Pickling walnuts - part 1

I don't actually like pickled walnuts, but we do have friends who do, so if you are reading this, guess what you are getting for Christmas!

Pick walnuts while very young and green, before the shell has formed within the green outer skin, so normally before the end of June.

You will soon know whether they are too advanced because you won't be able to prick them through the shell.



Start by rinsing the walnuts clean.

Then kit yourself out with some rubber gloves and a steel BBQ spike or a long tined fork.

Prick each walnut a couple of times at least, quite far in.  If the shell has started to form you won't be able to force the skewer in further than about 5 mms, and they won't pickle.

Don't be deceived by the clear liquid that seeps out.  It will stain your fingers a most interesting nicotine colour if you don't wear gloves!

Mix up a brine solution of one part salt to six parts water and pour over enough to ensure the walnuts are fully covered.

Weigh the walnuts down with a plate to keep them all immersed, then cover and leave for a week.

The best thing about these plastic bowls is the plastic lids.  I can just write the instructions on the lids and tuck the bowls away in the back of the pantry.

As per the instruction on the lid, after a week, make up a new brine solution and leave for a second week. 

Stay tuned for the next installment in pickling walnuts!

February's C of Creations - Knitted Cowls

OK - I know it is the first of March today, therefore I am officially late for February's posting.  I have no excuse except - errr - actually I have no excuse. Sorry.

During February as the sun broke through it kept the temperatures very cool, especially at night with heavy frosts every morning, and so my new love of cowls sprang up.  These are so practical, just throw it over your head, tuck in around your neck then zip up your coat, warm and toasty.  Great when you are walking to work at 7.30 am and half asleep.

Seed stitch coat collar cowl.

 This is one I have made for sale when I finally get my shop back open this month.

I love seed stitch, it is so thick and chunky and looks fabulous, slightly more formal, and so I have teamed this coal with some glorious bevel edged vintage black buttons. 

To knit:

Use a soft chunky wool on size 6.5mm or 7mm needles.

Cast on 30 stitches.

Row 1 : Knit 1, purl 1 along the row including the first stitch.

Row 2 : Purl 1, knit 1 along the row including the first stitch.

Repeat rows 1 and 2 until the body of the cowl measures 70 cm.

For seed stitch, remember, you always knit into a purl and purl into a knit.

Cast off knit-wise.

To create the shape of coal coat collar, take one end and fold in half, position across the other end which is kept flat, pin into place, then fasten with a couple of stitches and finish with a couple of large buttons or wool flowers.

Loopy Loose Cowl

 This cowl is made in the same wool, but with a completely different stitch that creates a different texture and feel to the cowl.

Once again use a thick soft wool and size 6.5mm or 7mm needles.

Cast on 40 stitches.

For every row, the first and last 5 stitches are creating a border and are therefore not counted in the looping pattern stitch.

Row 1 : knit every stitch

Row 2 : (first pattern row)  knit 5, * yarn over, knit two together, repeat from * until last 5 stitches, knit 5

Row 3 : knit every stitch

Row 4 (second pattern row) knit 5, * knit 2 tog, yarn over, repeat from * until 5 stitches remain, knit 5

Repeat rows 1 to 4 until cowl is long enough to loop around you neck comfortably, this will depend slightly on how loose your loops are but approximately 80 cm.

Cast off after a knit row, then join ends together.  Wear half tucked in under a coat, or loose over a jacket.

Enjoy.

How to treble crochet - January's Creative C continued

The main stitch I used to make this bag was a treble crochet - a new stitch for me but as the fabric was quite thick cotton (from some recycled jogging pants) I wanted a large stitch to go with my large crochet hook.

So here is my how to treble crochet

This is the finished treble crochet.

You can see it creates a large-ish gap then has a smalker gap at the top, bisected by a strand of yarn, when working the next row you work into the smaller gap not the larger.

Start by winding the yarn over the hook twice to give you three loops on the hook

push yarn through the next stitch - you will momentarily have four loops over the hook

pull yarn through the first two loops on the crochet hook - three loops left on the hook and the first part of the stitch completed below the hook

pull yarn through the next two loops on the hook, leaving one worked stitch on the hook and the previous stitch's loop on the hook (two stitches in total left on hook)

pull yarn through the two remaining loops on the hook to join the new stitch to the old stitch and viola - one treble crochet

Top up Thursday

For alliteration purposes I am sure that this should have been Tuesday, but never mind.

You know those days when you put your hand on something and it is empty, like the salt cellar or the milk jug, well I am having one of those days, so far the counter top wash bottle has been empty, the coffee pot, my bottle of facial cleanser, the milk carton and the bleach spray for the bathroom - sensing the theme here - so I am having a top up day.

