Apples

It's the time of year when we exhort friends and neighbours to come and help themselves to apples. The red dessert apples are prolific but have no keeping qualities, starting to deteriorate as soon as they have left the tree, turning from crisp and juicy to dry and wooly-textured in no time.

Leander meandered down the road to collect windfalls for his daughter's horses. (It's not every day that you can use 'Leander' and 'meander' in the same sentence!) He came with carrier bags but left with a laden wheelbarrow, returning it later full of fresh horse manure to add to our compost heap.

Lea made the observation that our vegetables are so good because of the yearly input to our soil of what he refers to as, 'poo' from the horses. So, a grateful thanks to Rocky and Harry for their contribution!

The juicer is hard at work producing liquid of the most beautiful colour from these apples. If I saw it bottled for sale in the shops I wouldn't believe that the colour was natural.

I'm cooking and freezing supplies to keep us going throughout the year ahead. It's tedious, but the effort will be worth it.

 This is a favourite apple recipe.

Tarte Tatin

1lb apples, peeled and finely sliced

4oz soft light sugar mixed with a teaspoon of cinnamon

pastry, 4oz flour

             2oz butter

 Cut a circle of greaseproof paper for the bottom of your dish and grease well with butter. Cover with the sugar, then the apple slices. Press the rolled out pastry on the top.

Bake gas mark 4 for 30 minutes or so until pastry cooked.

Invert on to a plate when cool. Good with cream. (But then , I always say that!) 

But if we want to enjoy blackberry and apple pie there is still more picking to be done!

Plums and pears

The garden is constantly changing and last months green fruit is now fully ripe. I picked the Victoria's in the garden and Himself went down into the field to gather these smaller plums.

Although my fingers survived the knife skills course intact they are now roughened from stoning so many plums.

But the results are satisfying - baked and stewed fruit in the freezer, jam and chutney in the store.

Now I know just how the squirrels feel when they have carried off and buried all my walnuts. (Not that it's happened yet, but just wait 'til next month when the nuts are ripe!)

Plum Chutney.

3lbs small, dark plums

3 large onions

1lb cooking apples

1lb seedless raisins

1lb soft dark brown sugar

1lb demerara sugar

3 cloves garlic

2 tablespoons salt

2 teaspoons ground ginger

2 pints malt vinegar

in a gauze bag : 2 cinnamon sticks

                            1oz allspice berries

                            handful whole cloves.

Stone the plums, mince peeled apples and onions. Crush the garlic and place all in preserving pan together with the ginger, raisins, sugar and vinegar. Sprinkle in salt and stir well. Put in spice bag and bring everything to the boil, then lower heat and simmer for 2 to 3 hours, stirring every now and then. When it has thickened it is ready.

Pour into jars while warm and cover with  waxed paper. Leave to mature for several months before using.

I have two small pear trees, varieties unknown. They crop at different times and the fruit from the first tree is now ripe.

 The pears look beautiful but they are not very tasty to eat unless cooked. Once peeled and quartered, sprinkled with a bit of demerara sugar and baked in the oven, they are delicious. 

My favourite pear recipe is chocolate pear tart.

Chocolate Pear Tart.

make a pastry of

7oz flour

2oz sugar

2oz cocoa powder

4oz margarine

1 beaten egg.

Place in a 20cm tart tin and cover the pastry base with marmalade.

Peel,core and quarter pears and place, cut side down on the marmalade.

Filling

2 eggs, separated. Beat egg whites until stiff.

3oz sugar, beaten with egg yolks until pale and light.

3oz bitter chocolate

2oz margarine melted together.

Add the chocolate to the egg mixture and fold in egg whites. Pour around the pears.

Bake gas 4 (180c) for about 30 minutes.

Dust with icing sugar, it will melt on the moist pears and stay on the filling.

Good with cream or vanilla ice-cream.

Out walking.

I'm surrounded by my favourite colour at this time of year, purple heather in the Yorkshire Dales and purple clover in the fields around home.

In Yorkshire ancient pathways crisscross the land, with stone stiles built into the walls to allow humans to pass (just!) but with the livestock safely kept in the field.

It's the shooting season and the guns are out. On the moor, stone built, heather-topped butts dot the landscape. This hide, unusually, is dug into the ground and looks rather like an archaeological excavation.

