Tag Archives: builders

Preserving Autumn

Autumn is here, dear Reader.  My favourite of all the seasons.  I could wax lyrical about tumbling shades of orange, brown and russet reds, the earthy smell of bonfires, rotund little pumpkins swollen with the last drops of sunshine and the woolly embrace of cardigans and cosy tights.  Somehow I feel so much more at home with autumn.  Perhaps it’s being a redhead and being able to blend in with my surroundings or perhaps it’s simply because autumn gives me an excuse to slow down and appreciate the seasonal changes in the landscape?  Maybe both or neither.  Whatever it is, dear Reader, Keats’ marvellous daydreams of ‘mists and mellow fruitfulness’ resonate with me and cling like little bits of everyday countryside magic.  It’s then that I remember to slow down, take it in and appreciate my lot, a lot more.

Things are beginning to take shape on the house front, although we’ve had our fair share of renovation sagas.  Dramas over the chimney, fireplaces being condemned, dodgy roof tiles, leaky guttering and don’t even get me started on the boiler situation.  Two months after work started, we are still without heating.  Oh and the kitchen isn’t a kitchen anymore either.  Let’s just say it’s rather minimalist, shall we?  Cooking on a camping stove does have some benefits though.  You get to feel like you’re on a camping holiday every day of the week, dear Reader.  Insert the crying emoji here.  Joking aside, it is surprising how much we have managed when it’s been too wet to venture outside to cook on the barbecue.  Those of you who remember the last time I was left with just a camping stove will be pleased to hear that menus have branched out since then.  A little nod of appreciation to the amazing Genevieve Taylor‘s How To Eat Outside: Fabulous Al Fresco Food for BBQs, Bonfires, Camping and More which has been my bible over the last few months.  I am so grateful for her fount of outdoor cookery knowledge.  Who knew you could cook a calzone or make bread on the barbecue?

Still now the house has chimney pots once more after decades without and work starts on the kitchen in a week or two, we are finally moving in the right direction.  The oak floor has been laid in the hallway and the plasterers have skimmed for the next phase.  My very brilliant electrician has had the patience of a saint especially as he isn’t being paid (he’s my Daddy) and I take my hat off to the kitchen cabinet makers who turned up for a last measure up and ended up redesigning the whole kitchen to fit in my new fridge!  I promise I’m not the renovation equivalent of Bridezilla – it’s just that this whole project managing thing is hard work and making decisions on the turn of a sixpence is starting to take its toll.  Each little step forward Jerry and I take, has been about trying to faithfully preserve the past whilst bringing the farmhouse back into the 21st century.  Replumbing, rewiring, rebuilding – there isn’t a ‘re’ we haven’t had to sort out.  So you’ll have to forgive me, dear Reader, if I sound a teensy weensy bit of a nightmare renovator but I simply can’t wait for the woodburners to go in and for the boiler to be fired up for the first time.  The house is in desperate need of drying out and we are definitely in need of something cosy on our little building site, rather than relying on vast quantities of wine and gin to warm us in the evenings when the girls are tucked up in bed with the oil filled radiators on.

With visions of cosiness in mind, I thought it was high time I was rescued from the drudgery of endless tea runs and placating of builders to try out a rather lovely bit of book post which landed on the mat – The Kilner Cookbook.

Kilner has long been synonymous with storing, pickling and preserving seasonal bounty.  Around since 1842, Kilner jars have adorned pantries, larders and kitchen cupboards in almost every household I’ll be bound, dear Reader.  Not just for bottling up pickles, chutneys, preserves and jams, Kilner’s classic clip top pressure sealed jars can be used to cook and store any kind of food or drink.  I’ll bet that you have at least one or two of these glorious jars lurking in your own kitchen, dear Reader.  Such is Kilner’s success.

Marking their 175th anniversary, I found Kilner’s new cookbook to be jam-packed (you’ll excuse the pun I’m sure dear Reader) with recipes to create, make and store so picking out one recipe to share with you was rather a difficult task.  Soups and bircher muesli, cordials and cocktails, layered salads and slaws – honestly, you’d be surprised at how many different ways you can put the humble Kilner to work, dear Reader.  However, misty autumn mornings require sunshine in the kitchen especially if you are cooking on a camping stove and nothing promises that more than a spot of homemade lemon curd.

