Archive for the 'little things' Category

James Grieve apple tree

Monday, March 1st, 2010

Credit: Sven Teschke, Büdingen, from Wikipedia

As well as our cherry tree I also bought an apple tree of the James Grieve variety. Wikipedia says:

This is a savoury, juicy apple with strong acidity at first, which then mellows as the fruit matures during September, but the flesh softens soon thereafter. When picked early, it makes a sweet and delicate stewed apple, but then can be used as a dessert apple. [...] James Grieve is a very good apple because it produces fruit every year, is somewhat disease-resistant, and a very good pollenizer for other apples. It may drop early in warm weather. It is also a good apple for making apple juice.

We’re going to plant both of them at the bottom of the garden.

Crazy fish game

Friday, February 19th, 2010

Apparently it’s called “Sushi Bar“. It’s impossible for non-Japanese.

Nani kore?

Friday, February 5th, 2010

Bento box

Thursday, January 21st, 2010

We were given some rather pretty bento boxes by a relative:

But wait, there’s more!

For pudding, stinky cheese from France:

Making soap

Thursday, January 21st, 2010

Monty Don’s guide to making soap

  1. Soap is simpler to make than you might have thought. You’ll need olive oil, organic palm or coconut oil, and beeswax pellets.
  2. Heat the ingredients together on the stove to about 54 degrees centigrade stirring regularly.
  3. Now for the tricky bit. Soap is produced when the oils which are acidic are mixed with lye.
  4. Lye is sodium hydroxide or caustic soda, a powerful alkali. When powdered lye is added to water it heats up, add the hot lye water to the melted oils, taking great care to avoid splashes as these will burn, and stir until the mixture thickens.

  5. After this is done, you can add any colourings, fragrance and softening oils – for example, honey and sweet almond oil.
  6. Pour the raw soap into a mould for setting and curing which is a maturing process needed before the soap is ready and safe to use.
  7. Finally turn the soap out of the mould and cut to the desired shape.

Pheasant pie and tarte tatin

Sunday, January 10th, 2010

A brace of pheasants in a pheasant pie:

Tarte tatin, named after a French hotel:

A very tasty Sunday dinner!

The recipe for pheasant pie is very easy, although somewhat time-consuming. It is adapted from this one. First I simmered the pheasants, onions, carrots (etc) in water and some white wine for a few hours:

Then I separated the meat into some pie dishes and covered it with streaky bacon:

I returned the bones to the stock and boiled it further, then removed all the bones and vegetables from the stock and boiled it hard to reduce the stock and intensify the flavour:

I also added sage, thyme and pepper at this point to get the seasoning right.

Finally pour a little of the stock over the meat (not too much — you can save any stock you don’t use), cover with puff pastry, and cook in the oven 200C for about 20 minutes.

Making amigurumi

Monday, December 7th, 2009

Apparently I’m a “head man”

Tuesday, December 1st, 2009


Hiyoko Sable site …

(Thanks Nobuko!)

Sad penguin

Thursday, October 15th, 2009

Spider season

Wednesday, October 7th, 2009

The BBC says they expect more spiders this autumn and BBC listeners have confirmed it. I’ve noticed many more spiders in the past couple of months. Here is a beautiful example from our garden, just a common garden spider, but she’s looks like a little tiger.

Pickin’ fruit

Saturday, September 5th, 2009

We picked a ton of hedgerow fruit last weekend, just elderberries and brambles.

The canal towpath was covered in these, which are apparently haws, and edible although either good or bad for your heart depending on what you read:

Ha’piki!

Saturday, September 5th, 2009

Photos by N-sama …

Hedgehog

Tuesday, August 11th, 2009


In our back garden.

Eat the slugs little harry-2.

Update

This is a picture of harry-1.

Dave!

Sunday, June 21st, 2009

Day in the garden

Sunday, May 24th, 2009

Best thing, just sitting by the garden all day watching the tiny birds.

Thinking about getting a duck island.

It’s POCKY! (Not Mikado or whatever)

Saturday, April 18th, 2009

Not sure about the whole message there, but anyhow … inspired by this advert, I bought a packet. 59p per packet, and they are quite tiny compared to the real pocky. Also the milk chocolate is horrible compared to the plain chocolate pocky they sell in Japan.

Cakes

Sunday, March 15th, 2009

For Aya:

Previously …

Benkyoshimasu lordshippu

Sunday, March 1st, 2009

Thanks to morisobako and f-yayoi for finding BENINGTON (BENKYOSHIMASU) LORDSHIP gardens …

Benington Lordship Gardens (looks much bigger in the photo than it does in real life) ..

M-kun’s dinkle?

The best bit was the CHICKEN TOILET. N-sama wouldn’t go do OSHINKO because of the chickens by the toilet. Eh tou.

Two pigeons

Saturday, February 7th, 2009

They are pheasants really, but I tricked N-sama into thinking they were pigeons

I’m leaving them to stew in wine overnight:

Birdwatching – the results are in!

Sunday, January 25th, 2009

Blackbirds – 2
Blue tits – 1
Great tits – 2
Sparrows – 5
Long-tailed tits – 3
Robins – 2
Starlings – 2
Wood pigeons – 1
Wrens – 1