Christmas kitchen – red onion marmalade

 

There’s a timely article in the paper today about foods to eat to help keep the winter blues at bay once the clocks go back. Oily fish, green vegetables and onions feature highly.

I’ve blogged about making red onion marmalade before and on a chilly Autumn day in October I like to have something to show for my time when I can’t make much headway in the garden. There are bulbs to plant, weeds to hoe and pruning to be done but the soil is so cold and wet that I’m loathe to trample piles of soil all over the lawn and the terrace ( I use the terms ‘lawn’ and ‘terrace’ in their loosest sense!).

This October’s red onion marmalade is 2 kilos of red onions sweated down for 45 minutes over a low heat with 140g butter , a good slug of olive oil (about 4 tbsp), a generous tbsp of fresh thyme leaves, a small handful of dried chilli flakes, salt, black pepper, 140 g muscovado sugar and a spoonful of ground gloves. Once the onions are soft to the touch (they should break easily if you press them with a spoon) add a 75cl bottle of cheap red wine, 350ml of red wine vinegar and 200ml port. Simmer over the heat until 2/3rds of the liquid has evaporated. Cool slightly and then pot into sterilised jars.

They should  be stored in the larder or a cool, dark cupboard where they will keep well for three to six months, by which time they will be long gone and you’ll need to make another batch. By Christmas it will be yumsome. I’m going to add some to a food parcel for my eldest who is away at Uni and mentioned ‘home cooking’ at least four times in his weekly phone call home yesterday.

The Importance of Rituals

 

Ritual plays a big part in our home. October Half Term is THE time for making the Christmas cake. Recipes come and go but the ritual of buying ingredients, soaking the fruit and mixing the cake two months before Christmas remains the same. Mary Berry’s version (above) with the odd twist from me is this year’s cake of choice. (I used homemade cherry brandy and a slightly different combination of dried fruit.)

There was a time when I had three little helpers in the kitchen. This year I have one away preparing for a university cycling competition, one upstairs doing his A Level coursework and one relaxing with friends before the next spurt of GCSE mock revision. They’ve all ‘checked in’ that the Christmas cake is in hand.

Being a Celt and a mother it’s not surprising that food plays a big part in our family life and that I share kitchen rituals from my own mother and grandmother with my own children and, one day perhaps, they’ll share the same ones with their own children. Of course they’ll change some; they’ll adapt some; they may even abandon some but that connection and routine is important to our well-being and sense of identity. If you want to read more about the importance of ritual and routine try this as a starting point.

 

Chocolate Cherry Cheerfulness

Yesterday I strained the cherry brandy I’d made back in the summer. I’ve stashed a bottle in the back of the pantry for Christmas and the rest was used to soak the fruit for the Christmas cake. But what’s a woman to do with all those boozy cherries?

I’ve put some aside for a plum and cherry crumble to take it Grandad’s; some have been served with clotted cream ice cream and the rest have been popped into a naughtily rich and delicious boozy chocolate cherry cake to welcome the teens home for their half term holiday. School’s out today!

Here’s how.

You’ll need:
150g good quality dark chocolate like Green and Black’s, broken up
3 eggs
200g caster sugar
150g plain flour
1/2 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda
35g cocoa
125ml boiling water
125ml olive or rape seed oil
2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
pinch of salt
a few small handfuls of boozy cherries

and the ability to wash up a lot of bowls

1. Preheat the fan oven to 150C. (170C if not a fan oven.) Grease and line the bottom of a 23cm springform cake tin.
2. Melt your broken up chocolate gently, either over a bowl of simmering water, or in a microwave. Set it to one side.
3. Mix your cocoa with boiling water and vanilla extract. Set aside.
4. Combine flour and salt with bicarb in a separate bowl. Again, set aside!
5. Now beat eggs, sugar and oil In a mixer until it becomes a little lighter and fluffier. If you don’t have a mixer then this is an excellent five minute upper arm work-out.
6.  Tip the cocoa solution into the egg and oil mixture. Beat. Now tip flour in gradually into this mixture and beat again. Lastly, the melted chocolate and the cherries. Fold gently till all is combined.
7. Tip the dark batter into a prepared tin and bake for 40 – 45 minutes. Test with a skewer (it should come out clean).
8. Let it cool for 15 minutes in the tin, then remove and place on a wire rack to cool.
9. Serve with creme fraiche and more cherries.