We went to collect our daughter from the London train and passed this house with its wild flower meadow. It reminds me how beautiful the roadside verges used to be years ago when they were filled with wild flowers.

At home the clover fields are being harvested. The machines have flattened tracks through the flowers, providing easy walking. We are enjoying warm, still weather and in the early evenings balloons come drifting towards us from the city of Bath.

One just made it to the field below the village and had a gentle landing, complete with Jolly Roger and a skeleton pirate mascot with a parrot!

Three more balloons floated overhead and a little while later yet another came down in the same field.

Bank Holiday.

We went to Yorkshire for the August Bank Holiday. It's the time of year when the whole country seems to be celebrating with festivals and shows. We drove through Kettlewell where the narrow streets were crowded with families who had come to enjoy the annual scarecrow festival. There were scarecrows in every garden, propped on seats, up ladders and leaning on gates. I had packed my camera and it was in the boot of the car, Himself had already been driving for several hours so I didn't think it a good idea to ask him to stop while I rummaged about in the suitcase.

The Yorkshire Dales are beautiful in late summer when the heather is in flower and it is pleasant for walking.

On Saturday we went to the Wensleydale Agricultural Show and dodged a downpour of rain by being thoroughly engrossed by the displays in the marquee.

My Uncle Will was a keen show exhibitor and as a child I used to help him at the local flower show as he carefully unwrapped his prize chrysanthemums or arranged his sweet peas or a display of black grapes. Crushed grass and canvas, what an evocative smell!

It is a real trip down memory lane for me. When my daughters were small I carried the gardens on plates that they had made to a number of events.

We never had the category of a necklace made of sweets. What a great idea. The entries were all lovely, some very bright and funky, others rather elegant in arrangements of delicately coloured translucent sweets. Such a temptation to eat the sweets and end up with only a pendant!

The carrots in my garden taste good, but they would look rather pathetic next to these.

There was close scrutiny of the prize winning specimens.

Crook sticks for hills and thumb sticks for pasture.

 Himself makes a fresh thumb stick every year. He needs to because he is forever swiping at things, brambles, nettles and so forth. He looks in spring for a suitable branch of hazel and cuts it to size, not necessarily a prize winner, but very practical.

All the animals had been given a really good wash and brush up. Just how pretty can three sheep look!

The British Blue bull being admired. Or was it the handler?

The sun shone on a wonderful display of livestock in the ring.

 Freddie, the show president, handed out the silver cups.

It was a great day out.

On Sunday I went with my elder daughter to Harrogate where we had enrolled on a knife skills course at Betty's Cookery School. No thoughts from us of yesterdays oh so pretty sheep, we were far too busy preparing our rack of lamb, 'French trim'. Really, those French! Can you believe that we had to almost polish those rib bones right to the eye of the meat? Please note the degree of concentration that was needed!

We came home exhausted but with all our fingers intact. It was a great day, and, because we brought all the filleting, boning and vegetable slicing that we had prepared home with us, supper was rather good. I brought all the lamb scraps from my table back for the dog, so she was happy as well!

End of August

August.

End of August and the bonfire smoke

climbs up the apple tree,

obscures the leaves and fruit

 and double masks the cloud-veiled, rounded moon.

Into the silence a dull apple thud.

and screech owl, calling, far away.

Twigs crackle

while the witch leans on her stick and smiles into the dark.

The moon, amazed,

stares at the sudden bonfire blaze

as cloud and smoke are gone.

Ten Good Reasons to Walk at Night.

First, you get to wear the invisible cloak

bespoke

fitting better than through the day.

You can drift in the dark

or sit on a tussock

and mull over things.

Those pink rubber flutes, called ears,

are finely attuned

to the drop of a leaf,

the air's sigh,

the heart beat of a deer.

Sharp edges, that might do harm in daylight

are softened by shadows in the night.

There is flight from the mundane.

The sixth good reason

 is  the sense that comes over you in darkness,

call it a, 'sixth sense',

about how things were, and are and will be.

And seventh is the heaven on a clear night

of seeing bears, both great and small

and myriads of others with no name at all.

There is no traffic spoiling,

no noise of people toiling.

An owl may call you

when you walk at night,

moving quietly,

cloak-covered and complete.