Dad and I went to measure the Oak tree only to find there were two. I’m calling this pic parent and child. We estimate they are 120 and 80 years old. I’d love to plant an Oak tree, it’s one of my things to do.

I am nearing the end of my chutney making mainly because I am running out of jars and available space in the pickles and chutney cupboard. Although within that premise I always seem to find jars and space and so have taken to keeping industrial sized quantities of dried English mustard, vinegar and garlic as I’ve found it less onerous to knock up a quick sweet piccalilli, which we enjoy, compared to the long slow reduction of a chutney.

When hubby returned with a tray of cucumbers I nearly wept.

It’s all good fun at the start of the season but at this stage there is so much to do.

But I bit the bullet and decided to turn them into a sweet piccalilli with peppers and onions.

And I think they turned out great.

I’ve also taken to freezing produce that can be frozen, the green tomatoes for instance. I knew I wanted to make chutney with them and I didn’t want them to be affected by the blight, so it seemed a suitable answer. It also gave me time to catch my breath. I also have various fruits in the freezer that I might turn to jam or curds, it’s a good solution when you receive an unexpected offering or time is short.

The start of my spicy green tomato chutney. I do love a spicy tomato chutney, it is one of my favourites.

On its way.

Unfortunately I haven’t taken any further photos but I did have some with a venison burger topped with cheese yesterday and I literally purred with happiness, it was so good. I’ll definitely be making this again with my green tomatoes next year, as well as making a batch with my red tomatoes that are frozen in time in the near future.

Oak trees, my favourite of all trees, mainly because of the oak tree at the bottom of the garden where we were put to get some fresh air as babies and my first memories of the leaves rustling in the wind, the shapes of the leaves, the changing colours.

I wonder how old this magnificent tree is? We are going to take a tape measure and find out.

I was rummaging through my cupboards and came across a few opened packets of nuts including almonds and automatically thought of that lovely Italian biscuit called Biscotti.

I used the recipe from Easy Baking by Linda Collister as a base and went from there.

Easy baking was published in 2008, a small compact little book, that is an absolute darling. No longer in publication and when Son no.2 was home I went to look for a recipe and simply could not find it in my collection – it will turn up one day,, but knowing how difficult to find this book is. I ordered two, one for me and one for him to add to his collection of books, not that he has many, but as a budding pastry chef, this is one that simplifies the ingredient list into a doable recipe therefore making it easier to practise or just turn out a few biscuits or cakes in times of need or want. I recommend it.

Firstly I pan roasted a collection of nuts, almonds, hazelnuts and chopped mixed nuts that I had in my collection. The recipe indicated oven roasting but I think pan roasting is much more controllable and there is nothing more disappointing or expensive than forgetting for a moment your nuts that are roasting in the oven and finding them too far gone and slightly blackened and bitter.

Next I had purchased the first of the seasons candied peel up at the market, so portioned about 75g out and chopped that up into tiny jewels.

Made the mix up according to the recipe which involved whizzing a few nuts into a fine powder to add to the flour and baked the mixture into two long sausages, allowed them to cool and then with a serrated knife cut on the angle and baked again.

If I am honest I think I should have baked them a little bit harder. They are just under the hardness of a shop bought biscotti.

But you live and learn and they are still extremely delicious, perfect for a pick me up with a hot drink in the afternoon.

Let me start by talking about the elephant in the room that is Covid. I am not a political animal in any sense of the word but it has seemed to me that it makes sense to be as self sufficient as is possible, so as not to have to go to the shops for items and risk contamination, along with not wanting to be part of the panic buying brigade. My cupboards, freezers and allotment are amply supplied, having as a child been very curious about Nan’s cupboards always full of interesting tins, dried fruits, sugars and flours, there were butters, cheeses and bacon in the fridge, a chest freezer in the hall full of ice cream, fruit, meat, fish and vegetables. There was a brick built shed strung high with net sacks or plaits of home grown onions and sacks of potatoes along with an allotment in her back garden of veg with three apple and one plum tree my war time mentality of food security was triggered at a very early age. I might explain that Nan had been bombed out twice in Liverpool and evacuated with four very small children in tow while her husband was serving in India. I suspect food security became very important to her too.

Not wishing to go into supermarkets at the present time we are living off our wits and stores, so when I noticed that hubby was running out of yoghurt I had a look at the Greek yoghurt tub that he favours and found it to contain a live bacteria. I promptly ordered some full fat milk off the milkman (we wash the bottles with soapy water as they come into the house) and examined the yoghurt instructions on my instapot.

