Autumn Plenty

Oops, that’s a long time I’ve been away from this blog!

I know life - as it does - took over for a while, but I never thought it was that long. But I have managed to keep up with some of the things I meant to do this autumn. The sloes are in the sloe gin all ready for Christmas. The smell (well you do have to check these things now and again) is tantalizing. I tried to be more sophisticated this year and add less sugar. That didn’t last long. The sugar sort of crept in of its own accord and is now brewing nicely in the spare room/office/preserve cupboard/general junk container. The colour is already gorgeous and the smell is tantalizing. Roll on Christmas!

I’ve also managed to make jams and chutneys. It’s hard growing fruit this high, but a friend in the valley had a glut of plums, and another was given loads of apples. So I’ve made plum jam, plum jam with cardamom (yum, yum) and spiced plum chutney which was supposed to be for presents but is far too tasty and going down fast. I found this recipe while browsing. Highly recommended! http://cooking4chumps.com/Chutney%20Plum%20Recipe.html

The apple chutney ain’t bad, either. I was going to be adventurous and try grape chutney from a friend’s greenhouse, but the grapes died before I got there and turned to mush. Something to try when my own grape vine gets seriously going in the polytunnel.

Ah, the polytunnel. Okay, my plans for carrots and salad all winter long didn’t quite get there. But the nasturtiums look great, and taste pretty good, too. So I’m leaving them in possession at the moment, and sitting in the warmth planning my polytunnel year for 2011.

Number one priority: an irrigation system. I had this romantic idea about tending each plant personally each evening. Even with the iPod at full blast that wasn’t going to happen. Especially in the rain. Horizontal, Welsh mountain rain at that. The kind that feels like hail even when it isn’t. I have quite enough of that with dog walking, thank you very much.

I’m sure I’ve got a bit of old hosepipe to weave in and out and put holes in lying around somewhere ……

So How Did That Happen?

So now I’ve been the proud owner of a fully up-and-running polytunnel for a whole month. And I’ve learnt one or two things.

The first is – it works! It’s amazing. And I love it. I know it’s only a tiny polytunnel, and I’m not exactly going for self-sufficiency, but I can certainly see the potential.

Because I was so delayed, due to bad backs, dog walking, work, age, life …, I was worried my polytunnel might look a bit pathetic for the summer. This is not exactly scientific, but I shoved in what I had got, which wasn’t much: tomato plants I’d been given; an aubergine and a chilli I bought and a knock-down price from a local garden centre after they’d done their best to kill them; four melons (which promptly died) and about six squashes I’d grown from seed, and a few runner beans and peas (also grown from seed). To fill in the enormous gaps, I put in the old staple of nasturtiums, on the principle that they look pretty and are edible, and would keep down any weeds until I’m ready to plant my winter crops of carrots etc.

And then I got busy. Not on polytunnel stuff, but work and life. And somehow, without me even looking, a jungle has taken over in there. I’m still amazed. Halfway up a Welsh mountain, this makes such a difference! I keep on looking at the weedy specimens I’ve kept outside as a sort of control group, and the huge, lush things inside, and I just know that me and my polytunnel are going to be happy for years.

Just one or two things to get sorted. The first is an irrigation system. I didn’t bother when I ordered the polytunnel. I had romantic visions of me and my iPod wandering out each evening to uncoil the hose and water peacefully, in between pulling out a few weeds and picking the odd tomato or so.

Okay: hands up. It doesn’t happen.

Well, it does most of the time, but uncoiling the hose is a faff, I still haven’t got an outside tap, and watering in the rain (and up here in Snowdonia we have serious amounts of rain) after a day of dodging showers, driving through puddles and getting drenched while walking the dog, is not exactly my idea of fun. There are warm sunny evenings when it’s a nice way of unwinding from work, but I think an irrigation system might be better. And then there’s the question of what I do if I go away. Not even a whole polytunnel of tomatoes might lure my neighbours or cat sitters into getting out the hose every day.

So an outside tap and a simple irrigation system, plus timer for holidays, is my next priority.

But these are just teething problems. And in fact, although I was disappointed about not being able to get into full swing this year, it’s actually been quite good in that it’s given me time to get to know my polytunnel and understand its potential and what might work best for me, before I start serious planting.

I’ve now added a few lettuces (also half-dead bargains from the garden centre), and I’m going to plant salad stuff from seed (rocket, yum!) to keep on cropping through the year.

