National Apple Day

National Apple Day has been celebrated here in the UK since 1990, and I'm only too happy to join in the celebrations for such a wonderful fruit.

I don't know about you, but I couldn't manage without apples in my diet. They're not only scientifically proven to be good for you (yes there's truth in the old saying "An apple a day keeps the doctor away), but growing them is good for all of us too .

According to Common Ground, the organisation which created this day in our calendar, it's important to recognize the importance of orchards to our landscape in the sheer diversity of our local varieties of apples and in our culture.

 As a child, my mother and father had a mini orchard of apple and pear trees in their suburban garden and I have vivid memories of all the apple puddings we polished off over the years.

These days I have only one apple tree in my garden, which is rather lax about when it is going to fruit. I don't know what variety it is, but it's just sweet enough to pick off the tree and crunch away, but is also delicious when baked in cakes and puddings.

Our village apple tree fruited before mine, so at the beginning of September my two year old  grandaughter and I went to collect our first locally grown apples of the season. 

Apple picking 

For the last month though we've been picking and eating our own apples

I've prepared pounds of apples in the freezer ready for pie, tarts, and crumbles through the winter, but today, on a rainy Apple Day, I've collected the last lot off the tree and some windfalls. They will be needed.

 

Earlier this week,  Angie came around for supper. She's new to the village and is staying with our next-door neighbour until she can go home to Ukraine. We thoroughly enjoyed her company and she absolutely loved the apple crumble I made for pudding. I can't ever remember a time in my life without a crumble, but I suspect she won't forget her first one. One helping was followed by two more and she loved the tartness of the apples combined with the sweetness of the topping. 

 So do we, so I suspect it will be apple crumble ago go for Angie and us from now on, until the apples run out that is.....

Happy Apple Day to you all.

A day at Sulby Gardens

 



A new garden to explore is always a joy isn't it? A weekend wander around a garden with cake and coffee at the end of a visit is a pleasure for so many of us.

 

To get a chance for a private visit to a garden with two friends who happen to be gardening experts, and enjoy a ramble around with the owners, is even more of a treat.

 

That's why I loved going to Sulby Gardens, to record a programme for BBC Radio Leicester's gardening programme, "Down to Earth" doing just that. Derek Cox and Josie Hutchinson , from the programme's panel of experts were with me.

 

Tucked just inside the Northamptonshire side of the border with Leicestershire, Sulby Gardens consists of twelve acres of formal gardens, kitchen gardens, orchards, a wood and even an ice house.

 

 

 

 

Alison has lived here since 1976. She and her husband Chris were fired with enthusiasm after reading John Seymour's 'The Complete Book of Self Sufficiency' and were inspired to buy a walled garden and live in the Head Gardener's Cottage there.

 

There were glasshouses and old storerooms which still bear the pencilled notes on the doors detailing how many fruits and carrots were picked in the early 1900's.

 

 

 

 

Part of the old apple store is now a conservatory where expertly trained (according to Derek) grapes festoon the ceiling.

 

 

There's a rather large glasshouse from 1904, which was the original carnation house.



 A place to sit out of the rain, looking down to part of the kitchen garden

Alison's husband Chris died nine years ago at the age of sixty. However he's left quite a legacy and they both have amassed a wonderful collection of sixty three varieties of apple trees .

There's a certain romance to the names of the old and new varieties of apples grown ...and there's also a dozen varieties of pear trees .We tasted two or three varieties as we munched our way around the kitchen garden and then found ten varieties of plum trees on the verge of ripeness.

Bill Barker has been the Garden Manager here for twenty years or so, and he too has played an important role in the development of the garden, especially since Chris's death. In fact Alison says he's an important reason why she has been able to stay here - she simply couldn't have done it on her own.

On the right hand side of the walled garden, glass houses previously abutted the walls for a couple of hundred yards or so.
.

And that's why Sulby Gardens is so interesting...because the gardens belonged to a minor stately home built in 1792 and designed by Sir John Sloane. Echoes of its gardening past are all around, but the house itself is no more. It was demolished in the early 1950's .

We winced and shuddered as we heard this - having seen photographs, it was a beautiful building. Yet we were able to admire what remained of the more formal area of gardens

It's ironic, because so many owners of old houses have, over the years, sold parcels of their estates or gardens for housing or development. Alison and Chris did the exact opposite, they managed to buy extra land to increase their garden, to build a wood and seven ponds.

