Now Wearing Purple

FOREST HOLIDAY We're back from our short holiday on the Isle of Purbeck Pearl and Elsie loved all the extra daily walks in the forest.  The colours were so beautiful and my pics really don't do it justice. We stayed at Birchwood, a family run site, no club house, just lovely clean facilities and friendly staff. You can walk straight into the forest from the site and spend hours just wandering in the peace and beauty of it all. We also visited Arne RSPB reserve for the first time, which was a lot busier.   We decided to walk the Red route and wandered down to Shipstal Beach.  It's a stunning reserve, and the various walks cater for differing abilities.  , On the way to the beach, I spied these lovely bobbles of moss that reminded me of Kazuyuki Ishihara and his button mosses at this years Chelsea Flower Show (again, camera somewhat lacking, as they looked a lot more impressive than they look here).     ...

FROM FAMINE TO FEAST Our plum tree has produced a wonderful crop this year and we have to pick as many of these little juicy jewels as possible before this weekend or lose  most of them.  This is the second year of a bumper crop, and has proven a salve to my soul after the sweetcorn disaster. We bought our Italian plum tree (Prunus domestica) from Aldi about six years ago and it produced absolutely nothing . Two years ago, we sat at the top of the garden discussing it's fate, Although a very pretty tree, we bought it for fruit and it wasn't cutting the mustard.  I said it should have one more year and then, if no fruit, out it comes.  Well, I do believe plum trees have ears, somewhere hidden about them because the following year it produced a mountain of plums. I'm not a huge fan of plums as I find the skins too sour, but these were divine. Dark in colour with flesh that is a shade between green and amber. The pics below don't really do the colour justice...

CROPLESS! We went to the allotment to check the sweetcorn today. On Saturday it looked beautiful, big fat cobs and we thought today we might see if they were ok to harvest and take a few on holiday with us to accompany a bbq (weather permitting). The whole lot was gone, trampled and devoured by deer and our neighbouring allotmenteers were similarly affected. In the grand scheme of things, not so important perhaps, but I have to say, I nearly cried. We have never so successfully grown sweetcorn before.  All the work and hope of a nice crop,  gone.  Gutted.

LEL'S LASAGNE! Just having a coffee break after a busy morning doing laundry, ironing and making tonight's dinner. Please don't think I'm being swanky with the café style coffee glass and amaretti biscuits. I always make milky drinks in these glasses. I'm not a true coffee lover and prefer the sachets of coffee mocha choca or latte type drinks. I did spoil myself with a sprinkle of Spanish hot chocolate, which is heading up to it's sell by date. Ditto the amaretti biscuits, well January 2019 actually, but that's close enough for me to start munching them.  I bought them last Christmas from Lidl, but forgot they were in the cupboard. I've had a little nose into my cupboards with a view to an Autumnal clear out.  I can tell you, this is not going to be good for my waistline! Yes, that's Pearl in the background, looking oh so sweetly asleep. She's spent most of the morning in the garden stalking our mole, but that's another post in its...

We had our first roast since early summer yesterday. I invited my aunt, well she's more like a sister as she's only four years older than me. Mark loves to cook and did a gorgeous slow cooked pork with crispy crackling and we followed it with homemade blackberry and apple crumble. We went our early morning to walk the dogs and found some nice juicy blackberries. It looked as though someone had been there before us, as they were a bit thin on the ground.  When we got back, I decided to check one of my favourite cookbooks to see if there were any other blackberry and apple recipes that might make a change from crumble.  You see, this is one of my problems, I make up my mind only to change it again...I know, so fickle! I can't even remember where this book came from, probably a box of auction items, but I love it. The recipes are the sort my Grandmother would have cooked and there are plenty of regional recipes with lovely names like Bacon Floddies,  Kentish Huffkins...

APPLE DAY! The very first crop of apples from our little tree in the garden and I'm so excited. I should have posted on the pear tree, but they all dropped off and had to be processed and frozen. Mr. found the final five lying in the undergrowth yesterday.  Altogether we had about 18 pears, so not bad.  In the past, our little apple tree has produced only two to three apples that never ripened properly and fell off the tree before we could pick them.  It's meant to be a Falstaff, an apple variety I tried at the Groves Nursery Apple Day in Bridport some years ago. They were sweet, crisp and juicy, but the taste of our apples just doesn't match that memory.  I think this may be another variety or I have memory failure, a more likely explanation!   We bought the tree at Wells market for £15.00, as well as a quince tree. The quince hasn't produced yet, but these trees are only three years old, so maybe we'll get a quince or...

KASUNDI The courgette war continues! The plants are still producing  which is great. I have made and frozen umpteen bags of courgette pasta sauces for Mr. to eat over the coming year.  It's time to turn my attention of pickles and chutneys. One of his favourites is Kasundi, a hot and spicy relish/chutney,  I'll be upping the quantity of chillies this year, as he loves it really hot, and last years offering  just wasn't fiery enough. RECIPE: Peel and grate a kilo of courgettes, I used yellow, but you can use green/yellow or a combination. I also used a processor, so much easier! Put 65grams of garlic cloves,  125 grams of fresh ginger and 65 grams fresh chillies (I actually used 11 Thai Dragon chillies) in a processor with 50 ml cider vinegar and blitz to a paste In a bowl put 45 grams black mustard seeds, 15 grams turmeric powder, 45 grams cumin seeds, 35 grams dried chilli flakes (I know, seems excessive)  In a large he...