And maybe I’m relaxed about this because the veg box has started again, so I’ve lots of lovely organic, locally grown, freshly picked and dug up veg every week. And am I glad I resisted temptation and didn’t plant courgettes. I love courgettes, but there are only so many one woman and one dreaming-of-non-veggie-sausages dog can eat.

This week I also found a jam-making pan in the local charity shop for £5, while doing my usual root around. I was about to go out and invest in a new one, so I quickly grabbed it with both hands. There’s lots of lovely fruit out there at the moment.

Time to start trying my hand at jams and chutneys!

Polytunnels!

The polytunnel is up at last!

It arrived earlier than I expected, when I was out at work (of course), and landed in twelve enormous pieces in my neighbour’s garden. You see, I live at the end of a street that is no longer a street, which is very good for my privacy, but confuses delivery men no end. They usually end up dumping things with my neighbours, whose cottage is the only one that can be seen from the road.

Luckily, I have lovely neighbours. So my polytunnel went the way of many deliveries, being handed over the wall, piece by piece, with the help of my neighbours’ American visitors, who’d already braved Icelandic volcanic ash to get here. How to see life in Snowdonia!

So I then had twelve pieces of polytunnel sitting in my living room….

I would like to say it was easy, and that I heroically put it up by myself. But I’d be lying. I took one look at the instructions (I don’t do instructions), had a large glass of wine, and phoned a friend. Several friends, in fact. One of whom had done this before (phew).

The first part seemed to take an awful lot of digging holes and measuring, and checking angles via Pythagoras. Not helped by the patch of nettles I’d been carefully preserving to make plant food. Plus the fact that we found the old base of the Victorian end-of-the-garden loo, which was impossible to budge, and means I’ve got a shallow patch of soil that is going to need a raised bed at some point.

The frame went up quite quickly, and suddenly it was real! I spent a few evenings digging and raking and getting out as many stones and bits of slate as possible and chopping down the last few bits of overhanging branches, and then we were ready for the covering. I’d arranged for plenty of friends to come and help for the big day, with homemade chocolate cake all ready. And, of course, after weeks of endless sun, it chose that day to rain. So we just ate the cake.

But the next evening was fine and finally the cover went on, with much huffing and puffing and pausing for thought.

And so now I am the proud owner of an 8ft x 10ft polytunnel. Having turned philosophical after doing my back in, I’m just concentrating on getting used to it for the moment, the plan to concentrate this year on starting things in the summer to grow over winter.

At the moment I’ve got lots of tomatoes, and an aubergine plant I got half price because it was almost dead but appears to be alive. I’ve put in a few squashes that appear to be flourishing, and three melons that seem to have died. And some nasturtians for colour.

Oh, and my vine. I thought long and hard about a vine and what kind to get. Then I remembered a flat I’d rented when I lived in London. It was on the ground floor of an old Victorian house with an old wooden conservatory and a grape vine that came from a cutting from the Hampton Court vine. The grapes, I remember, were delicious: small, black, sweet and juicy. A bit of research, and I discovered there were cuttings from the Hampton Court vine for sale. And not for a king’s ransom, either. And okay, so this isn’t exactly the banks of the Thames, but it’s definitely worth a try!

Which, I discovered, when the vine arrived (via my long suffering neighbours, yet again), meant even more digging. Lots of it. A huge hole outside the polytunnel, to be exact, with drainage and plenty of compost, a touch of limestone and plenty of bone meal. Phoebe the dog got very interested in the bone meal. Which might sound disgusting, but is positively civilized compared to the other things she snuffles out in the nice, newly dug, cat-friendly soil around the polytunnel. (I know, don’t even go there. How can a dog in a pink collar have such disgusting personal habits?)

So far it seems to be working. My vine is flourishing. And I’m enjoying pottering around of an evening, watching my tomatoes grow and plotting for the future. It’s a wonderful space, and its own little world. I’m getting used to opening it up every morning, and watering every night before I shut it up against slugs and the dark.

Time I think for a celebration. The elderflowers are just at their best. Time to try making elderflower champagne again. That was the sound of summer, when I was a little girl: the sound of elderflower champagne bottle popping gently under the sink…

Backs, bread – and polytunnels!

Ah, and I was doing so well!

