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| here we are at Deddington....... |
I know magazines and such like are published for the month ahead, making them always ahead of trends giving them time to forge onwards for the next month, writing articles, organising photo-shoots and keeping an eye on copy dates...well. I guess this is how it is!
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| elderberries at Deddington |
OK so I was following the Great British Menu and the Great British Bake-Off, commenting on these two good programmes when I lost sight of the GBM view, after just two weeks for Scotland and Wales ....and now well I've not seen it since!
Bake-Off's been great. Loved watching those guys tackle the "free-from" week. Hated seeing Ugne go, she is so great! So glad my other favourite is still there and all the others. Still love cooking - always will - but OMG so glad I'm only cooking to my tempo and not some cooking big-chef or director's frantic, hectic beat.
So now its Sunday morning and time for coffee. In the kitchen, a pan of Friday-afternoon-country picked damsons + some of those picked early-7.45am- Sunday-morning gently stewing in 1/2 pint of cider vinegar, not malt vinegar as suggested by Delia, who I'm going along with plus two or three other people's recipes for I'm actually needing to use up that already prep'd marrow in the 'fridge, the cider vinegar bought for the Dear SO's cooking, and I'm constructing an home-goal recipe for the mass of ingredients my kitchen is currently storing. Full details of all online resources I am utilising will be given at the end of this post, as I really value input from other writer-cooks-bloggers and respect their material ownership.....
OK my damsons are now ready to stone as they've fallen apart in that 30-minute gentle stewing time suggested by Delia - that girl - you just know whatever she says it's just gonna work!!!
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| damsons and elderberries ready and waiting... |
So these can now cool and drop their stones, I'll measure out the marrow, strip the elderberries off, chop onions and maybe some plums and get the whole pan cooking, add the sugar and spices and get this pot of chutney made up and potted. The Dear SO will print off my labels and then this batch of edible Christmas presents, friendly give-aways or eat-at-home deliciousness for that speedy home-from-work lunch can be stored for a couple of years until its ready to go; and I can get on with that other batch of chutney ingredients presently cluttering up our kitchen and making me, at least, feel very guilty!!!
And my week - well, it's been full, interesting and highly enjoyable. Gardening for friends, for myself - veggies and herbs - and taking care of our local WI's wild flower garden; plus writing, and step counting - I did over 8000 on Friday and 6000 yesterday. Book club begins tomorrow with my book Animal Vegetable Mineral by Barbara Kingsolver for discussion so I'll need to look up some stuff about her, print it off and prep my notes. Luckily, my chums have previously read masses by the author so that will help and we read her book of butterfly migration gone wrong last year so she is well known already, thank goodness.
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| damsons in cider vinegar ready to stew! |
It's a glorious day here with sunlight dancing in the breeze. The Dear SO is looking forward to the Italian GP at Monsa and I must get back to my chutney, go feed-spray my aubergine .....and well grab me some sunshine when I can.
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| street view of Adderbury - my fabulous adopted home village............ |
Yesterday I went off for a photo-shoot at Deddington's Produce Show which was excellent. Beautiful veggies, cakes, bakes, preserves, crafts, pictures and a brilliant section of children's art works. Here's a few photos for you to see what I enjoyed yesterday plus I had a great tea with friends before driving home. I've scattered them thru' this blog for more fun.....
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| here's one I made earlier...! |
I also called by Adderbury's family day of fun to see what was going there and they were still having fun although the bbq seemed to be over - oh dear...
Ah now before I go off-line and back to the damsons, here are my sourced reference online pages -
Delia Online Spiced Damson Chutney for her brilliant method of cooking/stoning damsons;
Jane Levi on food Damson Chutney via - http://jlevidotorg.files.wordpress.com
Also a Spiced Damson Chutney from Cooking with Mrs. M from -
http://www.athomewithmrsm.com/2010/08/spiced-damson-chutney.html
Well that's all for now dear reader, see you later!
Daisy xxx
PS just another thought - I will day-write my posting for Saturday so the material's ready to go out next Friday evening the Saturday edition and here's an uptake on the damsons... I've just realised - don't hand-fish for your expelled fruit stones but pour the mixture into a deep strainer/sieve that just snugley fits a mxing bowl and sieve the stewed fruit, hey! OK the pulp may not be as aesthetically plaeasing this way, as doing it by hand but, then, its a whole lot faster and cleaner that way which is just absolutely fine by me...hehehe....
I do hope I've not left any unseen mistakes in this post and apologies if there are, Daisy
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