With everything now brimming over with its intended contents I can get on with more fun things, like finishing my rosehip tea.

Having dried out the rose hips overnight on a tray in the warming oven, I gave them a rough chopping with one of those double handled herb chopping knives - I have only used this a couple of times so I do have to justify its position on the knife rack!

Then seive them through a fine mesh seive, like sifting flour, you will be surprised at the amount of fibres that come off the rosehips - these can be irritating so best to deal with them now.

I found another of my bargain finds lying around in the barn, a stoppered glass jar with a rubber seal, and I have to say the rosehips are a pretty addition to my sideboard too.

They smell utterly divine - shame I can't photograph that for you.

Green Tomato Chutney - two versions.

Lovely green tomatoes - crying out for chutney, who am I to refuse.

Take some fresh onions straight from the ground, red and white.

Pick some lovely bright green and beautiful tomatoes, and you are ready to go.


I am having a go at two different recipes this time, one a sweeter chutney and one an Indian inspired one, and in the spirit of being organised, instead of trying to read two recipes at the same time and scrambling about for ingredients whilst things stick to the bottom of the pan, I am preparing everything in advance then setting to the cooking.

Professional eh?


Recipe 1 - Green tomato and Red Onion Relish


900g tomatoes
350g red onion
90g raisins
250g light muscovado sugar or cane sugar
1 hot red chili
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons brown mustard seeds
300ml cider vinegar

Combine the spices together, pour everything into a pan, pour over the vinegar, stir to ensure all the sugar dissolves then leave to simmer for about an hour.

Recipe 2 - Indian Green Tomato Chutney


4 cups of chopped green tomatoes
1 green pepper
2 apples, peeled, cored and cubed
1 hot pepper chopped finely
1 white onion
3 cloves garlic
2 tablespoons minced ginger root
zest and juice of one lemon
1/2 cup white wine vinegar
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon coriander seeds
2 teaspoons mustard seeds
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1/4 teaspoon tumeric

These are my coriander seeds harvested and dried next to the Rayburn - ready for just such a recipe.

Combine the spices together.

Throw everything in a pan, stir to dissolve the sugar and simmer for an hour.

As I sit here writing this at the kitchen table the room is filled with the wonderful aroma of chutney cooking.

Making my stomach grumble.

Have to wait 3 months for the chutnety to mature, it will be ready just in time for Christmas.

Spoon the mixture out into sterilised jars (wash jars well then put in a warm oven for 10 minutes, boil the lids for a couple of minutes), wear heat proof gloves to handle the jars and seal the lids on tightly.  Stand upside down on the lid for a few minutes to create a good seal, turn back over and wait for the lids to pop down before storing in a cool dark place for the next 3 months.

When is a cheesecake not a cheesecake?

When you try to make it in France where there is a distinct lack of soft cream cheese, and those that are on the shelf have garlic or herbs added to them.

Garlic flavoured cheesecake - too avante garde for me I'm afraid.

So this is my no baking required 'how to make cheesecake without cream cheese' recipe.

And my pudding of choice yesterday since I did not get to eat the salmon I wanted for dinner.

French Creme-Patissiere Cheesecake

500ml milk
3 egg yolks
1 whole egg
75g sugar
60g plain flour
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
120g fromage frais
zest and juice from 1 lemon
80g of biscuit for a base - either digestives or in France 'speculoos'



Take a cup of milk from the half litre and set the rest to boiling in a large saucepan.

Into a bowl sift the flour, and add the beaten whole egg and yolks to a well in the centre, combine well, then add the cup of milk gradually, whisking continuously until you get a smooth lump free mixture.

Reduce the heat under the milk to a simmer, then add the mixture to the hot milk, while stirring constantly and simmer until the mixture thickens.

Remove from heat and add the fromage frais, zest and juice of the lemon and vanilla, stirring all the time.

Set aside to cool slightly.

Smash up your biscuits of choice - if you have them, ginger nuts go really really well in this - and layer some in the bottom of your dish.  I like to do mine in individual portions and for this I am using glass tea light holders.

Spoon out some of the mixture, add another biscuit layer and then some more of the mixture.

To finish I added some raspberry coulis.


These are my raspberries that I picked for the bakewell tart but did not have enough of to make a jam so I have made a quick coulis instead with the leftover frozen in an ice cube tray to use another time.

To make the coulis just throw the raspberries in pan, with a splash of water, add a couple of tablespoons of sugar and boil away until you get a thickish jelly.


Today (Friday) is all about the outdoors because the sun is out in force, and my project for today is to get the spare room habitable for our guests at the weekend.  That means rugs outside to air, dusting, window cleaning and fresh clean bedding.  It makes it sound as though the spare room is a real slop house, but as we don't really use it inbetween visitors I would hate for it to smell musty and fusty so it always gets a good clean before people arrive.