There I was, listening to my body, in a mature sort of a way, doing a few hours gardening here, a lot more hours on the computer there, and my polytunnel patch was coming along nicely.

I should have known it wouldn’t last. Why do I always go and overdo things? I was so close to clearing the ground one weekend when the sun was shining, so I just went for it. Followed by hours trying to catch up on the computer. Result? Ouch! My back went.

Which means the past weeks have been spent hobbling around with a walking stick and feeling ninety-something instead of fifty-something.

Arg! The indignity of it all.

The worst thing has been the dandelions. I’m quite sure they know I can’t do anything about them. They’ve been blooming with abandon all over my path and garden. Just you wait, you tormenting little monsters, just you wait. I’ve just heard that dandelion wine is rather good…

I suppose one upside has been that I have finally had time to crack the art of making my own sourdough bread. Sort of.

The Comfort-Lover’s guide to making bread: find an amazing, award-winning baker running a business in his kitchen just down the road, and pick up a warm sourdough loaf on the evening dog walk. And only when he goes away to France for three months to write a book on bread making, do you snaffle some of his starter and have a go yourself. And if you want to see why, have a look: http://www.bethesdabakers.com/english/home.html

I have made bread before. Well, actually, my breadmaker has made bread before. The sourdough experience is quite different, as I have discovered. For one thing, it happens over a long time. Not the same as takes a long time. The actual mixing and kneading take hardly any time at all, and the rest is the bread doing its own thing in a corner while you get on with your day.

Which is fine, once you’ve got your head round the idea, got the starter ready to go the day before, and then get the thing going in the morning. (Otherwise you end up like me, eating hot bread at midnight. Not to be recommended if you value your digestive system, even though it is yum). Oh, and always read the instructions. I’d assumed white flour didn’t go near a brown loaf, so my first attempt came out as a fairly credible doorstopper. (That's the one proudly kept for posterity in the photograph) Mind you, it tasted okay as toast. I did start to have cravings for the softest, gooiest sliced white loaf after a bit. But that could just have been my teeth (dodgy at the best of times) going into shock.

My last couple of efforts have been a pride and a delight, though I say so myself. And it’s the best and tastiest breakfast around. Plus it keeps me going until lunch, however long the morning dog walk takes.

But Mick the wonderful baker has definitely NOT lost a customer. I may be very proud of my efforts, and I’ll still carry on feeding my little starter and making a loaf every now and again. I now really appreciate what it takes to make a loaf of bread, and I shall feel more privileged than ever when I can once more stroll over the grassed-over quarry, with its view over the mountains, to collect my loaf, baked at the hands of an expert.

Plus Phoebe the dog gets a mini baguette. Which makes her the happiest collie in town.

If you want to get tips on bread making, recipes etc, then visit Mick’s blog:
http://thepartisanbaker.wordpress.com/

Right, back to the polytunnel ….

Gardening!

Spring finally arrived today. Yipee!

I finally sat in the garden without a fleece this afternoon (obligatory daywear when you live partway up a mountain in Snowdonia), and you could see the buds on the plants and the trees opening by the minute.

Fortunately, however, not the weeds. Well, only some of them. This is because since it stopped snowing, at the end of February, I’ve been in there, trying to get as many out as possible. I had two years’ worth of weeds this year, as gardening and puppies don’t go. Phoebe did try to help last spring, but the collie side went manic, while the spaniel side was heading for Australia. Fortunately, this year she seems to have calmed down a bit, and only joins in when I get particularly enthusiastic with the spade. Although I do keep on unearthing the most disgusting bits of dog chew …..

My polytunnel hasn’t arrived. In fact, it’s nowhere near, at the moment. I’m being philosophical about this. With the ground frozen for so long, I’m going to be late getting it up, so this year is going to be a doing what I can, when I can, year. You see, I want my garden to look nice, as well as start growing veggies, so the first bit I’ve blitzed are the flower beds, which are nearest the house and the bit I see all the time.

Plus the idea is to have friends over for long, hot summer evenings, for red wine and home grown salad and tomatoes to go with the veggie sausages. This has been the idea for the past couple of years. Maybe this year will finally be the much-promised BBQ summer. I live in hope!

Anyhow, whatever happens, this weekend I finally got the flowerbeds sort-of under control (if you don’t look too closely). I’m going to split the plants I’ve already got, like hardy geraniums, aquilegia and sedum, and fill the rest with things like nasturtiums and nigella to keep the weeds down. The aim is for this part of the garden to be colourful and easy to keep, so I can concentrate on the polytunnel, and building a herb spiral.

