Adventure 47: Friends, Foragey Types and Countrymen, lend me your ears...

Friends, foraging types and countrymen, lend me your ears...

Its been a mad, hectic start in my new job. Absolutely smashing school, with great girls - but I've found zero time to do anything for myself (save reading the occasional novel) let alone indulge my favourite foraging hobby. I've been trying hard to work out recently what has been missing in my life. Things are going well: I've got a nice job, lovely husband, cute but needy cat - but its the hobby I miss. Going for walks to clear my head, looking up recipes on the i pad whilst watching TV in the evenings, reading round the subject and making a mess (and hopefully some nice things too, in our kitchen)....

So, I've made a belated new year's resolution: to make the time. Because, frankly, you only live once, and what's the point of not enjoying the things you love? As one very experienced colleague and friend from my first school I worked at (nearly four years ago now - blimey) said: You work to live, not live to work. And frankly, she was right.

So, Western Weeds is back. The sun is not shining as such, but it is a fine day here in Devon despite the gales that have been causing rail chaos down this neck of the woods. And before I head out to see what I can find this afternoon, I thought I would launch Western Weeds 2.0 with a big hello to you all and to give you a brief update on what I've been up to since I last posted six months ago.


1) I've been spoiled with some rather awesome foragey gifts over Christmas and my birthday. 

Firstly, over Christmas I received this rather gorgeous collection of stuff from my parents (sorry, I mean Father Christmas... lol). Some gorgeous Kilner jars and bottles for making stuff up in and a couple of books: one on foraging (not much new in there, but an interesting section on greens, which is something I'd really like to expand onto) and one on natural remedies which is quite engaging. Christmas seems a long time ago now, but was all in all very enjoyable catching up with my family including my two grandfathers. I even taught one what a selfie was - he seemed vaguely impressed...

Had a very enjoyable afternoon with my parents and Levi wandering around the Botanical Gardens at Kew (http://www.kew.org/), looking at all the plants, many of which I enjoyed back last summer whilst in Zanzibar.

My second awesome foraging gift was a joint effort from a couple of friends of ours - Owain and Helen for my birthday back in January.

I was honestly so touched by their thoughtfulness - I got a foraging bag, gloves, clippers and some little bags to put stuff in - and if you're reading this guys, it is one of the BEST set of presents I've ever got. We had a wonderful day out on Dartmoor, near Ivybridge. It was a bitterly cold day (we even got a little bit sleeted on) but the views were fantastic and we enjoyed an excellent pint by a fire in one of the local pubs (http://www.dukeofcornwallpub.co.uk/).

2) I've done a few trips since I last posted:

In October we went Looe in Cornwall: cold and foggy, but with some nice cliff walks to Polperro and some nice warm pubs.

In February we did a short city break to Berlin. Fantastic place: lots of great breweries (we particularly recommend Brauhaus Georgbraeu and Pfefferbraeu), Currywurst and great sites like the Brandenburg Gate and the Fernsehturm.

My parents came to visit me a month ago and we did some nice walking on the moors near Postbridge and walked up Leather Tor which boasts some stunning views and made friends with some Dartmoor Ponies.

And most recently (it sort of gave me the idea of getting back to doing Western Weeds) we've just come back from a couple of days in Dartmoor, walking from Okehampton to Tavistock as part of the West Devon Way. The weather was quite rainy, but it is so beautiful round there - moody skies, endless moor, rocky tors, Lydford Gorge, castles, etc. We both really recommend the following pubs on the route, namely The Castle Inn and The Whitchurch Inn for ambiance, food and beer.

We spotted lots of wild garlic on our travels (my lord, is it that time of year again!) and so I thought, the blog needs to come back to soothe this niggling foraging itch that I have now that Spring is finally here.

3)  Sloe Gin

I have been finishing my first batch of sloe gin (from late September) and starting up a second (cos its so scrumptious, you need to stagger these things you know, otherwise you will be sobbing mid summer, crying "why is there no frigging gin left?" THANK GOD you can freeze the little buggers (and this saves you having to spent hours with a needle pricking them to make the sloe gin work its magic... sloe gin recipe here)

And whilst I was cleaning through the cupboards I found my pickled helicopter tree things from two years ago. They're still fine - the vinegar has preserved them - but they're a bit chewy - not sure I'll repeat that particular foraging experiment (otherwise, surely everyone would be making them... )

4) My little herb garden

And finally, lamenting the lack of a garden I recently decided to set up a window herb garden in my kitchen. I rescued some bedraggled looking orgeano and rosemary from Wilkos (50p each a bargain) and have been trying to grow from scratch parsely, sage and chives.

And I've also become somewhat interested in gardening folklore having picked up a couple of interesting looking books. In particular I have found Margaret Baker's book very interesting as it discusses growing things according to the moon cycles and other such archaic practices.

So that's it folks - off to London tomorrow (quite excited) but the blog is definitely back. Won't updating it as much as I used to (so much marking, so little time) - but with exam season upon us, some good long walks, communing with nature and some kitchen magic will be surely welcome.