The recipe in The Kilner Cookbook is simple enough even for the beginner cook and takes next to no time at all.  The only thing you have to watch is the heat under the bowl, otherwise you’ll end up with lemony scrambled egg rather than unctuous lemon curd.  Whisk away and you’ll witness the marvellous alchemy in the bowl as the curd thickens.  Mouthwatering zinginess – perfect for hot buttered toast, scones or crumpets, spooned over Greek yoghurt with hedgerow blackberries before the birds take them all, added to a lemon meringue pie or spread generously in the middle of a Victorian sponge.  The possibilities are endless and it will keep for up to 2 weeks in a Kilner jar in the fridge.

Whilst waiting for the toaster to ping, I set about perusing the book for other gems within its 100 recipes which aim to help us preserve more and reduce food waste.  Imagine my delight when I realised that Kilner have added a spiralizer jar, cocktail shaker, coffee grinder and a butter churner to their vast range too.  175 years on and this Yorkshire born brand with its patented vacuum seal system is still going strong, with plenty more innovative products to boot.  The thought of homemade butter whisked up in a jiffy has already sent me rushing out to add to my Kilner collection.  There’s even a whole host of suggestions for using Kilner jars to make snow globes, lanterns, terrariums and much more on the Kilner website.

With autumn mornings sorted with luscious lemon curd, it was time to turn my attentions to bottling up something for colder, darker evenings.  The garden awash with blackthorn trees doubling over with inky skinned sloes just begging to be picked, I couldn’t resist steeping them for a batch of sloe gin in my new measuring Kilner jar.  Now with some patience, that preserved little tipple will be rather a nice accompaniment reading my book on the sofa by the fire.  That’s once we have a fire, of course.  Well I’ve sorted the gin bit at least, dear Reader….

A big thank you to Ebury Publishing and The Happy Foodie for the lovely book post and Kilner jar.

Episodes in cooking on a camping stove- Part 2

Let there be light - my sparkly new Garden Trading lights.

Let there be light!  My sparkly new French farmhouse style lights from Garden Trading.

 

Episode 2

I left you last week, dear Reader, with a half finished kitchen and a long list of camping stove menus.  Things could only get better from that point on….or so I thought.  However, when darkness fell upon the house (for the second time) as our builders drilled a hole through our electrics, I wondered how I would manage in the glow of camping stove gas and candlelight.  With one wall (new plaster, paint and all) smashed into to find the possible errant screw, the builders prompted left saying that there was nothing they could do until the electrician could come back in 2 days time.  Not ideal.  Being of the non-confrontational sort, I smiled and said with a slightly jumpy giggle “You can’t leave me like this with 2 small children.”  “Well it’s not like we are leaving you with dangerous electrics – the trip switch will just pop loudly if anything else blows”, was the answer.  Reassuring, dear Reader.  In the light (no pun intended, believe me) of our newest drama, I set off to our local farm shop café in search of sustenance, warmth and illumination for the girls.  To be honest, I was determined to find a meal for Primrose and Poppy that wasn’t something along the beans, lentils, chickpeas, chicken, stew or anything cooked on the camping stove front as moaning had reached fever pitch.  We arrived in the hopes of finding a homemade steak and ale pie, only to find that they had stopped serving food ten minutes before we arrived.  Disaster.  With a VERY disgruntled Primrose who reprimanded me for not knowing the opening times of the café off by heart, we returned to cook….yes you guessed it…more chicken.  Chicken, chicken, chicken…..if we eat any more of it, I shall consider taking up residence in the hen house permanently. Continue reading

Episodes in cooking on a camping stove

Lesson 1: make sure you have plenty of camping stove gas

Lesson 1: make sure you have plenty of camping stove gas

Episode 1

Dear Reader, this post is brought to you by a Margot covered in dust and cooking on a camping stove.  Do not be fooled.  I am NOT camping ( Jerry is still trying to find a glamping site that meets all the family’s criteria.  Primrose refuses to wee outdoors and a compost loo counts as en plein air as far as she is concerned)!  But you may wonder why a camping stove is gracing my kitchen table, dear Reader?  Have we suffered yet another power cut?  Have I decided that I can no longer bear to wrestle with the hob that only works if you hit the temperature dial a few times before turning it on?  Well….I can report that currently the village is not suffering from its reputation as a blackout black spot so you can cross power cut off the list of explanations.  We are renovating our kitchen.  Cue a wailing Margot, Primrose constantly moaning about the fact that she can’t have a roast or any fish cakes, Poppy trying to make more noise than the builders and a thankful Jerry who seems to be rather busy at work all of a sudden.  I imagine that the office has never seemed such a place of sanctuary to him!

