It's Blackberry Season Again.

Still warm, homemade blackberry jam dolloped over vanilla ice cream.

Bob had espied another secret location of blackberry bushes and had firstly asked permission of their owner and secondly made me come along to pick them. Yesterday was the day.

He had stumbled onto a bank of lushious and plum berries but needn't have worried about keeping it a secret as the location of them was not for the faint of heart. Cunningly, he wore trainers instead of his usual Crocs and conveniently forgot to mention that I should wear closed and sturdy shoes.

He had been working on a set of vines last week and half way down their row, had found this blackberry paradise. The vines in question are on the steepest part of our Eisenberg where even a tractor wouldn't dare be wheeled about. Steep and dangerous in Birkenstocks, or any other shoes for that matter.

By the way, I couldn't take any photos as it was steep and my hands were extremely sticky too. Sunday morning saw us collecting one and a half kilograms of blackberries ( that is what our jam recipe needs ) in the most spectacular setting and it took us about 15 minutes.

Driving back, we stopped at our local grocer to buy some vanilla ice cream and then home to start the jamming. Really, it is the easiest bit of culinary work there is.

• Clean and boil the jam jars for a few minutes.
• Weigh the fruit and then put into a big pot and sprinkle a packet of sugar ( Prepacked with the pectin in it. You can buy the various mixes...1/1, 2/1 and 3/1. We always use the latter which means 3 parts fruit and 1 part sugar )
• Let the fruit mixture slowly melt and come to a boil. Then simmer it for 8 minutes and that's that.
• Put the hot jam liquid into the jars, close them tight and put them upside down to let them set.

Yes, that's all really! Bob and I are often astounded, amazed and puzzled at the fact that so few people make their own jams. Firstly it's much better tasting, secondly you know what's in it and thirdly, it is much cheaper than the bought stuff.

If those three points didn't convince you to give jamming a shot, then maybe this will. Just picture in your mind the taste combination of warm homemade blackberry jam dolloped over a cup of delicious vanilla ice cream? Not to mention the brilliant colour combination...

Biggi

Bob, Bread, Burgenland, Bravo!

Making healthy bread is simple and fun.

The other night I was working late and not looking forward to making dinner. At this time of the year, it gets dark at half past four and at six o'clock it feels like the middle of the night. The minute I walked into our house the aromas of freshly baked bread enveloped me. As I looked into our kitchen I saw that Bob had made a fresh loaf of bread and a pot of homemade vegetable soup!

What a Man. As they would say in those Georgette Heyer or Jane Austin novels:
" She married well. " And just to up the ante of this fortunate occurrence, can you believe that he had even washed all and every dirty dish used?
Oh, you are correct in thinking: ' Gosh, she married really well! '

In yesterday's blog I teased you with our ( mainly Bob's ) bread recipe, and here it is:

• 500g of wholewheat flour.
• Half a cube of fresh yeast.
• A grated carrot.
• Any, all or none of the following: linseed / oats / sunflower seeds / raisins in a series of dashes.
• 1 teaspoon of salt.
• A tiny bit of sugar to activate the yeast.
• A bit of warm milk to put over the yeast.
• About a cup or so of water to mix it all together. You will need to judge the amount.

We use the weigh bowl to mix all the dry ingredients. When all is mixed we make a crater in the middle and crumble in the yeast. ( your fingers will smell a tad bit... " beerish ". ) Sprinkle the bit of sugar over the yeast and follow up with the lukewarm milk. Use the spoon to flick the flour over the liquid and thus covering it. Cover the bowl with a clean dish towel and put in a warm place for ten minutes.

Take a bread shaped oven form and coat it with either butter or greased baking paper. Turn your oven to 180 degrees. Get a jug with water and mix it in increments into the mixture. Stirring at the same time. It might take a minute or so and the mixture becomes a big lump of dough. We don't knead it, for the simple reason that we are too lazy! But you can if you want.

The dough is ready to transfer into the baking tin.

Bob does a few 'this & that's and the work is done. Put it into the oven at 180 degrees Celsius for about 55 minutes.

My nephew who is a Master Baker, told me the tip with putting a cup of water alongside the bread, whilst in the oven. It makes the crust heavenly...

When the time is up and the smell too delicious, take it out the oven and do the knife test. Stick the knife into the loaf and it should come out without any sticky stuff on it.

Here we go. Bob's healthy bread. Make sure you have butter ready for the first tasting. Our recipe is self thought out, so there might be some oops' along the way. But even with oops', it always tastes fantastic and the best thing of all, it costs less than a Euro! Have fun.

Biggi

Rediscovering Our Love Of Stewed Apple!

Oh so yummy...

Both of us are inflicted with the common cold, busy sneezing and talking in funny nasal tones. At least we are doing it together. In a small village, it is difficult not to catch the bug!

Bob and I have gone against the grain and stayed at home. We don't think it is fair to inflict our sneezing and runny noses on anyone else. At least at close quarters.

They say that eating dairy products while you have a cold is not a good thing. At least some people do and we decided to forgo the dairy. No milk in our coffee and definitely no joghurt for pudding. Interesting article in the Huffington Post about what is good for you when you have a cold.

On Saturday evening I was just putting dinner on the stove when I thought about making stewed apples. We had none in the house, but no problem as our backyard is filled with apple and pear trees.

Dressed in my pyjamas and gumboots, I negotiated my way around the orchard. Luckily for me, only Tigger saw me in my far from elegant outfit. Along the way I am sure that I stood on a snake. But that's not a big deal as the only snakes I've seen resemble overgrown rain worms. Nothing could deter me from my mission and I picked a handful of fruit before heading back to the kitchen.

Our fruit is untouched by any chemicals so I didn't peel them. That made the whole cutting up process easy and simple. A few raisins thrown into the pot along with an inch of water, was all that I needed to do.

The aromas wafting through the house were mouthwatering. Stewed apples just have something so special about them. In our case, we devoured a portion each with a nice helping of cream and in Bob's case, cinnamon...

Biggi

Simple & Highly Addictive: Homemade Banana Ice Cream.

Last warning: This is so yummy & addictive !

My Parents ( my New York ones ) innocently told me about this recipe. To be fair, I didn't heed their claim that it is so addictive that you can eat it at all times of the day. Only yesterday I heard that they will get up at 11 pm and quickly make a portion...

Thinking that I would just try it once, I tried it last week. There was an ancient brown speckled banana languishing in the bowl and I thought I might as well use it. The only difficult operation of this whole recipe ( will follow at the end ) is waiting for the banana to freeze. No instant gratification there.

When it was finally frozen enough, I followed the parental instruction to a tee. All I can say is
" yummy ". Bob wasn't convinced that I was genuine when enthused while eating it, so he wouldn't try it. Great, there was more for me.

When he found that I was making this ice cream numerous times per day, the penny dropped for him. Oh yes, now he wanted some too. Being a good and slightly clever wife, I've also got him addicted. Might as well make it a family affair. No more hiding my frequent forays into eating my homemade delicacy !

Well, try this at your own leisure and peril:

• Take a banana and cut it into small pieces. Take these and freeze them in a container.
• You need a good dash of proper milk ( not the skinny type )
• Put the frozen banana slices into a bowl, take a mixer / blender and add milk in increments. Once the banana slices are smooth, the ice cream is ready to eat.
• You need to take care not to use too much milk. Otherwise it will be a banana milkshake !

Bananas are so good for Bob in any case. With his Diabetes he eats them as his in-between snacks and now it's in a delicious creamy form...

Hopefully you will love this banana ice cream as much as we do.
We could then do a " who ate the most " comparison...

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Biggi