Pumpkin and Maple Spread

I'm actually in the middle of cooking this right now so have no idea how it'll turn out. Nevertheless, I thought I'd quickly post the recipe as I figure many people will be hollowing out pumpkins this weekend and timely ideas for using up the scrapings may go down well!

Pumpkin and Maple Spread

1.5kg chopped pumpkin (the shavings made when you scrape out the insides with a spoon are perfect)

600g maple syrup (this is roughly 2 bottles. I got mine cheaply from Aldi)

300g honey (roughly a standard jar)

Cinnamon stick if liked.

Stick everything in a big pan and simmer gently for 90 minutes, skimming any scum. The recipe says it can be left chunky or pureed. I'm planning on pureeing mine when it's cool. I'll then heat up the smooth spread back to boiling point to kill off any bugs and pack into sterilised jars which should keep for 6 months.

Suggested uses include:

Spread on Toast

Drizzled over waffles and cream

Combined with cream and eggs to make a pie filling

Eaten with a spoon when feeling low.

This recipe is from Nick Sandler and Johnny Acton's book 'Preserved'. I've never made it before, but will report back on the success or otherwise in more detail tomorrow when it's done.

*Update* It's a roaring success! Sweet, caramelly, spicy, gorgeous. We had it spooned over quince crumble with vanilla ice cream, I think it's probably best thought of as a dessert topping/syrup type of affair rather than a jam.

This recipe made 3 jars so I'm thinking of using the rest of our stash of somewhat insipid orange pumpkins to make some more.

Big fat Chestnuts

I really should listen to my children a bit more, they are far more vigilant at this foraging lark than we are.

At the park yesterday Adam and I were sitting on a bench enjoying the unseasonal warmth while Willow, Xanthe and their friend frolicked in the distance. Willow periodically mithered us to 'come and look', assuming it was yet another dance show of some description we demurred. However, Willow knows how to get our attention and mentioned the word 'walnut'. Walnuts you say? Now that's different ....

"No, not walnuts, that's not what I mean, the spiky ones, like in the park but edible", "Chestnuts?", "Yes! That's it, chestnuts!"

Last year's chestnut forage was a bit lacklustre. Our usual tree had bizarrely small nuts but I managed to find another with not quite so small nuts so all was not lost but it wasn't bounteous either. However, this year, Willow's new tree was amazing. Adam actually held up one of the chestnuts and scoffed "well, this is clearly a conker, you never get sweet chestnuts this big!" but he was wrong, it was a sweet chestnut. All of them are big, fat, shiny and beautiful. Certainly the biggest chestnuts we've found to date. 15 minutes picking gave us 4lbs of chestnuts.

It's interesting to read last year's blog post. It seems that in 2008 the chestnuts fell in early November. 2009 was a dry Autumn producing under-developed nuts which fell earlier - late September/early October while this year's wet Autumn has produced bigger, later nuts. Adam's hoping to log a couple of decade's worth of chestnut related data so he can produce graphs and suchlike illustrating the correlation between nut size, weather and ripening. Yes, dear reader, I did marry a geek - we all have our cross to bear.

Oh, and we forgot our most basic of nut foraging rules - wear a hat. Adam was narrowly missed by falling spiky chestnut case and I whacked my head on a low hanging branch and have a bleeding scalp to show for my efforts.

So, yeah, wear a hat!

The Norfolk Kitchen Empire Expands.

This time last year I was mainly concerned with how to maximise the vegetable harvest from my tiny back yard while quietly fuming about the lack of progress with the planned new allotment site.

Now I find myself in possession of not one but two allotments.

Yep, you read it right, I've taken on a second plot. Not on our current site at Bressingham but on the Diss allotment site which is just behind my house. It's always been a very popular site with long waiting lists and I had assumed it would take years to get a plot there so, although it's the closest to my house, I'd mentally written it off.

But back at Bressingham, as regular readers will probably know, we've had yet another kerfuffle. After the initial kerfuffle between the allotment holders, a house neighbouring the site has taken against the concept of allotments per se and has commenced a further kerfuffle - this one involving fly tipping, vandalism and raising formal complaints about children on the allotments. To be honest, this, taken with the well established perennial weeds, lack of water supply, muddy driveway which is unusable after rain, the 5 mile round trip every visit and the wonky decision making of the Parish Council has tipped me over the edge.

I called the Diss allotment site and asked to go on their waiting list which turned out to be all of 24hrs in length. Last night I got a call offering us the plot. I expressed surprise at the speed of the offer and was told it's all thanks to Bressingham, apparently we've absorbed the waiting lists from Diss and Roydon so there are vacant plots on those sites for the first time in years.

Today, I went to sign up. Even walking at a 3 year old's pace it only took 4 minutes to get there. Upon arrival, the clouds parted, a shaft of sunlight lit our way and the air was riven with angels singing. The driveway is hardcored, there is mains water on tap, the plot is clear with no weeds, the soil is fine crumbed and not the heavy clay we have at Bressingham. It's like sliding into a warm bath of allotmenteering. Ahhhhh .......

