Quinta das Abelhas

Sun was shining earlier today, so got up at a more reasonable time, was chilly until about 9am tho. Planted the lettuces I bought at market the other day, did some washing, had some breakfast, then started on juice making. Boys here today and they helped a lot, picked the rest of the grapes and did two batches of bottled juice which was all the grape juice with some left over to go in the fridge and be drunk over the next few days. So, we now have 104 bottles of juice!
Baked potatoes in the embers of the fire for supper. Now watching The Simpsons on RTP2 and waiting for a chocolate pudding to cook. This is a great recipe, really easy and delicious, and fantastic if you fancy a chocolate cake but haven’t got an oven:

CHOCOLATE PUDDING

Melt 75g butter or marge. Mix 1 egg with 6 tblsps milk. Add liquids to 150g SR flour, 25g cocoa powder & 50g sugar. I also mix in some chunks of cooking chocolate.

Put in a greased pudding bowl, cover top with foil. Put in pan of boiling water to about 1″ below top of pudding bowl and simmer for an hour.

Serve warm with chocolate custard and/or cream, or leave to cool and eat as cake.

Oh, and although I followed the recipe exactly (not much too it anyway) the grape jelly I made yesterday turned out REALLY runny. Anyone got a good recipe for next year?

No Comments »

A slow start to the day today, it was quite chilly this morning with a mist in the valley until about 11am. So we lazed around in bed with coffee and books until the sun came out. Andy skimmed the grape skins off the wine that’s fermenting in a huge red bucket that holds up to 600 litres. I picked the last of my tomatoes and about 8 kilos of peppers. My pepper plants have been amazing this year, really huge, thick-skinned, tasty fruits that just keep on coming and coming. I picked all the big ripe ones today and there are still LOADS of baby ones on the plants. I’m considering covering them in a giant cloche to see if I can overwinter them.

Spent more time lazing around and reading this afternoon. We’re both hooked on Dan Brown books at the moment - The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons.

Later on I cooked up a load of peppers and tomatoes with basil and bottled it for use in winter. Also blanched and froze the rest of the peppers - we have a freezer full now. If anyone knows of another way to preserve large quantities of peppers please let me know!

No Comments »