Apples, bathrooms, tinsel n' cider

Christmas coming, things to find, MOT on the van looming, carting stuff for the Nervous Bob till it runs out... rush. Rush, Rush. Again.

But, wahay!
Amidst all this I have somehow created a bathroom that I'm getting real pleased about! A bath that I actually fit in, a toilet that flushes, and a mirror in front of a stable sink that I can see to shave in. When I get a moment... With; count 'em - TWO taps!

Just the tiling, ceiling. lights to go. And a few more floor tiles. And some more stuff that I can't remember without some kind of list.

House been cleaned and decorated too despite the mess, all thanks to the lovely Lynda. An angel sent from heaven I'm told. How christmassy. Busy weekend ahead of parties and gigs, so tonight's the time to deal with the heaving quantities of apples that have languished for the past week or two whilst I played plumber. First up I guess is another batch of chutney before racking off the cider. It's all getting very exciting!

So - for those that don't receive a jar, here's my own personal recipe for the eradication of the excess of eating apples this year has brought. I have also used other recipes for all the cooking apples that didn't become pies and cider....

Spicy Apple Chutney

Ingredients.

2.5kg cored and peeled eating apples, chopped (type unknown, largish, red n' yellowish but most importantly flavoursome n' free...)
1 large onion
500g white sugar
125g crystalized ginger, chopped
0.5 litres of white vinegar
8-10 little dried chillies, chopped (bought on special at Julian Graves on a whim - they go a looonnggg way!)
1 teaspoon peppercorns
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon turmeric
1/2 teaspoon paprika


Method.

Chop up the apples, ginger, and onion and place in a pan, add the sugar and chillies, pour over most of the vinegar and begin warming. Meanwhile combine the other ingredients with a pestle and mortar and dry roast them in a small frying pan for a minute or so before adding to the apples. Bring to the boil, and then turn down to simmer for about one hour. I like to stop cooking it whilst there's still some lumps left. Eating apples soften quickly and produce a fair amount of liquid - add more vinegar if required.

Clean some jars and warm them in the oven, bottle the chutney. Resist eating it for maybe a month... Try to make enough to last a year.


I've made a few batches of this so far - adapted from a mango chutney recipe. It's warm, lovely, and yellow.
Tried juniper berries in one batch. That worked but make sure they're crushed. More chillies in the last batch. That worked too!

Lives Lived.

For some alone's the only way that they desire to be.
To never feel the waking warmth of someone's company.
Why bother listening if there's nothing heard to share?
Why keep on looking if you stand alone and stare?
Wasted life is drumming to the beat of just one heart,
Love more complete together, than we ever were apart.

I ain't never not wanted to share my life with you.
Take everything and more, for there's more enough for two.
I ain't never not wanted to spend your life with me.
From the moment we first met, until ashes on the sea.


(Still haven't found that Blue Peter badge. And I didn't get it for poetry...)

Pressin' Things

Well - been absent for a while, rushing about.
Bathroom's sinking. Everything bought and paid except the very floor to stand it all on; so there's a lovely suite sitting in the van. Oh dear.

Only one thing to do. Ignore it. So, yesterday, all hands turned to the need to crush the mountains of poor defenseless apples that have been gathering since I mentioned to the neighbourhood that I was building a press. And after a couple of trial pressings, a small posse of villagers descended to process the apples into muslin wrapped cheeses, in preparation for squeezing. Barrels of Bramleys from our tree, mixed with eating apples various. Friends sitting in the dining room, cutting out the bad bits, chunk chopping, minced in the Moulinex food processor, Three drums to each cheese. Five cheeses to each pressing and out flows a gallon of tasty, cloudy, golden brown, juice each time.
Lovely. Five gallons flow between the start of the Archers Omnibus and the beginning of the Food Programme. The bulk of which was added to the three gallons pressed last week and already fermenting into cider, the ultimate apple preserve!

After clearance of the worst of the frenzied apple cull, enough space discovered for a lunch of olive bread, apple chutney and brie - all washed down with a little of the morning's liquid produce.

No time to rest for long, clocks changed, early darkness promised. A barrel of dry apple pulp is taken to the allotment for composting and the empty barrel - and barrow - is brim filled with the sweetest of windfall eating apples. And here we go again...

Two and one half gallons of sweet apple juice squeezed out before the light fades. Working up a sweat in the crisp clear early evening. Some more juice added to the cider barrel, some bottled, the rest sacrificed to a pan on the stove for a slightly too warm attempt at pasturising. Still very drinkable although some of the brightness of colour and flavour lost. Lessons learned. More clearing and cleaning, tea cooked, and what a surprise?

Yet more apple juice.

Dodgy poetry

Whilst searching for my Blue Peter badge last night, still un-found which is hardly surprising, I happened across some decidedly dodgy poetry. By way of explanation, I once worked soul destroying weekends collecting eggs in a battery farm. The chickens were the brightest creatures there. As the sole member of the workforce with the requisite number of fingers and toes for decimal calculations, I recorded the egg production rates on little slips. To keep myself amused, I doodled on the back of them.

Here's a couple of these recently found archives...

Wherever I go, so does me go.
I hope you never meet my alter-ego.

and,

Dog chews Dog

It's dog eats dog, and Jane eats Peter,
Pat just sits where Peter fell.
Pat the dog has tasted Peter,
Loves his flavour, loves his smell.
But poor old Pat has none of Peter,
Hungry Jane eats Pat as well.

Probably why I don't write songs very often! Hopefully I won't find anymore when I resume the Blue Peter badge search...

Secrets of Speed on the Suffolk border.

The sun burnt bright this weekend. Shirt off, diggin' my potatoes. And onions. "Bikini girls with Machine guns" playing on the iPod set to Genius mode – finding songs I never knew I had.

Late afternoon, fellow hot-rodder Glen arrives and discusses the dirt a while. Helps drag home the uprooted crop in exchange for a cup of tea. And vegetable crumble with roasties. And a skiffle night out. And crackers, cheese, and home-made pickles washed down with Jim Beam into the small hours. And so to bed. Pickled.

Waking, back aching, more sunshine a-plenty. Sunday morning, off to meet Charlie Yapp at our local early Ford vendors, with fellow modifiers and rebuilders of all things flathead.

The Secrets of Speed Society on the Suffolk border. Enthusiastic fellow, purveyor of Scalded Dog speed equipment, fresh in from the Mid-west, happy to share our obsessions with obsolete engines and valve gear.


All aboard, we motored over for tea and buns with some bloke - name o' Pete. Sitting amongst the apple trees. Let us sit in his racing T's and make like we were going reeee-al fast.

Lovely. Sun sinking and we scatter into the approaching evening. Coupes and roadsters to the south, two lonely Cee-dans chugging northwards. Couldn't resist a hammer down blast past Nick's Vicky - rushing ahead out of sight just to pull over and sit on the luggage rack reading my complimentary copy of "Secrets" magazine.

Blust, 'ow we larfed bor!