work, Liz our cleaner, who is always keen to taste my new pickles and curds etc, asked me if I was planning on making any pickled onions for Christmas.  Now, Christmas is something that has been playing on my mind a little bit recently.  Although it is still August and Christmas seems a million miles away, it is just around the corner really, and if pickles are required then they need a bit of time to mature.  So I had better get my skates on!  I asked Liz if she fancied pickled shallots for a change, instead of onions, and she said that would be marvellous!

So this morning I soaked the little clusters of shallots in boiling water briefly to loosen the skins and then rinsed in cold water to refresh.  I then started arranging my kitchen worktop into a one man production line.  A big bowl full of the clusters, another bowl for the topped and tailed separated shallots, another bowl for the skinned shallots and a food recycling bag for the waste. 

An hour later, with eyes watering like made and really sore fingertips and thumb nails, I have half filled my favourite bowl, which I inherited from my nan, with peeled shallots, which are now sitting in the fridge with a covering of salt, ready for rinsing and bottling tomorrow.  I reckon I can get two good sized jars out of this little lot.

The jar for Liz will be spiced vinegar, black peppercorns and dried red chillies, and the other will be pickled in a piccalilli mustard sauce for my own consumption.  Yum!  I just hope that they will be delicious enough to warrant my having to walk around today with the overpoweringly strong smell of shallots wafting from my vigorously scrubbed fingertips!

We have pickled onions !!

After brining the small white and red onions from our allotment overnight last night, I came home from work this evening and rinsed them in plenty of cold water and then followed the basic pickled onion recipe from a booklet that I picked up from somewhere a few years ago.

I added a recommended twist to the jar along with the onions and the vinegar - black peppercorns and a sprinkle of some really hot little dried chillies that we were given as a gift and which seriously blew my head off the first time I used them in my cooking!  So I went really careful with those! 

Here are the little darlings resting on the Welsh dresser until around the end of October, when I shall be cracking into them with glee! 

How, I ask myself, am I going to be able to resist until then???

Fresh onion pickle & some potatoes

I decided that this fresh onion pickle would go extremely well with our BBQ this evening.

Mamta's fresh Indian spiced pickled onion. 

So, not wanting to wait until we have an Indian meal later on in the week, I eagerly made a batch using a mix of our home grown white and red onions and Sarson's spiced pickling vinegar.  Here is the dish, marinating in the lovely, spicy vinegar ready to be chomped later on. 

I can see this working really well in a bun alongside a Linda McCartney sausage, with some salad leaves and a splodge of Heinz tomato ketchup, which if you ask me no BBQ should be without.  Yum!

Not only have I been playing about with onions all day, but I have been scrubbing our newly dug Pink Fir Apple potatoes too.  These were dug fresh this morning.



So far this season we have had four or five loads like this to munch our way through, and bearing in mind the minimal amount we paid for them from the local garden centre in the first place, we have more than had our money's worth from this crop and then some, and they are so delicious!  Tonight some of these will be bagged up in foil with olive oil, a splash of white wine, salt & pepper and some mint leaves picked fresh from the garden.  Then on the BBQ for 15 minutes or so............

I am dribbling at the thought of how I just know that they are going to go all sticky and caramelised around the edges as they cook in their little tin foil package.

A perfect Sunday for pickling

I was having a tidy up of the garden this morning and had a quick squeeze of the onions and shallots that have been drying out in a big cardboard box in the shed, and decided that they are now ready for pickling.  Well, the larger ones will be kept in the larder for everyday use, some shallots, which I adore using in cooking, will stay in a paper bag in the fridge, but the rest will be bottled in spiced vinegar.

Here they all are.

We are quite please all in all, because this is our first ever crop from our allotment, and the best thing is I only had to sling about half a dozen in the bin because they looked either diseased in some way or had gone chalky or rotten. 

Having never pickled onions before in my life, although I have probably eaten my whole body weight of the things over the years, I consulted 'Pam The Jam's recipe for pickled onions in the preserving River Cottage Handbook.  I don't think I can go wrong if I follow her basic pickled onion advice. 

I also fancy making this recipe, passed to me by Mamta, next time we have an Indian meal, probably one day in the week.  A fresh and zingy Indian onion pickle.  Sounds delicious.

http://www.mamtaskitchen.com/recipe_display.php?id=13115 

Thanks Mamta.

Keep an eye out of photos of the finished pickles in the next day or two.  And that Indian pickle too.

Curd samples ready to go!

Not sure if anyone has noticed, but I have been making quite a bit of fruit curd lately, and our fridge has literally started to groan under the weight of it all.  Luckily for said fridge, my printed labels arrived today for some of the curds, and I already took delivery of the small sample jars last week.  So this evening I have been sterilising, packing, cooling and labelling to my heart's content! 

