Food, one of my favourite things.

Prepared Chestnuts

Mark and I are not really having the full works this Christmas, not the same without the family but we will probably have a chicken or small turkey if we can find one.
Not a waste when you think of other meals you can get out of it and at this time of year you never know when the next meat delivery boat will be held up.
One thing I didn't want to miss out on was my sausage and chestnut stuffing, no popping in to Morrisons for a lovely bag of vacuum packed chestnuts but a long struggle with shoving them in a very hot oven, slitted of course and then jumping out of my skin when one exploded. I did what the computer told me, wrapped them in a damp tea towel for twenty minutes and they were supposed to be really easy to peel. Ha, were they, no.
About an hour later and I have just enough for my stuffing so they are tucked up in the freezer waiting.

Chestnuts in a tea towel

I did make a Christmas cake back in November and have been feeding it Brandy ever since and then I realised that you can't buy marzipan ready made on Skopelos .

The only thing to do was make my own, which entailed grinding the flaked almonds in a food processor, adding icing and caster sugar, 5 egg yolks, lemon juice and brandy and almond essence and then lots of squishing to make the paste. If I say so myself it has turned out pretty well. It is quite yellow as our eggs are so bright and a bit grainier than ready made but the flavour is great.

The cake waiting for it's icing.

All this Christmas stuff started to make me feel a bit sad and homesick for my family and friends and then in the evening I had a lovely email card from my lovely friend Yo, wishing me a Merry Christmas. It was wonderful and I do bless the internet every day for keeping me in touch with all the people who mean so much to me.

I had a bit of marzipan left over and Mark has a history with too much of the stuff so I found a cake recipe to use some up.

I didn't have any fresh plums so I used some I bottled in the summer and I hope it turns out ok.

Plum and Marzipan Cake.
300g sifted self raising flour
150g butter cut into small cubes
100g caster sugar
zest from one orange
2 eggs beaten
100ml milk
350g plums halved, stoned and sliced
100g marzipan cut into small cubes
cranberry, redcurrant jelly or plum jam
20g toasted almonds
A greased , base lined 8 inch cake tin
Oven 180 C 160 fan, 350F gas 4
Flour and butter to fine breadcrumbs put in large mixing bowl with .sugar and zest.Mix together eggs and milk and stir into flour mixture. It will make quite a stiff batter.Put half into cake tin and cover with half the plum slices. Sprinkle over the marzipan and cover with the rest of batter. Smooth the top and lay the rest of the plum slices on the top.
Bake for 45- 55 minutes until skewer comes out clean.
Place tin on rack and leave to go cold.
Spread the top with the jelly or jam and sprinkle on the toasted almond flakes. ( east to toast, carefully in a dry frying pan)
When completely cold ,dust with icing sugar and make a pig of yourself.

Plum and marzipan cake

Another thing I have been doing is dealing with two carrier bags of mandarins from a friend's tree. They have a superb flavour but are rather pippy so I juiced the lot and I have a litre of juice. It makes the most fabulous jelly now I have found the gelatine in the local supermarket.

We went to the same friend for lunch last week and he had made a sorbet with them, delicious.

Well that is about it for now, I am going to try and shift Daisy from my seat.

Comfy kitten

I would just like to take the opportunity to wish all my family and friends a very Merry Christmas and a happy, healthy and fun 2014. Love to you all.

Rain relief

As you know I got very despondent about the state of the garden during the heat of the summer but in the middle of October we had a few days of rain and I started work on the vegetable garden.
I am very pleased with progress despite help from the kittens, the spring onions are up and growing well although I will have to sow a second spinach patch as the first has grown very patchy with early kitten scratching.
I have covered the carrot box, unfortunately I lost all the carrot seedlings due to enthusiastic digging so I have resown with lettuce and covered it with blue plastic netting. I think I will do the same with the spinach patch.
I have sweet potatoes in the ground and they didn`t grow terribly well during the summer but have now taken off and are flowering like mad. They have very pretty flowers like a small cream and pink morning glory.
I am not at all sure when they should be dug up but I have emailed a friend who grows them so should know soon.

