Wine fermenting - the background noise is it happening.

 

Moussaka based on nice mr. Fernley Whittingstall’s recipe.

I have tried this recipe using goat or beef, both worked well.  I always use meat that I have previously casseroled.  The texture is good and you need some sauce with it.

 350 g meat not including sauce

3 or 4 long aubergines

1 small onion

2 cloves garlic

thyme, mint, coriander as preferred

150ml milk

150 ml fresh homemade yoghurt

1 egg

2 dessertspoons flour

some cheese grated (sml amount)

I also added home made lecsõ maybe half a cup

Slice aubergines, brush lightly with oil and grill till golden, both sides.  Fry onion and garlic. Chop beef or goat, add to onion, add sauce, tomatoes lecsõ, chillies as you like.

Cook gently to meld flavours and textures.

line deep bowl with aubergine slices, add 1/2 the meat sauce, add another layer of aubergines, and another layer of meat, then cover with one last layer of aubergines, and pour over sauce topping -

which is made by ;-

mix a little cold milk into the flour, when smooth add the rest of the 150 ml, add to this one egg and beat till well mixed, then add the youghurt and some salt.  Heat gently, when thickened and heated through pour over top aubergines and sprinkle on a litttle cheese.

Bake 30-40 mins in hot ish oven.

The top layer of yoghurt, sauce is essential for giving a lightly set slightly sharp accent offsetting the rich meat.  Serve with a green salad.

Vintage, vendemia, vindima

 24 September, we celebrated the last stage of our grape harvest.  We have about 80 or so vines and make both red and white wine in a very mini micro production.  Now we have 15 containers fizzing away and by mid November we  can finally taste the resulting wine.

Baking Day

 Have just submitted our last design plan to Zen Hankook in Korea - we are never very sure how many of our ideas are taken up till we go out to visit, which given Covid, is not likely for a while.

My mum's birthday would have been last month, and it is with her in mind that this design came to fruition.

Old family recipes read like poetry, calming and soothing words - words to welcome a child home from school, phrases with evoke warm kitchens on cold winter afternoons and the joy of returning to the family.

The phrases - so familiar, delicious in themselves - Sifting and scattering, whisking, melting and stirring, cooling. Ingredients of intense flavours, lemon zest and cinnamon, honey, cocoa, vanilla.

Even the writing - faded and uneven from years of use and reference, holds memories within its familiar scrawl, recollections of motherly affection.

With this design I celebrate the preciousness of our mothers, whose love for us throughout our childhood was constant and ever present in their daily acts of kindness and attention.

Praia fluvial September dip.

 Afternoon spent swimming at one of our favourite river beaches, For a while we had it all to ourselves (other than a turtle - or terapin? who sat on a rock on the far side).

5th Sept. Mid 30 degrees and standing over a barbi

 A glut of sweet and hot peppers

Passion fruit jam

 This huge passionfruit vine started out as a small wizzened fruit bought in Aldi in Ludlow in 2018.  I kept it in the fridge over some months till it was even more dried out.  Then brought it with me to Portugal where I finally cut it open and sowed the seeds.  2 years later we are eating its fragrant fruit and have just made some jam.

Azerbajani stuffed vine leaves via Portugal

Feride Buyuran's Dolmas 

This has become a firm favourite with us and is definitely worth doing, I was very impressed with watching Feride Buyuran's recipe, here below is my version, I have added a few variations of my own.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJOEBF5XI-4

She can show you how it's really done!  If you would like my version ...

Out of the blue

It's a wonderful thing when you are surprised by the loveliness of a vegetable plant growing in one's plot.  OK, some might consider it to be technicaly a fruit, but that I think is splitting hairs.  Here is my favourite aubergine, with its gorgeous velvety leaves, with their cockled edges. It  produces many elongated slim aubergines which are delicious and have no hint of bitterness or sharp spines on their calix, in other words an all round good thing.  I am preparing Moussaka tonight - will report back...

Magnum opus

 Well OK maybe not, but still my latest creation does not fail to raise a smile.  When we bought the house we found a large dried out gourd, which seemed like a total waste of time to have grown, but needing a bathroom waste bin we sawed it in 2 and just this week I got round to painting it and afixing legs.  Admittedly it now looks remarkably like a cow's udder - but it has a certain charm.

 Temperatures here are in the mid-30s and so perversely I decided that our next design suggestion for Zen in Korea should be for Christmas.  We work well in advance to get manufacturing deadlines right for the season. 

I wanted to buck the trend of the normal, Christmas themed scarlet /green/ holly/ baubles motifs. Instead I wanted to evoke a winter’s night in a forest.  The wind blows between the trees and mist swirls in the chilled air casting a hazy diffuse aura in the night sky.

