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!

I finished the year on a high note!

Seems a bit redundant, posting about 2012 ending when we're fast approaching the middle of 2013, but I'm trying to catch up, so here goes:

On 27 December, I spent over six hours cleaning and sterilising bottles, and started to decant the liqueurs that were already in bocaux...

Did I need the bocaux to empty the freezer of sloes and pig damsons?

Why do you ask?
;-)

December 29 I worked in a t-shirt till 6.30pm before lighting the fire.

And by 6.15pm on New Year's Eve, I'd decanted all the liqueurs in the cupboard [bar two jars that contain still-edible fruit - I'm keeping them in the liqueur till we finish the fruit (which is yummy with ice cream)], and emptied the freezer into another set of liqueurs-in-progress

I'm going to leave them as long as possible until decanting this set (and am hoping to buy some more bocaux so that I'm not constantly running short; we sometimes see them at dépôts-vente for €0.50 for the large ones and €0.30 for the small ones, so it's worth waiting till I find them [in England they tend to be about £6.99 each!] with the exchange rate giving us €1.18 to the £).

It's quite a nice feeling now: just waiting for the mirabelle, pig-damson and damson trees to work their magic!

Right, decision made!

OK, I've decided to put off posting about my liqueurs until the new year...

This gives me the chance to update my spreadsheet without feeling as pressured as I am right now [I know it's all self-inflicted stress, but I could still do without it], and (hopefully) I will remember to check those details that aren't clear from where I've written things in my book.

With luck, I will manage to sort out the decanted bottles in France, and have a better idea of what we've got; now the rest of the house [with the exception of the study/spare bedroom which has reverted to that dépôt-vente style storage are that we are so familiar with!] is pretty nearly where we want it.

Also, I may have made the last of the frozen fruit into more works-in-progress by then, too.

Either way, I'm choosing to make my life a bit easier, with the expectation that I will enjoy updating this blog more when I do get around to it, so this is it for this year - Merry Christmas, and a Happy 2013!

I've got into a complete pickle!

I've been through all my photos, looking for ones where I'm making or decanting the liqueurs, or we're tasting them...

And it's been so long since I've posted to this blog, I read over what I've already posted - it's a complete mess, isn't it?!?

I think I'm going to set up a spreadsheet with all my notes from my book [it's all in chronological order, so a liqueur appears several times (especially if we've adjusted sugar/taste) by the time it's been decanted; and on a different page if we've done a "tasting"], and going forward I'm going to post where we are with "historical" batches of liqueur [over time!], and then try to keep up with newly-made batches.

Fingers crossed I can get some sort of order, without too much duplication.  Either way, hopefully I'll post some updates in the not-too-distant future.

But I suspect it's going to take several days...

Keep your fingers crossed for me!

Tasting notes

Most of my liqueurs (that have been decanted) are in boxes in the small cellar.  It was dry down there, and as we don't have anywhere else to store them at the moment, it seemed the best solution.

Now that it's not dry down there, I'm not so sure...!

We think it's just all the rain we've had that has made it damp, so fingers crossed opening the doors to both cellars cries them out quickly now that the weather has turned warm and sunny.

The other night we decided to try some of the results.

Number 14: pig-damson gin - made on 22 August, 2010

L-R: big plums, pig-damsons (back), small red plums, mirabelles

The pig-damson is a small damson-like plum that M. Lorin (who sold us the house) said he "wouldn't feed to a pig", so they are known in our household as pig-damsons.  They are not quite like the damsons we know from England, and most years are so tart they never ripen, but just occasionally they turn really sweet and are perfectly palatable.  If I remember correctly, the 2010 ones were the really sharp ones, not edible ones, but I'm not sure.

I 2/3 filled a 4-litre Le Parfait jar/bocal with pricked, fresh pig damsons, added 4 heaped dessert-spoons of sugar and filled the jar with 38° alcool pour fruits [like eau-de-vie, I think?  It's basically raw alcohol for use in making liqueurs/pickling fruit] - about 2 litres.

I shake the jars daily until we go back to England, or I forget, whichever is the sooner, but either way it's normally several weeks, and then the mix is just left to its own devices until I remember to decant them [or the jar is needed for starting another batch of liqueurs!].

Decanted pig-damson liqueur

I found the small bottle of liqueur, and just assumed that it was left over from the bigger bottles that I filled when decanting the bocal, but looking through my book with all my notes in it, I'm guessing that was all I managed to decant!

