The more astute among you will have noticed that I have not mentioned my favourite topic to date. Yes you’ve guessed it…food. After finishing the pathways in goatland earlier this week, we have been busy in the kitchen. I say kitchen but I mean a separate utility room fitted with washing machines, dryers, worktops, hobs and a sink. Its handy having a dedicated place to cook that doesn’t interfere with regular meal preparation.
So we kicked off with 6 jars of apple and plum jam which was pretty simple. I had always thought that there was something complicated to the bottling side of things but all you have to do is wash the jars and pop them in the oven at 90-100 degrees so they don’t crack when you pour in the hot jam. Plus you have to fill them up to almost the very top to have as little air as possible. Of course there is a scary amount of sugar that goes into it, which is the same weight as the fruit you are using, but it looks and tastes lovely. After that we made some orange chutney but then we ran out of jars so our jam and chutney making has been put temporarily on hold.
We’ve had a shed load of marrows and have been trying out various recipes to make the ‘nothing vegetable’ taste of, well, something. Attempts include marrow rings stuffed with ham and mushroom and covered in a cheese sauce and stuffed marrow with runner beans and a cheese sauce. The most successful so far are marrow and ginger jam (don’t knock it till you’ve tried it) and curried marrow soup which is based on a pumpkin soup recipe.
We cook a couple of times a week so apart from our experiments with marrows we’ve made good old lasagne, moussaka, stuffed courgettes and split pea soup. Plans for this week include savoury pies, chicken korma, Louisiana bean stew plus of course a bit more jam.
Last weekend we drove to Lewes, which I have always mispronounced as ‘loos’ instead of ‘lewis’. Just as we were getting into town we noticed a rattling sound which was a little ominous. No red lights on the dashboard but the temperature gauge was, er, off the scale. So we parked up to let the car cool down and went for a pootle around town. We headed to the castle for some panoramic views of the town, then walked through Grange Gardens and on to Ann of Cleeves house were we chanced upon Cockshut Road (see previous entry). Returning to the car we topped up on coolant and drove on to the village of Glynde and had a tasty pub lunch (steak and Guinness pie – hurrah). Then we drove in a round about fashion along some a road through picturesque villages until we came to the ‘Long Man of Wilmington’ and the ‘White Horse’.
On Sunday we had planned to go cycling but as it rained in the morning we decided to go for a short walk which turned into an 8km hike. The pub on our map no longer existed so the kebab shop was a welcoming site after about 4 hours of walking.
So we kicked off with 6 jars of apple and plum jam which was pretty simple. I had always thought that there was something complicated to the bottling side of things but all you have to do is wash the jars and pop them in the oven at 90-100 degrees so they don’t crack when you pour in the hot jam. Plus you have to fill them up to almost the very top to have as little air as possible. Of course there is a scary amount of sugar that goes into it, which is the same weight as the fruit you are using, but it looks and tastes lovely. After that we made some orange chutney but then we ran out of jars so our jam and chutney making has been put temporarily on hold.
We’ve had a shed load of marrows and have been trying out various recipes to make the ‘nothing vegetable’ taste of, well, something. Attempts include marrow rings stuffed with ham and mushroom and covered in a cheese sauce and stuffed marrow with runner beans and a cheese sauce. The most successful so far are marrow and ginger jam (don’t knock it till you’ve tried it) and curried marrow soup which is based on a pumpkin soup recipe.
We cook a couple of times a week so apart from our experiments with marrows we’ve made good old lasagne, moussaka, stuffed courgettes and split pea soup. Plans for this week include savoury pies, chicken korma, Louisiana bean stew plus of course a bit more jam.
Last weekend we drove to Lewes, which I have always mispronounced as ‘loos’ instead of ‘lewis’. Just as we were getting into town we noticed a rattling sound which was a little ominous. No red lights on the dashboard but the temperature gauge was, er, off the scale. So we parked up to let the car cool down and went for a pootle around town. We headed to the castle for some panoramic views of the town, then walked through Grange Gardens and on to Ann of Cleeves house were we chanced upon Cockshut Road (see previous entry). Returning to the car we topped up on coolant and drove on to the village of Glynde and had a tasty pub lunch (steak and Guinness pie – hurrah). Then we drove in a round about fashion along some a road through picturesque villages until we came to the ‘Long Man of Wilmington’ and the ‘White Horse’.
On Sunday we had planned to go cycling but as it rained in the morning we decided to go for a short walk which turned into an 8km hike. The pub on our map no longer existed so the kebab shop was a welcoming site after about 4 hours of walking.
As you might have noticed already we are trying to get a streaming slideshow of all our photos on this website so we hope to have more pictures up soon...
We hope you are all doing well and let us know what you are up to.
Big love
Emma & Ray
We hope you are all doing well and let us know what you are up to.
Big love
Emma & Ray
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