Autumn's almonds are still happening, we have one tub left to shell, and one jarful of shelled ones that need blanching but we have nearly cracked it! Sorry, not meant to be a pun, but almonds....cracking.... I know, I'm sorry.
Strawberries too are still happening, I froze a kilo last week, can't keep making and eating strawberry crumble nice and rich though it is, all that weight that we've lost this year will be creeping back on around the hips and waist if we're not careful. ( 1 stone for him, 1.5 for me :) ) But yesterday there was another 600 grams, so another google for hot strawberry pudding ideas came up with a variation of a sponge. Strawberries, brown sugar and lemon zest as a base, a sponge topping with orange zest, then baked in the oven. I used 4 microwavable individual ramekin style pots, much quicker and fuel efficient even though you don't get the nice brown crispy cake top. But with cream poured over, does it matter?
John's seed starting process is still working wonders, on Tuesday he put lettuce, pak choi and kohlrabi onto damp kitchen paper. Every morning he sprays them with water and checks, not expecting to see anything just yet, but today all the trays had germinated and put roots out into the paper. Some seeds he's managed to lift off and lay onto sifted soil/compost, some he had to cut the paper up so as not to damage the roots. As they grow, so he will add compost around them until they are big enough to plant out.
The peas that I put direct into the ground on the 3rd have appeared, little clusters of leaves, and they've been watered today. The habas - broad beans - are also up. The acequia has been running although it's not our week, this time of year is not so regulated and so we make use of it when we can. We have extra hose pipes that I put in the running water and catch it, then it trickles onto the land nice and slowly. The runner beans are running up the poles, although not beaning as yet.
Tomorrow morning we start next weeks wine batch, first of all we are going to press last weeks 12 buckets of very fizzy white grapes, hoping for about 50 litres but they do surprise us sometimes so we have more barrels ready than we should need for the juice. Then Tuesday we will be picking the rest of the really ripe white ones and crushing them. Monday pressing and Tuesday picking the next batch seems to work well, I didn't think we had a routine to our lives but I suppose when you look at your life, there is always some sort of routine. Be it up at sunrise and eat at sunset, or picking and pressing grapes, there's some sort of order.
Sunday, 13 October 2013
Thursday, 10 October 2013
Autumn almonds.
A few hours now since I came in to start writing today..... about 5.30 I had a half hour break in my schedule, in between almonds and dinner preparation, but as I opened the door, the phones did that funny switching off noise that they do when the power trips, then on again, then off, we checked the main circuit breakers and there was no power outside either. So I waited a bit, sat in the sun, read for a bit, the electric came on and went off, and again, maybe, we said, the feria in Ugijar have plugged in and blown the fuses in the Alpujarras! Not unknown, huge power surges when it's a fiesta, we've been staying with friends in Yator over fiesta when you can't get the kettle to boil because of the lights and music.
Anyway it all came back on, no music as yet drifting across from Ugijar but it will come soon, we've seen the posters for the Saturday night bull fight and their fiesta is around this weekend. It's also Día Hispanidad on Saturday so everything will stop this weekend for fiesta.
So back to the almonds. It's that time, luckily for us we only have about 8 trees within easy picking reach, I say lucky as it's quite a dusty harvest. Just like the olives, whack the tree with the pole but as the almonds and leaves are drying out it's a dusty job. A friend of ours, a Fernando not a Paco, always has eye problems this time of year, dust and grit probably. But we can reach ours to pick by hand, then get off the husks, then shell, then blanch, then leave to dry out before storing in jars for eating. Some we use for tapas, heavy based pan, small amount of olive oil, cook carefully till golden brown and sprinkle with either salt or ground cumin or dried garlic powder. Delicious. Some we grind for sauces, cakes or puddings. Some chopped for adding to puddings or cakes. But for sliced almonds, well we leave that to the professionals and buy them. How do you slice an almond?? Halves yes, but slices, no.
But not much wastage. The husks we leave to dry out, also the shells, and during the year we wash out and flat pack the 1 litre milk and juice cartons. Then this time of the year we stuff them full with the dried almond husks and shells, and use them as fire starters/bricks in the wood burner. The foil liner from the carton gets removed when the ash tray is emptied. So far although we've spent a couple of hours every afternoon doing some part of the almond process, we have only 3 large jars of ready to use almonds, 3 large tubs ready to shell but we have 19 cartons packed with burnable waste!
And finally a photo, I'm still using a small ish camera of Johns, but you know what it's like, when you've had a camera that you are happy with, that you know how to use comfortably - well this one isn't ideal for me, but here is a picture of our pear tree in all it's Autumn glory. For such a small tree it gave us a lot of pears this year.
Anyway it all came back on, no music as yet drifting across from Ugijar but it will come soon, we've seen the posters for the Saturday night bull fight and their fiesta is around this weekend. It's also Día Hispanidad on Saturday so everything will stop this weekend for fiesta.