I chose 2 simple shapes – here shown is the elongated oblong (just right for a generous handing round of mince pies) and a tall mug.

Pickled cucs - August 8th

 We're well into the preserving season now.  The garden is producing more than we can manage to eat so I'm busily bottling our tomatoes, pickling chillies and cucumbers  and have just purchased a food dehydrator.

These though are a real fav.  In the States they are called refridgerator pickles.  They don't keep for long as they are in a subtle vinegar- not the usual sort that will strip your mouth of sensations with their acidity!

I make a light vinegar- 

1 cup vinegar (6%) 

3 cups water

1 tsp salt

4 tsp sugar

dill, coriander seed - whatever is growing handy.  Boil all this up for 1 min and cool.  In the meantime, chop gherkins into fingers or chunks as you like.  Put in a capacious bowl.  Sprinkle on 1 tsp course sea salt and leave to drain.  After 30mins, pack into sterile jars and pour over pickling brine.  Seal and put in fridge.  Will keep safely for 1 month - but one's loved ones will steal them well before that date. 

5th August - All the constituent parts ready to harvest

 

Finally my first aubergines are ripe and picked.  this year I am growing Asian ones, enlongated, and creamy smooth texture with no bitterness.  Tonight I will of course cook a rat.

water gimchi on a hot day - perfect.

 i love the contradictions, cold juice and searing chilli.  The shock must do great things for your endorphins.

 Rain and more rain  - it has its benefits, now our spring is gushing and gurgling happily.

It's been a while...

 

Now all of our designs are sold in South Korea I have been taking a breather from showing what I am up to on my blog, but a suddenly thought I should put a toe back in the water.  Here is "Painted Olive" a detail from a mug.

Not a cat purring or husband snoring but the noise emmitted by a wasp nest at dusk when the wasps have returned for the night. Shot in my kitchen Lydbury North, Shropshire, England

On this morning's walk...

This year's warm summer has brought out one of my favourites - the Lesser Mottled Dewberry.  It might be a less extravagantly coloured butterfly to some, but I love the subtle markings :-)

My good friend and colleague Wonseok

Wonseok painted this for me.  Here she is adding the final touch.

Soup and seed sowing stragegy

Threat of frosts over and the soil temperature is on the up, time to get sorted with my seed sowing.  My over-wintered lettuces have been great, but suddenly they want to bolt but they make a delicious if vivid soup for lunch.

Some of my favourite things are totally weird

Every year when this honeysuckle flowers in my garden I am bowled over by its strange beauty. Pale glaucus-green leaves and twining stem, creamy, intensely perfumed flowers stacked in unlikely cupped layers, something you'd imagine in Alice in Wonderland not Shropshire.

 

Just recovered from eating this...prawns in kaffir leaf and lemon grass stew

I adore fresh chilli but even for me I thought I'd slightly over done it.  Still it was wonderfully fragrant with fresh kaffir leaves and ginger and a small drop of coconut milk as well, but with the chilli kick of a mule. Korean sticky rice  - 3 grains, one black, one white long grain, one white sticky type together making beautiful purple colour, nicely chewy and nutty taste.

It might be 2nd May but...

I still can't give up the porridge yet.  Jumbo oats cooked for 30mins with muscovado sugar on top, giving that lovely warm feeling inside.

And the evening sun shone in...

One of those perfect suppers, very simple but special for its simplicity, and this one only possible for a short season.  Local Shropshire asparagus, very fresh bantam eggs - scrambled - from my dear friend Nicky's chucks and homemade rye, linseed and millet bread (let me know if you'd like the recipe).  And... new ceramics from my stoneware Studio Collection.

Anchovy purple sprouting broccoli

Thanks to Nigel Slater for his pasta recipe from "Tender" tonight's supper.  But actually despite home grown broccoli I think this would have been better with wild garlic instead, my version was not so heavy on cheese and served in my favourite square stoneware dishes.

Helping winter on its way

One of those really nice gardening tasks to look forward to spring's arrival. Getting my sweet peas underway.  From tiny dry seeds soaked overnight they are transformed into shiny balls to push down into the compost.

Castle Bank in morning mist

Chill but atmospheric, the last stretch of my morning walk, after bright sun up on the hill top the fog is still wallowing in the valley.

If becomes how and when ....

Gradually building up new collection...

Stopped myself from stamping in the icy puddle - but only just!

