Chrimble - and the latter part of 2014!

Well once again it seems that time has positively zoomed by leaving me looking a little like a cack writer of blogs! K  I am somewhat ashamed that I haven't got round to posting since August, and I'm afraid I don't even have any kind of decent excuse.  So - enough of the self-flagellation.  What has been afoot?
I did some temping in the local city council offices, in the planning department.  I printed stuff out, I scanned stuff in.  Rather more scanning than printing and it had to be said - it was pretty dull.  It paid however, and that was the main thing.  Much nicer environment to work in than my last place too, which was nice. J Sadly it was just a 3 month contract so I'm now looking for something else after New Year.

Myself and a friend discovered a new cute micropub called the Pig & Pickle Taphouse, that opened this year in Exeter in an old post office.  This is the third pub owned by the proprietor of the original Fat Pig and Rusty Bike.  They have a microbrewery in the cellar of the Fat Pig (in the 2014 CAMRA Good Beer Guide no less) and you can now get their ales in any of their three pubs.  The Pig & Pickle is delightfully quirky, small and very friendly.  They also offer a whole plethora of different pickles, as the name suggests, that you can pick from to make up a platter to have with your pint.
The Doctor chap I was seeing is no more.  Wasn't for me as a long term thing so best to call it a day sooner rather than later.
I've also been cooking, baking, making some chrimbo bits and trying to sort out the vast amount of stuff I seem to own that is taking over the house!  I may have said it before but 2015 really needs to be the year of the life laundry I think.
For the Christmas period I've been back in Dorset with family, and visiting a few familiar haunts.
Studland beach, owned by the National Trust, is somewhere we've been going since I was tiny.  A beautiful long golden beach with protected heathland behind, it's great for a boxing day walk as well as a summer laze.  At the Knoll beach end where we start our walk you can see Old Harry's Rocks in the distance to the west.  Rather tiny in the background of this photo.  J (I know the horizon is wonky - frozen fingers!)

On the way back from Studland we stopped in the small village of Stoborough, just outside Wareham, and had a well deserved pint in The King Arms.  I had a chilli pickled egg too - very nice and suitably warming after our walk.  :-)

Well, this is a quick post just to reassure that I'm still alive out here!  I'm intending to get back to much more regular blogging in the new year, as soon as I get the damn internet in my house sorted out!

I hope you've all had a joyous and peaceful festive season.  All the best for 2015 from me and Zeke cat.  J

Random Recipe - New Year, New Book - 'Spring' pasta without Wild Garlic

January’s  Random Recipe challenge set by the lovely Dom over at Belleau Kitchen tasked us with picking a recipe from a book we’d received for christmas.  I got a fair selection as you can see.  It included the rather wonderful ‘A Curious Cookbook’  - a look at historical recipes from some of the earliest cookery books on record (14^th C) right up to wartime (sparrows on toast anyone?) 

Given my record in past Random Recipe challenges (rabbit leg, stuffed carrots &c) I thought I was sure to get that book but my random number generator (the Chap) thankfully picked one of the other books he got me – the Herbs installment of the River Cottage handbook series.  These books always have the recipe section at the back so I flipped it open at that end and got… Spring Pasta with Wild Garlic and Purple Sprouting Broccoli.

Now, although we managed to get some ramsons (wild garlic) on Jan 27th last year I thought that one week into 2014 would be pushing my luck rather.  That's not spring in the UK by any stretch of the imagination.  However, I duly went for a riverside potter on one of the few non-rainy days we had around the middle of the month and found....shoots.  Teeny tiny shoots, that was all so far.  Not a massive surprise.  I gathered the tiniest ‘handful’ (midget hands you understand) of the shoots to give an edge of the garlicky flavour and resigned myself to using the suggested chives that the book mentions can be substituted if you have no wild garlic.

The recipe also uses purple sprouting broccoli.  I’m afraid I have to admit to completely forgetting about that detail so this got made with regular calabrese, a substitution that is also mentioned in the book itself.

