A crab apple challenge

I suppose in any family we will have our favourite. Well, it is certainly true in the Malus family. There is no doubt that the apple is by far the most popular fruit in this group, and why not when it is so versatile and will sit so happily in your fruit bowl all week without going off, ready to be snatched up for a convenient snack. The pear is probably the next most popular Malus but there is a big gap between the first and second places in this popularity contest. The pear is an awkward fruit, even in its shape, and can go from too hard to too squidgy in the blink of an eye. And then there is the quince... Quince... who on earth eats quinces? And finally the crab apple. Well, there are lots of those in the world. Sure, they look pretty for a short while on the tree before they start dropping in abundance, just to be squished under foot. Such a shame to see all this fruit dropping onto the path, making a mess, but what can be done with them. It's not as if they are nice to eat and even if I went to trouble of making crab apple jelly, it is so out of fashion no one would what to buy it.

But then my friend Jane handed me half a bin bag full of crab apples from her neighbour's back garden. Hmmm... what to do with them?

One of the great things about crab apples is that they are so small and fiddly that you don't even think about peeling and coring them. So where doing anything with apples is a bit tedious because you first have to peel and core every fruit, with crab apples you just bung them straight into the pan and start boiling them up. They don't take long to cook either as they are small and within a few minutes they are soft and pulpy and ready to be strained through a jelly bag. Job done, sit down, cup of tea... walk the dog... cook dinner... have a bath... go to bed... In fact, it needs at least 8 hours to finish dripping through the jelly bag.

But what then? Really, no one is going to want to buy 20 lbs of crab apple jelly!

Well, it took a week to work my way through the whole bag and I did make one batch of crab apple jelly. Towards the end I added a couple of spoonfuls of rose water just to add a bit of a twist to the flavour and when my daughter tasted it she said it tasted like lemon meringue pie. But I also made chilli jam, Jamdelade (sweet orange jam) and blackberry jelly from the crab apples. I also froze several pints worth of the liquid to use in any recipe that uses a low pectin fruit so expect crab apple pectin in the pear jams I shall be making next.

So in the end I was pleased with my supply of crab apples and of the creative challenge they presented. Next year they shall be an essential ingredient that I actively seek.

Food waste

There is a lot of food waste going on at the moment and a lot of talk about it too. Everyday when I cycle the school run I ride past fruit and nuts falling off trees. Firstly it was cherries, then apples and now hazelnuts, elderberries, blackberries and crab apples. If I wasn't quite so over-run with my own supplies of fruit and vegetables I would see about picking this lot. I'm just surprised that nobody else does.

I pondered the reason that hedgerows don't get stripped of their crops these days and I imaged it was mainly due to our familiarity with buying our fruit and vegetables conveniently washed and packaged in supermarkets. But then a couple of things made me wonder if there was more to it than that.

Firstly, whilst flicking through an old-fashioned preserving book I came across recipes using both rowan berries and hawes from hawthorns. I had to admit that I hadn't previously know they were edible, instead stirring clear of these red berries. And then, earlier this week, my daughter found a small, lemon-shaped fruit on a tree in a park and brought it to me for identification. I would guess that this fruit is a mirabelle - a member of the prunus family and related to plums, gages, cherries and apricots. It can be made into a lovely fragrant jam but I wasn't sure that my identification was correct so I left them be. So it was then that I wondered whether it is because we are taught as children to regard all hedgerow fruit and berries with suspicion and not to eat them that we are reluctant to harvest anything from them in case we get it wrong. We just don't seem to have a strong foraging culture anymore so we are not taught what we can and can't safely pick. Instead, we leave well alone and buy our clearly identifiable and well-labelled produce in the supermarkets.

So that is one form of food waste but of course there are huge issues with food waste all over the place in this country and I was heartened to hear this week that the government are considering simplifying food labeling to help reduce the amount of edible food being thrown away (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14925046). The plan is to remove "sell by" and "display until" dates from the food. These labels are there to help shops with their stock rotation but should be meaningless to the customer. Instead, the customer often throws out food which has gone past these dates, despite the food still being OK to eat. I agree that scrapping these labels would be a good thing.

