An apple a day.....

 

 

This year has been a very good year for fruit at the allotments. Pounds of blackcurrants, gooseberries and some lovely raspberries, especially the autumn variety which have a lovely flavour.

 

But this year, the apple trees and plum trees are the starts of the show....they are absolutely laden with fruit. There's two of each, and the first apples to pick have been these - I think they're discovery apples.

  

 

The fruit trees are on the outermost edge of the allotment site about ten feet away from the road. There's lot of nettles around, so even though it wasn't cold exactly, I had a thick pair of trousers on, boots, and a long sleeved jumper and gloves on as I picked the fruit.

Oh and sunglasses, even if the sun wasn't shining.....I'm so accident prone, I tend to get caught in the eye by a rogue, sadistic branch or two.

Luckily I escaped unscathed and came home with these....

 



 

 

These are  tasty desert apples, so what am I going to do with them, plus the rest on the tree that Laura ,my friend and co conspirator at the lottie doesn't want?

 

I've already made a rather nice tarte tatin, a big waldorf salad, and have been taking some into work to eat with lunch. Well, you know what they say..."an apple a day keeps the doctor away."

 

And apparently this proverb from Victorian times is right. Well, so researchers at Oxford University said last Christmas time. Apparently, they calculated that if all adults aged 50 and over here in the UK were prescribed an apple a day , there would be 8,500 fewer deaths from heart attacks and strokes each year.

 

That's good enough for me! But I need some more recipes using dessert apples instead of cooking apples. I've been looking in my two "must go to "books on fruit by the wonderful Nigel Slater and the late, great Jane Grigson, plus the Riverford Farm Book has some good apple recipes in too...but I fancy something new!

 

 

 

 

 

 What's your favourite way of using dessert apples?


As we're in the last days of August, I thought today's music track should be this - set in the last days of summer...Choices. It's performed in a garden by To Kill a King (love), Bastille (love too) and some of their friends. The song builds up from two voices and acoustic guitar to violins, cello, brass section and Uncle Tom Cobley and all. Delightful....

 

A what a bargain day

I nipped out at lunchtime the other day to buy some salad stuff from the market...the usual lettuce, tomatoes, some crisp celery, that sort of thing. That was all.

But as I walked away from the stall, I caught sight of a big mound of limes.....nine for 50 pence. Nine? For how much? Why were they so cheap? After all, in my local supermarket they are selling for thirty five pence each.  I took a few paces back, closely gave them the once over yet they were all perfect apart from one which was fine but a little yellow.

Two minutes later they were in my basket, despite the fact that I'd had no intention of buying a lime at all, let alone nine of them.

As I walked back to work, I began to plan some pork and lime burgers....an adaptation of a delicious Nigel Slater recipe, but what to do with the remaining eight limes...?

Then I thought of Lucy Cufflin's coconut, ginger and lime cake....which is an old stalwart from the time when we were both on a British Red Cross committee consisting of about ten women of all ages.  Every summer, some very generous people would open their garden in aid of the Red Cross, and we would provide the teas and sell cakes etc.

Lucy's cakes were always absolutely wonderful to look at and pretty tasty too. No wonder , as she is a cordon bleu trained chef, has her own food business and has written a cookbook, called Lucy's Food. so I'm going to make that cake later.

But what to do with the remaining seven limes?

Well, one or two of them will be used up tonight. In a delightful concoction. In a jug, with mint and alcohol.  Well, mint is still growing in the garden so I might as well use some....  

But what am I going to do with the remaining five limes?

I'd really like your suggestions please, so what are your favourite lime based recipes? I'd love to try out some of your suggestions.

And have you ever frozen lime juice? Does it taste good when thawed?

Today's track is by Jack Penate, which I've been singing along to at the top of my voice in the kitchen this afternoon. Boo and Winnie shot me withering glances. They don't appreciate my singing, but I'm sure you will love this song which is "Be the one"

 

 

A day on Radio 4's Food Programme...

I love food. That's why I'm not a skinny malinky kind of woman....I have curves. Ok, so they're perhaps more curvier curves than perhaps I should have...but hey...

It's not that I'm stuffing myself morning , noon and night....I'm not.....but I like to grow my own food.....
 

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and cook. Sometimes the urge to cook just takes over...for example I wasn't going to bake today. No way, too busy ...but then I spotted the bananas in the fruit bowl....mmmn, a tad too speckly...and the next minute I was making this...a banana, chocolate and walnut loaf.

 

Food...growing, cooking and sharing it ... makes me happy. Even when I'm cooking a  recipe from someone I've loved and liked, and who's now not with us.......I like to remember the happy times
we shared...and using their recipes keep those happy times alive.

Over the years, I've collected quite a number of recipes from Granny, my lovely mum in law who died seventeen years ago, Mama..that's my gorgeous mum (who thank the lord, is still very much alive and kicking) and lots of friends. The recipe book has now lost it's  covers, it's so tatty and dog eared, and some of the pages are decorated with cake mixture splodges. But it's one of my most valuable possessions.

Cooking their recipes , the smells coming from the oven take me back to conversations, events, and meals gone by. I 've now transferred the  recipes to a new book...lovingly rewritten them out, just in case the original book completely falls to pieces one day...

This week, the addictive and always excellent " Food Programme "on Radio 4 looks at food and bereavement, carefully crafted by producer Anne -Marie Bullock ....and my darling daughter and I will be sharing our memories of Granny et al and talking about my recipe book during the programme.
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Here's the link to what's coming up

http://bbc.in/12SIddD   


 Do have a look....and do listen on Sunday at 12.30pm or Monday at 3.30 on BBC Radio 4 on FM 92.5–96....or you can sit at your computer and listen on t'internet. Go on, you know you want to......

Today's track is called "Remembering "by the Avishai Cohen Trio.....