Overall I found this a bit too rich with creamy goats cheese smothering everything and an additional grating of parmesan on top.  I find it hard to believe that I’m actually going to type this but, I think it was a little too cheesy.  [Too cheesy!  I know what you’re thinking – how can something ever be too cheesy huh?]  It was too rich from all the cheese, rather than the flavour, is what I think I’m trying to say.  It certainly needed a good squeeze of lemon juice or something to cut through it and lift the flavour a bit; it was all rather samey.  That said I imagine this would be a very different beast with actual wild garlic in it.

It was a nice quick dinner to knock up though and one that's pretty frugal if you make it with regular calabrese and Aldi's goat cheese. :-)

It warrants remembering for when the ramsons finally do unfurl their leaves out of the overflowing river Exe.

The clever ones amongst you will have noticed that I mention the middle of the month earlier in the post yet the date of writing is the somewhat later 30th.  Yep - I actually made my random recipe in good time this month but still didn't get it up before the cut off.  Please let me join in Dom, please...

Not foraging season, yet.

I went for a somewhat optimistic little bimble to an area on campus that I know grows wild garlic in abundance during my lunch break today.
Despite myself, the Chap and his brother managing to find some Navelwort to nibble last weekend, and spying these fungi on a tree, there was no sign as yet of the Ramsons.

I didn't really expect there to be, but as it's the first sunny day for a while after all these storms, I fancied a breath of fresh air and a little vitamin D.
Sometimes I forget just how lovely the Campus is here; I really should make more of an effort to have a ramble around in my lunchtimes.

 I did come across this fungus; given it's somewhat forbidding purple hue I left it where it was though!

  Anyone know what it is?

First forage of the year

 As the sun made a rare appearance today the Chap and I went for little bimble along the river before heading for a lovely roast for National Potato Day.  (Really.)
I wanted to take a certain route to see if there was any sign of the wild garlic yet and we were super pleased to spot some sprouting through the mud in our favourite spot.  Due to all the rain and melted snow the river's rather higher than is the norm so the most advanced plants were on the sunny bank that was also most nearly flooded - here's yours truly harvesting, pretty much 'in' the river!  Nearer the camera and behind me you can see the thin sprouts where the plants in a little more shade are still just pushing through the earth.

As we didn't get too much garlic (it's still early in the year after all) I also picked a handful of nettle tops and I'll pop them all in a soup/stew with some beans, veg and whatever comes to hand later. 

Very pleasing to know that even in January we can get some free tasty food with the minimum of effort walking and rummaging in the undergrowth.  It was a thoroughly pleasurable amble in the sun so I wouldn't really count it as effort myself.  Also nice to see that it looks like a healthy year for the wild garlic as we want to make masses more pesto from it this year.  Top stuff - we ran out far too fast last year! 

We finished the afternoon by going for the aforementioned roast at The Mill on The Exe, a riverside pub near us where they have the distinct advantage of doing a veggie option on the carvery.  Being right on the river they do have somewhat tenuous boundaries to their garden area!

Impromptu weekend away #1 : Bigbury - Burgh Island - Salcombe

After a bit of a rubbish Friday the Chap came up with the spiffing idea of going away on the Saturday for an unplanned impulsive weekend break. *applause*  :-D
He suggested Cornwall and I came up with Burgh Island by Bigbury-on-Sea - which I in fact thought was in Cornwall a fair way down but turns out to be in South Devon not that far from Plymouth.  I had heard of the place from a time a fair few years back when my parents had visited.  It's a tidal island with a (very) exclusive 30's art deco hotel on it and a pub.  It is 'the pub on the island' - which is a bit of a family tale for me but more of that later.

Burgh is on a truly stunning stretch of coastline and has 2 wide sandy beaches facing it on either side of the low headland that rises to Bigbury-on-Sea - a hamlet of what seems to be almost entirely holiday homes built into the hill opposite.  It was very windy here and the beaches were popular with wind surfers and kite surfers whilst we were there.

