Not by moonlight, but by the cycle of the moon! What seems like many years ago, but was probably our first spring here, Manolo came round one day asking if it was creciente - what crescent? de la luna he said as if that made it any more obvious. But what he was referring to was an age old custom of doing things by the cycle of the moon, when it's rising you plant things that grow up - leafy, herby types of plants - and when it's a waning moon you plant root vegetables. There's more to it than that, but basically that seems to be how it works.
I was reminded of this a couple of weeks ago when I saw a link to this website about planting according to the different moon phases and I read it meaning to try something and see if it grew any quicker than expected. I sent the link on to a friend and then forgot all about it....when I next saw her she said thanks for the moon guide, the coriander and parsley both appeared after 2 days! Really quick, especially for parsley which is apparently very slow to germinate and I find almost impossible to grow!
I've had a look for this week and it seems I have a bit of a break from planting as the moon is in it's last quarter and we can concentrate on digging, weeding and composting. Apart from today that is as I have a day off 'cos it's my birthday.
Opened my cards and a present over breakfast, went out for a coffee and then spent some money on myself, then later we had lunch and drinks with friends. Another lovely sunny day, clear blue skies and not a sign of autumn yet. Long may it last.
Tuesday, 18 October 2011
Wednesday, 12 October 2011
Colourful quince.
Another day, another batch of quince to deal with. But not chutney today although I started off the same: peel it, core it, and chop it. It wouldn't all fit in the pressure cooker so some was simmered in a pan and look at the difference in colour!
I think the longer it's cooked the deeper the colour and the pressure cooker is a very intense way of cooking. Much less water, much quicker and a different colour altogether. So it was all cooked, drained, pureed, then some was frozen for serving as 'apple sauce' with roast pork while the rest was put back in the pan, an equal amount of sugar added and it was then simmered until thick, then cooled, poured into containers and is now in the fridge.
This is traditionally served with cheese at the end of a meal although it's very nice on hot, buttery toast too. And possibly on scones instead of jam? Worth trying I think!
PS: Just look at the colour of this sky! Finished with the quince at 3pm, came upstairs to find it was still 26.7° in the shade so had a couple of hours by the pool reading and topping up my tan just in case autumn should come soon.
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| Ready for roast pork... |
I think the longer it's cooked the deeper the colour and the pressure cooker is a very intense way of cooking. Much less water, much quicker and a different colour altogether. So it was all cooked, drained, pureed, then some was frozen for serving as 'apple sauce' with roast pork while the rest was put back in the pan, an equal amount of sugar added and it was then simmered until thick, then cooled, poured into containers and is now in the fridge.
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| and ready for some good strong cheese. |
This is traditionally served with cheese at the end of a meal although it's very nice on hot, buttery toast too. And possibly on scones instead of jam? Worth trying I think!
PS: Just look at the colour of this sky! Finished with the quince at 3pm, came upstairs to find it was still 26.7° in the shade so had a couple of hours by the pool reading and topping up my tan just in case autumn should come soon.
Tuesday, 11 October 2011
Todays offering...
I've finally got round to doing something with the quince that I picked last Tuesday, luckily they last for a few weeks after picking. I make some sort of chutney every year with some of them and a few years ago - 2009 to be precise - I found a recipe that included lots of Indian spices such as cardamom seeds, coriander seeds, turmeric... Unfortunately my filing system/recipe file has totally let me down and I can't find any trace of the original recipe. So off to google I went, put in the fruit, spices etc that I think went in the chutney and up popped a recipe from Turkey. It didn't look familiar, don't think it's the same one, but that's what I've made today although with a bit of tweaking of the ingredients.
It's a 2 stage recipe, day 1 you peel, core and chop 2.5 kilos of quince and put in a bowl then cover with 700g of brown sugar. I used soft brown but not dark. Cover with cling film - or a shower cap - and leave overnight.
Day 2, put the sugary quince into a large pan - I used the pressure cooker - and add these spices..... Dry roast 1 teaspoon cumin seeds and 2 teaspoons coriander seeds and grind. Add to fruit along with 1 teaspoon cardamom seeds, 1 teaspoon turmeric powder, 2 or 3 teaspoons grated ginger, 1 teaspoon ground cloves, 8 cloves garlic finely chopped, 2 spanish onions finely chopped, 2 teaspoons salt, and chilli.