Cat astrophe

Mimi in the sunshine showing her shaved side

I have been working on my vegetable garden although I got a bit down hearted in the heat of Summer and it took a while to get back my enthusiasm.
Mimi and Daisy have grown up to be very handsome cats and are endlessly amusing to watch. They have both been spayed so no more worries about more kittens, I couldn`t stand the strain.
They are  a bit of a pain in the vegetable garden however, Daisy really thinks I want her help and finds the water outlets on the pipes fascinating, she goes along patting at the water.
My lovely carrot box, they are sure, was put there as a posh outside toilet for them both and I am going to have some rather unpleasant work to do before I can use it again.
I have planted the onions about five times, they think it great fun to dig them up.
The spinach is a bit sparse because they have scratched up at least a quarter of it. I will sow some more and see what happens.
Mimi hasa very thick coat and is very like Merkel, she loves being stroked but has to lick you and Daisy has a silkier, finer coat and is a fantastic hunter.
Skopelos has had a problem with rats this year, some empty properties over run with them , but despite the chickens we don`t have a problem except for finding up to three rats in various stages of being eaten on the terrace.
When you go up to lock up the chickens you have to be careful not to lock Daisy in, she has worked out it is a good place for rat catching.
Merkel isn`t much better and here is a photo of her enjoying a rest on one of my seed trays, unfortunately full of busy lizzie seedlings.

Daisy after gardening

August, what garden

I haven`t written a post for a while as I had huge trouble with my computer and it wouldn`t let me write it. I have changed browser and now all is well.
The garden is looking very sad and shrivelled and although I have given it plenty of water it just can`t cope with the heat.

dried up garden

The rest of the land is yellow and dried up and I really can`t bear to show you pictures of the flower garden.

I am just managing to keep the garden alive and it will recover and flower again when we get the autumn rains.

I

scorched olive grove

I have had kilos of tomatoes and have frozen, bottled and eaten so many I am a little sick of them. I have made chutney and there are many more still on the vines although skins are getting harder so I will have to make passata which is a bit of a pain sieving it.

A very good friend of mine in the UK has suggested I put up recipes if I use things in a glut so I will try to do that.

I have fried aubergine slices and frozen them ready for moussaka and I have frozen cubed peppers ready for winter.

I have taken a recent picture of Mimi, Daisy was no where to be seen, probably off ratting.

a not so little Mimi

July Harvests

I realised when my son Richard told me, that I haven`t written a blog in a long time, in fact a month, so if there is anyone still out there trying to read it I will tell you what I have been doing.
There isn`t much to do in the garden at the moment because the ground is very dry and solid and it is taking a lot of time dealing with all the produce.
It started with the apricot jam and then we had the courgette glut, thank goodness they have dropped back to a manageable level and the tomato and courgette chutney is lovely.
I have picked so many kilos of tomatoes and bottled them for the winter that I am a bit sick of doing them and I have bottled apricots and peaches.
I have pears to bottle next and there are loads of aubergines too. I will fry some slices of aubergine and fry and freeze them ready for winter moussaka and I have been given a recipe for a spicy aubergine chutney which sounds good.
The cupboard in the store room is filling up nicely and the shelves in the kitchen are full.

Robert and Stephen brought us some yellow and dark plums from their garden at Mourtero and I have made jam with them but apricot is my favourite.
The pumpkins are growing well and when I harvest them I will hang them in onion bags in the store.



aubergines



a selection of chilli peppers

It is a shame all the bottling and jamming has to take place when it is so hot but I do go to aquafit twice a week which is good fun and I hope is helping to keep down the beer and peanut belly I would definately have otherwise.

Too much everything

I haven`t written my blog for a while as it has been so hot ( 31 ) on Monday and I have spent my time at water aerobics or sitting in front of the fan trying to think of other ways to use courgettes. Mark and I think we are going to write a book of a thousand ways to use them.
The garden is growing very well and needs quite a lot of water every night.
We are getting lots of tomatoes and we have had peppers and the chilli peppers are growing so well I will have to pot them on.
As I am writing this I have courgette and tomato chutney simmering away and I have just picked a kilo and a half of apricots from a tree that I didn`t know was there until today. More jam.



the spreading garden



big greek tomatoes

The squash and pumpkins are spreading everywhere and I have to keep directing the vines so they don`t swamp things.



butternut squash and pumpkins

 There are an enormous amount of crickets and grasshoppers around at the moment, they range from minute to huge and some find their way indoors. I have no idea what this is exactly but it likes the sitting room.



Merkel and babies exhausted in the heat

 

Start of the harvest

I have been busy this week making apricot jam, not as much as last year as the crop was not nearly as good. I have put away 8 pots which will please one of my daughters, she loves it.

Tonight I also bottled 4 jars of apricots for the winter and will get some peaches in the next few days to bottle. Tinned fruit is scarce here, very large tins of pineapple and  fruit salad and that is about it. I do miss raspberries, good english strawberries and rhubarb but figs and lemons and oranges are very good.

We also have a bit of a glut with cucumbers and courgettes and are having to be quite creative. I pickled some cucumber slices and I tried Jamie Olivers recipe for cucumber ribbons in a soy sauce, ginger, lime and chilli dressing.
We have had stuffed courgettes, courgette cake, a very nice penne, courgette and blue cheese bake and tomorrow I am making a soup.