 With the wood, they inherited an ice house. I was dying to see this...Josie walked over it without knowing at first!

 

This dates from the late eighteenth century and is listed.







 We all trooped down the stairs and inside in single file, the temperature immediately dropping as we did so. No torches, but fortunately I had my trusty iphone to light our way



This was where tons of ice, were hacked from the stream running through  the gardens by the gardeners, and thrown into the hole. Meat, game and fish, butter and other foods were kept here on the ice until needed for the table.

By now, we had spent two hours wandering around the gardens, enjoying the views and the plantings. We'd also admired the way that Alison, Chris and Bill have enhanced the gardens over the years and developed flower meadows and wildlife habitats for mammals, insects and birds.

By now, the drizzle and wind had died down and we were able to relax on a garden bench in the sunshine.

Left to right...Bill Barker, Josie Hutchinson, Derek Cox, me and Alison Lowe





Such a lovely day and such an interesting garden, with so much to see . You can hear the programme we recorded by clicking this link

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p05gydwf

You can also see the gardens for yourself as they are open on Thursday 12th October from 1 pm to 4pm and again on  Friday 13th October from 11am until 4pm...

Alison and Bill will be around, and you've got the chance to buy some bottles of fresh apple juice too, which is pressed and bottled by Bill, but only sold to garden visitors at open days for the National Garden Scheme. There's plenty of apple cakes to taste too!

Here's just three of the varieties, and Sunset, the bottle I have tasted is absolutely delicious and addictive.

Sulby is worth a visit any time of year though and opens regularly....so do check with the Northamptonshire branch of the National Garden Scheme to find out next year's dates. You will be so pleased you did!
 

apple days of Autumn

In late August, I thought the apples were ripening later than last year on my allotment.

I was right. According to English Apples and Pears, the fruit growers association, the apple season began on Tuesday, two weeks late.Apparently, it's due to the late flowering  of the apple trees after the cold weather in Spring .

Well,  I kept looking at my apple trees, Three weeks ago, they still weren't ready despite a vivid rosiness on the apples of one tree, but within a few days they started falling..

 

 

 

Of course , the juiciest have stayed at the top of the tree...but that's not a problem now as I have a trusty helper in the form of this apple picker from Burgeon and Ball. I bought it at the end of last Autumn after not being able to reach so many apples.(Other apple pickers are available!)

 

 

I've been picking baskets and baskets of fruit.

The cooking apples aren't ready yet, but I'll be ready for them this year. Apple crumble and apple cakes ago go!

That's the beauty of an apple tree, it's a gift that just keeps on giving pounds and pounds of fruit.

Meanwhile, I hear that the total commercial crop of eating apples will reach  over 150,000 tonnes, and they're in the shops now. There's nothing like the taste of an English apple........

A foodie friday with Falling Cloudberries by Tessa Kiros

Last Friday, there were yet more apples from the allotment. I needed another new apple cake recipe. Looking through the book shelves, I came across one of my cookbooks which I'd bought on a whim years ago, "Falling Cloudberries" by Tessa Kiros.

To be honest it was the title and the cover which seduced me all those years ago. That, and the stunning photographs that lay inside...of food, of different landscapes.

As I've said previously, I love a cook book with a back story and Tessa Kiros certainly gives the reader one of those. She was born in England - her mother was Finnish and her father was a Greek Cypriot,then, as a small child, she went to live in South Africa. Add in years of travelling, and then being married and living in Italy, she's obviously inherited and amassed a lifetime of different recipes.

We're taken back to both her grandfathers' recipes, from the fishy dishes of Finland, to Cyprus, to  sun baked South African cuisine and to her mother in law's Italian food made with love. Each recipe tells a story, gives a glimpse into a time gone by. Foodie memoirs if you like.

I've made a number of these recipes in the past - milk tart, chicken and oregano to name but a few, and I've been meaning to make the Finnish meatballs with lingonberry jam for ages. But as I flicked through the recipes gathered in South Africa, I found my new cake recipe.

Apple cake with toffee filling. That sounded good, something a little different from the other ones I've been making in this extremely productive apple season.

It's a very easy recipe, even though...wait for it....I've not made toffee before. Luckily this was a soft toffee topping, a kind to teeth toffee topping. Which was just as well, as I lost a filling last year to a rather hard sticky toffee.

But you don't want to read about my teeth, oh no, so let me tell you, this cake has a soft sponge and a caramelly, toffee coated top. But where are the apples  I hear you ask? Well, they're secreted at the bottom of the cake..