My book says: "so thick with sediment I'm going to buy a muslin bag & leave them to drain overnight!!  So they're going back in the cupboard", and that was on 27 April, 2011.

And, sure enough, the jar is still in the cupboard!

But I didn't know that when we were tasting it...

My main thought at the time was: I must find some way of removing more sediment; I couldn't offer this to guests.

Cloudy, but nice!

We both thought it smelt plummy, and after David had tasted a sip and said it was dry, I started to smell sloes.  Probably auto-suggestion at work!

Neither of us thought it smelled of pig-damsons, nor guessed that's what if was [we did a blind tasting before I looked up what 14 was].

We both thought it was sloe gin on the tasting, but that could be because it was dry.  David thought it was a fairly syrupy consistency; more like a liqueur than a spirit, and could tell it was alcoholic, but not in a throat-stripping way like grappa.

Overall, we both liked it, and would offer it to guests, but on a "choose your audience" basis; not everyone likes the same things...  But we would both drink it happily [I would be happier if there was less sediment, so some internet research coming up], so maybe I should get a move on and decant the rest!

I do now possess a muslin bag, so that's a good start!

Number 60: sloe sherry

Sloe-and-cinnamon-stick gin, before the gin was added

This is a blend of sloes re-used from making sloe-and-vanilla gin and sloe-and-cinnamon-stick gin.  I got the idea of re-using the sloes (after the gin-turned-into-liqueur has been decanted off) from the Cottage Smallholder blog I notice that another page has a recipe for sloe sherry, but I'm sure I found the idea on the sloe gin entry where someone said to reuse the sloes...

Who knows, that's gone from my memory, and I'm not so great at using the recipes any more - I just fill the jar by eye, and add less sugar than I think I'll need, knowing that I can add more later, but I can't take any away!

The vanilla sloe gin was made on 27 August 2010, and was a 4-litre Le Parfait jar a good 2/3-full of frozen and then squished sloes*, a vanilla pod, 8 dessert-spoons of sugar, topped up with gin (about 2.5 litres).  I subsequently added another 4 dssp sugar.

Re-used sloes turning into sloe sherry

The cinnamon sloe gin was a 2-litre Le Parfait jar, half-filled with frozen, squished sloes*, 2 dessert-spoons of sugar [another 4 dssp added later in the process], a cinnamon stick and just over 1.5 litres of gin.  This was made on 1 October, 2010

[I made another batch at the same time using ground cinnamon, and that was weird!  The ground cinnamon made the liquid extremely viscous - almost like that slime that you get in ponds...  Tastes OK, though.]

I decanted off the liqueurs from the two above brews on 27 April, 2011, and using a 2-litre Le Parfait jar I added just over half a jar of sloes from the cinnamon sloe gin and just under half a jar of the vanilla-infused sloes.  I also added another 4 dessert-spoons of sugar and nearly a bottle of sherry.

That mix is still in the cupboard, but I drew off just enough so that we could try to see if it works...

Sloe sherry

We both noted that it smelt less alcohol-y, and wasn't that fruity smelling, but both thought it was plums.

In tasting, I noted that it tasted spicy, although I thought it tasted of cloves (which I knew to be wrong, as I've only used cloves in making "44"), and David thought it had an almost cherry-like aftertaste.  I was tasting red fruit, but only David guessed sloes.

Either way, it was a real success; the spices adding a certain something, and the re-used fruit not leading to a weak or diluted taste.

So, more sloe sherry on the way, sooner or later...!

* A final note on why I used frozen fruit. Three reasons:

• firstly, I couldn't deal with all the sloes we'd picked, so had to freeze a lot until I could get to them;
• secondly, our previous experiments showed that freezing released more flavour/colour than just pricking the fruit did, so added to the quality of the finished product [and also gave a breathing space after picking, washing and drying all those fiddly little black fruit!];
• thirdly, squishing freezing-cold sloes is a pain in the behind, but way less of a hassle than pricking the little blighters when they are fresh!

[Don't forget the fingers; when pricking sloes it seems as if I never forget to prick my fingers!]

Good intentions...

We all know what they say about good intentions...

But still, I'm starting to get up to date with my other blog, and posting some more photos of our creations is on my list.

[OK, not at the top, but I'm hoping to get to it!]