The tomatoes are just starting now, the cherry tomatoes on the terrace are nice and slightly acidic and the tigerella are lovely, sweet and very pretty with the stripes.
The huge greek tomatoes are doing well but sadly not nearly as well as Filios`s. Must be the copious amounts of manure he puts in the very deep holes. Next year my preparation must be better.
It is getting very hot now and the only comfortable time to work in the garden is in the evening when there is lots of watering to do.


tigerella tomato

 We still have cabbage, swedes, rocket and spinach and the butternut squash and pumpkins are spreading all over one side of the garden.
The aubergines are flowering well and we have had the first pepper, loads coming soon.

After the storm

I haven`t blogged for a couple of days as we had storms and heavy rain and had to switch router off. It also gave me a chance to sit and finish the down under blanket. It is huge, it took ages to go round and round the border but I am very pleased with it and hope Richard and Nikki love it when it eventually reaches them.


over the bench



 I am disappointed with pictures of it, sun too bright and too big to put on washing line. Anyway, here are the pics I took of finished blanket.


over the picnic table

The storm has been great for the garden and everything is growing so fast, I will be making the first of the apricot jam tomorrow and I think we should have enough for quite a few pots.

The cherry tomatoes are growing really well, the first one is starting to turn red.

Big greek tomatoes


The butternut squash are spreading out across the garden as are the greek pumpkins and you can see the baby squash forming. The first green peppers are growing well and the chilli peppers on the terrace are flowering and making baby peppers. It will be quite exciting trying them as they were mixed seed so we don`t know how hot they will be.


I seem to have got stuck on caption size writing and it doesn`t want to change back, will try to remedy this next time.





Everything is growing

Every morning when I look at the vegetable garden I can see a change. We are beginning to get a glut of courgettes and although they are lovely thinly sliced in a salad there is only so much you can eat in a day.


courgettes

 Mark made some lovely stuffed courgettes the other night and I made courgette fritters with tzadsiki. Today I am making a courgette cake, we will see.....


tomatoes, cucumbers,aubergines and peppers

The pots on the terrace are covered in tomatoes but we had to lift them down as we had a very strong easterly wind yesterday but they will go back up today. The tigerella tomatoes are getting very stripy and I can`t wait to see them when they are ripe.
The kittens are growing very fast and eat a ton of food, we bought them posh new bowls and then today Merkel has decided to move them back to the log pile. I am sure they will turn up when they get hungry although Merkel seems to think they should be eating rat judging by the number she has left out by the store. Doesn`t stop her showing up constantly looking for more food though.




kittens with one of the new bowls

The apricots are coming on nicely and I should be making more jam in a couple of weeks although there won`t be as many as last year because Filios pruned it quite hard. It is my favourite jam so I will have to hide it if the family make it over this year. 

The Down Under blanket

I haven`t had time this last week ,with the Music Festival and having Mick the Van here , to take pictures of the garden so today I am going to do a blog on a blanket.
I have to finish it in the next three weeks so that Mick can take it to the UK on his next run as it is so expensive to post it from Greece.
My son, Richard, has commissioned this kingsize blanket and I thought I would tell you how it is made up.
There are 30 balls of wool, 208 squares, 2566 threads to be sewn in. Then 8-10 rows of border and an edging.
It has taken quite a while to get this far and I have finished the squares and am putting it together.


Just a few of the bundles , 13 in each

I am about a third of the way through crocheting them together and then I can start the border.



Part of blanket

I really hope Richard likes it as it is a bit of a worry when someone can`t choose all the colours. I don`t like to work with less than 9 colours, sometimes 6 ,but it is very much a matter of personal taste.
Hopefully I can get in finished and back to the UK and send it on its way where I hope it will give years of pleasure.

Festival and first fruit

I haven`t had time to write anything for a few days as we have been very busy. Mark has had rehearsals for the music festival and the first concert was last night. The choir followed by a fourteen year old who plays bouzouki with a man on guitar, he was excellent and I am sure will make a career out of it. The choir were very good too and you really would have thought they had been together for much longer.
For those of you that are interested in Mimi and Daisy`s progress here are the latest pictures.


snoozing with mum



Daisy



Mimi



 Yesterday I made a big plate pasty using one of the swedes I was told you can`t grow here and we had a salad using my first cucumber and a gold courgette. They are lovely sliced very thinly in a salad.


gold courgette



big Greek tomatoes



The other veg are doing very well and I have both green and gold courgettes and very good cabbages growing in a shady corner.

It has been a very hot May and although I have irrigation on the vegetable garden there is a lot of watering to do.

The flower garden which was looking lovely is beginning to shrivel up and I will have to rethink the planting for next year.