The ground here is full of slate, and not exactly rich, while the stone walls are slug heaven. I don’t use slug pellets, so my flowers are grown on the principle that if the slugs like them, they don’t get grown again. Plus I don’t have the time or the back, or the energy, to dig in manure all over the garden. And if I don’t dig it in very well indeed, Somebody will eat it.

However, over the past years, I’ve been gradually planting shrubs that will take care of themselves and attract bees, although my poor old lavender plants seem to have died amongst the arctic blasts and will have to be replaced.

With the flowerbeds sorted, it’s time to finally turn full attention on the exciting bit, and get that polytunnel up and going. But that’s for next week. Today, I celebrated spring with a friend by forgetting gardening and going to the beach on Anglesey. We had a beautiful view of Snowdon – still with large patches of snow on top – as we sat in the sun and watched a couple of seals vying for sunbathing position on the rocks.

I did mean to get started on the polytunnel patch when I got home. But I kind of fell asleep in the sun. I’m calling it sun worshiping. And that lovely warm sun hasn’t half been a long time coming.

And anyhow (I keep telling myself) there are light evenings after work, now. Plenty of time to attack the next lot of weeds.

Couch grass and creeping buttercup, here we come …

The Comfort-Lover's Kitchen

This is the Comfort-Lover’s kitchen.

Not, of course, that it ever really looks like this, apart from just after one of my (irregular) house cleaning fits (usually when it’s got to the point I dread passing visitors and meter-readers) or when I am expecting guests. Not, I should add hastily, that I am particularly grubby. Just very good at piling things up ready to put away.

When I was doing up my kitchen I didn’t really think about green, more about it being practical and looking pretty. It’s one end of my living room, you see, both my main living space and the bit everyone sees as they come through the front door. But, thinking about it - as I plan my polytunnel while watching the snow falling, yet again, on my garden - my kitchen really is quite green.

Apart from the shelves (I’d run out of steam by then) and the appliances, which I had anyhow, almost everything is recycled. The units are second-hand, and, apart from the digital scales and the compost crock, and almost everything else is from charity shops. Apart from the gondola, which is from Venice. Long story.

Anyhow, when I was thinking about my kitchen, my main idea was to get rid of the conventional one I had before, which was at least twenty years old, probably the height of fashion at the time (nothing to do with me), but cheap and nasty behind the faux-rustic wooden doors, and generally falling to bits.

The main stress of changing a kitchen, as far as I was concerned, was workmen. I know there are good ones out there, but they are hard to find and usually booked up and as I mostly work at home, and most of the time to deadlines, the thought of having workmen in and out at times not of my choosing did my head in.

Besides, I’m trying to keep the character my home, and my little nineteenth century cottage would originally have just had a range and a few shelves as a kitchen. And, as there was still a standpipe and loo at the bottom of the garden in the 1960s, not a lot else. As in running water, let alone my hot-and-cold-on-tap luxury.

Then I discovered this second-hand/antique furniture shop near where I work when I’m not working at home. And the first thing I saw when I stepped inside was a marble washstand with the most gorgeous tiles. And that was it: that was where my kitchen began. I finally threw out the idea of replacing one kitchen with another, thought out of the box, and went for it. Over the next few months, keeping an eye out every lunch break, I gradually collected the cupboards I needed. I had a rough plan, and my measuring tape went with me everywhere. But half the fun was finding something unexpected and then having to rethink the whole thing. A plate rack appeared. Then the corner cupboard, which holds most of my foodstuffs and which I love. Then a couple of sturdy cupboards for pots and pans etc.

And then the table. A real solid, old-fashioned country kitchen table. I had a quiet fit over that one. At £300 it was by far the most expensive thing in the entire room (and that includes my beautiful 1950s Welsh Dresser), and at least double the price I’d planned. But I’ve watched ‘Grand Designs’, and I know these things happen, and you just have to go with the flow. And am I glad I did. My table is the heart of my kitchen. It’s solid, it’s practical, and every new scratch just adds to the old ones and its character. I chop on it, mix on it, and soon I’ll be making bread on it. And one day I’ll keep my resolve not to dump files and papers on it, too.