Firstly I scalded the milk and then let it sit for a couple of hours to come back to room temperature, whisked 3 dessertspoons of yoghurt into it and put it into the instapot and hit the yoghurt button and walked away.

Eight hours later,… we had this lovely thick yoghurt.

Next I separated some kitchen towel, scalded that with hot water and lined a colander with it, then poured the yoghurt into it and allowed the whey to drain. I didn’t do this for long, maybe half an hour, I think you can strain it for a lot longer to make a very thick yoghurt if you wish to.

And then potted it into some glass jars that had also been scalded with boiling water.

To be placed into the fridge, where it will thicken up even more. 4 pints made 1.5 litres. (I love to mix imperial with metric!) Apparently the shelf life for home made yoghurt is about two weeks, I shouldn’t think we will have any left after a week. I might even get some fruit out the freezer and make some blackcurrant compote to accompany it. Or even make blackcurrant and yoghurt ice cream, or maybe I’ll need yoghurt in my new to me BIR curries, Oh the possibilities…

It has been my intention for many a long year to learn to cook British Indian Restaurant curry, known as BIR recipes. But for some reason maybe it was time constraints or an inability to find a way forward in how to learn or simply we have a very good Indian restaurant, that is absolutely delicious just up the road I haven’t done so. I think the main area was that I wasn’t sure how to start and at that point did not know that BIR recipes were even a thing.

Then one day I was tootling around youtube, and Misty Ricardo’s you tube video’s came into view and I was fascinated. This was exactly what I was looking for. I spent the next few evenings looking at his videos and then purchased his recipe books Indian Restaurant Curry at Home, versions 1 and 2 by Richard Sayce so as to read and experiment further.

Firstly I gathered my spices and made a mix powder as instructed.

And then made a gravy which has a vast amount of onions in. You seem to make gallons of gravy but this is okay as it freezes very nicely.

I chose the chicken bhuna recipe as it said this was a good recipe to start with.

Initially you poach your chicken breasts in spices and then you cover them with a sauce in which they can happily remain which means they keep flavourful and moist.

Once these two stages are complete and I recommend a spare afternoon to achieve them, you can leave the curry making until required. To get the levels of flavour required you need to make single portions or scant double portion. Otherwise you won’t achieve the repeated caramelisation, followed by the addition of the gravy and repeated at least twice more to achieve the many layered flavour profile of what you enjoy at your local good Indian restaurant. If you watch the videos of Misty Ricardo he will be able to explain much better than I.

It was an absolute blast to learn this and tasted extremely authentic. Well, authentic in a British Indian Restaurant kind of way, which after all, was exactly what I was looking for. I will be using this book this month and it will be interesting to see where it takes me in my understanding of this particular cuisine.

The blackberries have been throwing very vigorous new canes out all summer. I’ve been carefully stepping over them or brushing them to one side as I’ve gone around the plot.

But the time had come to trim back our thornless blackberries.

So firstly I tied all the new canes together in the centre using some garden string, being careful that the string did not cut into the delicate new growth canes.

This gave me the space to chop back all of the old canes. At this stage it is easy to see which canes had fruited this year.

And this is difficult to see from this photograph, mainly because there is still so much green around. I tied the new growth into two wires that had been stretched between posts. I am very pleased with this plant now, we should get some good fruit next year, its neighbour has not done very well, so has been chopped back to the base.

Next I pruned the blackcurrants, I still have the apple, pear, gooseberries and blueberries to do, but for that I need to read up a little first.

I thought I would start to share my photo of the week on a Friday. There are no special rules, it may be taken with a mobile or a ‘proper’ camera. I’ll try to explain why I love it, if it inspires me, or creates emotion in me. It may not even be from that particular week! It may come from a place that is vibrating within me just at that moment, but the pic may be from long ago.

Planted and nurtured for the small birds to enjoy throughout the winter. A couple of heads have been taken to my Dad’s and he has placed them so that he may enjoy the birds finding the seeds during the winter from the comfort of his armchair in the living room. I always feel a little meloncholy as the summer growing season changes to autumn and then winter. I think it is the sadness of seeing all the vibrant verdant growth shrivelling up and turning brown. But within that I am pleased that the sparrows will find these seeds and they will nourish them through the short dark days of winter. Or the mice will find them and then terrorise my greenhouse where I hold no such compassions, it then becomes me verses the mice. Whatever way, it is natures way and for that I love this pic. Taken with an old iPhone on portrait mode, so a shallow depth of field, slightly spruced up in photos.