And the fruit preserving continues.
Last night I made Gooseberry Fool, using home-made custard from my Girls' eggs. I love home made custard. Seemed a bit of a shame to "waste" it in a Fool... but the Fool came out well. Even DH (who eats very few vegetables and even fewer fruits) liked it.
This morning it was a bit cooler, so I picked all the remaining blackcurrants, pureed them, and I'm leaving them in a bowl for 24 hours. I can't quite see how this cold extraction method is going to work, but I'll try anything once.
And I moved on to the next step in the blackcurrant vodka. It's a bit of a tedious process this one. Step 2 involves straining the blackcurrants from the alchohol, adding water and more sugar to the sieved pulp and keeping both this and the strained liquid for another four days before step 3.
We haven't had as many blackcurrants as normal. I didn't put any Growmore around the fruit in March, nor any compost in May. And the floor of the fruit cage is a bit choked with weedy plants. We're going to take up the weed control fabric as soon as the Tayberries have finished, give it all a good going over (with the help of the Girls), a layer of rotted manure and hopefully next year will be better.
The Cherry Tree, on the other hand, has produced a spectacular harvest. I'm trying - somewhat unsuccessfully - to enthuse myself to go and pick more cherries to have a go at making some cherry desserty stuff. I was thinking of a sort of cherry puree, which could be used in cakes or as a topping or something. I'm going to be using the pasteuriser tomorrow night for the blackcurrant cordial, so I could pop some jars of cherry stuff in at the same time. However. The recipe for the cherry doodah involves going to the supermarket (our local Off Licence seems to have closed) to buy Kirsch, and I can't face the supermarket on a Sunday. Maybe tomorrow.
The Parakeets are back. They land on the apple trees, nibble through an apple until it falls off the tree, then they move on to the next apple. The half-chewed apple falls on on top of the chicken run, which irritates the Girls. They then complain, loudly. As this tends to start at about 5am, it's not great.
The Pear Tree also has a bumper crop on, it's first good crop for 3 or 4 years (the last one was when we had our driveway done. I remember that because for all the time the guys were here doing the driveway, I was preserving pears. I'll have to check my offline diary though to see when that was).
I expect I'll try Pear vodka.Just for a change.
Last night I made Gooseberry Fool, using home-made custard from my Girls' eggs. I love home made custard. Seemed a bit of a shame to "waste" it in a Fool... but the Fool came out well. Even DH (who eats very few vegetables and even fewer fruits) liked it.
This morning it was a bit cooler, so I picked all the remaining blackcurrants, pureed them, and I'm leaving them in a bowl for 24 hours. I can't quite see how this cold extraction method is going to work, but I'll try anything once.
And I moved on to the next step in the blackcurrant vodka. It's a bit of a tedious process this one. Step 2 involves straining the blackcurrants from the alchohol, adding water and more sugar to the sieved pulp and keeping both this and the strained liquid for another four days before step 3.
We haven't had as many blackcurrants as normal. I didn't put any Growmore around the fruit in March, nor any compost in May. And the floor of the fruit cage is a bit choked with weedy plants. We're going to take up the weed control fabric as soon as the Tayberries have finished, give it all a good going over (with the help of the Girls), a layer of rotted manure and hopefully next year will be better.
The Cherry Tree, on the other hand, has produced a spectacular harvest. I'm trying - somewhat unsuccessfully - to enthuse myself to go and pick more cherries to have a go at making some cherry desserty stuff. I was thinking of a sort of cherry puree, which could be used in cakes or as a topping or something. I'm going to be using the pasteuriser tomorrow night for the blackcurrant cordial, so I could pop some jars of cherry stuff in at the same time. However. The recipe for the cherry doodah involves going to the supermarket (our local Off Licence seems to have closed) to buy Kirsch, and I can't face the supermarket on a Sunday. Maybe tomorrow.
The Parakeets are back. They land on the apple trees, nibble through an apple until it falls off the tree, then they move on to the next apple. The half-chewed apple falls on on top of the chicken run, which irritates the Girls. They then complain, loudly. As this tends to start at about 5am, it's not great.
The Pear Tree also has a bumper crop on, it's first good crop for 3 or 4 years (the last one was when we had our driveway done. I remember that because for all the time the guys were here doing the driveway, I was preserving pears. I'll have to check my offline diary though to see when that was).
I expect I'll try Pear vodka.Just for a change.
