Category: Autumn

  • Wine barm bread

    It’s funny how things spread. My twitter pal Jessica read the earlier post on how to use a cider barm to make sourdough bread. Serendipity is a wonderful thing as Jessica was racking wine that day. So Jessica contacted me on Twitter… And so Jessica did. I’m very grateful to Jessica who sent the pictures…

  • Sourdough cider

    When I saw on twitter that my Twitter chum Julia Moore had: Decided adding #sourdough culture to some of our freshly pressed apples would be one experiment too far I was intrigued and showed her my Bouza bread beer experiment post. Despite my references to ‘vomit’, Julia changed her mind and took up the challenge.…

  • November Posy

    November Posy The weather forecasters are promising a drop in temperatures and frosts next week. This will put an end to some of the flowers still soldiering on in the garden, giving their all. We are usually lucky here: we live on a peninsula and so we’re surrounded by the sea; our frosts are mostly…

  • Apple Day Recipes

    Today is the day to celebrate the wonderful variety and bounty that apples give us. To help us celebrate, here’s a list of some of my favourite recipes. Apple recipes Apple cider vinegar A doddle to make, very healthy for you and lots of fun. You can use damaged apples, or scraps. So this is…

  • Orange & coffee liqueur recipe

    Delightfully simple to make: satisfyingly complex to taste. That sums up this grand liqueur which you could make now and enjoy over the festive season. If you can bear to part with some, it’d make an ideal present for a very special person. The aroma of the brew is what a perfect sunset should smell…

  • How to make vanilla extract

    This is so simple to do, you’ll wonder why you ever spent the money on the shop stuff. The picture shows my 500ml bottle of vanilla extract. Here’s how I make it… Method Take 6 to 8 vanilla pods and split them with a sharp knife, leaving them just attached at one end. Pop them…

  • Easy courgette cake recipe

    What to do with all those courgettes now that we’re having a summer at last? Here at Legge Towers, the courgette harvest is ‘extensive’. Not surprising as we have eight plants for the fruit and six for the flowers… And the flower producing plants also produce some fruit too.  So I had a good trawl…

  • How to make Guanciale, cured pork cheek

    Guanciale is the perfect preserved pork. It’s wonderfully versatile & tasty, easy to make, economical to buy & use and looks brilliant. What’s not to like about that? You can see what I made in the picture above: I’m so pleased with the result. Guanciale means “pillow” in Italian, the reason should be obvious. My…

  • Potato soda bread recipe with cheese, garlic & thyme

    Kaethe from SPUDS (The Sustainable Potatoes United Development Study!) in Ireland said: Cheesy, garlicky soda bread made w/blight resistant Blue Danubes sounds fab, but where is the recipe? Any new take on soda bread ROCKS for us Irish, especially if it incorporates SPUDS…Send a link pronto! Who can resist a request like that? Not me…