What to do with green tomatoes - Some green tomato recipes from Lionel

At the beginning of April Lionel gave us the super recipe for Rhubarb and orange chutney, here are his family recipes for a glut of green tomatoes ~

GREEN TOMATO CHUTNEY.

3 lbs Green tomatoes,
1 lb Cored cooking apples,
1 lb Onions
8 oz Sultanas/raisins
1 lb Dark brown sugar
1 Pint Malt Vinegar
2 tsps Ground Ginger
2 " Curry Powder
1 " Chilli Powder
2/3 Cloves Garlic

Cook all ingredients together until thick. This takes about 2/3 hours. Then place in containers for use after 4 weeks.

PICKLED GREEN TOMATOES

3 Lbs Small Green Tomatoes, Prick and sprinkle with salt overnight to remove moisture from Tomatoes, then drain.

1lb 8 ozs Sugar,
1 pint Malt Vinegar
12 Cloves
1 tsp Cinamon ground.

Boil together. then add the Tomatoes and boil until the Tomatoes are clear ( Translucent).
Place the Tomatoes in preheated jars, add syrup and Seal.

Ready after about 3/4 weeks. Lovely with cold meat.

Plum Season and favourite recipes from the orchard kitchen

They are in the shops now, the first of the English plums, plum season has arrived so to celebrate here at The Orchard Year  these are a few of our favourite recipes.

Plum Crumble:

 Everyone's favourite and you've probably all got your own recipe for this. But just in case, or if you fancy a change, here is our crumble topping recipe:
3ozs butter, 4 tablespoons self raising flour, 2 big handfulls of porridge oats, 4 tablespoons of cane sugar.
(I feel strongly that cane sugar always works much better than white with plums)
You know what to do don't you, rub the flour with the butter etc, etc

Plum Tarte Tatin:

 

 1 packet ready made puff pastry, enough half de-stoned plums to line dish, 3ozs butter, 4 tablespoons cane sugar

Melt the butter in a thick bottomed frying pan or stove top / oven proof dish, sprinkle sugar evenly and add plum halves, cut side down. Cook on a medium heat for about 20 minutes until the juices are bubbling then remove from heat.
Now if you've had to use the frying pan transfer the plums to an ovenproof dish, reserving the syrup. If you're already using the ovenproof dish drain the syrup into another bowl carefully keeping the plums in place.
Roll the pastry into a circle slightly larger than your dish then place it on top of the plums, tucking the edges of the pastry into the dish around the fruit to form an upside down tart case.
Bake in a preheated oven  (gas mark 6, 200 deg C) until the pastry is golden brown and the juices are bubbling, about 35 minutes.
Leave to cool for about an hour before turning the tarte tatin onto a serving dish. With all that butter it'll turn out quite easily with a little help from a spatula around the edges.
To serve,warm the reserved syrup for pouring.

Barbados Cream is also good with plums.

Barbados Cream:

 So easy to make, you'll need -

1 carton of thick Greek yoghurt (like Total), 1 carton double cream, cane demerara sugar and a shallow dish.
Simply mix equal qtys of cream and yoghurt and pour into the dish. Sprinkle with a thick layer of the sugar. Cover with cling film and refrigerate overnight.
Delicious!

So get down to your nearest farm shop this weekend and buy yourself a few lbs / kilos of plums, remember to buy more than you need for cooking as you're bound to eat a few in the car on the way home.

Apple Streusel Flan

Here's a weekend bake for you and yes you can still get British grown Bramley apples for this even in June!

I'm just going to tell you about the filling, you'll need a blind baked 7" pastry flan case, whether you make it yourself from shortcrust pastry or use a bought one is up to you.

Filling:
1lb cooking apples
2ozs sultanas
2ozs caster sugar

Topping:
1oz plain flour
1/2oz butter
1/2 teaspoon mixed spices
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2oz demerara sugar

Your oven needs to be preheated to Gas mark 5, 190 degrees C, 375 degrees F

1.Peel and slice the apples and heat them gently in a saucepan with the sultanas and caster sugar stirring until they begin to break down.

2.Make the streusel crumb topping by mixing together the flour, cinnamon, and sugar taking a little butter at a time rub into the flour mixture. Keep rubbing until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. 

 

3.Put the apple mixture into the pre-baked flan case and top with the streusel crumb topping.

