Yule

It's a bit early but isn't it pretty?

A silly season moment

Maybe I should try harder.

If you want to try this at home, watch out for the advertising link they sneak into the graphic.

Wildlife in Abundance

Aren't they cute?

You might think so, I couldn't possibly comment. In the last 24 hours the humane mousetrap has captured 5 guilty subjects, now released away up the field and into the forest although I have no confidence they won't be back, just as quickly as their little legs will carry them.

This place is a wonder for the quantity and variety of wildlife it supports. We were sorry to discover we had interrupted the winter hibernation of a fire salamander, something the books don't say will be resident in this area. My pictures of this were rubbish so here is a drawing I found.



There are also butterflies hibernating all over the house and we move around in fear of waking them up before the nectar plants are blooming again.

Not everything is quite so wonderful as the world of nature. The car battery, the same one as caused all the trouble last time so I have only myself to blame, has finally turned up its toes, just as I was about to sally forth to find one of those small garages where men in greasy blue overalls suck their teeth while telling you the car is beyond economic repair but they'll see what they can do. So I am well and truly stuck and have succumbed to inviting a British peripatetic mechanic to come over and bring a battery with him. He tells me the earliest he can get here is Thursday which was a day I had in mind for travelling back to the UK for a visit so it's just as well I've not booked a ticket yet. Still have not the faintest idea what this little adventure will cost us, hopefully I'll get an email tonight and all will be well.

Arrived

So much to see and tell.

Let's start with one of my biggest sadnesses while I was away. The little vegetable plot that we planted up at the end of July had been abandoned for three months and we were sure that it would have disappeared under a mess of weeds and rotting vegetation, stomped to a pulp by rampaging deer.

It's true, the deer had finally overcome their distaste for my string boundaries and chomped the tops off the carrots and beetroot making quite a mess of the place with their pointy little feet but the actual roots were fine and big, the cabbages, dill and oca protected by a wire cage absolutely fine and the winter radishes and peas, also under wire protection are slightly past their best but still growing, still trying to produce pods and with still enough tender roots to make salads and pickles. We were too late with the haricots and the spring onions don't seem to have survived but I am hugely relieved.

In the back garden plot the pumpkins had succumbed to frosts and the Moscata fruits were destroyed by the cold, but because the grass was so long some of the Rouge Vif d'Etampes had been buffered from the chill and are still good. I don't think they'll keep very long after this treatment but at least we'll have enough for a few meals.

We're proudest of the cabbages. Although we've been growing our own for years, all leafy brassicas have been a trial for us, martyrs to caterpillars and swamped by slugs. This year, by luck or judgement, with the help of the wire cloche the butterflies have been kept at bay and the cabbages have grown quickly enough to leave the slugs behind.

Another comforting discovery is that the oca has managed, despite my cruel and careless treatment of it earlier in the year, to make two good sized plants that will provide all the seed tubers we need for a proper planting next year. Even more gratifying is that both varieties have come through - I really thought I'd lost the slightly more tender maroon coloured sort but now stocks of both are in equal proportions.

It's so good to be back.

Going Home

I think, I hope, I'll be back at the homestead this time tomorrow. It's been such a long wait, for many good reasons it's true, but I don't think that until now I realised quite how much my heart has been breaking.

Next time, in France.

Medlar Jelly again

I've updated the original medlar jelly entry posted last year with this year's results. Just in case you were wondering where it had got to.

The other medlar recipe on the blog is here.

Jam

At the weekend while we were taking medlars in before the wind blew them all to kingdom come the kind neighbours whose chaenomeles I plundered a few weeks ago stuck their heads over the boundary and offered me some of the quinces from their side of the fence. Slightly squirming with embarrassment I gladly accepted - I couldn't reach any more from my side but I could see the burgeoning crop and it was tantalising. In return we gave them a few medlars and a jar of last year's jelly. I hope it was o.k., it looked a little cloudy after a year in store.



Anyway, this meant as well as bowl of medlars to process I also have a bag of quince. How fortunate then that I found a Dutch recipe on the web for a Medlar and Japanese Quince Jam.

I've modified it a bit, there is no need to add extra pectin to these fruit, they set perfectly well without it and I slightly increased the proportion of Japanese quince to Medlar.

To make about four jars of jam take a kilo of medlars and half a kilo of Japanese quince. The medlar fruit should be as ripe as possible but not mouldy or smelly rotten and the quinces as golden and fragrant as the weather will allow.

Wash the fruit well and chop it up, cores and all removing any bruised parts. The seeds fall out of the quinces quite easily so take those out but don't worry about the medlars.

Place the prepared fruit in your large pan and barely cover with water. Bring to a gently simmer and let it all cook until the fruit is completely mushy and disintegrated. Mash it a bit with a potato masher to make sure.

If you have a food mill put the fruit through it to remove the skins, seeds and hard bits. My food mill is in France so I had to rub the pulp through a nylon sieve to get all the lovely fruit and its juices away from the rubbish. You should be left with just over 2 pints of thick perfumed pureed medlars and quince.

Put the puree back in the clean pan and add a pound of sugar to each pint of puree (that's about 800g to the litre). Stir it over a gentle heat until the sugar is completely dissolved then skim off the scum that rises and boil hard for 5 minutes. Check for a set by putting a little on a cold plate, letting it cool and seeing if wrinkles form as you push it. It should reach this setting point quickly and easily so don't overboil it.

Pot up into clean sterilised jars and seal immediately.

We were really surprised when first tasting it just how closely the flavour resembled apples. Is there a market for faux apple jam? Of course not, but for something as exotic as Quince and Medlar jam there are bound to be takers.