It is also the case, of course, that food is also thrown out when it goes beyond its "best before" date. Best before dates are put there as an indication that the food may not taste so good after this date. Foods with best before dates are not dangerous foods and any deterioration in the food will be one of spoilage rather than of any health issues. Really, the consumer needs to use their judgement to decide if the food is still pleasant to eat and only throw it away if it has "gone off".

"Use by" dates are a different matter and need to be taken seriously. These are put on foods that could potentially cause food poisoning. It is advisable to throw away food that has gone past its use by date.

Currently, the situation is rather confusing and its hardly surprising that people choose to err on the side of caution but hopefully new food labelling can go some way to resolving these issues. Of course, food poisoning is no joke and both off food and inedible berries can kill people but I feel that somewhere along the way we lost our collective common sense and the necessary skills to be identify safe and poisonous food correctly.

Plums & Oranges

When I got back from holiday the plums on my Victoria plum tree were falling off the tree, they were so ripe. Now there is a rush against time to process them as quickly as possible to preserve them before it is too late.

One of the quickest recipes I know for using plums is Plum and Orange Mincemeat. It is a slightly odd thing, to make a Christmas recipe in August but now is when the plums are ripe and by Christmas the mincemeat will be nicely matured. So last night I carefully chopped up 3lb of plums and mixed it together with the oranges, dried fruit, sugar, spices and brandy.

This morning I had the rather pleasant task of boiling this delightful mixture up for half and hour to meld the ingredients together into a beautiful mincemeat. Doing so filled the house with gorgeous smells, with a hint of Christmas that wasn't so out of place on a rather dismal August day. Even the girls in the living room were led into the kitchen by their noses, asking, "What are you cooking, Mummy, it smells lovely?"

The only problem with this was the anticipation it building in your body - an expectation to eat something yummy. But alas, the concoction was to be sealed into jars with no more than the final lick of the spoon before the washing up.

So with my mouth expecting something delicious to eat I decided to have a go at making a plum and orange drizzle cake. This, fortunately, managed to fulfill my expectations - it was delicious! While plums are in season, spare a few and have a go at making this cake.

6 oz soft butter

5 oz caster sugar

2 eggs (beaten)

1 orange

9 oz self-raising flour

1 teaspoon mixed spice

5 Victoria plums (ripe)

2 oz sultanas

4 oz icing sugar

Preheat oven to 180°C. gas 4 and line a 2lb loaf tin. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar then stir in the eggs. Grate the zest off the orange and add this to the bowl. Squeeze out the juice. Set aside 2 tablespoons of orange juice for the drizzle and put the remaining juice into the bowl. Sift in the flour and spice then stir until well combined. Finely chop up 4 of the plums and add this and the sultanas to the cake mixture and fold in. Dollop the mixture into the loaf tin and bake for 1 hour until a skewer inserted comes out clean. Leave to cool completely in the tin. Destone the remaining plum then place it in a blender with the reserved orange juice and blend until smooth. Add the icing sugar and stir. Prick the cake all over with the skewer then pour over the drizzle. Enjoy.

Woburn Abbey Garden Show

The 2nd annual Woburn Abbey Garden Show was held from 12pm Friday 15th July until 5pm Sunday 17th July and this year Jammy Cow preserves joined the other food stalls in the food marquee. The marquee housed a variety of different stalls including cheeses, Indian curry sauces, Texas hot sauces, cupcakes, crisps, stoned ground flour and fudge.

Jammy Cow was slotted between a stall selling cured Continental meats and the local butchers, Woburn Country food. So for two and half days we were teased with the smells of chirozo and freshly cooked sausage samples. Any member of the public wandering through the tent could have foregone lunch after sampling one of everything on offer to taste. A delight of local and exotic flavours.

I often think a weekend inside a marquee at an event like this is like being on the set of a murder mystery drama such as Miss Marple or Midsomer Murders. Thankfully there were no murders but there were definitely the usual mix of eccentric characters and stereotypical gentry. It is all so quintessentially English.