Then there are all the bits and pieces. I always keep my eye out in charity shops, whenever I’m passing, knowing that the thing you want will turn up at some point. My coffee sugar and tea containers appeared for £1 each, an entire dinner service for £5. And of course there’s my wonderful butter dish for under a fiver. All of which sit with a glow of triumph on the shelves.
I’ve grown to enjoy the sense of the unexpected, the hunting out of the unusual. The challenge of finding something you just know will be perfect, but then have to move everything around to fit it in. Of course, I have had a handyman in to do bits. I’ve put up shelves in other parts of the house, but I felt it needed a slightly more expert touch for the main room, especially as no wall or ceiling is straight in my cottage, and that takes serious skill. But all in all, it’s meant I’ve been able to do most of it myself.

It still needs little bits done, like a few tiles and more places to hang things. But those will happen, bit-by-bit, when I have time and find the right things. And the best thing I’ve found is that my kitchen is really quite easy to keep clean. I use water and vinegar, and an eco cleaner if I need it. It’s easier because I don’t eat meat, but, in any case, I tend to use chopping boards for everything.

And so that is the Comfort-Lover’s guide to getting the kitchen of your dreams for under £1000. And yes, it did drive me mad at times, and it took me much longer than I thought – although that was partly down to the arrival of a six-week-old puppy three quarters of the way through. Who was very much wanted and planned for, I should add, but just not exactly at that moment, and who took quite a bit of distracting from chewing the entire thing to bits.

But then, if you think about it, the pieces of my kitchen have already survived all kinds of eventualities for years. Most probably all of them will have been a part of families’ lives, the familiar object for a child growing up. The pieces that make up my kitchen have aged with fortitude and grace. And I’m quite certain they’ll survive in style for a good few years yet.

Frogs and Hummus

Spring is in the air!

Well, it was a few days ago when I sat in the garden in the sunshine with my coffee and was almost warm. Suddenly, after all that snow, the first primroses were out and the daffodils beginning to appear between last year’s weeds.

And the first sign of spring means only one thing: frogs. I should perhaps explain that I have two gardens. This is because my cottage is really two cottages knocked into one. So I have the two strips of land that once housed the standpipe on the other side of the road, a veg and flower patch, and the loo at the bottom of the garden. The divisions of the garden went years ago, along with the road and the loo, leaving one big garden and, because I’m the last house in the terrace, a rocky bit round one side.

So I have two ponds. And don’t the local frog population know it. The first sign of spring and they’re in there. So there is always this delicate balance at this time of the year: clearing out the grunge between it being too frozen to venture out there, and the first arrivals for the orgy of the century. And this weekend was it.

All right, so clearing out rotting leaves, miscellaneous plastic bags brought in by the autumn winds, and the odd disgusting dog toy doesn’t exactly count as the comfort-lover’s favourite occupation. So how about a little bribery? I’m a great believer in personal bribery. Nothing too spectacular: chocolate, wine – the usual suspects. Oh, and some good, hot homemade veg-box soup for starters. We had a couple of extra veg-box weeks, after all, this year, and that is definitely a cause for celebration. Although I’m not sure I’ll want to see another cabbage for a while.

And so to the ponds. Well, I didn’t fall in. Not even the plastic-liner one that I mostly did by hand. (Remind me never to go to the North Pole, half an hour of deep freeze was quite enough) I fished out a couple of disgruntled frogs lurking in the mud – or it could have been the same one, very disgruntled – but the cats supervised from a safe distance, and the dog amused herself by renewing her acquaintance with a slimy rubber dumbbell and a disintegrating tennis ball. Yum.

The trouble with going back out into the garden after not looking too hard in its direction since somewhere around Halloween, is that dawning realisation that so much needs to be done. And that’s before I even think about my polytunnel and a herb-spiral.

Oh, well. It’s back to freezing and flurries of snow again this week, so I can safely return into thinking-about-it mode. But safe in the knowledge that when I hear the frogs I’ve done my bit and I’ll have some nice clear water to watch the tadpoles sunning themselves in the shallows when spring finally arrives.

Right, so back to indoor occupations like yoghurt and hummus, which are coming on nicely, especially the hummus. I’ve found a recipe that’s just chickpeas, lemon juice garlic and tahini, which whizzes up in no time and tastes gorgeous. It’s the fresh lemon juice that does it. A real clean hit amongst the yummy gooeyness of the tahini. It’s much tastier and much less gloopy than the stuff I used to buy. I don’t own a pressure cooker (my mum’s used to scare the living daylights out of me), so I’m using tinned chickpeas until I find one I want to invest in. Even then, it’s working out cheaper than my previous supermarket hummus, and which, when I looked at it closely, was half rapeseed oil and water in the first place.

