Who turned the temperature down?

We don't notice much difference when the clocks change apart from the sun coming up an hour earlier,  that makes Monty and Pip more alert earlier and of course it gets darker earlier.  But normally the temperatures stay pretty much the same,  apart from this week that is.  My normal routine is to get up,  pull on shorts and t-shirt,  take the dogs out while John sorts out the coffee,  opens windows etc,  and it was like that until Tuesday morning. 

On with the shorts and t-shirt,  socks and trainers,  extra woollie around my waist in case,  and out the front door.  Woo!  Cold legs!  Looked at the thermometer and instead of the 16 to 18 recent overnight temperatures, it said 12.  And on bare legs,  that   6 degree drop was chilly.

It was back to normal by the time the sun came over the trees,  and we had our coffee on the terrace as normal,  but by 6pm when the sun went down over the hill,  who turned off the heating?  Just the sun going makes so much difference. 

So now I go out in the morning in trousers, down to  10° this morning  :(  change into shorts for the sunny (in the shade temp)  of 18°  :)  back into trousers at night.  Carpets down on the floors for the winter months as of yesterday morning,  autumn must be coming soon although still no rain, wind or leaves down. 

The last of the summer grapes are in,  we thought we'd done them all apart from the not-yet-black ones,  and they still weren't black but by the end of October how can they ripen any more?  So out we went with the buckets and mangle and now have the final final final picking - about 35 kilos - hopefully 25 to 30 litres more once pressed.

The runner beans have run up their poles and along the  cross supports, some are up into the olive trees and most are in flower so hopefully beans will be coming along soon.  The second batch of peas are in,  with the first lot clinging onto their criss-cross support strings.  

Strawberries......I know....boring isn't it!   But another 700 grams today. Doesn't seem too many when you're just picking them but then you think, now what?  This year we've dried, frozen,  pulped, lollied,  wined,  vodka'd,  had with cream,  with ice cream,  jammed,  crumbled,  sponge puddinged, had as part of a fruit salad,  eaten just as they are straight from the plant......have I forgotten any versions?   So this weekend back to the strawberry almond crumble with cream.   Bad for the waistline but oh so tasty.

Twice cooked strawberry jam.

When I finally got round to doing something with the strawberries,  we'd picked a few more and eventually ended up with 1.8 kgs of de-stalked ready to use berries.  There was only 1 jar of regular  'with lumps'  version  on the shelf,   3 of the smooth version that John likes though,  and although we don't eat a lot of jam we also don't have such a glut every year.  So jam it was on Thursday morning.  But for some reason,  no matter how much it cooked it didn't reach setting point.  We are high up - 890 metres above sea level - boiling point is lower,  almost 3° lower than at sea level,  so recipes have to be adapted and after 10 years here I know all that.  An extra egg to keep cakes and yorkshire puddings from collapsing,  less fat,  less baking powder,  increased  liquids,  longer cooking time in the pressure cooker etc.  And there are lots of cooking at altitude web sites out there for help.  But none of that helped my jam!  Eventually I just gave up and bottled it hoping it would magically set overnight but on Friday morning when I tipped a jar sideways it was still soft.  Well, runny would be a better word.

So back to google for more help and ideas,  basically I needed more pectin or a pectin rich fruit to add.   And on the gransnet  forum (quite appropriate now I'm a gran)  I found the perfect answer.   We have  lots of quince trees around and always have quince in the freezer as they make a lovely crumble or pureed as an alternative to apple sauce.  Also in the fridge are pots of dulce de membrillo,  or quince jam,  which is delicious served with blue cheese.  And quince are extremely high in pectin. So I softened a tub of membrillo,  and added it to the jam.  Won't you need to soften the jam J asked, to get it out of the jars?  He didn't see quite how runny it was,  and no I didn't,   it just poured out.  Another 20 minutes of cooking and it finally stuck to the cold saucer.  Woo hoo!  Deep joy and all that.  There was a bit too much for the jars,  although 1 small jar less than I'd started with,  so we ate that on toast yesterday morning, hoping it wasn't too hard to spread.  But perfect. 

Really we ought to keep pectin for those runny jam days,  we could make it from any extra quince we have and I have a note of how to do just that. The quince have to be cooked and strained through a jelly bag,  then the liquid boiled  down by a half,  it doesn't keep fresh,  it has to be used in a week or frozen,  the strength of the pectin depends on the ripeness of the fruit,  there is a test using grain alcohol - ie vodka -  and I think it was 1lb quince + 2 cups water should give half cup of pectin,  but I'd need 3/4 cup per 4 cups of jam......I made 6 jars this week,  so lots of pectin needed....   at this point I was beginning to  think of the extra time, the extra gas,  and that  it might just be easier to buy some and keep in stock.

And maybe a jam thermometer?  Although I'm not sure about that with the altitude issue,  more research and reading I think.

The last grapes - maybe.

