ilultham

I was lucky enough to be at my friends the other day and snuffle some damsons - one of my favourite fruits!  We all love their tart sweetness here so the kids were excited to eat some as well.  I did find my youngest with six little pots he'd found, putting two in each, to take them to school as his snack!  We had a big bag full so I was unsure the best way to preserve them. We already have quite a bit of canned fruit so I decided the dehydrator might be the way forward - I love these on my breakfast in the summer! Chewy, tart, sharp and yet sweet.  I filled the dehydrator with 3 trays of damsons and 3 trays of very tart cooking apples. Love this time of year but feel I need to be preserving something all the time to make the most of it!  What are you currently preserving? 

 I love just canning a few jars of fruit on an evening, often when writing in the kitchen.  I know I've said it so many times before but doing it like this, little and often, really does fill up the pantry! 

Sometimes I get silly ideas in my head - like making bread before school!  To  be fair it was only the dough that they were making. An enriched one to make apple buns for a bake sale at school. The dough was being tricky though and we must have got something wrong as it didn't pull together very well or quickly. Lots of kneading needed. It was only as we covered it over that I remember they had school photos that day and they were already covered in flour! I made them quickly run and get changed!  I finished making the buns in the day when the kids were at school and took them later when I met up with them for the after school meet up for the parents. I was pleased to see them go really quickly when I dropped them off!  What would you bake if you had to take something to school or another function? Do you gave a go to favourite to cook?

 It's not been dry enough to do much on the cob oven, it needs more time to dry out (although I have done more since the last post). So my eldest daughter and I decided to make a wooden former for the arch over the entrance, a nice simple project we could do together.  I got her using the jig saw, making measurements and also using the nail gun for the first time! She always loves being in the workshop and making things, so it was nice to make this and explain how it would be used and how I've made these in the past for brickie's on site. I also explained how we need to wedge it up slightly so when the bricks are laid we can then remove the wedges and "strike" it once they're in place.  I'm hoping we'll get a break in the weather and be able to do some more next weekend (where it'll be hot enough to dry some of the cob). If we can get the base down for the oven and then get the arch in place that will feel like we've made a huge step forward.  ...

We've avoided blight the last few years here, but this summer when we got back from holiday it was waiting for us.  The girls and their mum ripped out most of the plants and seperated up the tomatoes into ones that would ripen and ones to use green, then they sat there staring at me until I did something with them.  Luckily I have my girls to help me do this sort of thing. My eldest asked if we could make a ketchup as we already have quite a bit of chutney, I found a couple of recipes online and decided to try them both.   Unfortunately that also meant getting some ingredients (fresh ginger and sherry), so we did the weekly shop first as well. In and out in 25 minutes, like a crack commando unit!  Then while I got things cooking the girls did all the veg prep - for 16 pints of ketchup! I was really impressed with them. We left it cooking most of the day (and worked on the cob oven as well).  Time will tell if this is worth it or not, they need to mature a b...

Although we had some cob bricks made we had nowhere to put them! I had dug out an area and filled it with hardcore but as I knew the oven would weigh a fair bit I decided to use some concrete here - hopefully the only bit. I lined the bottom of the footing with some left over plastic from our polytunnel and made a frame out of some left over fencing timber from earlier in the year.  A few loads of concrete later and I had a fairly good base to build things up from.  When this had dried we moved all the earth bricks we had made over and started building a wall around the outside.  I managed to get the children involved, the boy loved getting the sharp sand out of the trailer!  This is a seriously fun material to use. It doesn't dry out your hands (in fact mine have never been so soft) and it's simple enough a five year old can do it.  I tried to make sure we kept level and square as we work our way up the base.  My eldest bringing me straw for the cob thinki...

 I'm a big fan of learning through doing - I'm very much a kinesthetic learner. So the idea of making this earth oven harder for myself doesn't really phase me. Maybe it should though. But I've decided to make the base out of cob as well!  Then the other day a couple of friends were struggling with childcare (school hasn't started back yet but lots of holiday clubs are already finished), so I said I'd take them all in. And, with my wife, my friend adn her 4 children said they'd come over for a bit of fun. So at it's peak we had 12 children here for a bit of cob making! The base wasn't ready so it was just for learning to use the materials.  We got them breaking up the clay and then mixing it with sharp sand.  It was hard to keep them focused but they had such a great time. I don't think there was a single argument all morning, just lots of smiles and muddy children. I did make them a quick bench with my saw horses so they could do some model maki...

Last weekend we went to a food festival in Oxford. The whole day was really great, and a particular highlight was one of the talks I managed to sneak off to without the children.   It was with a man who has a company called "Bake with Jack", apparently he's on the TV but I've never seen him (not that I watch huge amounts these days so that's nothing to go by).  He did a demo where he made some apple cinnamon buns, he was a great speaker, really engaging and funny. I also picked up quite a few tips with baking.  The next day I then decided to make some, of course when baking I can't do much without my Middlest helping me!  We used the recipe from the Bake With Jack website , really easy to follow. I have to admit the one tip he kept saying was to trust the recipe, if he hadn't have said that then I'm sure I would have added more flour when kneading. To start with it went really sticky and normally I would have added extra flour to stop it sticking, but ...

 So if you have read this blog for any length of time you'll know that I love damsons. When ripe they're up there with some of my favourite fruits. One reason why I put about another 14 in this year in our new hedge in the second field.  Unfortunately, other than the one in the photo above (a Merryweather - my favourite as it is a "freestone" damson), the others don't seem to be doing so well in the orchard that I planted 8 years ago .  One seems to have reverted back to it's rootstock and is growing like crazy. But no fruit and very spiky. I'm not sure if I should try grafting or budding this one over to something else, or to rip it out with the digger and plant something else completely, especially as I'll have more damsons than I'll know what to do with with once the hedge as established.  The second had started growing with a serious lead. Duel domancy I think it's called where it ended up growing two leaders. Unfortunately this has lead to...