So back to the almonds. It's that time, luckily for us we only have about 8 trees within easy picking reach, I say lucky as it's quite a dusty harvest. Just like the olives, whack the tree with the pole but as the almonds and leaves are drying out it's a dusty job. A friend of ours, a Fernando not a Paco, always has eye problems this time of year, dust and grit probably. But we can reach ours to pick by hand, then get off the husks, then shell, then blanch, then leave to dry out before storing in jars for eating. Some we use for tapas, heavy based pan, small amount of olive oil, cook carefully till golden brown and sprinkle with either salt or ground cumin or dried garlic powder. Delicious. Some we grind for sauces, cakes or puddings. Some chopped for adding to puddings or cakes. But for sliced almonds, well we leave that to the professionals and buy them. How do you slice an almond?? Halves yes, but slices, no.
But not much wastage. The husks we leave to dry out, also the shells, and during the year we wash out and flat pack the 1 litre milk and juice cartons. Then this time of the year we stuff them full with the dried almond husks and shells, and use them as fire starters/bricks in the wood burner. The foil liner from the carton gets removed when the ash tray is emptied. So far although we've spent a couple of hours every afternoon doing some part of the almond process, we have only 3 large jars of ready to use almonds, 3 large tubs ready to shell but we have 19 cartons packed with burnable waste!
And finally a photo, I'm still using a small ish camera of Johns, but you know what it's like, when you've had a camera that you are happy with, that you know how to use comfortably - well this one isn't ideal for me, but here is a picture of our pear tree in all it's Autumn glory. For such a small tree it gave us a lot of pears this year.
Monday, 7 October 2013
Really ripe white ones.
Not a tongue twister although if the grapes that we've picked today do what they should, after a few glasses of vino it could be difficult to say!
The vine that produces our black grapes has loads of grapes, it's heavily laden, huge bunches with tiny tightly packed grapes but not yet black which is unusual. They are changing colour and our neighbour - yes, a Paco, - he has picked his black grapes, but there are loads of different types, different amounts of sun, soil and water probably play a part too, so we will wait a while for those.
Today was the first of the white grapes, we have 12 brewing buckets, so first we filled those, took them up to our grape crusher and picked the grapes off the bunches. That may not be essential but all those stalks take up room, make it harder to burst the grapes as they go through the 'mangle', did 2 buckets at a time, mangled each batch twice. Again, that may not be necessary but it seems that the first mangle bursts most of them and the second makes sure they are all burst and produces a lot of juice. Those 12 buckets then only filled 6 once burst, although to the brim, so back out with 6 empty ones, same procedure as before, but as the buckets were really full and they need room to ferment, we evened out the amounts and now have all 12 starting to ferment down in the kitchen.
I took the bathroom scales outside to try and get some idea of weight picked - about 195 pounds which is about 88 kilos. Hopefully slightly over 50% in juice so we are looking at potentially 40 to 50 litres of white wine. Still to come, the same again in white grapes followed by what we call the blush ones, same size big fat grapes as today's, but a dark rosy colour. Then all being well the big bunches with tiny grapes will have ripened enough to give us a red wine.
The strange thing about all these grapes is that - firstly we usually have started a week ago, and secondly we normally have to be very wary of wasps - especially me cos I am allergic to them and swell up alarmingly if stung, but today there were only a couple of wasps around the vines while we picked and only 2 that fell out of a bunch that John was picking.
For the next few days we'll just need to stir each brewing bucket every morning then Friday or Saturday we'll put them through the press - the wine into 10 or 20 litre containers and the pulp to the compost.
And then we start all over again....
And again....
But the sun is shining and the end result will be wonderful wine for the coming year.
The vine that produces our black grapes has loads of grapes, it's heavily laden, huge bunches with tiny tightly packed grapes but not yet black which is unusual. They are changing colour and our neighbour - yes, a Paco, - he has picked his black grapes, but there are loads of different types, different amounts of sun, soil and water probably play a part too, so we will wait a while for those.
Today was the first of the white grapes, we have 12 brewing buckets, so first we filled those, took them up to our grape crusher and picked the grapes off the bunches. That may not be essential but all those stalks take up room, make it harder to burst the grapes as they go through the 'mangle', did 2 buckets at a time, mangled each batch twice. Again, that may not be necessary but it seems that the first mangle bursts most of them and the second makes sure they are all burst and produces a lot of juice. Those 12 buckets then only filled 6 once burst, although to the brim, so back out with 6 empty ones, same procedure as before, but as the buckets were really full and they need room to ferment, we evened out the amounts and now have all 12 starting to ferment down in the kitchen.
I took the bathroom scales outside to try and get some idea of weight picked - about 195 pounds which is about 88 kilos. Hopefully slightly over 50% in juice so we are looking at potentially 40 to 50 litres of white wine. Still to come, the same again in white grapes followed by what we call the blush ones, same size big fat grapes as today's, but a dark rosy colour. Then all being well the big bunches with tiny grapes will have ripened enough to give us a red wine.
The strange thing about all these grapes is that - firstly we usually have started a week ago, and secondly we normally have to be very wary of wasps - especially me cos I am allergic to them and swell up alarmingly if stung, but today there were only a couple of wasps around the vines while we picked and only 2 that fell out of a bunch that John was picking.