 

4.Place on a baking tray and cook in the pre-heated oven for 20 minutes until the crumb topping is golden and the apple mixture bubbling.

 

5.Enjoy!

Sometimes in apple country you may see - Vita Sackville West

 

Sometimes in apple country you may see

A ghostly orchard standing all in white,

Aisles of white trees, white branches, in the green,

On some still day when the year hangs between 

Winter and spring, and heaven is full of light.

                                                                                                                "The Land" Vita Sackville West

Idared Apple - Blossom Walk

 Join The Orchard Year 's virtual blossom tour with a Blossom Walk through an English orchard:

Idared 's aren't an English apple, they were developed at the University of Idaho Agricultural Experiment Station (hence their name Ida...) in 1942 and are grown in this particular orchard for their exceptional keeping abilities. Harvested in September / October they can actually be kept, in the correct conditions until up to June the following year.

Taste wise the Idared apple can be a little tart  it is a dual purpose apple, good for eating or cooking.

The trees are now in full blossom. As you can see from the above photograph the petals are beginning to brown, many of them will be blown off with the high winds we are experiencing this evening.

Follow  The Orchard Year 's virtual Blossom Walk, we've already looked at the following apple trees in blossom
Discovery Apple Blossom

 Gala Apple Blossom 

 and there are more to come.

Blossom Trails

Before the demise of the British orchard these AA  Blossom Trail signs were a familiar sight:

Coach trips were organised so that folk could view the spectacular orchard blossom from mid March to mid May, picnics were packed and a lovely time was had by all. Sadly these events aren't so common now with perhaps the exception of the Vale of Evesham where a 45 mile route is sign posted where people can view cherry, plum, pear and apple blossom. You can find loads of information about the blossom trail by clicking here there's the opportunity to view via foot, bicycle, coach or car.


Vinatge bus image © Copyright Derek Harper and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence

Tortoiseshell Butterfly in the Orchard ~ Aglais urticae

The Small Tortoiseshell butterfly is a fairly common sight throughout the UK but it's still good to see them in the orchard.Today I saw several basking in the May sunshine.

Image: © Copyright Richard and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence

May Day Blossom and Orchard Fox Sightings

May Day in the orchard, blue skies and sunshine. The Worcester apple trees are in "early pink bud".

In comparison the plum blossom is already beginning to go over. You can see some of the petals are tinged with brown at the edges.

Today though I'm more excited by another fox sighting. He / she seems to be getting more used to seeing me around and today walked past me, a short distance away, at 2.30, returning from whence he had gone at 3. Once again no camera to hand, I'd put it away after taking the blossom images,  and the fox photograph is courtesy of Colin M.L. Burnett via Wikipedia Commons.

Cherry Blossom

Gratuitous snaps of cherry blossom, not from an orchard, these are ornamental, posted simply because it's that time of year. Oddly although the flowers look completely different from one another in these two photographs they are both from the same tree, a miniature flowering cherry no taller than maybe 3'6".

"A perfect cherry blossom is a rare thing.
You can spend your whole life looking for one, and it will not be a wasted life."

 The Last Samurai

Peacock Butterfly in the orchard ~ Inachis io

I've had a few sightings of the Peacock butterfly (European) this week, it's easily recognisable with those large eye-spots on the wings. The Peacock butterfly will over winter in buildings or trees and is often the first butterfly to appear in early Spring.

Just a quick note about the photograph by Korall via Wikimedia Commons it is a featured picture on Wikimedia Commons and is considered one of the finest images. It has also been elected as picture of the month at Swedish Wikipedia. The election of this picture was done by voting among pictures uploaded and inserted into an article at Swedish Wikipedia during the specific month.

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Frost in the Spring is the great enemy of the fruit grower

"When the bud scales begin to move the danger starts. The bud then puts out two tiny leaves which are known by the endearing name of "early mouse ear". At this stage damage can be done at between 7 deg and 5 deg of frost, which is 25 deg and 27 deg F. "Mouse Ear" comes three days later followed by "early green bud", "green bud", "early pink bud", "pink bud" and finally "full bloom". At each stage the susceptibility of the bud to frost gets greater by half a degree Fahrenheit until at full bloom it can be killed by a four hour frost at 30 deg F. From then onwards the susceptibility of the apple decreases by approximately half a degree every three days. The periods during which loss is likely to occur is from late March to the end of May. It is a long time to live on one's nerves."