Pak Eko My favourite Chef

Here is Chef Eko in Mercure Hotel Serpong Jakarta.  He taught me so much about my favourite Indonesian foods.  Each morning breakfast was a delicious adventure.  First a 5 a.m. swim, pepping my system. The a restoring feed on lots of amazing fish with fragrant sauces, each day 3 new recipes to try,  tempeh (fermented bean cake), tofu, chicken and lots of wonderful sambal green chilli salsa. Followed huge quantities of tropical fruit, some we never get in U.K. kedongdong (in Eko's hands), snake skin fruit, asinan mango etc. etc.  I miss my breakfast!

Mercure breakfast compilation

 No wheat, no dairy for 6 weeks - did I miss it? Not one bit with all this on offer.

Home at last...

It might be a shock to the system going from 6 weeks on Equator to tip of Northern hemisphere, but its still amazing to be home walking the hills.

Zen Hankook Indonesia

Just back from spending an amazing 6 weeks developing a new collection of ceramics.  I was lucky enough to work with great people.  This is my team in the shape department. They worked so hard on the project and were enormous fun to be with too.

Colour palette from the garden

Blue Sea

Luminous blue chicory growing wild at the side of the road in Hungary this summer.  Then at noon the flowers close up and hold their secret until dawn the next day.

Last of the summer beans

I've done it again, missed out on a great swath of season.  The summer is always so action packed that I don't manage to keep up with my aims.  So please forgive my absence.  Now in late September we are savouring the last of things from the garden, Cos lettuces, Comice pears, and next up runner beans.  Cutting down the bean stalks always strikes me as a decisive moment in my year, never again in 2016 will I be hot in the sun and I must wait another 11 months to taste the perfect steamed bean,

Happy 100th Birthday Moondog

26th May

A really fascinating musician, not to everybody's taste but I can't help hearing this without shivers tingling up my spine.  Individuals who don't fit a mould are to be celebrated when they can produce something really special.
Here is his short Theme please click on it and listen.
Also a biography from American Spectator by Aaron Goldstein  A Classicist  in a class of his own.t in a Class of His Own

A Classicist in a Class of His Own

Making glaze materials bone ash

Following Saturday's walk on Norbury Hill, and my sheep bone finds, they are now "fired" in my woodburner and here I am bashing them up (finally I put them in my Spong coffee grinder to make a good fine powder).

Kiln cooled

The bisque firing is now finished and the kiln cool enough to open, and despite packing it within an inch of its life, there were no breakages, just lots of new exciting shapes.

New project bubbling up!

Here is a corner of my workshop with all manner of shapes and sizes I've made on the wheel.  Trialling 4 new clays, plus using up a bit of porcelain.

A finely etched line

Click here, then turn pages at lower right hand corner

Essentials of Life...

Favourite designs begin with what we love to use. I made this for Andrew's birthday

 some years ago and we bring it out each afternoon for tea.

February 2016

Is this the winter we didn't have.  If you can count 4 days of cold as such.  I am the last to complain given my love of heat, but now the promise of spring is believable I can now relish some of the nice bits - gathering kindling for an evening nestling next to the woodstove, and rich and meltingly tender shin of beef casserole for supper mmmm.....
 

A quick peek

    This a link to an online version Here

Colleybird and Hellebore

Blackbird or "colley"bird, our much loved garden bird, with its handsome plumage and bright yellow beak, calling its raucous winter alarm, here on my favourite square dish.  

Leaf mosaic

Unfeasibly bright orange berries with cerise seed cases.  Gladdens the heart on a dull November day.

A November find

Wood Blewits found on my early morning walk, Seen from above their russet caps do a very good imitation of a fallen oak or beech leaf, but their beautiful violet blue gills mark them out as very special.  Even their scent is intensely lavenderish.

last colour of 2015

Snatched from the teeth of the storm (Barney) I picked the last few flowers in my garden before they succumbed to the imminent frost. This is definitely the end of Autumn, so these colours I'll hold in my mind to keep me going for months to come.

Small packets of hope

A rare sunny moment in November is to be seized upon!  Today I  planted some more spring bulbs; tiny crocuses (not those big bruisers which seem to have flooded the market), fragrant narcissi, iris reticulata, and as a treat some Snake's head fritillaries. Some to line the path to the orchard and some for under the fruit trees to coincide  with fruit blossom (I hope).

I have a small worry that in doing so I have laid out some nourishing morsels for the hedgehog who regularly wanders that way.

After days and days of dull foggy weather finding a solitary spindle tree full of bright orange seeds in their cerise cases encouraged me to sow a few.  It seems as though they are sticklers for the right conditions to break the dormancy, but it is worth a try.

plums and custard

click on image for a larger helping

Still days of Autumn

The season changes and the subtle light of autumn glows low on the horizon.
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