Fruits of our labours

L-R: lemon schnapps; limoncello; "pompelmocello"; "44"

A brief tasting session showed that all of the citrus liqueurs are drinkable, but for future reference [and clarity of notes] it would probably be better to conduct tastings at the apéritif (rather than digestif) end of the evening!

Doing some prep work

I spent a long time yesterday removing labels from my stash of bottles; I've been collecting pretty or nice-shaped ones to use when I decant my liqueurs, and I'm getting to the stage where I need to bottle some, so this was the first step on the way.

Yukky, backbreaking work, but today's effort is much easier: I've washed 49 various wine, fortified wine, and spirit bottles (plus a few jam jars), and was rinsing them all when I realised I'd emptied the immersion heater of hot water.

I'm just letting it heat up again before finishing the rinsing process, and then I will sterilise a few so I can finally deal with the long-overdue limoncello that's sitting in my cupboard.

If it sounds really bad that I've used up an immersion-heater's worth of hot water, I apologise: we have a small one under the kitchen sink, as the run from the big one in the laundry meant we would have wasted a lot of water just waiting for it to run hot before we even started using any water.

The great thing about a tiny immersion heater is that you get hot water again really quickly.

But in the meantime, I'm using this as an excuse to have another cup of tea!

Hedgerow liqueurs

I'm not going to post about them (properly) now, because I'm drained after a week of thinking building work in French, and collecting leaves when it's 32°C in full sun wasn't the most sensible thing to do!

We had a minor thunder storm last night, so I wanted to get some more ingredients in case it rains again this evening.

In honour of St George's Day, I have made an oak leaf infusion. Also: may flower, nettle and walnut leaf. The walnut leaf is supposed to be made on St John's Day, but I decided to try an early batch as all the other leaf recipes recommend young leaves.

We shall see...

I also have enough leftovers for stir-fried nettles in chilli oil with garlic and ginger, so I don't even have to think about what to have for dinner!

Not alcohol related...

Honest!

I'm posting about it on this blog, because I don't want to have to tell David if I don't have to [and because it will affect my foraging activities, obviously!]...

Like an idiot, I turned my ankle while I was out eyeing up oak leaves to make an oak leaf infusion. I felt like a twit, but thought nothing more of it.

Carried on as normal, and it only occurred to me about four hours later that my foot was feeling really quite achy. I assumed that it was from standing on my feet most of the day [like the "kill me" sensation of too much shopping], so changed shoes a couple of times whilst doing the washing up and vacuuming.

It was only when I was on the third pair of shoes [pink "mock Crocs" (ShoeZone's £1.99 version of a Croc) in case you are wondering] and couldn't get the left one on that I realised my foot was quite swollen and more painful.

I'm being sensible [now I've realised I've done some damage], and look probably as uncomfortable as I feel with my foot on a chair with an old t-shirt tying a bag of ice to my foot!

Not osteopath-recommended posture, I'm sure, so I'm going to admit defeat and get a quick shower in and then turn in for an early night.

I might have to take up Isabelle on her kind offer to do some shopping for me if it isn't any better in the morning.

I'm doing what I can: Rest, Ice, [can't do Compression because it's already swollen], Elevation and 200c Arnica. If I have an early night, hopefully I will cope with the rigours of tomorrow [plumber, electrician, joiners & maybe a plaquiste or builder to wrangle].

I think this could be a message from my body that I actually do need to do that resting that Guy, Chris, Elida & David keep mentioning!

#49: Lilac flower liqueur

Another triumph of hope over experience.

And another experimental 'brew': I was reading articles on the internet to try and find a recipe for the hawthorn shoot liqueur that M. Claude had told me about [he was very chatty about it until I started grilling him on how to make it, then went strangely silent; speaking with Mme. Claude on Sunday I worked out why - he only collects the twigs, she's the alchemist!]. Well none was forthcoming, but I came across an article on edible flowers/leaves which said that lilac flowers were edible.

So, emboldened by the experience of making elderflower liqueur [it's not disgusting, especially given how I hate the smell of the plant, and the smell of the flowers really perfumes it], I thought I would try lilac flower liqueur to see if I could capture some of the scent of a warm spring day.

My general principle these days is to fill a jar with flowers/leaves and then with gin/vodka/alcool pour fruits (a fairly rough-and-ready eau-de-vie, I think), and maybe a small amount of sugar or not, depending on how I'm feeling/whether I forget.