Friday was a warm, dry afternoon but fairly quiet on the custom side of things. Most customers were women of a certain age and retired men. It was a pleasant afternoon, although I had expected to be supplied with a chair as well as a table. I spent most of the afternoon stood up and occasionally sat on the grass behind the stall, resting my aching back. Towards the end of the afternoon my companion Clare went for a walk round the stalls and stopped to chat with the people at the Corkers crisps stall. These are handmade crisps, which easily rival the likes of Kettle or Tyrrells. To my surprise, a moment later the man from Corkers came walking towards our stall with a high stool in his arms. This he gave to me to borrow for the weekend. What a hero! From then on I spent a good many hours perched on that stool, resting my legs and back!

Before leaving on Friday evening, Clare pointed out that the cardboard boxes that housed the extra Jammy Cow stock were getting damp on the ground. For this, we slipped a couple of plastic box lids underneath them and stacked them on top of each other to get as many of them off the ground as possible. This proved to be a particularly fortuitous bit of forethought when the next morning I arrived at the marquee in torrential rain. A few moments after arrival a small trickle of water began flowing in under the edge of the marquee and gradually flowed down the length of the marquee behind every stall on that side of the tent. Then within the next few minutes the trickle turned into a small stream and quickly my canvas boots yielded to the water, soaking my socks. I retreated to the highest piece of ground I could find behind my stall and stood there on the boggy hillock wondering what to do.

As the flow of water became steadily worse a kind of Dunkirk spirit set in amongst the stallholders. Helen from Woburn Country Food lent me 3 large plastic crates to get my stock off the ground, the man at the Indian sauce stall improvised wellies out of two plastic bags and the groundsmen from the Abbey site came in with bags of sand and sheets of hessian to raise the ground level for the worse effected stalls. None of this, of course, stopped us from continuing regardless. Eric merely straddled the steam passing his stall and continued to carve sarroso off the bone and I perched on my borrowed stool, soggy feet resting above the floodwater. What amazed me was that some people actually came out anyway to shop that day.

Sunday was the best day. The weather had calmed down, apart from a playful wind that occasionally tried to whip my cow-print tablecloth away. And the customers were out in force. A busy day, with the stallholders behaving like automatoms in a theme-park ride. Motion-sensitive, as a potential customer walked past we would switch on and play our pre-programmed line:

“Do you know quince?” from ‘Quince Charming’
“Would you like to try a sample of sausage?” from Woburn Country Foods
“Would you like to try some jams or chutneys; all grown in Milton Keynes and made in Milton Keynes,” from Jammy Cow
“Would you like to sample some sarroso off the bone?” from Eric.
And so on down the line.

Then at the end of Sunday it was time to pack it all up and say our goodbyes. I returned the stool and the plastic crates, exchanged business cards and spent a little less money than I took! Hard work, tiring but successful. Many more people aware of the Jammy Cow name, lots of people with Jammy Cow preserves to take away, a few empty boxes for me to take home and pleasant weekend spent in the company of people as passionate about good quality food as I am.

Make your own Ribena

Did you know that Robinsons only use British blackcurrants to make Ribena? I admire them for that but puzzle about how they manage that when British blackcurrants are only available for about a month from late June to late July. Do they just make masses and masses of Ribena at that time of year, store it and dispatch it to the shops throughout the rest of the year? Or do they have massive freezers somewhere and gradually use up frozen blackcurrants through the year?

I don’t know the answer to those questions but for me I use some of my blackcurrants up fresh but freeze others to use through the year, mostly as jam of course. I do, however make one batch a year of blackcurrant cordial, which is, of course, pretty much homemade Ribena. Using lemongrass adds a citrus undertone and adds an air of sophistication to the cordial.

Blackcurrant & Lemongrass Cordial

2 lb 4 oz (1kg) blackcurrants

1 pint (660ml) water

13 oz (375g) granulated sugar

3 lemongrass stems, crushed

Put all the ingredients in a preserving pan and bring to the boil. Boil for about 5 minutes, using a potato masher to crush the berries to release the juices. Leave to infuse for about an hour then bring back to the boil then strain the liquid through a nylon (not metal) sieve. Bottle and refrigerate. Dilute as you would normally for blackcurrant squash. Use up within 3 months.

When I made this cordial last year I bought a bundle of lemongrass stems from the supermarket. The recipe called for 3 and the bundle, annoyingly, had 4 stems. So I decided to try growing the 4th stem. To get it going I placed it in a jar of water for a few weeks until it put out roots then I potted it on into a pot of multipurpose compost. It has sat happily on the windowsill in my conservatory ever since, gradually gaining height and then more stems as the year has passed. I was somewhat surprised to find, a year later, that the plant was actually big enough to stand me harvesting stems from it. Instead of 3 stems, I cut out 2 stems, figuring that fresh stems would probably have more flavour than the slightly dried out ones you buy in the supermarket. I also snipped up the attached leaves too, which although coarse, have a strong smell. Because they are stained out in the recipe the texture is not important. It was very satisfying to make the cordial in the second year from both homegrown blackcurrants and lemongrass.

I have kept one bottle of the cordial but donated another to my friend Clare. She told me she was planning to hold some daytime business events at the end of July and was wondering what refreshments to serve. The type of event would have lent itself perfectly to alcoholic drinks but she figured that most people during the day would not particularly want to drink alcohol, particularly as they would be driving. Good quality, sophisticated cordials seemed like a good alternative, particularly when diluted with a mixture of both still and sparkling chilled water, adding just a bit of fizz. One bottle of homemade blackcurrant & lemongrass cordial and another of elderflower cordial was a welcome gift.

The Raspberry Harvest

My raspberry harvest is the longest of the soft fruit harvests. It started this year in mid-June with the first of the yellow raspberries and it will probably still be just about hobbling along until October. Right now it is at its peak and the raspberries need picking every two days and will yield 4-8lb pounds each time.

It is funny how as the season progresses my attitude towards the raspberries change. At first there is great excitement and each raspberry is picked with care and we are anxious to pick enough to make a particular recipe - a cheesecake or a trifle or whatever. Then as the raspberries become more abundant I feel more relaxed and I'm happy to bag up some to freeze for jam making later. Then it all becomes a bit of a chore, taking up an hour or so every two days and needing doing again just as often. It suddenly takes on the feeling of a job like the washing - never done! And should I happen to drop one as I'm picking then I no longer bother bending down and scrambling about looking for it. Later in the season when they become rarer again, once again I hunt around, trying to make up the weight I need for a chosen recipe. And then in winter they are missed, although occasionally remembered by thawing some out and making a lovely jelly or something.

I never set out to grow as many raspberries as I do. Initially I bought 12 canes - that was all. Raspberries propagate themselves by sending up sucker plants a few centimeters from the parent. Sucker is a good term, because that is what I am, a sucker. When I see a new plant I can't help but want to keep it. So over the years we have gradually expanded the amount of space occupied by raspberry plants.

I remember last year when I went on holiday for 3 weeks in August my parents popped by weekly to harvest and water as necessary. On my return my mum told me about all the things they had picked and she described all the different ways she had used the raspberries. "Oh," I said, "do you like raspberries?".

"Used to," my dad muttered.

I know the feeling!

With limited freezer space, I spend the summer making raspberries into jam and desserts as quickly as possible. This year with the purchase of an additional secondhand freezer I am hoping I can relax a little and pace out the jam making for the rest of the year. There should always be plenty in stock!

Raspberry Jelly & Trifle

Raspberry Jelly

3 tablespoons cold water
1 tablespoon or 1 sachet powdered gelatin
8 oz (225 g) raspberries
4 oz (110 g) granulated sugar
15 fl oz (425 g) cold water

Put 3 tablespoons of cold water into a small pan and sprinkle over the gelatin, then stir and set aside for 5 minutes. Put the raspberries, sugar and 15 fl oz of water into a large pan and bring to the boil. Leave the fruit to simmer for 2 minutes until soft then press through a sieve to make a puree. Heat the gelatin over a low heat for a minute or two until clear then stir this into the raspberry puree. Pour into suitable containers/moulds and chill for 2-4 hours until set.