(chilli is to taste, the recipe said 1 teaspoon of cayenne but I added 1 fresh chilli absolutely no chilli taste at all, added 1 more, and 1 more, 4 in total but I wanted a fruity chutney with some kick.)
To all the fruity spicy mix add 500ml of white wine vinegar and pressure cook for 10 minutes on high, reduce pressure with cold water, mash fruit down using potato masher, add remaining 300ml of vinegar and simmer till thick. Don't know how long it would take to reach that consistency if cooked without a pressure cooker, this took 40 minutes in total.
Put into sterilized jars until - well, most chutneys you have to keep till they improve. We ate the left overs tonight as there was just a bit too much for 11 jars and it was wonderful.
PS: the caterpillars are back...on the biggest, best red cabbage that we have - or had!
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| The end result but only using half the quince. |
Day 2, put the sugary quince into a large pan - I used the pressure cooker - and add these spices..... Dry roast 1 teaspoon cumin seeds and 2 teaspoons coriander seeds and grind. Add to fruit along with 1 teaspoon cardamom seeds, 1 teaspoon turmeric powder, 2 or 3 teaspoons grated ginger, 1 teaspoon ground cloves, 8 cloves garlic finely chopped, 2 spanish onions finely chopped, 2 teaspoons salt, and chilli.
(chilli is to taste, the recipe said 1 teaspoon of cayenne but I added 1 fresh chilli absolutely no chilli taste at all, added 1 more, and 1 more, 4 in total but I wanted a fruity chutney with some kick.)
To all the fruity spicy mix add 500ml of white wine vinegar and pressure cook for 10 minutes on high, reduce pressure with cold water, mash fruit down using potato masher, add remaining 300ml of vinegar and simmer till thick. Don't know how long it would take to reach that consistency if cooked without a pressure cooker, this took 40 minutes in total.
Put into sterilized jars until - well, most chutneys you have to keep till they improve. We ate the left overs tonight as there was just a bit too much for 11 jars and it was wonderful.
PS: the caterpillars are back...on the biggest, best red cabbage that we have - or had!
Monday, 10 October 2011
Cabbages and caterpillars.
What is it with caterpillars and cabbages? I know they have to eat but why our veg? The seeds germinate well, the small plants get transplanted and continue happily in their new place, I make cages out of netting and still the butterflies manage to get in. They seem quite happy to eat both red and green cabbage, brussel sprout plants, kale but - luckily for us - not cauliflowers (yet!) The netting has quite small holes, sold either as pea or bird net, but I have seen a butterfly in the cabbage cage and then as I watched, it folded it's wings and went out through the net. It was the middle of the morning, I was stone cold sober, I wasn't imagining it.
So how to stop them? I check all the vegetables every morning and sometimes again late afternoon, pick off any caterpillars I find and put them in a bucket of water (they don't swim very well), but yesterday when I went to water the vegetables and the olive trees I found that the caterpillars had moved on to the kohlrabi and swede leaves! Some days I find one or two leaves of a plant completely stripped back to the framework of the leaf but no caterpillar around. Maybe something else is getting in the cage and eating them but there's no way a bird can get in.
It's very frustrating and annoying - lots of our time and effort goes into the preparation of the land, digging, weeding, watering, just to fatten up a family of cabbage white butterflies and caterpillars. And that's not even thinking about the aphids which get onto the plants as well. Sort of a grey fly thing, tiny and very difficult to get rid of. Maybe something to do with the caterpillars as we always seem to get both, not one or the other. But they don't strip a plant bare and can be washed off the leaves eventually. Took 5 washes to get the kale clean on Sunday but it can be done.
I know you can live in harmony with nature and that wasps, ants and ladybirds etc all do their bit to eat as many insects as possible. There's no way we want to resort to sprays as we like to know what's going on our plates so all we can do is plant far more than we need and hope the caterpillars appetite doesn't grow when they see the extra veg that we have planted.