So now the question is, what do we do with Bressingham? We have a contract til March, so don't have to decide just yet but our two options seem to be:

Keep it. Plant it with low maintenance stuff like fruit trees/bushes so we don't have to go very often and keep Diss for the veg which will need lots of watering/care.

Hand it back. But what would we do with our shed, fence and newly planted fruit trees - none of which are allowed at Diss and none of which we have room for at home.

I'm leaning towards the former, but will having 2 plots on different sites be a pain in the rear?

What do you think? I'd love to hear your views.

There's Not Mush Room inside ....

Today, I was soooo tempted to write a whole ranty post about the Parish Council sternly writing to me (as secretary of the Allotment Association) with the rather joyless phrase "the allotments are for the purpose of growing vegetables, they are not playgrounds for children" in response to a complaint from a grumpy nearby householder which was taken at face value and not given even the most cursory of investigations. But as you can see, I decided not to do that.

(Deep breath)

What I decided to do instead was write a post about parasol mushrooms and how astonishing they are.

Adam and I are very much novices on the mushroom gathering front which I guess puts us in the category of Enthusiastic Amateurs Most Likely to Poison Themselves but we're slowly building our repertoire.

Driving past Brewer's Green the other day we spotted mushrooms so huge they were instantly visible from the road so we screeched to a halt and got out of the car to investigate. They were about a foot high and the top was easily the size of a large dinner plate, we took a couple of specimens home to identify but our confidence was dented when a dog walker sprinted over to us as we were leaving and tried to convince us they were poisonous, but despite the ominous portent we pressed on.

Happily, the dog walker was wrong. I've no idea where she got her identification from but we were careful, did a spore print etc and identified them as parasols.

I cooked them simply, fried in olive oil and garlic. The most astonishing thing I thought was how dramatically the mushrooms shrank when cooked. The cap was easily 30 or 40 cm across but by the time the water had been driven off, it was barely enough to feed 2 of us for lunch. Although, saying that, am I the only one to find wild mushrooms incredibly filling?

They dined on Mince and slices of Quince.

We have dined on mince and slices of quince - albeit in separate dishes, though I'm sure I heard Greg Wallace say something about smoked bacon and quince on Masterchef last night.

For the last few days I've been steadily working my way through the Norfolk Kitchen Quince Mountain. I avoided Membrillo and Jelly this year as we've had lots of those in previous years thanks to the old Japonica Quince, instead I've made the most of the quince flesh in crumbles, cakes etc as that was difficult to do with the tiny Japonicas. Quince upside down cake was a great success, pieces of pre-cooked quince in the bottom of a cake tin with a standard 3 egg sponge mix poured on top and baked at gm4 for about 45 minutes. The secret ingredient is a couple of tablespoons of rose water added to the sponge mix, along with the usual vanilla extract.

Quince Mincemeat also worked well. I took Delia's mincemeat method as a base and came up with this mixture from bits we already had in the cupboard:

225g Quince (chopped into small pieces and poached til soft)

110g suet (I used vegetarian)

400g chopped dates

110g mixed candied peel

175g brown sugar

zest of 1 orange and 1 lemon

25g chopped walnuts

2 tsp ground mixed spice

1/2tsp ground cinnamon

a few gratings of fresh nutmeg

Generous amount of Cointreau (because it was already in the house, brandy is in the original recipe) - probably a double measure.

The method is really easy. Mix everything together except the alcohol and put into a covered dish in a very, very low oven for 3 hours. Take it out and stir a few times as it cools to distribute the fat, add the alcohol when it's completely cool. Pot up into sterilised jars in the usual fashion. Delia says this methods prevents the fresh fruit juice seeping out and fermenting as it seals the pieces with fat. I can vouch for it working as I used this method last year and the mincemeat was still fine 9 months after it was made. I tasted it last night and it's really very good, even before it's matured.

I also made Quince Chutney from Pam Corbain's River Cottage Preserves book.

1kig pumpkin, peeled, seeded and diced

1kg quince, peeled, cored and diced

500g cooking/wild apples, peeled, cored and diced

500g red onions, diced

500g raisins

50g fresh ginger (fresh horseradish in the original recipe but I couldn't get hold of any)

500g brown sugar

600ml cider vinegar

Spice bag

2tsp peppercorns

12 cloves

2 cinnamon sticks.

You probably know the drill. Mix everything together, bring to the boil and then turn down the heat and simmer for ages til it looks like chutney. Then pot it into sterilised jars etc makes about 10 jars.

Other than these 2 recipes, I've been freezing the quinces. I find it easier to boil the quince whole for roughly an hour or so til they're soft then let them cool completely. Once they're soft, they're much easier to chop neatly, I then pack them into foil trays and stack them in the chest freezer.

I think I'm coming to the end although I may bottle a few in spiced cider or something similar as a change from the plain, frozen ones. I still have masses of the pesky things left so I may begin to distribute them to friends and family - whether they want them or not!