Possibly the last of the grapes done today,  the bunches that should be black still aren't and we're not sure why.  Some are changing colour but not to the shiny black that we are used to seeing,  more of a gone-off murky black colour.  Not looking good.  But it's only 1 vine and only produces about 5 litres of wine so it's not  such bad news.  Last Tuesdays 62 kilos pressed out yesterday and we got 55 litres from that,  today we've picked and mangled 35 kilos of pretty pink ones,  more dusky that pink,  should make a nice rosado and the sugar levels were higher than last weeks so probably higher alcohol content when finished.  Yum.

Had a quick tot up when we'd finished and washed everything and put it away.  Currently queueing up on the shelf are 26 litres of pear wine,  16 of strawberry,  17 of black fig,  20 of white fig,  with 115 of white (grape) wine fermenting and settling,  with a further possible 30 from today's rosado.  A respectable 224 litres,  half a litre a day plus enough for fiestas and holidays.  That may sound a lot, but it's less than a bottle for 2 of us,  not much to have with dinner and a glass or two in the evening. 

But because we don't have many black grapes -  or any this year - we can't make tinto,  however we do buy a very nice tempranillo from the bodega in Cádiar for 2 euros a litre,  it's local wine from the Contraviesa,  he also sells a nice white as well,  that's only 1.90,  but we have plenty of our own now.  So on those prices we've made quite a few euros worth this summer,   some things are well worth spending time and effort on,  especially if it's something that we use a lot of - such as wine - or can't buy easily - such as a wide variety of chillis, or kohlrabi,  or celeriac.  I wish sometimes that we had better soil so we could grow parsnips and swede,  but  we use squash or sweet potatoes instead which do grow well.

Señor seed starter extraordinario  has excelled himself again,  every lettuce, kohlrabi,  pak choi and coriander seed that he put to germinate in  damp kitchen paper has worked and they are now in seed trays and almost about to produce their second pair of leaves.  Maybe I'll get him working on the parsnips,  our seed pots are about 6 inches deep so possibly a parsnip for each.......might work if they are in compost rather than the ground.

It looks as if autumn might finally be arriving,  cloudier today and a bit of a breeze too - soon be time to get the leaf rake out and do the daily rake-up and compost run before they all blow away.  A quick trip round the strawberry beds this afternoon as rain, or drizzle at least, is due overnight and tomorrow and they'll only rot if not picked,  and surprise surprise,  1.4 kilos again.  Now what shall we do with them this week?  Ideas on a postcard please....or leave a comment.

Wonderful smells from the kitchen.

My personal chef is downstairs preparing a birthday dinner,  I'm not allowed to help so I'm sitting in the late afternoon sun enjoying a glass or two of El Gaitero cider,  according to some more ciderey people than me,  it is the champagne of ciders,  certainly when amazon sell it for £5.45 a bottle,  it isn't cheap local stuff.  There is a lovely small of prawns, fish stock, garlic and who knows what else wafting up from the kitchen,  steak is involved too, I know because I bought it on Wednesday when out shopping.

Back a few days to Tuesday,  we picked and crushed the last of the white grapes,  62 kilos after de-stalking them,  apparently grapes are 90% juice so that should squeeze out another 55 litres or so on Monday.  Then Tuesday we will pick the rosy blush grapes for a rosado.  The only  black grapes are still not black but last time we  didn't pick them till October 28th so a week or so to go yet.

Wednesday morning was a shopping and coffee with friends morning,  that meant plant stuff- picking, watering, checking on the weeds etc didn't get done till Thursday.  It's unusually hot for October,  18 or 19 overnight and around the high 20's during the day.  And since those 2 storms of  a month ago,  no rain either.  So although by now we usually only need to water veg weekly, at the moment we are doing it twice weekly.  The squash are still producing fruits,  more now than in the summer although they are not so big yet.  And so are the strawberries,  another kilo for the weekend!

Yesterday was more routine than anything,  house cleaning, washing and ironing- actually I didn't iron anything, but it's in the basket ready -  and we cleaned the pool too.  Although I  haven't been in since my last dip on the 4th,  I was very tempted this afternoon,  the water is shimmering, the floor is clean and the sun was so warm on my skin but I didn't do it.  Maybe tomorrow.

Really juicy white ones.

Those big juicy grapes that we "mangled" last week have spent a week fermenting and today went through the press.  Every morning we stir the buckets of brewing grapes as the grapes float to the surface and form a kind of crust,  on pressing day we don't stir but find it quicker to scoop off the grapes, pour the liquid - plus any grapes that we've missed -  through  the press until it's full, then squeeze.  When I say squeeze,  I don't mean that really,  there are wooden blocks that fit in the press and a handle with a ratchet that gives the necessary pressure to force out the juice.  Then add more grapes or liquid and squeeze again.  We can press out 6 buckets of fermented grapes at a go,  what is left is a very dry 4 inch thick lump which goes up to the compost.

The end result today is almost 70 litres of white wine - or potential wine.  It needs to finish fermenting,  settle,   be siphoned separating the wine from the sediment,  mature - possibly -

And then drink!

Tomorrow more juicy white ones,  and maybe juicy blush ones too.