We walked over the sand to the island and started realising how exclusive the hotel is.  You can't even get near it through the gates without having prebooked.  We saw several big *landy's crossing the sand presumably ferrying the guests back and forth.  [In past times people like Noel Coward and Mrs Simpson stayed here and the hideously expnsive suites/rooms are named after them.]  A sign said you could wander round the marked paths on the west side of the island but the rest was out of bounds as private property belonging to the hotel.  The island climbs a little to the west and south sides - there's some fab rock formations and plenty of sea birds sheltering in the lee of the rocks.  We were hopeful of seals but no luck.  Although whether we would have spotted them through the watering of our eyes in the fierce wind is another matter!

There's a small ruined building overlooking the south side - presumably a look out post was our best guess.  [According to the Wiki link above it could be the remains of the Chapel - very tiny with too big windows though I'd have said.]  The weather had cleared by then as well as the morning had been distrinctly grey and showery - we were rather lucky!  As you circle round and down you can see the roofs of the hotel over the hill and the coastline opposite the island - a beautiful vista.

There was quite the oldest fuschia bush I've seen as we came down some steps cut into the hillside - I had no idea they got all gnarly like this - looks quite odd to see the flowers sprouting directly from what looks like dead wood!  As we carried on down the hillside we more or less got accosted by a walker coming the opposite way demanding to know if we'd seen the pool?  We must have looked somewhat blank as he then expounded that he meant the seawater pool - in a tone of voice that suggested deep disappointment in us for not knowing instantly what he was referring to.  Anyway it turns out this is a pool for the hotel therefore tucked away on a side you can't see.  We carried on down past the hotel's helipad [!] and tennis court and repaired to the pub - the Pilchard Inn for a pint.  We had the local Pilchard ale - brewed on the mainland though rather than on the island - and sat outside in the sun admiring our surroundings.  It's a fascinating place dating from 1336 with tales of smugglers tunnels and a ghost but is now unfortunately split into the hotel guest's and 'locals' bar and the other smaller bar where the rest of us are allowed.  Fantastic setting though and the beer was nice and the staff friendly and a pint cost no more than it does in my local.  Outside is parked the Sea Tractor - a rather fantastic contraption allowing ingress to and egress from the island when the tide is in.  It had quite the cleanest wheels I've ever seen on anything of this size and looks like great fun.  As the tide was firmly out when we visited though we didn't get to ride it.

We returned to the mainland and thought we'd drive into Bigbury-on-Sea and find somewhere to stay - oh no!!  As previously mentioned the place looks to be pretty much all holiday / second homes with nowhere to go - not even a corresponding local to the one on the island!  Having driven round it twice and come to the conclusion that the only thing to do here was visit the local tiny shop cum post office and we'd done that we returned to the cliff top road overlooking the bays and island [where I took the photo at the top of this post from out the van window - so no complaints that it's a wee bit wonky!] and pootled back along the road.  Quick discussion later and we'd decided our destination would be... Salcombe.  I'm not sure if I'd been there before - if so it was when I was very small so I looked forward; and at the map, as Chap drove us onto the next chapter of the weekend.

*Landy - Landrover.  Big burly 4x4 / off roader / ATV.

Oh - for those intrigued by the family tale of 'The Pub on the Island' (anyone intrigued out there?) it stems from a family holiday when I was very small indeed.  I think it may have been somewhere like Solva - certainly right on the coast - and we had a self catering cottage as was normal for our annual hol in Cornwall / Devon / Wales.  I'm guessing the story came about as an inquisitive wee small daddy's girl enquiry as to the whereabouts of her father in the evening.  Certainly what I was told wasn't entirely the truth.  Ma told me that dad had gone off with the earthenware jug (this bit is true) to get some beer to bring back for them.  However - because the pub was on an island (this is the not true bit now) he could only get across when the tide was down that's why he took a while sometimes.  Now, I don't want you to think my dad vanished off each evening of our holiday leaving ma at home with 3 small girls for hours at a stretch but as time seems to expand unrelated to the actual passing of hours and minutes when you're that small I think that the probably couple of pints he had in the local before returning with a jug full of beer to share seemed enough time for the turning of a tide to me aged about 3 or 4.  Anyway - I always believed this and it wasn't until many years later that it happened to come up in idle conversation and I asked as to the exact location of this fabled 'Pub on the Island' - which seemed incredibly romantic and cool to my by then approx 11/12ish year old self.  Well - I was first greeted with somewhat blank looks followed by dawning comprehension on the face of my mother as distant bells got clearer through the mists of time.  'Oh - I made it up' she admitted unbeknownst destroying my entire imaginary vision of the place; a place I'd already firmly set my heart on going to one day.  Dad was completely unaware of the whole story it seemed and after that it became our family tale - a synonym for a place unobtainable and to me, a reminder of a happy childhood holiday scrambling over rocks and falling in the sea and other such things that made up our childhood family holidays.  I was always a little gutted it wasn't real though and thought it would be the best idea for a pub.  Well - many years later and the parents take a wee break in Devon (before I lived here so I guess about 12 years ago now) and they find... [drum roll]... A Pub On An Island!!  You can't imagine how pleased they were to be able to tell me there was one and it's somewhere I've been slowly getting round to going to ever since.  Sadly my father is no longer with us but it was truly lovely to be able to sit outstand the fabled pub and relate the story to my dear Chap.  The sun shone on us and it was a perfect day.  Go there and start your own 'pub on an island' tradition - it's worth it.  :-)