Monday last week heralded the first day without the beloved heart of our home.  Since we moved to the countryside, we seem to spend ever increasing amounts of time in the kitchen, like they do in The Archers.  Not bottle feeding lambs as yet but we have nursed the odd pigeon and a hedgehog back to health in the warmth of the crematorium-style oven.  With the smoke alarm constantly our background music, it’s where Jerry and I spend our weekends and the majority of our serious drinking time (tea, gin, wine….mostly gin and wine).  My days are spent ‘working’ away on various scribbled bits at the kitchen table too.  You might say, dear Reader, that the kitchen is the place we can be found in if you were to let yourself into our home.  So our hub is the first room we thought to tackle, having survived our first 8 months of rural life.  To help you picture the scene, our kitchen ofday 1 old was a shocker.  Not to look at (on the whole) but to work in.  1 set of electric hobs with only 2 functioning plates, 1 cooker (from the late 70s) that cremates all, despite being set on low temp and kitchen wall cabinets which almost meet the worktop thus preventing use of kettle, toaster or chopping board.  Green gin palace tiles all over the walls, reminiscent of a Victorian pub loo.  A leaky sink that saw me one Sunday in the not too distant past, covered in muck from an exploding u-bend….  I say no more.  At that point, it was me or the kitchen.

With that in mind, I welcomed the team of builders with open arms to fit me a kitchen I could make marmalade in, dry herbs from the ceiling and leave wet clothes draped on the range.  Jerry persuaded them to fit an affordable kitchen instead.  All began well and soon the kitchen was a mere shell of its former self.  Imagine my delight too when the builders uncovered a hidden window behind a bank of wall cabinets.  We had been able to see the window from the outside but it had been blocked up years ago.  The light that burst through into the usually dark and low beamed kitchen was incredible!  A wonderful end to Day 1 in Margot’s kitchen.

Let there be light!

Let there be light!

From this point onwards, my impatience set in and I am now DESPERATE to get my kitchen back, hounding the builders at every turn as to what is going to happen next.  Thankfully, a week in and they haven’t started to despise me quite yet but Stu, the foreman, tends to open the back door with caution each morning, wondering what I will ask him to do next.  On the camping stove front, I have so far managed a catalogue of fairly respectable meals to take us through our first week of kitchen revamp:

  • Sausages and lentils (As I presented this one, Poppy asked me in rather harsh tones, where her ‘bakened’ beans were.  Sausages only go with ‘bakened’ beans and not rabbit droppings apparently)
  • Spaghetti Bolognese (cheat – as I had already made the sauce and frozen it)
  • Risotto con il pollo (sounds more impressive in Italian….)
  • Eggs a la every which way
  • a LOT of chicken based meals
  • oh and some scallops and bacon with balsamic vinegar (fish man took pity on me and sold them at a knockdown price from the back of his fish van), in a desperate bid to cheer Jerry and me up on Friday night when the thought of more chicken was too much to bear.

To be honest, dear Reader, the rate I am going with the stove, I’m thinking of hosting a new dinner party craze – 3 courses from the camping stove.  Could be a winner!  I was even thinking of my own camping stove cookbook – Culinary Tales from Margot’s Stove.  It’s not ALL beans you know..

candles

Many cups of ‘white with 2 sugars’ later, the kitchen is making good progress.  I have even played agony aunt to Miles, the plasterer, as he negotiated a tricky break up with his long distance girlfriend.  Thank goodness I haven’t lost my sense of humour entirely – Thurs night, the builders managed to drive a screw through the electrics, leaving the whole of the ground floor in darkness.  When I protested, I was asked if I had candles as the electrician was on another job and couldn’t come back until the following week.  This hiccup was only made worse by digging out the bottle of cherished 6 o’clock gin, only to find that it was nearly empty.  Darkness for an evening or two, I can live with.  Gin, my dear Reader, I cannot!

Still….you’ll have to be patient and wait for Episode 2 where camping stove cookery starts trending on Twitter and Margot’s half finished kitchen becomes the set of a new and exciting foray into foodie television.  I’ll just leave you with a sneaky peak……

Cabinets going in...progress indeed but STILL so far to go.

Cabinets going in…progress indeed but STILL so far to go.