Creativity, Community and Crab Apple Jelly

Schools are frantically busy places in the Autumn. Much of the teaching takes place in the Michaelmas Term at my current school where we teach on Saturdays and finish at the end of June. Consequently there is little time to do much else between the end of August and half term in October. Frantic bursts of work followed by short periods of creativity and slow living work for me.

October Half Term is a golden time of Autumn walks, putting the garden to bed for the winter, planting bulbs, and finding sheltered places for the tender plants, preserving our harvest bounty, baking the Christmas cake and spending time with my own family beside a log fire with a steaming cup of something good in my hand. Spicy apple cake, squash and sage risotto and ginger Parkin will feature In the kitchen. I guess I have a deep-rooted urge to be creative away from the classroom.

This year I am the happy recipient of one of my teaching colleague’s crab apple largesse. There’s quite a creative kitchen community among the staff – I’ll be sharing round the quince after the holidays. After Wales narrow rugby victory yesterday I celebrated by boiling up the 1kg stash of beauties with 1200ml water, a couple of cinnamon sticks and a small handful of whole cloves until they were mushy; then left the whole lot to drip through a jelly bag overnight. This morning I added preserving sugar to the luscious ruby red liquid after I’d boiled it up, stirred to dissolve and then put it on a rolling boil for 9-10 minutes, until it reached setting point. Poured into small sterilised jars,  I have another beautiful item for the Christmas hampers.

 

Summer 2019 : Homemade cherry brandy

We don’t have a cherry tree at the moment but we do have generous cherry-growing friends. A trug of cherries at this time of year is just the job for some homemade cherry cake, a clafoutis or to indulge in some store-cupboard alchemy, making cherry brandy. Making or creating something is one of my particular stress-busters. I don’t paint or sew or knit but I can garden, cook and prance about on a stage.

For this project you’ll need a bottle of (cheap) brandy, a kilner jar (1 kg should do it) and enough cherries to fill the jar (600-700g), 2 tbsp sugar ( I use soft brown) and a cinnamon stick. Obviously you can make more by upscaling the jars and ingredients.

Stone the cherries and pack them into the jar. Add the sugar and stir well. Pop the cinnamon stick in the top of the jar, pour in enough brandy to cover and seal.  Shake well and put away in a cool dark cupboard for about 6 weeks.

Shake the jar occasionally. (I have to write myself notes on the fridge as a reminder.) Then on a rainy day in September, remove your jar of cherry jewels,  pour through a sieve to remove the cherries and use these to recreate the scent and taste of summer on top of deliciously indulgent clotted cream or chocolate ice cream. At this point you’ll feel smug that you remembered to stone the cherries. Pour the brandy into pretty bottles, label and store in the pantry for that Christmas drinks party or to pack into hampers for those you love.

Easy, delayed gratification.

Summer 2019: A good year for the roses?

Unlike Elvis Costello I’ve had better years with my roses. A particularly annoying leaf cutter has been carefully chomping on the leaves of “Lady Emma Hamilton’, ‘Emily Bronte’ looked like she might fade away like her namesake and ‘Munstead Wood’, ‘Gertrude Jekyll’, ‘Rambling Rector’ and the others have had far fewer blooms than last year. When they really needed feeding and watering assiduously, I was in the middle of my exam marking marathon. But if you truly love your garden, it will recover and pay you back tenfold in experience, if nothing else. Not unlike parenting or teaching. There’s always another day in the garden, in the classroom or with children. Parents or teachers who beat them selves up when things go wrong would be wise to remember this.

We never grew roses when I was a child. I‘ve had to learn how to take care of them – where to plant, when and how to prune, how to rid them of aphids, dealing with black spot….. That’s probably why they didn’t have a spot in the garden. Plants had to earn their place and virtually everything was for cutting or eating. In my own cottage garden, roses rub noses with other plants – some edible, some not. I rarely cut roses for the vase but use the petals for pot pourri and rose petal jam. They work well in a cottage garden, mixed with poppies, foxgloves, phlox, under planted with violets or alchemilla mollis or companion planted with lavender, chives, tarragon, fennel or thyme.

One of the first things I planted when we moved in was a beautiful cream climber beside the kitchen door. I’ve no idea what it’s called but it romped away and smells delicious. The last one was ‘Lady Emma Hamilton’, whose buds are red, becoming orange in bloom, fading to a pale peach. Orange and blue are calming colours to look out on. Lady Emma knocks about with deep blue agapanthus in a bed easily seen from the kitchen window. I love seeing them when I’m washing up or doing the ironing.