Wild food weekend #4 - the Wrap up

Having spent the latter part of Saturday and almost all of last Sunday feeling decidedly under the weather [no - not the foraging but a bug going round at work I picked up for the weekend] once I felt slightly better and the sun came out on Sunday early evening I fancied a meander along the river. We discovered a great swathe of the broad leaved wild garlic Ramsons about 5 mins from home. Certainly closer than the previous stash I knew about of the narrower leaved type. [I just can't ascertain whether that is Field garlic - wrong leaves, Garlic chives - wrong flowers, or what. Plants for a future has a list of 19 types of 'garlic' and I'm still not sure.]We gathered some leaves and a few of the unopened flower heads having read somewhere on-line that these are good fried in a little butter. [Sorry - I just can't find it or remember where I saw this.] Always ensure you have the right plant - Ramsons can resemble the leaves of Lords and Ladies / Cukoo Pint which is very bad for you indeed. This is one below.

You will help yourself by foraging by hand too - don't cut big swathes with scissors or a similar instrument as you could easily get unwanted leaves in there along with the garlic. Lily of the valley is another plant with similar looking leaves that won't do us any good either.

As well as the Ramsons we found great swathes of nettles - far from the road so ideal for harvest, wild chives which I didn't even know about, mustard garlic and a plethora of other edible greens. We also mentally marked the position of some cherry trees so will return in season to see if they produce anything nice for us.

This was foraging at it's best - a gentle walk in the sun surrounded by the fresh smell of just-rained-on spring greenery drying out, in earshot of the river and it's wildlife with the bonus of some freebie tasty food. What more does one need? :-D [Other than a practical foraging bag of some kind but bear with me - it's in the mulling around stage in my head at present.]

Oh - nearly forgot to tell you - Chap said the squirrel tasted like a gamey pork, with an undertone of nuts / acorns. So not chicken then. :-D

Start Point and a seaside forage

Wednesday we took a little jaunt down the coast to Start Point; off past the end of Torbay, Brixham and Dartmouth here. Having parked up in very windy conditions [after following some comedically tiny roads to get there] we had an amble down to the point, looked at the view, got blown about, saw the lighthouse was shut and headed back up the hill. After a sarnie or two we decided to coast hop our way back up; stopping first at Hallsands, where we gathered some limpets and sea beet with the idea of making a seafood stew loosely based on one in the River Cottage 'Fish' book. It was great fun I must admit - we came across some rocks with masses of limpets on [and loads of tiny mussels - noted for later in the year once they've grown] and took a few from each spot. It's important to vary the size if you go foraging for limpets as they change sex half way through their lives therefore the small ones are male and the large female. If you only went for the big 'uns you'd cause a population imbalance; aparently the larger ones can be tougher too. Needless to say as well that if you're going to forage for any seafood check water cleanliness, time of year, local byelaws etc. Equip yourself with some expert knowledge like this - that's what we did. I take no responsibility &c &c &c!!
We also found some dog whelks and these eggs - not sure what they are but intriguing!