Doesn't it look pretty?  As I made it late in the afternoon, I resisted the temptation to test and taste the cake, as Mr Thinking of the days and I were off out for supper at Jenny's, our dear sister in law's house. Just as well, as we ate rather a lot. Three courses, all delicious. A lovely meal with prosecco, wine and I believe there may have been whisky later .

We all promised ourselves a bracing walk the following morning, but the sky was dark, the rain was bucketing down. So when Jenny, her partner Roger and our cousins Mike and Jane popped around, we decided to stay in for a while to see if the rain would stop. It didn't, so hot coffee and cake was required. Luckily there was one to hand....

And no, Boo and Eric, my two terriers, did not manage to get their paws on the cake, despite them looking longingly at the cake. The rest of us agreed that we liked the combination of all three layers, and it was one to make again. Oh, and yes, Jenny and Jane wanted the recipe.

So here it is....





Apple Cake with Toffee Topping

Ingredients

3 apples

100g butter

200g caster sugar

1 tspn vanilla extract

3 eggs

200g plain flour

2 tspns baking powder

60ml of milk

topping

20g butter

115g caster sugar

125m ml of single cream ( I used double and it was fine)

How to make

1.Preheat the oven to 190 degs F/gas mark 5, then grease and flour a deep 24cm springform tin.

2.Peel the apples and cut them in lengthways. Cut each half into about 6 slices, removing the core. Arrange the slices in the tin.

3.Cream the butter, sugar and vanilla essence until pale and creamy. Add the eggs, beating after each one. Sift in and beat the flour and baking powder.

4. Beat in the milk until the mixture is soft and fluffy. Put this mixture over the apples and smooth the top. Bake for 35 - 40 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Remove from the oven and make the topping.

5.Put the butter and sugar into a small saucepan and cook over a medium heat for 3 to 4 minutes until the sugar melts and turns light caramel. Add the cream, drop by drop initially, then in a steady stream, taking care that it doesn't splash. Lower the heart a little and simmer for another minute.

6.Loosen the side of the springform tin. Serve warm or a room temperature.

Tessa Kiros suggests serving with vanilla or crème fraiche ice cream, another recipe in the book, but we just ate it as it was.

And so, another apple cake, which I will definitely make again.

"Falling Cloudberries" by Tessa Kiros was published by Murdoch Books in 2004 and is still available.



A foodie friday reviewing Sarah Raven's recipes on a Saturday

September and October mean apples, and I've been picking them at the allotment for weeks now. I have three apple trees, two are cookers and the other is a variety with the warmest, rosiest glow.

There's been quite a number of them, and I've been using them every which way I can.

So on my day off, it was time to hunt through my recipe books to make something different. I've already stewed pounds of apples ready for crumbles this winter and made a few apple cakes. But I wanted to make something different.


And I struck gold with this book from Sarah Raven, which was published back in 2007 I think....and I'm pretty sure I bought my copy about five years ago.

Now this what I call a generous cook book. And by that I mean, this is one of those labour of love books where the author has given we readers  her life time's experience of growing and cooking fruit and vegetables. This is not one of those  a hundred recipes a book if you're lucky type of thing ..one on a double page spread type of book. Oh no. It's not a fancy pants type of cookery book either, with long, infinitely long winded and show off recipes either.

It literally is full to brim of tasty, workaday recipes to make the most of the produce from your garden and allotment. And as I've begun to grow more vegetables and now have fruit trees, I'm discovering different sections of the book.


The first new recipe to try was celeriac and apple soup...another way to use up  apples. This is a pale, silky textured and comforting soup. The sweetness of the celeriac married with the sharp freshness of the apples worked really well for me. Unfortunately my other half wasn't so keen.

But he did like the next new recipe very much... ...a Kentish apple cake. Now, I've made a Dorset Apple cake before but never one from Kent, and it's quite different in method and texture.

Here's the recipe....

Ingredients
225g unsalted butter plus a little extra for the tin
350g self raising flour
1 tspn ground cinnamon
pinch of salt
110g of sultanas or raisins soaked for an hour in water
175g castor sugar
75g toasted hazelnuts , chopped
450g cooking apples such as Bramleys
grated zest of 1 lemon
3 large eggs
plenty of Demerara sugar for dusting

How to make

1.Preheat  oven at 180 degs /gas mark 4 and grease and line the bottom of a 20cm loose bottomed cake tin

2.Pulse the sifted flour, cinnamon, salt and butter in a food processor until it looks like fine breadcrumbs. Put the mixture in a bowl and stir in the sultanas, sugar and toasted nuts

3.Peel, core and chop the apples and add to the other ingredients with the lemon zest. Lightly beat the eggs and put them in.