 

Hot and hectic May

I haven`t written anything for a few days because our lives have been a bit busier than usual. Merkel took her kittens away to a pile of wood in Filios`s yard and I have been trying to keep an eye on them but Merkel wouldn`t let them come out to eat.
She has now moved them back into the store which should make things simpler.
Mark has rigged up plastic netting on the kitchen window and door to stop them coming in as Bonnie can`t stand them.
Yesterday was a family name day in the little church so there were a lot of people here for a service and then some ladies in the kitchen making coffee etc. Lots of lovely cakes and turkish delight and people told me they liked the flower garden which was nice.
Mick, the guy who brought our stuff out to Greece last year was supposed to be arriving today to take a Dutch lady, who has lived here for a long time, back to Holland. We got a call to say his back axle had broken near Larissa on the mainland and I really don`t know how long it will take to fix.
The vegetable garden is growing like crazy and I thought I would put up two pictures, one taken three days ago and one taken five minutes ago so you can see the difference.


Three days ago



Today

I think I will be picking our first cucumbers in about a week and I have green and gold courgettes which will ready by Saturday. Our first french ( squeaky beans) are also ready.
The tomatoes on the pillars on the terrace are doing really well and you can see tiny tomatoes on the tigerella, the big stripy tomato. The tumbler cherry tomatoes are starting to come over the edges of the pots and look good too.

Tomato pots

Visit to Robert and Stephen



Beautiful bougainvillea and lavender below the terrace

The garden group had their last visit for this season to Mourtero to see the gardens of Robert and Stephen. They have two gardens although they flow together by winding pathways and steps. It is a lot of garden to look after and has very distinct areas.
There is a lovely secret garden by one of the kalivis and they have some of the biggest lavenders I have ever seen.
There is a flatter area with fruit trees and  vegetable beds and a huge cherry tree which is a lovely shape and gives welcome shade.



Lemon trees and one of the terraces

They have fabulous lemon trees with the biggest lemons I have ever seen and a grape vine which is doing very well. There is some lovely planting around the terrace and it is a very peaceful place to be.
We had some refreshments and swapped some plants and I came home with a jalepeno pepper, a black cherry tomato and a lemon cucumber.
It was a great end to our first season and hopefully we can do it all again in the Autumn and get more cuttings and plants etc.



Getting back to some kind of normal

We have had an exhausting few days. Merkel went to be spayed which meant catching her as she finished her last meal of the day and shoving her into a cat box.
Then we had to grab the kittens and put them in another box which then sat in the bath all night. It was away from Bonnie and dark and quiet.
The vet asked us to get Merkel to her just after 9.00 so Mark took her down and we were expecting to collect her an hour or so later. The vet didn`t do the op until 1.30 and she came home about 3.00.
I was getting a little concerned about the kittens as they hadn`t had a feed since the previous evening but they were fine and did take a little food and water from my finger through the day.
Merkel was yowling like crazy in the box but I took the kittens back at about 6.00 and she was very pleased to see them although still very wobbly.
She had eaten and fed them by about 10.00 and they all went to sleep in their box.
Today Mimi ( mini Merkel ) and Daisy have had their own plates of food and Mimi is a pig like her Mum.
Daisy is slower and more dainty so you have to stay and fend off Mimi and Merkel.
They have been down on the terrace and to Bonnie`s horror, up to the kitchen door!



Daisy in front, Mimi behind

Any way, they are the most dreadful time wasters and there is huge amount of strimming to be done. I did some this afternoon and must make myself do some more after garden group tomorrow.
The vegetable garden seems to change every day and there are already small french beans and gold courgettes and it won`t be long until we have our first cucumber of the season.
The tomatoes in pots on the terrace have doubled in size and have loads of flowers on them.
Good job we like tomatoes.

Kittens are worse than kids



kittens in the bread oven



Merkel moved the kittens back to the bread oven a couple of days ago as we had a thunder storm and it was a bit wet in the bramble patch.
Yesterday much to her noisy consternation, one of the kittens got down to floor level and couldn`t get back. I put it back and they seemed to settle down.
Last night we heard the most dreadful cat fight going on and Merkel saw off a tom cat.
I looked out just before I went to bed and he was back so I decided to sleep on the sofa with the window open so I could hear anything happening. Apart from more thunder, all was quiet.
This morning Mark met a kitten on the terrace and Merkel was a bit frantic as she couldn`t stop them wandering. We put the box she had them in on the floor and they settled down for a while.
The kittens can climb out of the box and were very exposed so we moved the box in to Filios`s store and shut the door enough to stop a tom cat getting in.
It won`t stop the kittens or Merkel getting out so I think the next few days could be pretty exciting. I don`t know about Merkel but I am exhausted.



sleepy family



exploring the store



at the door