What the heck are endives?

Now those of you dwelling in the UK may never have heard of these much less encountered them on the supermarket shelves, I know I hadn't until I moved to France.

They are about the only fresh veg you can find in early spring and my neighbour seems to be on a single handed mission to convert me to the eating of these things, and to that end bought round another crop yesterday in return for some eggs.

So I thought I would educate us all with a bit of info:

The endive I am talking about is generally known as a Belgian endive or Witloof in the US, and is grown from chicory seeds.

Cultivation is pretty labour intensive and that is why I am happy to leave my neighbour to do all the hard work while I just get on with looking for recipes afterwards.

To Grow Endives:

• First plant your chicory seeds in May or June, they need loose soil and lots of water.  Harvest the leaves and eat as salad throughout the summer months.
• In late Autumn, early Winter once the roots have had a couple of freezes under their belts, dig up the roots, keep any that have a diameter of over an inch for cultivating, the rest can be transplanted in the garden under cover for spring salad leaves.
• Trim any remaining sprouting leaves to within an inch of the top of the roots, and remove any side sprouting little roots and tendrils.
• Plant your roots in a box of rich composted soil, and place in the dark preferably in a shed or barn, they will need about 10 inches of soil, and pack them in tightly making sure none of the root is exposed.
• Cover the crowns with sand, straw or sawdust, it needs to be about 6 inches high.
• Temperatures now play a part, between 0°C and 4°C, they won't do anything, but at 10°C to 16°C they will begin to sprout. 
• Once you have reached growing temperature start to water weekly.
• After 3 weeks the first green tips of leaves should start showing through your blackout layer, harvest the endive, leaving a little crown again, recover and let the next endive grow through.

The whiter the leaves are the less bitter the taste.

Baked Endive:

Preheat the oven to 180°C.

• Remove the bitter tasting base of the leaves and slice the endives length wise, 2 spears per person for vegetable accompaniment to a cutlet or escalope, 1 spear per person for a starter.
• Place in the bottom of a shallow dish, pour over some olive oil.
• Add a finely chopped onion
• A couple of crushed garlic cloves
• Some freshly ground black pepper
• A couple of slices of pancetta or other salty cured meat cut into small pieces
• Finish with a quick squirt of lemon juice
• Bake for 45 minutes
• Take out of the oven, and pour over a small 150 ml carton of full fat cream, less if you are only cooking a couple of spears.
• Sprinkle on a bit of paprika
• Bake for a further 15 minutes

Endive Gratin:

Preheat the oven to 180°C.

• 4 endives
• 4 slices ham
• grated cheese
• fresh chopped parsley

Béchamel Sauce

• 30 g plain flour
• 30 g butter or margarine
• ½ litre milk
• salt, nutmeg & pepper

Trim the base of the endives then boil in salted water for 15 minutes.

In the meantime make up the sauce by melting the butter over a gentle heat, whisk in the flour until there are no lumps and you have a thick paste.  Gradually stir in the milk, whisking out any lumps that form until you get a thick creamy sauce, season (the nutmeg is optional - I never add any as a) I don't like it so b) there is never any in the house) and simmer for a few minutes.

When the endives are cooked, wrap each one in a slice of ham and place in a shallow oven proof dish, pour over the sauce and the cheese then garnish with the parsley leaves.

Bake for 15 minutes then finish under the grill for 5 minutes to brown the cheese.

Endive Salad Starter:

 Trim the base of the endives and remove the core to about an inch depth, these inner greener leaves are the bitterest.

Chop down the length, add a couple of sliced tomatoes, season with ground sea salt and some ground black peppercorns, then garnish with a couple of soft boiled quail eggs and a couple of sprigs of fresh parsley.

Redcurrant Jelly - tutorial

With various voices demanding what I am harvesting at the moment it has been so repetitive to reply with the constant refrain of nothing - it's been too wet then too dry then too wet - but finally there they were, luscious little red berries peeking through the foliage - the first redcurrants of the year.

Now I am not known for my jam making, I make very little of it because we generally eat very little of it. In fact show me a ripe fruit and my first reaction is to throw it into some alcohol and make a liqueur not to smear it on some bread during the winter months.

But I was feeling all domestic goddessy today so with a colander full of redcurrants I decided that jelly not jam was the way.

Before you ask I don't know the proper differentiation between jam and jelly but to my mind it goes like this - jam has bits in, and jelly is strained to create a clear liquid.  I make grape jelly, quince jelly and raspberry jam, and then there are compotes which are just stewed fruit and not set like a jam or a jelly is.