4.Spoon the mixture into the prepared cake tin and bake in the oven for one to one and a quarter hours or until firm to the touch. You may need to cover the cake with foil to prevent it from becoming too brown on top.

5.While it's still hot, sift over plenty of Demerara sugar, and let it cool in the tin or a wire rack.

As Sarah Raven says, it's a good cake for tea or you can serve it warm as a pudding with lots of thick cream. I've now tried both ways of serving...and both are equally as good!

The more I use this book , the greater is my admiration for the sheer breadth of recipes..and there are some lovely photographs by Jonathan Buckley.

Incidentally, you can still obtain personally signed copies of this book - Sarah Raven's Garden Cookbook published by Bloomsbury  from Sarah's own website.

Days of an abundance of apples Part 2 -pies versus crumbles

I don't know what camp you're in, but when it comes to apples and puddings, I've always preferred a crumble to a tart or pie.

The soft apples taste virtually the same, but I like the crunchy topping of a crumble. And it's so easy isn't it to make a crumble? If I'm really busy, I will throw in the flour, sugar, butter, and sometimes oats into my food processor, press the whizz button, and hey presto, within a minute you have a crumble topping.
At other times, especially if I'm worrying or thinking about something, or I'm cooking in advance, I will mix the ingredients by hand. It can be quite therapeutic, the rhythmic crumbling of the butter into the flour and sugar.

But there's a new apple recipe on the block, for me, anyway. It's one which is extremely vague to say the least, but it's a keeper. And it's changed my opinion of apple pie.


It's from my friend and colleague Ben Jackson . Ben is an absolute foodie, and on many a Monday morning we talk about what we've cooked and eaten at the weekend. Ben was telling me about his Granny's apple pie and how fabulous it was, how rich, sugary, and caramelly it was. Yes I know it's not a proper word so don't get all hoity-toity and het up...but it perfectly describes the unctuousness of the pie's topping, so there.....

Ben's Granny is Dr.Eva Shirreffs, and she was one of the first female GPs.., practicing in the Second World War. Apparently, she was a much-loved family doctor, but I'm loving her recipe that's for sure.
Now there's no written recipe for this, it hasn't even got a proper name, and I've adapted it slightly,  but here you go.....

Ben's Granny's Apple Pie

 or Dr Eva's Apple pie.......

 

Ingredients

 

shortcrust or sweet shortcrust pastry

6 apples

4 tablespoons of water
2 tablespoons sugar

2 or 3 tablespoons of golden syrup

2 tablespoon Demerara sugar

 cinnamon

 Method

1. Peel and core apples and slice. Put in an earthenware bowl with the 2 tablespoons of sugar and the water. Cover and microwave for 2 - 3 minutes
2. Roll out some shortcrust or sweet shortcrust pastry and line the bottom of a pie dish or tart tin.
3. Put the apples on top, sprinkle with the merest hint of cinnamon and cover with pastry.
4. Drizzle the golden syrup over the top of the pastry and sprinkle the Demerara sugar on top  ...here's one I prepared earlier..... ready for the oven

5. Cook in the oven at gas mark 4,180 degs Celsius  for about 30 minutes
6. Serve with custard or a good dollop of cream.....I prefer cream.

It's simply gorgeous....sweet, comforting, warming with a crunchy top and a rich golden juice with the apples.

As I said, I adapted it slightly, because I believe Ben and his Granny put the apples into the dish without cooking first and cooked for about 45 minutes in the oven. You can try either method. I also used puff pastry instead of shortcrust pastry once....but that's only because I took the wrong packet out of the freezer. A word to the wise....don't bother with the puff, just make sure you use shortcrust or even better, sweet shortcrust pastry.

It's been a hit in our house that's for sure......

days with an abundance of apples part 1

I'm not one to waste food. OK, but let's qualify that. I have got previous (as they say in English cop series) in that I've let some items lurk at the back of the fridge before now and then found they're past their sell by date. And yes, they may have been the odd, old manky courgette or carrot decaying at the bottom of the vegetable basket. But generally speaking, I like to find a use and a tasty recipe for everything that I pick, dig up or buy .

