Merry Christmas!

I made the Christmas cake, and although I used my Bamix stick blender, I really missed my commis...

"Before"

Undamaged shoulders make lighter work of mixing up the butter and sugar!  Still, it only took me four hours to make [plus another 5¼ house cooking time], and it should last a while.

"After"

It caught a bit on one edge, but I think it will be OK...

[...Unlike the sous-vide salmon that Charles Campion encountered on Masterchef: The Professionals: "Pink flob of the worst kind" - ouch - but the comment made us smile!]

Have a great Christmas, and Happy New Year for 2015.

Mists and mellow fruitfulness

We've had a bumper autumn so far; the walnuts in France have produced a brilliant harvest - it's just a shame we couldn't be there to collect more nuts & dry them all out properly.  I suspect we are going to have "lost" most of what David collected by the time we next make it to the house...

They are yummy, though!

A few of the walnuts, from one tree

I have collected chestnuts a couple of times when I've been out on my walks; in places they've been like a shag-pile rug, they were laying so thickly.  And the fruit are huge; really easy to peel, as well.

The only downside is all the disgusting dog owners who don't "police" their pets' "leavings".  I really hate having to watch every step because of dog poo!  And plenty of people are responsible; it's not as though anyone not reasonably able-bodied would be using the pathway where the chestnuts are..  It's just such a shame.

The apples have also been lovely, and the pumpkins made great risotto, nice cookies and truly wonderful pumpkin bread.

The only disappointment is that I haven't managed to make time to create any liqueurs this autumn.  I haven't had much success with autumn fruit foraging in England.  So I will need to plant some trees/bushes at the house, so that I will have plenty of raw materials for the future "Good Life" concoctions!

Yum!

A huge thanks to John Whaite, who appeared on Lorraine last week - his scones looked so appealing that I made some at the weekend.

And another great big thank you to www.spadework.net for their Kentish Strawberry Jam - super, super yummy; the best we've had in years, and really tastes of strawberries.

And an enormous hug to the supportive chap who took me to Tesco to find buttermilk.

Oh, and helping dispose of the "leftovers"!

Squirrel-coat

Not a squirrel-pelt, but my coat where I managed to squirrel away my foraging results!

Not pregnant; just chestnuts!

Bit like the TARDIS in there!

My haul; next time I'm going back to carrying a plastic bag in my pocket during the autumn!

I'm "spitting feathers" mad at myself!

What with various things [that have sucked all the will for life, and blogging, out of me] that I'm not going to go into right now, I seem to have lost touch with my environment somewhat.

I kept seeing one of the trees overhanging our garden coming into flower, and meant to find out what it was...

I knew it wasn't a lime tree, because I have been itching to make a lime flower liqueur, but his morning [just as the flowers are starting to go brown] I finally remembered to get out a "tree book" to look it up.

Yup, lime tree!

I'm so cross with myself right now - it is COVERED in what were absolutely beautiful flowers, and I could have made the lime flower liqueur that I've been plotting for several years; so mad with not-really-me-me.

I haven't been walking [dizziness has been a huge side effect of the pain-relieving medication (Trigeminal Neuralgia - trust me, you don't want to try it), along with crippling nausea, and staying home (unmoving) has seemed a small price to pay], so haven't been passed it to catch the scent - which may have alerted me.

I think it hasn't flowered the other years that we've been here; I certainly can't remember any seeds, and I can for the (boo, hiss) sycamore that also dangles over our little outdoor space.

Oh well, hopefully life will settle down soon, and I can get back to messing with my creations [I have collected a few more ideas along the way].

On the upside, if we treat them as a real "treat" [rather than the staple that I prefer], I am nearly self-sufficient in nasturtium flowers; I'm even letting one or two pods fatten and ripen for future "crops".

AND my tulbaghia ("society garlic") has a flower coming - ooh.

Sadly, no fruit liqueurs this year

The fruit has all been so tasteless this year (plums, damsons, mirabelles, & sloes) that I decided not to make any liqueurs; it is a massive amount of effort, and if the end result is going to be disappointing [which it has been other times I've used less-than-stellar fruit], and I have wanted to protect my shoulders from the pain that all the bending over causes.

Fingers crossed the liqueurs I made last Christmas/New Year don't fall into the wish-I-hadn't-bothered category...

[Not yet decanted because the problems with my wrist/shoulders and then the wrist surgery/problems with my shoulders have left me barely able to cope with essential gardening on our trips to the house, so "extras" have had to wait.  Maybe my lovely assistant will help when we're next there...?]

Elderflower liqueur

When we were last in France, the weather went very warm, and would have been perfect for making the elderflower liqueur I'd planned to make...

Except that we went to Paris for a wedding [which was lovely!], and then we had a load of plants that needed to planted more urgently.

 And then, of course, it started raining!  So I couldn't pick the flowers because they were wringing wet.

Finally, we had a warm, dry morning, and I picked about 34 heads of elderflowers, and took the flowers off as much of the stem as possible.  Filled a 1.5 litre jar and filled with alcohol.

I think I've probably left it too late, and the rain may have washed away to best of the flavour, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed!