A week gone - are you sure?

That was a quick week!  Wherever does the time go to?

 At various times this week I've made brown bread, white rolls, soups, dulce de membrillo which is quince paste and is usually eaten with cheese, frozen the wild boar casserole which we were cooking last time I wrote, planted 150 garlic cloves which have popped up within the week, bottled 23 small jars of black olives into oil, some with garlic in as well,  we've racked off all the wines so they are  bottled and ready for drinking  if needed.  Sampled some of the black fig wine when Mariano popped in yesterday and ate a jarful of the newly done olives as tapas.  The next 2  batches of olives aren't quite ready for bottling yet, probably in the next week or so.



Membrillo is really easy to make - if you can find quinces that is!  Peel, chop and cook them in water.  The longer they cook the deeper red the colour is, then strain off the juice and puree the fruit.  Weigh the puree and return to a pan with an equal amount of sugar.  Bring to the boil stirring constantly until you have a  thick gooey paste.  I poured my onto a baking parchment covered tray to set, then wrapped it up and put it in the fridge.  It will keep for quite a few weeks.


The meat had fallen off the ribs in the casserole and it is so tender!   Monty and Pip have had some of the bones - they only get them when we are able to keep an eye on them as it's the only thing they have a serious disagreement about.  If either of them goes anywhere near the other,  some very nasty growling starts up  and if we don't keep them apart they have to be separated with a  good squirt of cold water. 

As well as log splitting and refilling the log store, (he splits and I stack but unfortunately the handle of the splitter has itself split this week,)   I walked down to Yator yesterday morning to meet friends and then we went into Cadiar - I had Christmas parcels to collect from the post office and wanted to see how the new road was progressing.

And it's nearly finished!   It'll probably be completed this weekend so we should be able to go out and about soon.  Having concrete instead of a track should save us a lot of wear and tear on the tyres, although the economy being as it is, we've all got less money to go out and about with.  Maybe next year will be better, we can only hope.