We carried on up the coast - incidentally a lovely part of the world, then crossed the Dart estuary on the ferry and headed for Churston Court for a pint in front of the huge 13th C fireplaces. This place is brilliant; quirky, old, fascinating and serving lovely food and pints it's worth a visit just to have a poke about. There's at least 2 suits of armour as well!

February Witterings

As it seems to have been a fairly quiet week since the excitement of V Day on Monday [!] and I've been a busy bunny and therefore failing to cook anything interesting; certainly anything worth blogging about [I have to confess to making us pizza and hash browns on Tuesday :-O] I have very little to spiel on about. Oh no!! I'm sure I'll manage though as wittering is one of my fortes - why use one word when 12 will do?!

Firstly - a little expounding on our picnic setting as this really is a top spot. In Exeter there is a 'Green Circle Walk' - a walk of 12 miles that goes round the outskirts of the city and is split into 5 smaller sections. The viewpoint we visited is on one of these - it's in the Barley Valley Nature Reserve. I can recommend this walk - the Redhill's walk. As I mentioned we're going to return when it's a little more clement - and possible lighter [we slipped our way back across the muddy field pretty much in the dark] and will take some photos of the view then. Chap enjoyed his steak sandwiches and I my smoked salmon washed down with some rather nice champagne. I'm sure the lady walking her dogs thought we were nuts!
Secondly - the weather. Argh - I know it's still February but I'VE HAD ENOUGH NOW!!!! Please please can we have spring - warmth - sun - not raining... it'd be lovely. I'm sure I remember the sun - you know - that big yellow ball thing that hangs about in the sky trying to peek through the louring grey rain-sodden clouds from November to March solid. Or so it seems.That's the one - see those rays - aah bliss!

This weekend I'm hoping to get a fair bit done at the allotment - I need to finish digging over 2 of the 3 big beds and re-edge the smaller ones. I also need to make a decision about whether I dedicate a second of the smaller beds to fruit or not. I currently have one small bed with Rasps and Strawbs on and was tempted by a Tayberry bush in Poundstretcher for the princely sum of £2.49 the other day but I kinda think when it comes to fruit - unless you give a fair bit of land to multiple bushes it's not really worth it is it? I suppose I could pick a small handful now and then and save them up in the freezer until I have enough for a pie or crumble but this seems a bit counter intuitive to me. The other side of me though is the bit that causes me to have hundreds more packets of seeds than I have space to plant. It's the bit that wants to try different things out - the bit that snaps my head round in poundstretcher going 'look Ruth - you really NEEEEED that - a Tayberry - bet that'd be exciting, the Chap'd be impressed, it'd taste nice - pleeeease can we, can we, can we...'. That's the bit that gets me in trouble. [It's the reason why I have amongst other things; a toast rack that matches my salt and pepper set - which are admittedly pretty cool little metal wheely objects. I never use a toast rack though. It's a pet hate of mine if the toast isn't warm enough to melt the butter. Why would I need a toast rack? It's basically a cooling device for those deviants that like lukewarm toast. Of course the answer is I don't need one. But I saw it one time and it matched my S+P and that bit of me won that time. This was a few years back - I'm better now on most stuff but seeds / plants - not so good.] Anyway I managed to not succumb to the Tayberry and have been regretting it ever since. The thing is - if I give the third small bed over to fruit as well as the first one there'll be nowhere for the Jerusalem Artichokes which are currently hogging what tiny amount of space there is in the back garden each year. I want herbs in the back garden - to hand like, so the J'Arts need to be moved to the plot. Hmm - a quandry.

In case you're wondering, or are vaguely interested or are merely ploughing on through hoping to see the end in sight to this post some time soon... for info - my allotment is a half plot. 5 x 25m with 3 5x3.5m beds and 3 5x1m beds and space at the end where I will get round to building a shed. Or Chap may do it - being a buildery type bloke ['blokey bloke bloke' as Bill Bailey would say] he's fairly excited by the prospect I think. Anyway - promise I'll take a decent pic sometime vaguely soon and get it up here for y'all. In the meantime I think that is in fact it on the wittering front for today. Buenas Noches kittens.