Half Vacation and Still Snotty

A new visitor

I’m half-way, sorta, through my vacation and also through this miserable cold I caught just beforehand. It’s a great way to waste a vacation and I don’t recommend it.

When I look out the window into the back forty, however, it’s just glorious. The maples at the far side of the field are mellowing to rich yellows and burgundies, and the garden’s an interesting patchwork of color: bright, bright red blueberries, light green swathes of fluffy asparagus ferns, dark brown dirt of empty beds, a browny-yellow vertical patch of dried scarlet runner bean vines, and a brilliant green patch of happily-enjoying-the-cold Egyptian onions. The raspberry bed at the far side is mixed green and yellow and red, the tall sunflowers are brown but still standing like soldiers guarding the west edge of the garden near the compost bins. 

Oops - noticed me with the camera

At night I can see my color-changing solar light easily again, and the bright solar globe near the compost bins. Those will both need to come in for the winter before long, along with the bird bath, which is now just collecting leaves. There’s an ankle-deep carpet of colored leaves on the swath of grass between driveway and kitchen pond. And the garden is full of slow-moving, fall-drunk bumblebees and wasps, trying to grasp the last ripe fruits, the last nectar-producing hardy flowers, before retiring for the winter.

Headed out

The wart has been denuded of its tent and its colored solar lights and its flower pots, except for two small ones that are still gamely blossoming. The furniture out there looks forlorn, but on sunny days the furry beasties are still curling up in the chairs and luxuriating in autumn warmth. The table is covered with gladiola corms, which I’m drying before storing them for the winter in the cellar. They’ll come inside to the chapel where we have our woodstove, for a few days; before tonight, when it’s supposed to start raining.

There’s a breeze today and my windcatchers are circling wildly and glinting beautifully. I may venture out to the garden a little later, and pull and cut back a few more dead plants. Fortunately, my garden is already nearly cleared out because we had such an early frost. All I really need to spend much time doing is weeding the new raspberry patch, cutting back the old raspberry patch, fertilizing the raspberries and fruit trees one last time (timed-released tablets!), and putting hay down in those patches for the winter. Those things will have to wait until bending over for more than a minute doesn’t set off a coughing fit.

New wind thingy

And also, planting the new perennials - if they ever actually arrive. And garlic. But from the looks of the Egyptian onions, it’s a tad too early, at least for the garlic. The perennials – I may be planting those in a snowstorm, the rate it’s going. The one company swears they mailed out a batch of them last week, and still have another batch to send; the other company….well, it’s mostly tulips so I’m not worried about that batch yet, but there is a peony root that I’d like to get into the ground sooner than later. If it would arrive. If.

With a head full of snot (snot and snivel are actually Chinese medicine technical terms), I haven’t been able to taste much for a few days except sweet, sour, etc.; but I can tell you from pre-snot experience that there’s nothing so delicious as a perfectly ripe pear, and the pears from my pear tree are ripening apace. In fact, one basket full is done as of today. I can also tell you that if you cut up pears and add a little water and cook them like you would applesauce, you wind up with an incredibly delicious liquidy pear sauce which, with a little nutmeg grated into it, becomes an extraordinary sauce to pour over a vanilla sponge cake. 

New asparagus has made some lovely scarlet berries

To make pear sauce: in a saucepan, put a little water – how much depends on the size of your pot and how many pears you’ll use – you’re just using the water to keep the pears from catching onto the bottom of the pan before they start liquefying, so you don’t need much.

Wash your pears, which should be ripe; then start slicing off pieces into your pot, discarding the core and stem and any bad spots. We don’t peel them, the skin adds flavor.

Cook these on low, covered, until very very soft. Doesn’t take long, keep an eye on it, stir it once or twice while cooking to be sure it’s not sticking to the bottom of the pan.

When really soft, and while still warm, press the pear goo through a sieve, remove any large pieces of skin, and grate some nutmeg into it. You won’t need sugar, the pears are sweet enough. Stir well, taste for seasoning, and adjust if necessary. Put this into a small jug, as the Brits say, which we would call a pitcher, and set aside or refrigerate if you aren’t going to use it immediately. Can be put into a freezer container (leave ½-inch headspace) and frozen.

What the sunflowers look like now

Nan’s Hot Milk Sponge Cake recipe. This is an old one, very simple, very fast, and surprisingly good. Might date from WWII.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour an 8-inch cake pan.