One of the plants that nothing touches are the strawberries. I made 2 new beds yesterday and planted out 40 small plants from runners. They've been rooting in yoghurt pots and have grown out the bottom of the pots now, so I cut them away from the mother plant and transplanted them. There are still another 37 in pots.........and lots more that have 'run' and rooted themselves in between the parent plants. I'm going to leave them all for the time being, and next summer see how well this years 2 year olds fruit. If they don't do well, then they'll come out this time next year and I'll use that space for something else. Not desperately short of space so no need to get rid of them just yet. The original mother plant is now 4 summers old and still producing fruit and babies. This years plants are still giving us about half a kilo a week, enough to have with cornflakes for breakfast.
So how to stop them? I check all the vegetables every morning and sometimes again late afternoon, pick off any caterpillars I find and put them in a bucket of water (they don't swim very well), but yesterday when I went to water the vegetables and the olive trees I found that the caterpillars had moved on to the kohlrabi and swede leaves! Some days I find one or two leaves of a plant completely stripped back to the framework of the leaf but no caterpillar around. Maybe something else is getting in the cage and eating them but there's no way a bird can get in.
It's very frustrating and annoying - lots of our time and effort goes into the preparation of the land, digging, weeding, watering, just to fatten up a family of cabbage white butterflies and caterpillars. And that's not even thinking about the aphids which get onto the plants as well. Sort of a grey fly thing, tiny and very difficult to get rid of. Maybe something to do with the caterpillars as we always seem to get both, not one or the other. But they don't strip a plant bare and can be washed off the leaves eventually. Took 5 washes to get the kale clean on Sunday but it can be done.
I know you can live in harmony with nature and that wasps, ants and ladybirds etc all do their bit to eat as many insects as possible. There's no way we want to resort to sprays as we like to know what's going on our plates so all we can do is plant far more than we need and hope the caterpillars appetite doesn't grow when they see the extra veg that we have planted.
One of the plants that nothing touches are the strawberries. I made 2 new beds yesterday and planted out 40 small plants from runners. They've been rooting in yoghurt pots and have grown out the bottom of the pots now, so I cut them away from the mother plant and transplanted them. There are still another 37 in pots.........and lots more that have 'run' and rooted themselves in between the parent plants. I'm going to leave them all for the time being, and next summer see how well this years 2 year olds fruit. If they don't do well, then they'll come out this time next year and I'll use that space for something else. Not desperately short of space so no need to get rid of them just yet. The original mother plant is now 4 summers old and still producing fruit and babies. This years plants are still giving us about half a kilo a week, enough to have with cornflakes for breakfast.
Tuesday, 4 October 2011
It's wine time again
Out first thing this morning with lots of buckets to collect as many grapes as we could for this year's wine making. The grapes started off well this year but for some reason many of them have shrivelled up. Not just ours, our neighbours too and the many Paco's here also have less grapes. So we've picked everything within reach and although not as much as last year, it all helps.
We bought a fruit press a few years ago for squeezing the grapes which up till now we've chopped in the food processor. But that's not designed for kilo after kilo of grapes and also it takes longer as we have to pick the grapes off the bunches. So this year we invested in a 'crusher' - looks a bit like a wheelbarrow top with a handle - it bursts the grapes ready for squeezing or fermenting then squeezing, depending whether you want red or white wine. It's very similar to this one.....
While on the hunt for grapes, I noticed the quinces were dropping onto the ground, it's only a small tree, but has provided 24 fruit for another day's work. Probably make chutney as we still have some frozen from last year for pies/crumbles and I have a good recipe for a spicy chutney, a good alternative for when the mango chutney runs out.
We bought a fruit press a few years ago for squeezing the grapes which up till now we've chopped in the food processor. But that's not designed for kilo after kilo of grapes and also it takes longer as we have to pick the grapes off the bunches. So this year we invested in a 'crusher' - looks a bit like a wheelbarrow top with a handle - it bursts the grapes ready for squeezing or fermenting then squeezing, depending whether you want red or white wine. It's very similar to this one.....
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| Picked 18 buckets of grapes altogether...... |
While on the hunt for grapes, I noticed the quinces were dropping onto the ground, it's only a small tree, but has provided 24 fruit for another day's work. Probably make chutney as we still have some frozen from last year for pies/crumbles and I have a good recipe for a spicy chutney, a good alternative for when the mango chutney runs out.
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