Raspberry Ice-Cream

The hot and wet weather has produced a good harvest of all the berries including the Raspberries. I love raspberries just as they are but a really nice way of using them is Raspberry Ice-Cream.

I use a recipe based on one from Hugh Fearnley-Wittingstall's The River Cottage Cookbook.
This is his first or at least an early book and is full of country cottage garden wisdom and delicious recipes.

Ingredients:
500 g raspberries
4 large eggs or 5 medium (yolks only)
150 ml water
100 g sugar (white granulated is fine)
500 ml double cream

Method;
Put the water and sugar in a pan and heat slowly stirring until the sugar has melted. Gently boil until it becomes syruppy. Set aside to cool a little.
Press the raspberries through a sieve to generate a thick puree.
Separate the eggs. Keep the whites for macaroons or meringues.
Put the yolks in a large bowl and whisk with an electric hand whisk, balloon whisk etc. Gradually add
the warm syrup and keep whisking until thick and custardy.
In another bowl whisk the cream till fairly thick but not solid.
Now mix together the eggs and cream and stir in about half the puree.
Place in a plastic tub suitable for the freezer and place in freezer for about 3 hours.
Remove ice-cream. It will have started to become solid round the edges. Stir it up with a fork or spoon (the idea is to break up the ice crystals into smaller ones so the ice-cream doesn't get solid. Stir in the remaining raspberry puree leaving a ripple effect. back in the freezer and should be ready in a further 3-4 hours.
Of course those with an ice-cream maker will need to adapt this a bit.

To make the meringues or macaroons:

Ingredients:
4-5 eggs whites
150g sugar
100g ground almonds and a few flaked almonds for the macaroons.

Method:
Place the egg whites in a large round-ish bowl and using a clean whisk whisk until stiff then add about 150g sugar and whisk again so it's nice and stiff and glossy. If making macaroons add 100g of ground almonds and stir in.

Turn on the oven to 160 deg C. Place a baking parchment or grease proof paper on two flat baking trays. With a large spoon scoop up dollops of the mixture and arrange on the tray with space around to accommodate some expansion. Place a flake of almond on the top of each macaroon.
Cook in the oven for around 30 - 45 mins until they are firm to the touch.
Getting perfect meringues is difficult because the exact temperature of the oven (they all vary) and the moisture content in the oven (i.e. are you cooking a stew at the same time?) can affect the firmness and crispness. Don't worry - they'll taste fine anyway.

Enjoy!

Winter reading

Winter is a good time to plan for the coming year and get some new ideas. Time to read some of the books I've been given for Christmas or bought and have stayed on the shelf. In general I'm not a fan of the gardening "experts" in newspapers and TV. They make it seem such hard work. But it's good to do a bit of learning from people who've done it before. I've really enjoyed reading On the Plot with Dirty Nails by Joe Hashman

This little book from Joe Hashman is a gem. It's a diary of bits and pieces of gardening information, tips, observations, and recipes week by week during the year. Interestingly Joe Hashman starts his year in February, perhaps because January doesn't really do very much. It's even too cold to weed and tidy and even February he does a lot of "tidying". It's a good book to dip into and wonder if I should be digging the bed yet or what seeds to sow. Not a book to read from start to finish in one go.

Hedgehogs

We've seen no hedghogs here since 2007. One of those we rescued from a post-hole. The little chap had fallen in and couldn't get out. More recently, the only hedghogs I've seen locally have been squashed on the road - and those have not been so many. Froggarts Cottage is surrounded by a field used to graze cattle with old hedges all around - ideal habitat for hedgehogs one would think. A friend gave us a "Hog House" for Christmas a few years ago which we put by the hedge and covered with leaves but it's not been used.


A Prickly Affair by Hugh Warwick

This is a fascinating little book from a dedicated hedgehog researcher A Prickly Affair by Hugh Warwick  Really interesting. Apparently one of the main predators of hedgehogs is badgers. There's certainly badgers around here, there are sets along the hedges a couple of fields and a main road away but I've never seen any in the adjacent fields.

A piece on BBC News interested me both from the hedgehog and the environment change point of view.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16597723

"Hedgehog numbers fell in the last 50 years, largely due to land use change. From an estimated 30 million in the 1950s, the UK population shrank to about 1.5 million in 1995, and has almost certainly fallen further since then."

The climate thing is interesting. Last year was definitely drier and warmer than previous years despite the very cold spell at the start of the year. Each of the 5 years we've been at Froggarts Cottage have been quite different weather-wise so it's difficult to spot a trend. For a couple of years we logged when we planted vegtables and when and how much we harvested. I think we should be a bit more diligent and note when fruit blossom opens and fruit sets and so on. Otherwise we're relying on our imperfect memories.

There's a link on the BBC story above to a site http://www.naturescalendar.org.uk where people can log sightings such as "first snowdrop", "first elder flowers".