Plus – shame on me for not looking before – I have discovered that my local health food coop (two minutes walk away) buys tahini in bulk and refills your jar. I got talking while my jar was being filled, as you do, and came away with all sorts of ideas for different kinds of hummus to try, including beetroot hummus. And beetroot and chocolate brownies. Now I can’t wait for next year’s annual veg-box beetroot glut. I’ve never been an adventurous cook, but I’m actually getting inspired to try. More research for dark and dreary nights!

Simple Hummus:

2 cans of chickpeas (or around 250g cooked chickpeas)
The juice of two lemons
Two tablespoons tahini
Garlic (the recipe said 1 clove, but I’m an addict and work part of the week at home, so have only the dog to breathe over after lunch, and use 2)
Seasoning to taste

Shove in trusty blender/food processor and whizz until it looks right for you. I like it quite lumpy, so the chickpeas still look a bit like chickpeas, only chopped. Spread onto hot buttered toast, stuff baked potatoes, or stir into soups instead of grated cheese.

And enjoy while waiting for the spring (and frogs) to appear.

The Comfort-Lover's Veg

This is my veg box.

I did start to grow my own veg when I first moved into my house. Great beans, rubbish carrots. When I became ill, that was the first thing to go. And by the time my energy was coming back, I had discovered the wonderful local farm which grows everything from potatoes and leeks, to tomatoes and sweetcorn, with the usual assortment of squashes thrown in.
Which leaves me with a dilemma. I want to grow my own veg, but I’d be growing the same things at the same time as the farm, and I fill my freezer with veg stews and soups as it is. Plus the veg in this veg box is about as fresh as you can get. Everything is dug up or picked the day before you collect, and you can’t get much fresher than that.

Okay, so it’s a fifteen minute drive away. But, like most people who get their veg there, I’ve gradually joined forces with others who live near me (i.e. within walking distance), so usually no one collects every week. Veg share. If I gave up the veg box, there would be plenty of people to take my place and not let me back in. An eighteen month waiting list of people at the last count, and I’m not going back to the end of that queue. No way.

So I’m not giving up my veg box. Despite never quite knowing what’s coming next, the weird squashes and vegetables you’ve never heard of and haven’t a clue what to do with, and curly kale coming out of your ears when it’s in season. And Jerusalem artichokes, which, in my opinion, should be allowed nowhere near polite society.
Sad to say, this is my last veg box but one of the season. This veg is so fresh the boxes only appear during the growing season, from May to January. Hence a freezer packed full of stews and soups to carry me over the lean times when it’s a return to the supermarket or a scurry round the health food shops in search of an organic potato fix. It would, of course, would be exactly the same with any veg I tried to grow here in my garden. In fact worse, because I’m higher up and on much poorer soil to start with.

So I think I’ve just talked myself out of digging and watering and the eternal non-chemical war with slugs. Or maybe not. I was thinking of getting a greenhouse, and pottering about with a few tomatoes. But now I think I might be brave and go for a polytunnel instead. A small one, of course. I like the idea of its own little eco-climate and growing things like grapes and melons and experimenting with the slightly more exotic. I assumed that all polytunnels were of the strictly commercial variety. But apparently not. They come in all shapes and sizes, and I’ll still have room left for a few fruit bushes and trees and an a home for three or four ex-battery hens. (If I get that far). And keep the flowers, of course.

So that’s my plans for the spring sorted out. Which will have to wait as there’s no way I’m digging in soil that’s only just recovering from being snowbound and deep frozen for the past weeks. Meanwhile, I shall do the winter thing of staying in the warm cooking up lots of swede and carrot and potatoes with a few leeks into a big pan of soup for next week. The best packed lunch in town!

And I know spring is on the way. This week, I only had my own veg to collect for once, so I walked down the little track to the farm, on the principle that every walk can be a dog walk and with a youthful collie the more walking opportunities the better. We strolled back with the veg in my arms, dog sniffing happily in the undergrowth. It was one of those still winter evenings when you can just smell spring in the air. A pale sky stretched above us, laced with the black branches of trees. A bird was singing. Can shopping possibly get better than this? Then I discovered that funny thump, thump noise was the sound of me leaving a trail of potatoes behind me in the mud....

