Processing the Harvest

Joolz those look just like mine. I put one on a saucer, slice some fruit/crush some berries a bit - put some sugar on them to make the syrup - (I put some of my berry syrup in too) - and then put some berry jam on the cake - pour the fruit on it, put a large serving of whipped cream on top of everything. Fantastic! We had exactly that last night with 2 apricots and 1 nectarine pitted and sliced and sugared 2 hours before using. (I looked it up on google. 1/2 cup flour =70g. 1/2 cup sugar = 110g) Mine are sponge like but not too elastic or bendy and have sufficient flavor to still be enjoyable - and then absorb the syrup that forms - and I do add a dose of my blackberry syrup to the fruit too. If you can get some blackberries let me know and we can make syrup together, I love it.

 

Joolz, made another batch last night, 3 trays of them - wonderful! They just take up the fruit syrup and retain a cakeness that carries the dessert to a whole new level. Here they are, hot out of the oven - 7 eggs separated, 100g sugar, separated - half for yolks, half for whites, 100g self rising flour, dash vanilla - took 10 minutes to make and clean up. 11 minutes to bake, I decided I like them light brown in 200C oven.



they are frozen in pairs and could not be better, 3 trays of them, 18 in all - look just like yours.

Okra is going very well, we have to have some daily as it just keeps comming. I tend to make this a lot from the garden: cut up a couple banana peppers, a mild jalapeno, half a bell pepper, some beans of any kind, couple dried carrot slices and get boiling. Cut okra in big slices (if tough and you let it get long - if okra has any crunchiness to the knife slicing it, it is inedible. The big okra can be gutted and the seeds and core added to the tender ones and shell tossed away.) and throw in and keep simmering a few minutes and add some generic chicken stock cubes or powder - then in a few minutes I add some instant onion soup mix, or whatever. Sometimes a handful of cherry tomatoes - it is our summer soup. Winters I am more creative with actual, proper, soups made. This is served with a salad as well almost every day.

Loving the blackberry syrup - I add it to my sugared fresh fruit to make more sauce for the ladyfinger cake round or pavlova to have.

 

Thank you for the conversion xx @colne grams i can do i will do some more this week and this time hopefully i will be able to seperate from the greaseproof paper
Also can we only grow okra here in uk in a greenhouse do you know? x

 

You have to slide them off the paper right out of the oven and then they will not stick again. Last night I tried something different, I had cut and sugared the fruit the night previous and let it steep in the refrigerator 24 hours - excellent! develops a great syrup and sort of tenderizes the slices - I used apricots (3) and 1 tea cup of blueberries mostly crushed with the fingers to let them join the rest (blueberries have impervious skins if uncooked.) currents would likely be excellent. Strawberries I know are excellent. And I hit them with a bit of my blackberry syrup when mixing them up. I will go with the 24 hour again - brings out the flavors.

The melons... One grabbed by an unknown creature - one is under an upside-down milk crate, 2 inside a fence, and 3 undefended (I have little hope for them) and one tiny, grapefruit sized, is picked because it was a goner otherwise - and had a good melon smell.)

 

Hi Colne,
this has just come out of the breadmaker. Wheat from France (Type 65) and milled here in the UK. Very fine texture and needs a bit more water in the mix than UK flour. Very moreish....

Jenny

 

That would break my heart Colne - losing so much to the critters. I love the perfume of a good melon. Galia,, Charente or Cantalupe...
Jenny

 

Thats a lady Bap not finger
It does look moreish jenny xx

 

@joolz68......If you use silicone paper instead of greaseproof they won't stick, well they don't when I use it.

 

I didnt get the recipe right sheal,no idea on cups measures,so i messed it up guessing!
I will post my next attempt with grams x

 

I envy you your 'Wheat from France (Type 65) and milled here in the UK.' very much. Our flour is insipid and an agribusiness product with all that that carries. You can buy specialty flours - but with the short life span of optimal flour the ones on the shelf of the local store is usually well past prime; or if it is whole wheat and has the germ ground too (which I believe then has a mere 6 week lifespan) - so is rancid. But then everywhere there is the rough with the smooth as, Poirot says.

And that is a stunning loaf! It is just beautiful. It calls for French cultured butter.

Joolz - give the lovely pavlova a go - so easy, keeps so well on the shelf if cooked low for a couple, or few, hours till bone dry (in a zip bag with the air sucked out - and if you put a straw into the ziplock bag, right at the corner and protruding to the object inside, you can suck out all the air and then zip it as you slide out the straw. It is just like vacuum packaged.) Or the more conventional way of being chewy - freezes perfectly.


I think I need to start moving on to the tropical fruits for the mood of this hot and steamy season. A papaya definitely; bananas in the traditional Southern dish 'Banana Pudding'. A low grade desert - but one I do like, and will make - would be the perfect vehicle for left over egg yolks. But I came home yesterday from Walmart where I stopped to buy a small gun only to find they no longer sell them at the local branches - and ended up with apricots, peaches, nectarines - all at $1.25 a pound! (about 2 £ a kg) the farmers must be driven to the wall by those prices. And some cherries, good ones, $3 a pound - and a quart of heavy cream. (US quart, 32 oz, just under a liter - $4)

 

As a post script to the above - my papaya plant in a pot is getting big and I have some hope of fruit before cold weather (they cannot even deal with cold nights and warm days) and my Bananas are shooting up - some over eight foot tall, so could well have home grown bananas in October (they handle cold nights) and papaya, yay.

But I am getting sick of my plain okra, mixed peppers, mixed beans, dried carrot and onion, soup. Every day they need picking, every day some are ready and will be inedible by tomorrow. I am in a slump. I need African okra and peanut soups. Moroccan okra, peppers and dried tangerine - with cinnamon and coriander, soup. Even Hot and Sour pepper soup with okra and ginger and hoisin sauce.

I make a good chili soup with peppers and any bit of meat and lots of tomatoes and spices but my wife gets a upset gut from it - it is pretty full throttle - so not that.

I am thinking of nuts........ pecans (the local nut, grown everywhere here) and walnut. Pies, baklavas, nut laden sponge cake to have with banana slices and custard sauces........

 

in a slump or a glut Colne? That's the trouble with harvest time - there's only so much you can consume. A spot of market trading?
Love a pecan and maple syrup plait with flaky pastry,
wicked but wondrous,
Jenny

 

I have bought 2 pounds of cherries for $4. An extravagance, but fun - and 5 pounds of blueberries for $9. The blueberries are now frozen and should be enough till this season next year as occasional things. I plan to freeze a few cherries once I pit them.

 

Joolz - what's happening - tell us some food things. I am gearing up for syrup and chutney making tomorrow - but tonight I have half of poor red (my egg pecking hen that had to go), thawed, stewed till tender, with stock, to make into a lovely dinner. This in fact:



woohoo, Kraft Canada - I love this kind of thing occasionally; the spray oil was a cincher. So I have my can of soup, stove top stuffing (Kraft ™ ®) and simmered back yard hen, and frozen peas. (I microwaved some organic, dried, carrots from my garden to precook them too.) I will be using the chicken stock from boiling the bird to make the stuffing - no marg though, going fat free on that.

 

Ive not cooked or baked anything yet colne,not had time im still digging nettles,bind weed and couch grass roots out of my plot no1 at allotment and trying to tidy plot 2 ive taken on im shattered!
I did try making homemade mayonnaise earlier though to go with my dug up vivaldi potatoes and salad,i was using a jamie oliver recipe on food tube but it would'nt thicken up im useless! it didnt split
Made logan berry ice cubes..really hard
I have no idea how you fit so much in in one day i need to come rent a room for lessons x