(By the way, did you know that a 'Runicble Spoon' is actually a spork?)

A nutting crook in hand, I turn'd my steps towards the distant woods

We seem to be in nut season once more, locally at least, the walnuts are tumbling down again. Adam went out to do a tour of our local trees on Saturday morning where he met nut gathering competition in the form of (in his words) a 'proper nutter'. Apparently a broom and a wicker basket doth a proper nutter make. Although I was surprised to hear that our rival was hatless which is a schoolboy error in our book, on a windy day a high velocity walnut can be painful on a bare head.

According to Adam's account, the two men circled each other like wary tigers, exchanging cagey pickling vs drying information, both careful to boast that their respective 2009 nut stores were prodigious enough to have not yet run out.

I pointed out that Adam may have carrier bags rather than a wicker basket but he was, nonetheless, also a proper nutter. He seemed wounded by the suggestion, pointed out his Converse, twisted his baseball cap backwards and claimed to be a 'Street Nutter'.

Yes dear, whatever you say.

Anyway, our walnut foraging tips are:

The best time to go is early in the morning after a windy night. Nuts will have fallen overnight and if you're out at first light you'll beat the proper nutters and catch the worm (or something)

Be wary of getting the juice from the green cases on your fingers. Walnuts are used to make dye and will stain like nothing else. Once your hands and finger nails are black there is nothing you can do other than live with the mechanic look til your skin renews itself and the discoloured nails have grown out. On the bright side, you can measure the new nail growth and plot their progress on a graph.

Further to the above, try to squash any walnuts still in their case with your foot to get them out. Failing that wear rubber gloves to prise them out - not gardening gloves as they're not waterproof and the juice seeps through.

In my humble opinion fresh, wet walnuts have a horrible, bitter taste. I much prefer them dry. I dried mine by putting them in onion nets and laying them on the floor in front of a radiator. If they don't seem to be drying fast enough they can be put into a very low oven with the door open or an airing cupboard may work. Once dry they will keep for ages, we have some a year old which are still fine to eat.

By the way, that poem 'Nutting' by Wordsworth, why is he taking a nutting crook with him if the hazels are in bloom and, presumably, haven't actually formed any nuts yet?

Foraging #Fail

Waaaah! What a day (that's sarcasm by the way). We were over in Great Yarmouth visiting the in-laws and decided to take the opportunity to harvest some Sea BuckThorn berries. Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall made Sea BuckThorn Jelly on River Cottage a couple of years ago. Last year we realised that the bushes with silver grey leaves and vivid orange berries which are numerous in the Great Yarmouth area were your actual Sea BuckThorn. Sadly we were a bit too late and the berries had started to shrivel so I added it to my 2010 wish list and patiently waited a whole year to try again.

This afternoon we dutifully pitched up, ice cream tubs in hand, and though the bushes weren't quite as laden with berries as they were last year, there was still a respectable amount so we thought 500g would be a cinch.

Well you know what thought did (as my old Nan used to say)

Picking them is devilish tricky. Hugh warns about the thorns but we didn't find them too much of a problem, the real issue is the fragile nature of the tiny, blackcurrant sized berries. They don't hang in long stalked clusters like elderberries, each little orange orb has a short stalk which seems to be attached directly to a main branch and the slightest pressure causes them to explode at an astonishing velocity. One I popped at waist height splattered orange juice right over my shoulder.

It became obvious very early on that this was going to be a lengthy task and we quickly asked ourselves if it was worth the effort. We tasted a few berries and the refreshing, fragrant, astringent taste was intriguing enough for us to press on.

I'd guess at least 25% of those we picked popped on contact. Very slow, careful, gentle picking for about an hour barely yielded 100g of berries. When the juice had smothered our hands and found it's stinging way into every tiny break in the skin we'd previously failed to notice, we gave up. Regular readers will know I expect to weigh my hauls in stones, not grams, so I was not terribly pleased. Still, I hoped we had enough for me to make a small, half pint jelly.

Back home I got to work. I simmered the berries in a little water til they were soft and then passed them through a sieve, added Cointreau and sugar to counterbalance the astringency and tasted.

Hmm.

Rather disappointing if the truth be told. I was rather heavy handed with both the alcohol and the sugar and the resulting juice seemed to taste merely of sweet oranges. I pressed on with the gelatine and made 2 small glass bowls of fairly insipid orange jelly.

So that was worth the effort then.

Still, at least a took a few nice photos for the blog while we were out there, let's take a look. Nope, that's one's blurred (don't you just hate it when they look fine on the camera screen but the unforgiving laptop screen shows up every shake) and that one, and that one. In fact, the only usable one is the one you're looking at up there.

So that's it, I think I should call it a day before I cock something else up. Time to snuggle up on the sofa with a nice glass of red to sooth my rattled culinary ego. Except there's none in the house and now it's 5.20pm on Sunday which, in this part of Norfolk, means that all alcohol buying options shut over an hour ago.

*sob*

# Update. The jelly was actually really good in the end!