The diary of two novice gardeners and chicken keepers
Posted in Cooking on Oct 28th, 2011
This was my first attempt at Pear Jam. Its a cobbled together version of the recipe I do for all my jams. I used two pound of pears which had been peeled, cored and cut up into chunks; I large lemon; one pound of preserving sugar and some water. I put the pears into a pan [...]
This morning I made three jars of jam from some of the fruit collected from my Victoria Plum Tree bought from Lidl. They are really tasty straight from the tree but lovely made into jam so that we can have the taste right through the winter too. I usually cook large stoned fruit quite well [...]
Posted in Cooking on Nov 29th, 2010
Today I made one of my favourite cake recipes. Its a variation on a classic Madeira Cake. All it is is one part soft butter, one part sugar and one part self raising flour and the batter can be adapted to the size of your baking tins. I use a smallish loaf tin and the following recipe:- 150gms [...]
Posted in Cooking on Nov 17th, 2010
We have loads of jobs to do in the garden but rain has stopped play today. We have had torrential rain since the early hours of the morning so couldnt carry on outside. We have come indoors and I am making Butternut Squash Soup. One medium sized Butternut Squash One small onion One potato One/Two [...]
Posted in Allotments, Cooking on Jul 31st, 2010
The kitchen window ledge is now full of jars of jam made from the fruit harvested from the allotment. I do still have some picking to do but I am nearly at the end of it. I have kept a few for ourselves which are in the fridge, given some away and have thirty two [...]
Posted in Allotments, Cooking on Jul 15th, 2010
It’s that time of year again. Time to pick the fruit and make the jams and jellies. To date I have made four jars of red gooseberry, one of yellow gooseberry and six jars of blackcurrant. I have already used up all my saved jars and freezer boxes and there is still a load to pick. [...]
Posted in Allotments, Cooking on Aug 19th, 2009
Made my first ever pumpkin pies this morning using just a quarter of a largish pumpkin. I did a search for a recipe as I had no idea what went into it apart from pumpkin and pastry. I used a block of frozen shortcrust pastry and lined two tart dishes. I pureed the pumpkin and [...]
Posted in Allotments, Cooking on Jul 28th, 2009
Last night we went to the plots and while Rob laid a wood chip path in the fruit tunnel I picked the rest of the fruit. The gooseberries are past their best now really. We have already picked and frozen a lot of the red so I decided to pick some green ones and make [...]