This year, the apples have just kept coming....for the last two months, I've been eating them raw, in Dorset apple cakes, apple crumbles, and there are pounds and pounds of slightly stewed apples in the freezer ready for more warming crumbles to come throughout the rest of autumn and winter.

I find the best way to preserve the apples for the freezer is to slice them and put into an earthenware bowl, dredge with lemon juice and perhaps two tablespoons of sugar, then add four tablespoons of water.

Stir and cover tautly with cling film

Stab the cling film twice, ( a task I always relish, especially when  I'm in  a bad mood) then bung the bowl in the microwave for three minutes.  Remove the cling film , then as soon as the apples have cooled properly put in freezer bags. They will keep for about 9 months.

 But still the apples keep a coming.....so I've made six or seven pounds of apple and mint jelly. Now this is something I've been making for years, and in good years when the apples are in abundance, I make shedloads. It lasts for a good two years. I think I may have to make another batch pretty soon....if the mint in the courtyard keeps going that is.

Now this is a jelly which goes extremely well with lamb and my lot vastly prefer it to mint sauce. It's also good with roast or poached chicken. So would you like the recipe?

You will need

5 pounds of cooking apples
about 5 large sprigs of mint
2 pints of distilled white vinegar
 another 8 -10 tablespoons of mint; chopped finely
sugar
(should make about six pounds of jelly)

method

1.Roughly chop the apples, cut out the bruised bits , but the good news is you don't have to peel them all!
2. Put the apples in a preserving pan with the sprigs of mint and about 2 pints of water. Bring to the boil, then turn the heat down and simmer for about 30 minutes. Don't let the mixture catch - no sticky bottoms here thank you very much.
3.Add the vinegar and bring to the boil for a further 5 minutes. No longer, because the smell is so intense, I don't want you becoming overcome and falling face first into the preserving pan.
4. Make sure you open the kitchen windows...I hate the smell of boiling vinegar.

5. Spoon the hot apple pulp into a jelly bag which is suspended over a big bowl and leave overnight . When you wake up in the morning , you will have lots of fluid in the bowl..
6. For each pint of extract you have in the bowl, use a pound of sugar, and put everything in a preserving pan.
7.Stir while you heat it gently and make sure all the sugar is dissolved and then boil until setting point is reached...about 20 minutes for me.
8. Don't forget to remove the scum which forms on top .

7.Stir while you heat it gently and make sure all the sugar is dissolved and then boil until setting point is reached...about 15 minutes for me.
8. Don't forget to remove the scum which forms on top .
9.Now throw in the finely chopped mint  and cool.
After 15 minutes put the jelly in to sterilised  jam jars and cover.

I've just got to work out now what I'm going to do with the next batch of apples.....

An apple a day.....

 

 

This year has been a very good year for fruit at the allotments. Pounds of blackcurrants, gooseberries and some lovely raspberries, especially the autumn variety which have a lovely flavour.

 

But this year, the apple trees and plum trees are the starts of the show....they are absolutely laden with fruit. There's two of each, and the first apples to pick have been these - I think they're discovery apples.

  

 

The fruit trees are on the outermost edge of the allotment site about ten feet away from the road. There's lot of nettles around, so even though it wasn't cold exactly, I had a thick pair of trousers on, boots, and a long sleeved jumper and gloves on as I picked the fruit.

Oh and sunglasses, even if the sun wasn't shining.....I'm so accident prone, I tend to get caught in the eye by a rogue, sadistic branch or two.

Luckily I escaped unscathed and came home with these....

 



 

 

These are  tasty desert apples, so what am I going to do with them, plus the rest on the tree that Laura ,my friend and co conspirator at the lottie doesn't want?

 

I've already made a rather nice tarte tatin, a big waldorf salad, and have been taking some into work to eat with lunch. Well, you know what they say..."an apple a day keeps the doctor away."

 

And apparently this proverb from Victorian times is right. Well, so researchers at Oxford University said last Christmas time. Apparently, they calculated that if all adults aged 50 and over here in the UK were prescribed an apple a day , there would be 8,500 fewer deaths from heart attacks and strokes each year.

 

That's good enough for me! But I need some more recipes using dessert apples instead of cooking apples. I've been looking in my two "must go to "books on fruit by the wonderful Nigel Slater and the late, great Jane Grigson, plus the Riverford Farm Book has some good apple recipes in too...but I fancy something new!

 

 

 

 

 

 What's your favourite way of using dessert apples?