[When I'm dealing with fruit I two-thirds fill it, unless I don't have another jar, then I fill it.]

I think I recall reading that sugar helps set the flavours, or draw them out? I'm not sure; the Mad Scienticians™ don't put sugar in their flavoured quintuple-filtered vodkæ, but they are making a slightly different thing [probably].

And they don't forget about their creations for nearly a year [a reminder comes in the form of needing the bocaux for the next seasons efforts].

[Recipe Alert!]

So, back to the topic in hand: for this particular batch, I filled the jar with flowers taken off the stem, added a dessertspoonful of cassonade [looks like a cross between demerara and granulated sugars], and then filled it with 38° alcool pour fruits.

Now I'm sitting back and letting Nature work its magic, with the occasional agitation of the jar so that I can claim the credit! I may plan to decant it fairly quickly, but know that that will happen when it happens.

The hope-over-experience bit? Well that's hoping that the beautiful colours will also infuse the drink over the experience of knowing it will all go brown!

Two Steps Forward; One Step Back

Having successfully 'gone with the flow' earlier, and accepted that whatever light switch operated the spot in the niche above the loo was FINE, I'm now having another wobble...

I'm sure it's all stress-related [or possibly tiredness-caused-by-stress-related?], but I can't post about #51: Beech Leaf Noyau now, as I've talked myself into going and getting another jar full of beech leaves [and possibly succumbing to the temptation to do the same with oak leaves?], because I think I overfilled the jar and I'm not convinced I should have washed them.

People drink wine, don't they? I've seen how those grapes look before they go in to the vats; trust me, no-one is there washing them and checking there's no bits of leaf!

So I'm going to make another attempt and do a side-by-side comparison later when they're both done.

And try to stress less!

My "Secret Gin Cupboard"

This is actually a concept, rather than a fixed location.

Originally, it was just that: it was a secret [nice (hopefully) surprise for David at Christmas 2009], contained sloe and damson gin, and it was the left-hand half of the Basque buffet [cupboard by any other name] that's in the entrance hall.

And then it was no longer a secret, morphed into containing Quarante Quatre, Limoncello and other non-gin liqueurs and has since moved.

OK it's moved to another cupboard [until I'm sure that the cellars are bone dry (which the bigger one is most definitely NOT), it will have to stay in a cupboard. Although, I have high hopes of decanting some of my better efforts and laying them down in the space under the stairs...

I have fond memories of making sloe gin when I was a teenager: not so much picking the sloes [they don't call the plants blackthorn for nothing!] or pricking them [a right royal pain: we used to use pins and frequently caught a finger tip!], but the alchemical process of gin [which in those days I hated; my mother didn't believe in painkillers, so gin was the only remedy for period pains!], nasty bitter little fruit & sugar becoming this most smooth of drinks.

And not-at-all gin flavoured, which was a bonus!

Now I have a whole range of drinks in the making; some that suggested themselves [mirabelle, little-red-plums from the meadow, walnut (ripe)], others that I read about ["Taboo", coffee bean, green walnut schnapps].

I've a list where I jot down ideas and I'm trying to keep notes in a book, so that when I find a recipe that's a success I can replicate it and when something needs a bit of work I can try it differently the next time/blend it with another flavour/strength.

So far (keeping my fingers firmly crossed), I haven't had a failure.

Just some that I think need to steep/mature a bit longer [ripe walnuts fall into that category, and the instructions for walnut schnapps is to make it, decant it, then leave it for five years, before diluting it with vodka in a 1:10 ratio].

So why aren't I just posting this stuff on "Chez le Baron"?

Well, my beloved husband is an e-mail subscriber to my main blog, and how would I surprise him with my wonderful concoctions if he's already read about them?

[For that you can read: "how would I torture him by making him guess what the flavours are if he already knows"!]

His main guess last season for anything non-plum-family was "Quarante Quatre" (the only non-plum-related one I'd previously made); good try sneaky bloke, but it's not all oranges and coffee beans!

Oddly, he did spot the limoncello, but as I left the peel in too long, the colour has darkened so I need to make some more [and obviously need David to tell me if I've inadvertently ruined the flavour].

As for the "secret gin cupboard bit": that was from the days when I was making gin-based liqueurs but hadn't yet told him, so was hiding them in a cupboard. Now he knows about them, it's not longer a secret cupboard, but it's still a secret what I've got in store!