Redcurrant Jelly tutorial 

First catch your redcurrants.
The easiest way I have found to strip the fruit from the bushes is to use a fork, just run the tines along the fruit clusters and the ripe red berries will pop off into your bowl.

As you may have noticed from many of my recipes I am not a great fan of measurements, but unfortunately for jam/jelly you do need to do some measuring.  So I have simplified everything into cup measurements.  I have no idea how large a 'cup' is supposed to be in terms of conversion tables for American recipes, but for this as long as you use the same cup throughout you will be fine.

I use the plastic water beaker from my bread machine as my basic cup size.
Boil your redcurrants in water to the following ratio - 2:1 - 2 cups of fruit to 1 cup of water.  Boil until they are dissolving - about 15 minutes.

Then strain either through a very fine mesh sieve, or through a jam sieve.  Leave to drain for about an hour, then put a weight in and leave for another hour.

 I just used a can of tomatoes wrapped in some cling film as my weight, straight on top of the fruit in the jam sieve.
 If you have the time, you can add some additional weights and let the juice continue to drain for longer.

Once you have your liquid, measure the volume - again I do this in cups, and pour back into the saucepan. Then add a cup of sugar per cup of fruit juice, and bring to the boil, stirring continuously.

Once at a rolling boil, stop stirring and let the liquid cook for 5 to 8 minutes, skim off any scum that may form on top.  The jelly should reach setting point at about 104°C - but I don't have a jam thermometer so do the saucer test instead - take a teaspoon of the jam mixture, put on a cool saucer and leave for 60 seconds by which time it should start to form a skin.  If not let the mixture cook for another minute.

You will need to have some sterilised jars ready - the easiest way to do this is to pour some boiling water into a clean dry jar, put the lid on, shake well and leave to cool for a couple of minutes, pour away the water and immediately pour in your mixture.  You can also sterilise jars in the oven, and also once filled you can boil them in a water bath.

Pour your jelly mixture into your jars and turn upside down for a few minutes to create a good seal, then pop the right way round and leave to set.

Once opened they will keep in the fridge for a while, or store in a cool dark place until Christmas for Goose with Redcurrant jelly.

If for some reason your jam or jelly does not set - open the jar back up, reboil with some more sugar, preferably preserving sugar which has added pectin and pour into a clean sterile jar to set.


Oh I do feel all domestic goddess like now!

Day 8 chicken and pasta in creamy thyme sauce and some elderflower champagne

With the elderflowers finally in bloom, I got my champagne laid up.

The recipe I use is very simple:

Fill the bottom of a shallow bowl with elderflower heads (at least 20), try to have as few stalks as possible as they are bitter.

Cover in a thick layer of sugar, then pour over a litre of boiling water then a litre of cold water.

Add 50g of citric acid and juice and zest of one lemon or the juice and zest of 4 lemons if not using citric acid. Once again I have my lovely North African supermarket to thank for the citric acid - a complete fluke find on the shelf in there one day last year so I grabbed a couple of packets as it is getting harder and harder to get hold of.

Cover the bowl and place in a warm dark spot for 24 hours.

Sieve the liquid and pour off into screw topped bottles, either glass or plastic bottles designed for fizzy drinks, and leave to stand for another 14 days in a warm dark place, until the wine settles and clears. I like to squeeze every last drop from the flower heads, and if the liquid doesn't have that slightly sticky feel to it, I add another tablespoon of sugar to the bottle it is being decanted into.

There is no yeast required as the flower heads provide enough yeast to set the process off.

If you just want cordial, then once bottled, put in the fridge to stop any fermentation continuing.

I like to make up some elderflower ice cubes, and then you can just pop one of those into a glass of white wine, top with some lemonade or fizzy water for a summery spritzer, or add a dash of lemon vodka for a more potent cocktail.

In total 6 litres of champagne bottled up, and another 2 tubs of elderflowers settling for some cordial.


Day 8 - Chicken and Pasta in a Creamy Thyme sauce

Cook some pasta twirls or shells or tubes, drain, rinse with cold water and leave to one side, the cold helps to set the pasta so that it does not go mushy before you come to use it.

Gently fry a couple of chicken breasts in garlic oil, add 500ml of chicken stock, and a veg of your choice, I used green beans from the freezer but anything that you have to hand will do, carrots, peas, broccoli are all good for this.

Once the veg is tender, add the leaves from several sprigs of fresh thyme, as well as 150ml of cream.  I like to use real cream as it is delicate enough for the thyme, creme fraiche has too much of a flavour of its own for me and swamps the thyme.

Cook gently for a couple of minutes, then add the pasta back into the pan.  Stir the sauce through the pasta and there you go.  Another larder recipe.

Only another 2 to go - I am running out of fresh veg and dairy staples now though, may need to go and give the larder a good staring at for inspiration tomorrow.