For the next few days we'll just need to stir each brewing bucket every morning then Friday or Saturday we'll put them through the press - the wine into 10 or 20 litre containers and the pulp to the compost.
And then we start all over again....
And again....
But the sun is shining and the end result will be wonderful wine for the coming year.
Saturday, 5 October 2013
Catchup time
Since Wednesday's swim, time seems to have just disappeared and I've not been in again. Thursday our neighbours had a problem with their fridge freezer, it had stopped working in the night and he came down to see if we could help out in any way. Luckily our small chest freezer was empty so we lent it to them, we don't use it very often, but it's useful for when Antonio goes hunting and brings some wild boar for us. Although they only live a couple of hundred metres away by road, closer across the terraces, we don't see a lot of each other, so had a catch up chat. Then as I was digging up the horseradish for cleaning and freezing and replanting the small off shoots, I took them up same cuttings.
Remember these? I wrote a while back about some seeds we'd got amongst which were electric daisies.
Ours have grown really well, each one has spread and is now covered with blooms, but what a surprising taste! Remember sherbet? Sort of like that, a bit numbing - one name for them is the toothache plant - really zingy in your mouth. Not sure how many we'll eat but we've put some to dry and then to grind - maybe to sprinkle on salads or something, although I think I read that you can also use it in a drink. Anyway because we have so many flowers I took some of those up with the horseradish, she was more cautious than him, he ate a whole flower while she just nibbled the edges. Certainly different was the verdict and so I've promised them some seeds next year.
The first planting of broad beans and peas are done, stakes and string round the outside for support and to discourage wandering cats. More strawberries again too, 600 grams to add to the 400 of a few days ago, another crumble made last night with second helpings for tomorrow. Don't remember ever picking this amount this late in the year, normally I think they fizzle out in September, with a few ripening over Christmas time. We do keep a gardening diary so there is probably some note in there as to last year's yield.
Yesterday afternoon we were wining - siphoning the most recent black and white fig brews, then cleaning out the bottles for the soon to be picked grape harvest. We currently have 80 litres on the shelves which is a good start to the year, hopefully the grapes will produce much more. Fingers crossed.
Remember these? I wrote a while back about some seeds we'd got amongst which were electric daisies.
Ours have grown really well, each one has spread and is now covered with blooms, but what a surprising taste! Remember sherbet? Sort of like that, a bit numbing - one name for them is the toothache plant - really zingy in your mouth. Not sure how many we'll eat but we've put some to dry and then to grind - maybe to sprinkle on salads or something, although I think I read that you can also use it in a drink. Anyway because we have so many flowers I took some of those up with the horseradish, she was more cautious than him, he ate a whole flower while she just nibbled the edges. Certainly different was the verdict and so I've promised them some seeds next year.
The first planting of broad beans and peas are done, stakes and string round the outside for support and to discourage wandering cats. More strawberries again too, 600 grams to add to the 400 of a few days ago, another crumble made last night with second helpings for tomorrow. Don't remember ever picking this amount this late in the year, normally I think they fizzle out in September, with a few ripening over Christmas time. We do keep a gardening diary so there is probably some note in there as to last year's yield.
Yesterday afternoon we were wining - siphoning the most recent black and white fig brews, then cleaning out the bottles for the soon to be picked grape harvest. We currently have 80 litres on the shelves which is a good start to the year, hopefully the grapes will produce much more. Fingers crossed.
Wednesday, 2 October 2013
First swim
Not of the year obviously, but of October. I thought that by the time the pool was clean and hippo free, it would be too cool to swim but as it happens its been really warm and both yesterday and today the temperature has been pushing 27 degrees - and that is at 5.30 in the afternoon - not the hottest part of the day at all.
Our slow starter chillies which spent a long time in John's intensive care unit, are now finally getting productive and so are the peppers. We have a new variety called Golden Treasure, I think they are a late pepper, but there is late .......and late! The most productive chilli plants are those from last year, the 2nd year is good, the 3rd even better, then they need replacing. So we have chillies - lots of different types from mild that are great stuffed with cream cheese to very hot and approach with caution - and each year we need to make sure that there are suffient for drying, freezing and using fresh.
The autumn runner beans that went in a few days ago are making new leaves, won't be long till they're up and running around their canes, and first peas going in very soon.
Time now for a glass of the vino, the sun is shining on the side 'sunset' terrace and it isn't too hot out there.
Our slow starter chillies which spent a long time in John's intensive care unit, are now finally getting productive and so are the peppers. We have a new variety called Golden Treasure, I think they are a late pepper, but there is late .......and late! The most productive chilli plants are those from last year, the 2nd year is good, the 3rd even better, then they need replacing. So we have chillies - lots of different types from mild that are great stuffed with cream cheese to very hot and approach with caution - and each year we need to make sure that there are suffient for drying, freezing and using fresh.
The autumn runner beans that went in a few days ago are making new leaves, won't be long till they're up and running around their canes, and first peas going in very soon.
Time now for a glass of the vino, the sun is shining on the side 'sunset' terrace and it isn't too hot out there.
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