Extract from The Cuckoo in June: Tales of a Sussex Orchard by David Atkins
ISBN 0-7089-3624-5

The author tells how, in 1954, he abandoned the secure life of a chartered accountant and bought a small apple farm in the Weald of Sussex. With no knowledge of fruit farming, he found himself at a loss in a strange rural worls. He tells, with many an amusing anecdote, how the farm survived drought, frost and hail and for a time prospered.

An Orchard Tea Room Cake Recipe

This cake is delicious.

Having devoured two fat slices I told the lady in the tea room how much I'd enjoyed it, she offered me the recipe. So here it is:

Lined loaf tin
Oven pre-heated 160deg

Topping:
1 tbs golden syrup
2oz butter
1 oz brown sugar
1 1/2 ozs glace cherries
1 oz sultanas
1 1/2 ozs flaked almonds

Cake:
6 ozs butter
6 ozs caster sugar
6 ozs self raising flour
3 large eggs
1/2 tps baking powder

That's it, just the recipe, no instructions.

 The lady in the tearoom said, "I don't have to tell you how to make it as well, do I?" to which I replied, "Er, no that's okay, thank you".

Pruning fruit trees

The big commercial growers will have completed their apple orchard pruning by now, it's best done between December and early March before the sap rises. But for some small fruit growers, the one man band with just a few acres of apple orchard, it's a case of trying to catch up and fit everything in. It's still not too late to prune your apple trees!

Record the Day ~ 18th April 2013

My last Record the Day was on April 1st  as you can see the warmer weather is doing the trick,

Spring has finally arrived in the orchard.

Bramley apple tree above, 

Plum below.

The previous photograph of plum buds shows just how far things are progressing.

Barely budding trees ~ festoons of hanging blossom

 Looking at my previous post, Plum buds, I'm reminded of this extract from Clare Leighton's Four Hedges

"As the month draws on, there is a sudden rush of warmth and in a day or two the garden is a changed world, as in a fairy story where a spell has been suddenly lifted. Barely budding trees thicken with green, the spinach is rampant, and the rhubarb, that a few days back was pale and stubbly, is like an enormous tropical plant. The cherry trees that should have been in bloom for Easter, now burst into festoons of hanging blossoms...."

Four Hedges by Clare Leighton

Plum buds

The much talked about late Spring is delaying everything in the orchard this year. In other years we have seen plum blossom as early as April, not this year. But the forecast for warmer weather this weekend should give everything a much needed spurt of growth, let's just hope that there won't be anymore late frosts.

English eating apples still available to buy in April

You might be surprised to find that, even as late in the season as April, it is still possible to find some English grown apples still available to purchase in farm shops around the country. Apples like these:

Cameo

 Cameo is one of the best keeping apples and should still be available to purchase throughout the country in April. It is a fairly modern apple, delicious and sweet.

Jonagold

People often say that Jonagold is for sharing. It's a large , tasty, sweet apple.

Royal Gala

Royal Gala is known for its' good keeping qualities and its' pleasant, sweet flavour.

Ida Red

Ida Red is another really good keeper, and a stunning looking red apple, as well as eating it can be used for making apple sauce, cook with the skin on and you'll get a pink tinge to the sauce.

RHUBARB AND ORANGE CHUTNEY Lionel's recipe

I've mentioned before how lucky I am to have people share their fields of expertise with me, I'm also lucky to have people who are willing to share their delicious family recipes. Here's a seasonal one from Lionel ~


RHUBARB AND ORANGE CHUTNEY

2 Oranges,
1 Kg Prepared Rhubarb,
3 Onions, Skinned and chopped,
900 ml Malt Vinegar,
900 gms Demerara Sugar
450 gms Raisins,
1 tbsp Mustard Seed
1 tbsp Peppercorns
1 tsp Allspice.

Squeeze juice from Oranges and finely shred peel. Place in a large preserving pan with the Rhubard, Onions, Vinegar, Sugar & Raisins. Tie the spices in a piace of muslin, and add ot the ingredients in the pan. Bring to the boil and simmer until thick and pulpy - about 1&half hours. Remove bag, pot and cover.

Makes about 3.6 kg, ready in about 3 weeks.