Perhaps it was as well there were only the squirrels there to see the ensuing scrabbling about in puddles in the dusk, and they had other things (as in dog) on their minds.

Right, time to cook that veg and have another go at making yoghurt. I was all set last week, but as everybody up here in the mountains had been snowbound for weeks, last weekend was when everybody caught up with each other. It was like Christmas all over again, which was great, except by the time all the visitors had gone, so had the milk. So I had the rest of the chocolate and a glass of wine instead.

It’s still raining outside, up here on my bit of mountain, and plain nasty. So soup and yogurt-making, here I come.

The Comfort-Lover’s Answer to Snow.

Hot buttered toast.

That is this comfort-lover’s answer to snow. Especially after a couple of hours of the daily dog walk spent traipsing up and down the lower slopes of mountainsides covered with the white stuff, while trying to avoid those icy bits in the middle of the path. The up and downside of living on the edge of a village, partway up a mountain in Snowdonia. Beautiful; but oh, so cold!

To be honest, I never in my wildest dreams expected to be making my own butter. Well, at least not so soon. One day, maybe, had been my vague idea. Along with cheese making and creating wine from that grape vine that hasn’t been quite planted yet. Yeah, right.

You see, I have made butter as a child, but I remember that as involving a lot of shaking of a jam jar for very small results, and my wrists and elbows aren’t that young any more. And, besides, I have a life.

So how did I end up with butter as my very first comfort-loving venture? It was the yoghurt, I suppose. Just before the snow hit, I shot down to the nearest town for emergency supplies of dog food and live yogurt (my village does sell yogurt, but not generally of the live kind), along with tahini for my attempt on hummus, and a few other bits and pieces.

Then I dithered. Lots of wonderful kind people gave me recipes and advice, and I trawled my way through the Internet, trying to work out which one I was going to try first. Which is when, quite by accident, I came across instructions for making butter in a blender or food processor.

Now, I love my faithful old food processor. I’ve lost all the blades except the sharp one – plus any other fancy attachments it came with - long ago. But I make all sorts in it, from coleslaw to cakes. Butter, I decided instantly, I had to try.

Being snowed in, my only source of the essential (as in, only) ingredient had to be the local shop. Real double cream is a bit thin on the ground in my village, but this being after Christmas, I pounced on two left-overs on the reduced price shelf, right on their sell-by date. Yoghurt could wait!

The instructions said to leave the cream at room temperature until it reached 55 degrees. I can see I’m going to have to invest in a food thermometer at some point. Being snowed in, I compromised by putting the cartons on a radiator for a bit, keeping an eagle eye on my dog, who – unlike the cats – is not fooled by packaging, and will try anything once. (Or more)

The rest of the instructions were to put the warm cream into the blender/food processor and let it turn on the lowest setting until you heard the tell-tale slosh of the fat separating from the liquid. This, said the instructions, could take up to three hours.

Three hours? Mine took ten minutes, at the most. I’d only just settled down to eat my omelette and there, in my food processor, was a lump of buttery stuff in amongst the buttermilk. I couldn’t believe it could be so easy! Well, there are other bits to do, like pouring off the buttermilk and then ‘washing’ the butter with water, but the food processor did all the action for that, too. Then I bashed the butter around a bit on a plate, in a sort of experimental fashion as I wasn’t entirely sure what I was doing, but that’s what the instructions said. This bit, I think, was to get the last bits of liquid out.

When the bashing stopped being fun, I put the result in a butter dish. It was still quite soft, and I was quite sure it was the way I’d done things and this was how it would stay. Sort of half-butter. Not bad for a first attempt and a good learning experience, ready for next time.

But in the morning, there it was in my fridge. Butter. Real butter! Firm and smooth and mind-blowingly delicious. Creamier than cream itself, but with a clean, delicate taste. Sort of like how I remember unsalted Lurpack, but much tastier.

Wow. Toast from the sourdough loaf from the baker down the road (more about that next time), and my own homemade butter. What a combination! And from two 300ml cartons, I’ve got plenty of the stuff. It’ll last me at least two weeks, if not more. And the thing is, that it’s so delicious and satisfying I’m finding I’m not tempted to eat loads of it. Which is weird, but true.