Adventure 46: Underneath the walnut tree, where you said you'd wait for me....

Well, I wasn't waiting for anyone this weekend (apart from, perhaps, Hogwarts to finally realise that they forgot to send my letter all those years ago. Better late than never, I suppose...). After a bit of a quiet Saturday, having felt horrendous (maybe food poisoning? And not from my own food I might add), we were invited by one of Levi's colleagues to join in a new staff outing to the Turf Lock Hotel, between Exminster and Starcross. 

We had a good pint of Otter Bitter and they had a very reasonably priced barbecue, with nice apple and pork burgers with thick slabs of cheese and sweet onions, and a big plate of salad, roasted vegetables and cous cous. The regular menu looked fab too, with offerings including locally reared Powderham Lamb and scallop and chorizo potato salad. For more details, please see: http://www.turfpub.net/food_drink.php

Sadly, we missed the ferry back over to Topsham, so we're forced to walk the eight miles home our side of the river. Boo hoo! Yet, every cloud has a silver lining, and in this case it was walnuts! I forgot to mention, that last weekend when we were out with Matthias and Ronni, we came across some in the graveyard. I only took a couple, but was fascinated. Could there really be a nut in these green fruits? I did some reading on the matter and donned some rubber gloves and got to work...

Why the gloves? Well I'm sure many of you know this already (and I don't mean to teach grannies to suck eggs) but the green outer coating contains a chemical which dyes things brown. I mean really brown. I found this blog post here about how you can dye your hair with walnut husks... http://almostexactlyblog.wordpress.com/2013/08/16/natural-hair-dye-with-black-walnuts/

I'd actually already become aware of this fact a few years back, when Mrs Pole in an episode of Return to Cranford (BBC, 2009) says that the rather exotic Signor Brunoni, the magician, must be the real thing, because she got up close and didn't smell any walnut oil. Got to love Mrs Pole. 

Then today, on our long weary trip home, we stopped at the Double Locks for a swift half of Waggle Dance and to my joy, next to the pub was another walnut tree. The green outer casings were split and with a quick shake of one of the branches, five lovely walnuts fell onto the footpath.

But what to do with such a stash? It was only little, after all. Nonetheless, I decided to make myself a little starter for dinner tonight: Olive oil crostinis, with blue cheese and poached pear. All very well, but how the hell to get into these things? Luckily, I'm good at getting creative and wedging each nut between my bread board and chopping board, I whacked the top board with my hammer and was able to prise the nut (mostly whole) from its shell. The resulting dish was delicious and as Levi doesn't like blue cheese, I didn't have to share. Bonus.

In other news, I've made myself some apricot jam (sadly not foraged) as I was too tempted by Tesco's cheap fruit offers last week and had over bought. It does taste delicious though. And that's about it, I'm afraid this week, a quiet one, but feeling much better all ready in time for work. Well that's ok then.

Adventure 45: why sloe jam makes your home look like a crime scene

So here's the second part of my post. So, elderberries are first, all delicate but juicy. A paint to get off the stalks, but I worked out pretty quickly, that dragging a fork through them getsthe berries off pretty much unharmed.

Then they look all pretty and glistening like little beetle eyes.

The jelly is easy to make: measure the weight of your berries and put them in a pan for a few minutes to bruise them up with some water over the top. They start disintegrating pretty quickly and you must sieve them through a muslin to remove the seeds. Then add half as much weight in sugar and a squeeze of lemon juice (for pectin) and boil. I don't own a jam thermometer, but as a rule of thumb, put some of the mixture on the back of a spoon you've had in the freezer and if it sets, it's ready to take off the boil and pop in a sterilised container.

Now, for sloes. The new ones I picked, have been put on a tray in the freezer (this not only simulates the first frost making them better for sloe gin making but also makes them easier to store because they're not all frozen together in a big clump). As for my remaining sloes from last year, I decided to experiment and make jam. BIG MISTAKE! I treated them pretty much the same as the elderberries (there aren't many recipes out there for this) but the sieving process was an absolute nightmare. It was like doing a gym session, red gore went all over my hands, face and kitchen and at one point I was practically reduced to tears.

The result was some nice jam but bejesus, I swear I will not be making it ever again.

Lastly, I had my blackberries. I did some jam as I did last year, but strained it to make it a jelly but kept some behind to experiment with. I'm trying to do something like the cherry liqueur like last year. Completely experimental I might add. I've layered the blackberries with sugar in a bottle (this time using the balloon thing to prevent any explosions... My kitchen is clean...). It's already been fermenting using natural yeast (the balloons been swelling) and basically, I'll keep you posted with how it goes.

Then last weekend, we enjoyed some fantastic visitors, Matthias and Ronni from Cambridge. We had a great time in various pubs, including the Beer Cellar, Western, Bridge Inn, Imperial, The Albert etc. These photos are taken in the Fat Pig, where they have Raspberry and ginger gin. What more could you want?

Anyhow, back to work tomorrow, but then the weekend. Huzzah! Goodnight!