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!

Busy first day of my holiday - courgette bread recipe

I am sort of on holiday this week.  In actual fact I have only to work for 4 hours, split between Tuesday and Thursday as my other clients are on their holidays or have family coming to visit who will take on their care in the interim.

I celebrated the first day of my holiday by nipping up the road to the local farmers' market and car boot.  In the end I bought the bits and bobs as in the photo and 2 kilos of apricots.

Our new chicks were introduced to the existing flock this morning and no casulaties so far (touch wood), just a bit of pecking order to be sorted out, and the pans I bought above are to be a new set of feeders and drinkers for the housing reshuffle now imminent amongst the rabbits and the quail with the hutches freed by the chicks now.

It was once again a very hot day, so in a burst of insanity I decided to make bread and do some baking - well I do have 2 kilos of apricots now to do something with, as well as a garden full of courgettes.  

So with thanks to the original poster on selfsufficientish.com (here) - I adapted this recipe and baked it in my bread machine on the wholewheat setting.

Courgette bread recipe  

7 tbspns milk
1/2 cup water 
1 1/2 cups grated courgette 
4 cups unbleached bread flour
1 cup wholemeal bread flour
5 tbspns mixed seeds (I used sunflour and sesamen)
1 tspn salt
2 tspn sugar
2 tbsn olive oil
1 1/2 tspn dried yeast

Well at least that is another lot of courgettes used up - while the force was strong in me I continued grating and filled a couple of empty ice cream tubs with grated courgettes for the freezer to use another time.  The courgettes don't seem to add any flavour to the bread, but they do leave what could be a heavy loaf light and moist. 

Very delicious was the verdict all round.

Obviously I did serve it with a side order of courgettes too!

Back out in the garden again between showers

Considering today is the first day of summer meteorologically speaking it is not very warm and really quite wet.

After another morning spent on the computer I had had quite enough, so promised myself some gardening time this afternoon. 

Kittens are settling in nicely, Thea's kitten is very good and mine is very naughty.  They are both eating and drinking well, but are missing the litter tray every now and again, you need to grab them quickly and deposit them on it, still for 6 weeks old they are pretty clean.  The dog loves them, and Mr Pink quite frankly doesn't give a damn as long as he can steal their milk and eat their kitten food.

Typically though it started to rain just as I got home, nonetheless I planted out the last of my courgette seedlings, weeded my salad polytunnel, my kohl rabi plot and then planted out some plum tomatoes in the greenhouse - where I found another couple of stray seedlings from last year's tomato plants. I stuck a couple of stakes in to remind me they are there and I think they will prove to be cherry tomatoes.  Free plants.

You can see in the photo, my very green and overgrown, spilling over the edges herb garden, behind it my strawberry patch, then the blue tubes of my salad poly tunnel.  To the right are my bean canes, broccoli, cabbage, onions, carrots, parsnips, beetroots with my two new rows of courgettes on the left, just in front of my wibbly wobbly pea canes.  You can also see just next to the poly tunnel that there is a square bed, this is full of  French black raddishes, then a square kohl rabi bed, then to the far right is the start of my patch of red weed (red Chinese salad leaf, interspersed with some self seeded raddishes).  At the end of the pea canes is the first of my apple trees.

The veggie garden then continues beyond the apple tree, about the same size again, perhaps a bit more, because it is wider at the bottom than it is at the top.  At the bottom there are pumpkins, potatoes, cassis, redcurrants, raspberries, onions, more beets, and more cabbage.