All right, the cream wasn’t organic or local, and I am left with two plastic cartons. That bit still needs sorting. But this is my first step. And what it has taught me is that even something I thought of as time-consuming and complicated is really quite simple. What did it take? An hour of my time, while watching the TV programme I’d have been watching anyhow. And, in the end, it was fun and gave me a huge buzz of achievement. Alchemy in my very own kitchen! Plus I ended up with something that is still blowing my taste buds away.

And so this is the comfort-lover’s answer to keeping a lively young collie calm(ish) and content during ice and blizzards. Veg soup made from the contents of my veg box (more about that later), local bread, the hummus I whizzed up in two seconds flat in the food processor while the soup was heating up (more about that later, too) and my very own homemade butter.

And next time I’ll have the courage to just shape the butter, so it can properly fit into my wonderful butter dish, which has a space at the top for water to keep the butter cool. My bargain of the month, at under a fiver from my local charity shop. Yipee!

This is the link I found on how to make butter in a blender: http://www.kountrylife.com/content/how21.htm

Here Comes 2010!

I like my comforts.

I love my cottage with its garden and its view of the mountains. I love my fire and I positively adore my central heating. I like nice food, nice clothes and nice shoes, my computer, my digital camera and my iPod. I haven’t yet succumbed to a Wii, but I’m quite sure I’ll love that, too, when I get around to it.

Emily, my faithful little campervan, is one of the best things ever to happen to me. Which means I also love my 1.6 diesel engine and have no intentions of going small and/or electric any time soon. And I do like jetting off to the sun, every now and again.

I like my comforts, but I don’t like the thought that they might be costing the earth. Okay, and I’ve worked my socks off over the years – and cleaned other people’s floors when necessary – to keep my house, and I work hard now. But I don’t like the thought that it might be a famer in India or a family in Africa who are really paying the price. I was always Robin Hood in my childhood fantasies, not the posh one in the corner yelling: ‘let them eat cake!’

Right; so I want to go green, but I want to keep my comfortable life. I’d always vaguely assumed the two were just not compatible, and that’s where I stopped dead in my tracks. And then I was introduced to the charity ‘The Big Green Idea’, who seemed to think it was perfectly possible, and had plenty of hints and tips to help me along my way.
Which means, really, I’ve no excuse.

So for 2010, my new year’s resolution is to go green quietly, in civilised and comfortable mannner. I will not decamp to a yurt or keep pigs in the garden. Hens, maybe: so long as I can keep their feet out of the geraniums and their beaks off the roses. But no pigs. Well, to be perfectly honest, having been a vegetarian for most of my life I wouldn’t exactly know what to do with them.

I will grow herbs and some fruit and veg, but my roses and my Australian bottle-bush are staying put. I haven’t nursed them through Welsh mountain winters just to dig them up now. And, besides, they’re pretty. I like looking at them. They make my garden a joy in summer and a great place for parties.

But this is the middle of winter. And this is my garden.

Gardening? I don’t think so.

In true comfort-lover’s style, I shall, for the moment, start inside. In the warm. With a nice cup of real coffee. (er - not fair trade. Oops! Next time) I shall plan my garden for when the snow finally melts, and I will start my first changes with food. Nice food. Delicious food. This year, I am determined not to do the usual January that-was-one-chocolate-truffle-too-many diet, so that my jeans stop being just that bit too tight. Instead, I’m going concentrate on buying local, avoiding supermarkets and making what I can from scratch (so long as it’s quick, easy and fun).

Instead of giving up on food, my new year’s resolution is to take up the tastiest, healthiest, most varied and exciting meals possible, for a little as possible and as ethically as possible.

This month, our rubbish is going to start being collected fortnightly. So what better time to ditch the plastic? The non-bottle plastic that no one seems to know how to recycle.

Right, so for me, that’s mostly hummus (I’m veggie, I eat mountains of the stuff. It’s the only way I can keep death-by-cheddar at bay) and yoghurt. I’ve made hummus before, so I just need to track down some chick peas and sesame seed paste. The yoghurt I need to think about. My mum used to make it in the 1960s and 70s, with dried milk in an electric thing with its own little pots. It tasted vile. So I need to find the yummiest, scrummiest, cheapest and simplest way of making yoghurt, or I’ll be back on the Greek-style before the month is out.

Time for that coffee and an hour or so in the company of Google, I believe.....