It's that time of the week again - it comes round so quick. Hurrah for Friday or should I say 'YAY"!
The hedgerows are still full of blackberries hence the bramble inspired friyay... have a fabulous weekend!
Bramble jelly batch number three just potted up. Batch number one was so good we went back to pick more blackberries, much to Monty's delight! The jelly making had taken over!
The old 'Good Housekeeping' recipe book said:
Next stage, carefully (this stuff stains!) pour into a jelly cloth and leave it hanging...
The following day the jars are getting ready and the strained juice measured...
I experimented with a few different types of sugars (caster, sugar with pectin and then a mix of both). Trying to judge if setting point has been reached...
Whilst this was going on L was chopping apples and made crumble - yum!
Meanwhile Monty was....
Cup of tea anyone?
On our usual dog walk there is a hedgerow where, tangled amongst the weeds and grasses, blackberry bushes grow. Over the past couple of weeks these have been continuously ripening from green to red to a delicious juicy purple.
As a child I remember scrambling, large tupperware in hand, into brambles to pick for my mother's delicious apple and blackberry pies and bramble jelly. This was an activity seriously undertaken - scrub that. It was an EXPEDITION! We'd go wearing long trousers and wellies and once we'd picked around the edges of a bush we'd bash our way in, making sure all the ripe fruit from across the top was collected too. We'd come away, containers and tummies full, with purple fingers and lips...tasting is essential for quality control!
With thoughts of crumble and bramble jelly, L and I set off with Monty armed with containers and secateurs (for those long brambly branches). A skirt and sandals possibly wasn't the best idea but it was a really hot day. It didn't take long to fill our tubs, despite spending time watching out for the prickly lower branches and nettles. Only one sting each and hardly any scratches!
Monty loved it: what's not to love, burrowing in a hedge, going for a swim (he found water) and eating! He liked the taste of the berries so much he quickly developed his own knack of pulling them off without getting prickled.
Knowing when to stop picking is the hardest thing. As you soon as your brain makes the decision to call it a day your eyes alight on another laden branch of fat, juicy, tasty, purple berries... but the tubs just couldn't be piled any higher.
Back home, L started peeling and chopping her way through a pile of apples for the crumbles and I dusted off a cookery book to look for a bramble jelly recipe. Meanwhile Monty had his drink of water and laid down for a snooze.
There is one huge change in our life that has occurred over the last couple of months and that's the contents of our fridge and kitchen cupboards. After a fare few documentaries (*cough cough* Netflix black hole), some YouTube videos, a couple of books and a LOT of Googling we have switched up what we're eating.
So what have the biggest changes been? Well I've embraced vegetables (which I've been avoiding for virtually all of my 24 years), spent a lot of time trying out new recipes with mostly successful outcomes, realised how difficult it can be to eat out when you have a more restricted diet, halved the amount of time we spend in the supermarket and felt healthier and less bloated than ever before.
Needless to say this change to a more plant based diet is here to stay for now, not to say it's permanent but honestly so far the positives way outweigh the negatives!
So what have the biggest changes been? Well I've embraced vegetables (which I've been avoiding for virtually all of my 24 years), spent a lot of time trying out new recipes with mostly successful outcomes, realised how difficult it can be to eat out when you have a more restricted diet, halved the amount of time we spend in the supermarket and felt healthier and less bloated than ever before.
Needless to say this change to a more plant based diet is here to stay for now, not to say it's permanent but honestly so far the positives way outweigh the negatives!
Not much beats 4 o'clock and afternoon tea. A quintessential English pastime that is really still quite new; it was only brought into fashion by the Duchess of Bedford in the 1840s who always felt a bit peckish around 4pm. We don't change into our long gowns, hats and gloves, as she and her friends used to do, for tea time but I do enjoy Lapsang Souchong and L is partial to English Breakfast. The Duchess would have bread and butter followed by cake and it was the Earl of Sandwich who thought to put two pieces of bread together with a filling in between - hence a 'sandwich'. Although I am partial to a cucumber sandwich every now again in the summer, a delicious tea time snack such as a piece of freshly cut bread (or toast) with butter and honey is (at the moment) my preferred treat.
Whilst wandering around Borough Market in London (SE1 9AB) we came across the Monmouth coffee shop/cafe. It smelt wonderful; I just had to have a cup. It tasted so smooth. My daughter, who never drinks coffee, tried a sip and said it tasted good.
I bought a bag (the beans are ground to your specification on site) and brought home the smell and flavour. I don't like my coffee strong and either have it with hot milk or black. Either way it is just delicious.
The biscuits L made, with Christmas flavours, and I squiggled some of the icing about.
A x