Raspberry Trifle

1 pint (600 ml) of raspberry jelly (see recipes above)
1 raspberry swiss roll

Raspberry cordial, apple juice or sherry
1 pack of ready to make custard powder
100ml whipping cream

100ml creme fraiche
A few raspberries

Make raspberry jelly as shown in the recipes above. Cut the swiss roll into slices and press into the bottom of a suitable dish. Pour over enough raspberry cordial/apple juice/sherry to dampen the sponge. Allow the cake to soak up the liquid and become mushy. You could also add a layer of fresh raspberries too at this point if you wish. Pour the jelly over the swiss roll and refrigerate for 2-3 hours until set. In the meantime, make up the custard as instructed on the packet and allow to cool completely at room temperature. Once the jelly has set, pour the custard over the top and level off. Return to the refrigerator for at least another hour. Whip together the cream and creme fraiche until stiff then spoon on top of the custard. Finish with a few fresh raspberries or glace cherries just before serving.

Strawberry Season

In my garden the soft fruit season always seems to start with strawberries. Usually this is in the first week of June but this year it started in May. There is something amazing about the first of any crop but the first strawberries are fantastic. Not that I get to taste many of them as my girls seek them out and gobble them straight off the plant, warmed and extra delicious in the sunshine.

It takes several days of strawberry harvesting before we have enough to take some home and serve them more formally as a dessert - usually just simply with cream. Then gradually, we are able to harvest several pounds at a time and this is when I start building up my stocks for jam making. By this point the sloppiness of girls' harvesting technique becomes apparent, as they continue to seek out the glorious "monster" strawberries. I follow on behind, meticulously picking the small, extra flavoursome ones that they overlooked. These make the best jam anyway.

It is hard to beat freshly picked, properly ripe strawberries and they are dead easy to grow. If you haven't already got strawberries growing in your garden or on your patio or balcony then go and buy a few plants from the nearest garden centre or DIY shop. They will produce a few fruit even in their first year and will continue fruiting and producing new strawberry plants every year after that. They don't take up much space and can be grown in containers as easily as straight in the ground. They need little attention too, although you may wish to net them to protect the fruit from birds and small children!

If you don't want to grow your own then try a bit of pick your own. Mousloe Farm near Newport Pagnell and Warrington House Farm just north of Olney are two places that you can pick your own strawberries in Milton Keynes. There is also Wakefield Farm in Potterspury, just outside Milton Keynes. Picking your own is fun and it can make for a great family activity too.

It is very easy when picking your own or growing your own to get a bit carried away and to end up with more strawberries than you can reasonably eat in any one sitting. They will store in the fridge for a few days but taste better if you allow them to reach room temperature before eating. You can, of course, pop them into the freezer too but when they thaw out they will be mushy so can only be used in jam and baking recipes. Not that that is a problem as there are loads of great recipes for using strawberries. Before putting any in the freezer, my girls love to help me make strawberry and marshmallow ice-cream with fresh strawberries; a good way to preserve the flavour of fresh strawberries to enjoy at your leisure any time.

Strawberry & Marshmallow Ice cream

1½ lb (700 g) strawberries

5 oz (140 g) icing sugar

1½ tsp lemon juice

8 oz (225 g) mini marshmallows

7½ fl oz (210 ml) milk

½ pint (300 ml) double cream

Puree the strawberries so that you are left with a seedless liquid. Add the sugar and lemon juice and stir until the sugar is dissolved. Put half the marshmallows and the milk into a suitable bowl and heat in the microwave for 2 minutes to melt them. Stir this mixture, add the cream and whisk lightly so that it thickens slightly. Combine with the strawberry puree, mixing until the mixture is evenly pink. Add the remaining marshmallows, pour into suitable containers and place in the freezer for 3 hours. Remove from the freezer and beat the ice cream to introduce air, to break any ice crystals and to distribute the marshmallows throughout the ice cream.

As with all British seasons, the strawberry season is short so get out there and get picking whilst they are at their best.