Here’s the recipe for rose petal jam.

Gather about 60 rose petals. Deep pink or red roses are best and they need to be pesticide-free. Everything is in our garden. Cut away the light-coloured base of each petal, which can make the jam bitter. Place  a kilo of sugar and a litre of water in a saucepan or preserving pan and bring to the boil. Add the petals and simmer for twenty minutes, stirring occasionally.Add a teaspoon of citric acid, (available from the pharmacy) and stir for a further ten minutes until it reaches setting point. Pour into sterilised jars and seal. Once cooled serve with scones or ice cream. Delish.

Summer 2019: Pot luck

At some point during last year I lost my cooking mojo. Work was manic; sporting, drama and other commitments meant that there were nights when we didn’t eat together; tastes became uber conservative, my psoriasis flared up and I needed to be selective about what I ate…. It was all too much and I settled for a few tried and tasted – and frankly boring options.

Now that life has settled and there is more headspace to plan and experiment I’ve rekindled my passion for being in the kitchen. I’m finding, trying out, adapting or developing a range of one-pot vegetarian or vegan supper dishes and if the leftovers work as next day’s lunch for someone, that’s even better.

Last night’s was a mix of chickpeas, puy lentils, halloumi, kale, sweet potato and squash, pesto, mint, smoked paprika – a version of a recipe found in this book.

Keep your eyes out for more during the summer.

Summer 2019: Strawberry Fields forever

 

We don’t have a field of strawberries but we do have several pots, a hanging basket or two and a patch of alpine strawberries in our cottage garden. During the second week of the Wimbledon tennis championships it’s only natural that thoughts turn to strawberries – delicious and good for you, containing, as they do, potassium, vitamins C and K, fibre, folic acid and manganese. Reputed to help with digestive ailments, teeth whitening and skin irritations as well as helping to regulate blood sugar levels by slowing digestion Even the leaves can be eaten raw, cooked or used to make tea. I’ve known some people to be allergic to strawberries but the white varieties seem to be acceptable even to these poor folk.

Strawberries make their claim in history as a luxury item enjoyed only by royalty although they are readily available all year round now. As a child we enjoyed tinned strawberries and cream on a Sunday afternoon and thought it the height of decadence. Truly, I can’t remember when I last had a tinned strawberry or visited a strawberry fruit farm as we used to for a bumper batch of strawberry jam making.

We had a large punnet which needed using up and I decided to give a batch of spicy strawberry chutney a go at the weekend. At first this seemed all wrong. I’ve only ever eaten strawberries for pudding but I’m game for rebelling from time to time.

 

I added a bottle of red wine vinegar and 500 g brown sugar to about a kilo and a half of hulled and quartered strawberries, 2 red chillies, 3 red onions, 3 cloves of garlic and a knuckle of ginger – all minced and a good handful of pink peppercorns, mustard seeds, cumin seeds and coriander seeds.

I boiled it up and then simmered for about an hour until a wooden spoon drawn along the base of the preserving pan left a trail for a few seconds.

Then spooned into sterilised jars.

I may make another batch this week – some of which will find it’s way into this year’s Christmas hampers – a reminder of high summer.

 

 

Summer 2019: Purple Patch

Homegrown harvests are good for the soul and this week they are purple. After a really busy term, including a month of GCSE examining, where I was tied to a pc for 10 hours a day,I am more than ready for whole days spent out of doors in the garden, which, I admit was somewhat neglected. Yesterday I cut back some of the lavender to allow the eldest son to get his road bike out more easily.

Some of this will be used to make lavender sacks to stow inside pillows to aid sleep when the nights are hot and sticky.

Some will be stored in the pantry to make lavender scones.

The odd sprig has found its way into a homegrown posy.

The rest will be added to homemade pot pourri . It really is the gift  that keeps on giving.

Early in the week we gathered a bumper crop of black currants from our two garden bushes which resulted in a tasty black currant fool and a delicious cordial. Fruit fool is one of my faves of high summer. I don’t use a recipe but combine about 100g sugar with every half a kilo of fruit to make a purée – sometimes strained through a sieve, sometimes not and then stir some of it through equal amounts of whipped cream and natural yogurt. Chill and serve  in pretty glasses.

 

 

The sweet peas have finally started to bloom after a shaky start. I think they needed more water early on but the cottage garden pinks have done exceptionally well this year.