Beat 2 eggs (you may want to use 3; or 2 jumbo eggs. Eggs tend to be smaller nowadays) with 1 cup sugar until creamy. Add 1 tsp vanilla and ½ tsp salt (not necessary if you’re using salted butter) and beat again. Add 1 cup flour, 1 tsp baking powder, and beat well again. 

In a saucepan that you’ve rinsed with cold water (helps keep the milk from cooking on), heat ½ cup milk and 1 and ½ Tablespoons of butter until the butter is melted. (You can replace milk with fruit juice if you want, say, an orange sponge, or a raspberry sponge). 

Then add this to the flour and egg mixture, and beat until well blended. 

Put the batter into the cake pan and bake 20-30 minutes until a cake wire inserted into center comes out clean. Let cool 5 minutes in pan, then flip over onto a cooling rack.

To eat (cool or warm), cut a nice slice and pour a good serving of pear sauce over it. Try not to repeat more than once a day.

California poppies close up when it's cloudy or dark, but are growing madly in the cold!

When our own pears are gone, I’ll bake pears from the grocer – I usually use Bosc, and you don’t want these to be ripe, but still firm – in sweet wine. To do this, cut them in half the long way, take out stem and core and cut off the blossom “star” at the bottom. Lay them into a baking pan and pour a sweet wine or fruit juice around them, about ½-inch deep in the pan. Over the top, you can grate nutmeg, add slivers of candied ginger, or alter the spices to taste: cinnamon, cloves (gently), coriander, allspice, even a little black ground pepper; and bake at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes. Wicked good with custard sauce or a little heavy cream flavoured with vanilla, or even vanilla ice cream if the pears are served hot.

Pears also make a lovely galette. A galette is a mostly open-faced tart, made to look rustic, and usually cooked on a pizza pan or some such flat cooking sheet. It can be filled with sliced pears, or apples, or peaches, or heaps of blueberries, raspberries, blackberries; or can be made to be savoury, with sliced tomatoes, or onions, for example. 

Marjoram turns a lovely color in the fall

The method is to make a galette crust, which is like a pie crust but more short (higher proportion of butter to flour than a regular pie crust): this is my adaptation of Lydia Shire’s galette crust recipe:

Heat oven to 400 degrees.

Pastry is made with 1 cup flour, 6 Tablespoons of softened butter, worked together until it forms cornmeal-like consistency; then enough cold  water to hold it together well. If it’s warm out, wrap well and let it rest in the frig until your fruit is ready. In our climate, not necessary except in the depths of summer.

Roll and press the pastry out onto your pizza pan (not greased; but use flour on your rolling pin). 

Have ready thinly-sliced fruit, or tomatoes, or onions, etc; or halve cherries and halve or slice strawberries depending on size; berries like blueberries and raspberries can be fresh or frozen, but don’t defrost first if frozen, just break them up so you don’t have one solid chunk.

In the center of your pastry, spread a circle of flour-sugar mixture made of 2 Tablespoons each flour and sugar. Use just flour for a savory galette. Spread the circle out to cover about 6 inches of the center. The flour mixture soaks up juices and keeps the bottom of the crust from getting mucky.

Now spread your slices or whole fruits out in a circle (slices make lovely concentric circles radiating from the middle) until you’ve covered all but the outer 2-3 inches of the pastry. If needed, sprinkle the fruit with sugar, and sprinkle on whatever spices you want to use. Nutmeg is great on pears, as is clove, and slivered bits of  candied ginger; cinnamon and allspice and black pepper is nice on apples; fresh basil leaves or cardamom or nutmeg is nice on peaches, which also like slivered candied ginger; and so on. For savory galettes, think of basil, savory, chili powder, cumin seeds, pepper, salt, garlic powder, and so on.

Using a tableknife or spatula, gently lift the uncovered edge of your pastry up over the filling, so you end up with an 8-10 inch open tart with 2-3 inches of pastry folded over the edges. If making a fruit galette, you can sprinkle this covering edge of pastry with cold water followed by sugar, which will caramelize as it bakes; on a savory galette, you can sprinkle with herbs or grated cheese or flake salt (sparingly), or leave it plain.

Bake 35 – 45 minutes, turning once or twice during cooking.

You will eat more than you think you will, so best to make two!

Now, I’m heading off to the kitchen. Anything I make that cooks won’t have my germs on it, right?

16 October 2019

Blueberries and the critter cemetery