Pears!

There is a little pear tree in front of M Benazet's house here. It has never been very productive, but this year it has suddenly produced a massive quantity of excellent quality fruit. We have just had a brief 'tree-shake' and have collected kilos and kilos (I am guessing between 30 and 40kgs!) of pears which we now need to let ripen naturally in a cool place before they are ready to use. I am tempted to have a bash at making perry but don't know what variety of pear we have and whether they would be suitable for that purpose. But it could be worth a try!

Making stuff

I was up early this morning with my bro for the airport run to Carcassonne. The past couple of days have flown by and it has been really lovely to spend some time with him - it's only taken him 2 years to come out and visit! Hopefully he won't leave it too long before he visits us again.

This afternoon I have been busy harvesting elderflowers and have got a batch of cordial (recipe from a friend) and champagne (a River Cottage/Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall recipe) started. It's the first time I have used elderflowers, so fingers crossed for a good result.

I have also got some rhubarb passing through the jelly bag ready for making rhubarb and mint jelly tomorrow. Again, I have never made it before but it sounds intriguing!

Using it up

Today, I collected another massive bagful of walnuts from the tree up the chemin (probably the last of them) and made an apple, walnut, apricot and date loaf which also used up some of the apples that seem to be lingering in the porch! The rest of the walnuts are still in their shells awaiting consumption at a later date. Then, it was onto the chestnuts ....I shelled the last kg or so and have this afternoon/this evening made sweet chestnut puree which will be just fantastic in desserts this autumn/winter. I have frozen probably four portions and have another 2 portions in the fridge. It is sweet but very very delicious! The marrons glacés should be ready tomorrow - it will be interesting to see how they turn out as it is the first time I have attempted these oh so French candied delicacies.

Chestnuts

The chestnuts have been plumetting from the trees in their hundreds over the past few days. Today we collected a good 3-4 kgs of really good-sized nuts (excluding their casings).I am going to leave them to sweeten for a couple of days and then use some to make a chestnut puree, store some in the freezer for making stuffing at a later date, make a spiced apple (still loads of apples here which need using before they rot) and chestnut crumble with clove custard and possibly some chestnut and red wine pate and also marrons glacés..... any other ideas?

Pommety pomme

Lovely day today, although overnight temperatures dipped to just 2 degrees - it won't be long before we see an early morning frost. The mission today was to collect the enormous, ripe apples from Claudine's tree down in the field with a view to getting more cider on the go. They are lovely, juicy, flavoursome apples which we hope will make a delicious cider. The initial intention was simply to collect them and store them in the barn until we are able to get some more barrels midweek for the fermentation. But the majority of the apples suffered damage as they fell to the ground, so we decided to press them straight away. The result is another 20 ltrs of very tasty juice which we have started off in a large stainless steel container. It will have to be transferred to the barrels later in the week once fermentation is underway.

More produce

We had a courier delivery from the UK today which included the 'pressoir' and masher for the cider-making process. At long last! We had a trial run this afternoon and pressed a bucketful of mixed apples to see what kind of juice yield we would get. The result was 2 litres of juice from 3.5kgs of apples. The hydrometer suggested that we should be able to produce a cider of max 7.5% alcohol ..... Hic! The juice is very brown but very very appley. This afternoon we have given the tree behind the house a good shake and collected another ~30 kgs of apples, so the production line will be in full swing over the next week or so.

After straining the elderberry, blackberry and apple pulp overnight, I made the hedgerow jelly this morning. Not only is it a fantastic colour but it has the most delicious flavour with the blackberries dominating. The rest of the elderberries are currently on a slow stew in the oven with some cider vinegar and will be transformed into Pontack sauce tomorrow. It is apparently "an unrivalled partner for winter stews, casseroled liver, slow-roasted belly pork, or anything wild and gamey". For those who may be interested, the recipe can be found in Richard Mabey's 'Food for Free' and also in the River Cottage Preserves Handbook. More apples are currently in the jelly bag and will be transformed into apple and chilli jelly tomorrow. This afternoon Andy has also made some hot brown sauce of which 2 jars have been put away and half a jar stored in the fridge. I think the store cupboard is almost full now, although I would love to produce some homemade tomato sauce which is sure to knock the socks of Heinz ketchup ;-)

A mini break, a mini harvest

Kev is away at the moment and Pat fancied some girly company so I did the right thing and yesterday headed over with my mountain bike to their 'new' house near Lavelenet. The weather was perfect for a VTT mountain bike ride. The area around their house has numerous well signposted VTT routes of various levels of difficulty and in Pat's words 'we are like kids in a sweetshop!'. I soon understood the reason for her excitement. We set off straight from the house. The route she had chosen took us along farm tracks and woodland singletrack, along disused railway lines and hardpack tracks, up hills (1.3kms at 11.5% was tough) and down technical descents and along riverside paths - I have never experienced such variety on a VTT ride before! We covered 50kms and rewarded ourselves with an icecream two thirds of the way around, although our attempts at finding somewhere that served beer proved fruitless (on Monday afternoons there is very little open in the area)! My bike was working well and so were my legs. It had been a cracking ride out and I/we are now hungry for more!After a fun evening rocking and rolling to Johnny Halliday and supping wine, we had a lazy start this morning and opted for a 10km walk rather than a run, following another of the well sign-posted VTT routes from the house, which at one point took us up a steep incline from which we had lovely views back down the valley towards one of the many villages along the way.We filled a bag with juicy blackberries and collected fallen walnuts which are now wonderfully ripe over there (still another week or two to wait for the walnuts up the chemin here at Pissou). We also saw some fantastic quince trees with enormous fruit and fig trees bearing plump, ripe figs which Pat couldn't help but pluck at opportune moments! Before I left this afternoon, I filled a big with the biggest, juiciest elderberries that I have ever seen. Some are now simmering away with the blackberries and some apples from the trees around Pissou, ready for straining and transforming into my version of hedgerow jelly tomorrow. I think the remaining 3 lbs of elderberries will be transformed into Pontack sauce at some point tomorrow. I think I will make an apple and walnut tart using more windfall apples and the walnuts - yum! I so love this time of year!