The first three flavours to be tucked away in their new homes are the St Clement's, the strawberry and the rhubarb.  Here are the little beauties in all their splendour, nestled together on our dining table, just waiting to be devoured.

To say I am pleased with them is an understatement.  I think they look really cute.  I really do need to find a stainless steel jam funnel that will fit into the neck of the jars though.  The one I have is exactly the same size as the jar necks, so it was a bit fiddly keeping that still whilst ladling the curd in without getting the stuff all over the place!  Added to the fun element of it all I suppose.  Well that's what I'm telling myself anyway!

Thanks go to C Wynne Jones who supplied these really cool jars.  http://www.cwynnejones.com/  When I start making my curds on a grander scale (soon I hope!) I will have to upgrade to jars that are a bit more substantial, but for the time being, to give folk a little taste of things to come, these little jars I think are the perfect vessel for giving away little tasters of my stuff.

An unusual Venetian mustard

The sun has been out in all its glory today, and me not being a sun lover, well apart from if I am somewhere exotic, like Venice for example, decided to stay indoors where I could keep cool.

Whilst perusing my cookery books amidst my happy cooldom, I found a recipe in this book for Mostardo de Venezia.


This book cost me 1p on Amazon!!!  Bargain!!!

Essentially a mustard type condiment usually made with either entirely quinces, or a mixture of quinces and pears, flavoured with mustard powder and sweetened with sugar.  Living here in Bedfordshire I don't think I have ever had the opportunity to buy quinces, and certainly didn't fancy trying to source them today, plus it's not really the season for them, so I decided to use all pears.

The resulting mustard I wouldn't quite call a mustard.  More a sweet, fruity sauce with a slight mustard taste to it.  The recipe said to cook it until you have reached an apple sauce consistency and this is what I did, but the taste and texture of the sauce really doesn't live up to the exotic name, in my opinion.  And I am not quite sure what I would serve this alongside. 

Maybe after 3-4 weeks of maturing the sauce will be tastier and it will inspire me into deciding what dishes it would compliment.

Failing that, when I make it again, which I invariably will, even if only because I love the recipe name and just adore Venice, maybe I will use quinces.......if I can get hold of any.





Plenty onions!

We decided to check up on the allotment yesterday, see how our onions were coming along.  This year is the first year we have had an allotment.  Digging it over when we first acquired it, when there was frost on the ground was such hard work but very rewarding.  The plot hadn't been looked after for many years, so there was a lot of moss and stones and general rubbish to clear away.  A little later on in the spring we got up there and sowed our first seeds, bulbs and tubers, which was so exciting!

We are very lucky in that the location of our allotment is in a very scenic spot in Bedfordshire, overlooking some glorious sights.  It is also quite close to a church and is very peaceful, so you can dig or hoe for a bit, and then rest on your fork handle and listen to the wonderful sounds of nature going on around you.  No cars to be heard!  Just bird song and church bells.  Bliss.

In the vicinity, All Saint's Church, referred to as the 'Cathedral of the Chilterns'.

I do enjoy exploring surrounding plots and taking photos of stuff that folk have left laying around.

And also have a nosey at what other crops are being grown.  I did plan on growing rhubarb this year but never quite got round to it.  Rhubarb certainly seems to take well in the soil that we have, so next year it is something I will definitely grow - I love the stuff!

Here's another scenic snapshot.

Unfortunately the growing season coincided with our recent house move, so we haven't been as attentive over it as we would have liked to have been.  Plus the unpredictable weather this year has meant that most allotment owners haven't had much success with crops, us included.  But we have had a worthwhile crop of beetroot, carrots, potatoes & peas to keep us going.  Our runner beans are still thriving yet to be picked, and now we have harvested all of our white & red onions and our shallots.  Here they are drying out in the sun in the garden.  There are some beetroot, carrots & spuds in amongst that lot top right.  We steamed and ate the carrots and spuds last night - yum!!

Once they are nicely dried out I am going to pickle the smaller onions in a large Kilner jar in spiced vinegar.  They all feel a little bit soft to the squeeze, so I predict I should be able to pickle the small ones at the weekend, so long as the sun stays in the sky.  I have never pickled onions before so am quite excited!  The larger onions will be kept in a sack of some sort, or I have been told that a pair of tights works well, suspended from the rafters of our shed to keep the air circulating.  And I think I might pickle some of the shallots in a mustard sauce.

Sadly our spring onions didn't come to anything, but I am quite happy with our abundance of alliums.

Can I just mention that we wouldn't have been able to do so well with our harvesting if it hadn't have been for the help we were given by my partner's granddad.  He has an allotment not far from ours, has done for many decades, and tends to his land daily.  He is an expert in the field of growing veg, and has helped us out enormously while we have been busy relocating.  Thanks John, it has been very much appreciated. xx

We can't wait to clear the ground in preparation for another growing season next spring when we will have more time to get stuck in!  And we can't wait to enjoy our onions!

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!