Jackpot!

About time too! I mean, honestly, how many times have we ventured into the woodland opposite the house and found nothing, zilch, nada? I have lost count. Then today, there they were - loads of them in fantastic little patches, bright, fresh, new, untainted by slugs or maggots! Not only were the chanterelles in fine supply, but also hedgehog mushrooms (pieds de mouton) and also some fantastically colourful amethyst deceivers. We came back with quite a haul. Now, what shall we cook this evening......! And here's another photo, simply because they are such beautiful, colourful shrooms

Apples and produce

Today, we finally managed to track down some plain ordinary glass jam pots at the garage shop in Seix (up until now, I have not been able to find them at any of the expected outlets such as the major hypermarkets, 'garden centres' or agricultural cooperatives in the area). So I had to celebrate! We have now collected what we guess to be around 60kgs of apples which are now lazing in the barn pending arrival of our cider making equipment, so I reckoned some of those apples could be spared to top up my already dwindling chutney supplies! The result this afternoon is 9lbs of apple chutney which will be just divine in a month's time. I also have a quantity of spiced apple, cider and orange jelly going through the jelly bag ready for the final jelly-making stage tomorrow. I will also be collecting some blackberries when the rain clears at the weekend and intend to make some bramble and apple jelly too. Yum yum!

Produce

The courgettes and squashes have been coming on a treat thanks to the alternating wet/hot (32 degrees this afternoon) weather that we have been experiencing recently. I made a courgette and tomato chutney the other evening and tonight, Andy has made a lamb and yellow courgette curry (the homemade/freshly ground spice mix is top secret!) which, as you can see, is very colourful.We also collected another basketful of pears... ...which will be transformed into 'blushing pears' which is a rather nice pickle that is an ideal accompaniment to things such as cold turkey, game pie and mature cheeses or paté - funnily enough, it should reach full maturity at Christmas!

Today...

...we have been busy. We brought the wood that we chainsawed last week back up to Pissou, stacked it and covered it ready for logging at some point in the autumn. Andy then split the birch logs that have been drying under cover since the Spring and they are now stacked on the terrasse, ready for use.

Today, we have also been continuing our foraging efforts, with elderberries being top of the menu. From a kg of fruit.....we have made a litre of elderberry syrup. It is the first time I have used this fruit (apart from an experiment with elderberry wine a good number of years ago!) and I have to say I am very pleased with the result. According to David Lebovitz' website where I found the recipe, it has the following uses ..."a shot of the syrup in a glass of sparkling water over ice, drip some over plain yogurt or a bowl of vanilla ice cream, or use it to make a lively kir. And hello pancakes! It's also fabuloso with aged goat cheese". Yum! A handful of elderberries and a handful of blackberries were also added to a bottle of vodka where they will steep for the next month to eventually make a rather tasty liqueur

Tomorrow, I really need to make my courgette chutney. The only slight hiccup is that I appear to have run out of jam jars! Doh!

Autumnal leanings

This evening I am making chutney from the pears and apples that we have harvested from the trees around Pissou. I LOVE chutney so am making double quantity :-) Too late, we also discovered a plum tree today - we found half a dozen sweet, juicy, sticky plums that were edible but the others had all gone over which is a real pity as they were a real treat.

We had a brief run up to the Cap de Campets above the Col de Portel earlier and stumbled upon some field mushrooms and also pavement mushrooms along the route forestière which have been included in a rather delicious Italian pasta dish tonight. Tomorrow, if it isn't raining, we will hopefully harvest some more chanterelles if nobody has got there before us!

At last!!

Now then, avid readers of this here blog will know how frustrated we have been in our search for the elusive chanterelle. Despite many forays up and down the woodland opposite Pissou we have never found a single chanterelle - not even a whisper of one. Incredibly disappointing when our neighbour from up the hill, Josette, comes back with baskets full of the fungus. Well, today we visited a different location (I can't possibly tell you where!) and very quickly we started spotting these little orange beauties trying to hide from us beneath bilberry bushes and poking out from layers of dead leaves. The delicate vanilla/apricot scent was unmistakeable. Fantastic! This time we would not go home empty-handed!Andy put together a scrummy omelette using the smaller chanterelles this evening and we have saved the larger ones for a dish tomorrow. As soon as we get a warm, dry spell we will be heading back to our secret spot to harvest what could be a bumper crop.

Autumn

Where are we now..... mid August? You wouldn't think it. I looked out of the door this morning and there was a dusting of snow on the tops! Daytime temps have struggled to reach 20 degrees this last week. This afternoon we harvested pears, blackberries, damsons and even some sloes. Has the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness arrived early, or will we see the return of stinking hot summer temperatures next week? Watch this space.