Achieved a seasonal milestone today, finished getting all the bulbs bedded down for the winter. (Apart from a few tulips which I plant later after chilling them in the fridge - I don't really know if this makes much difference but I do it anyway). Thomas helped. I'd dig a hole and he'd pee in it, just to give the bulbs a bit of a nitrogen boost.
Made pesto too. Didn't have enough basil, due to our miserable summer, so I topped the recipe up with Italian parsley, and I think I like the combo of basil and parsley better. It's milder and has a more "layered" flavour. I've used parsley and walnut before, although the walnuts can give the pesto a bitter taste if too old. I've just eaten macaroni with the pesto mixed through - tastes delicious, very Italian.
Must do something with the quinces I gathered from the park. A recipe for "No-strain quince jelly"
appears in Gillian Painter's book 'A New Zealand country harvest cookbook'. You cook the quinces whole in a sugar syrup, then use the syrup as jam (hopefully it will set) and eat the cooked quinces as a stewed fruit. Sounds like no-strain in more ways than one; cutting up quinces gave me repetitive strain injury a few years ago. You really need a meat cleaver to chop them up, they're hard as wood. The quinces smell wonderful, they're sitting in the fruitbowl in front of me now. Also a few japonica apples. Not many people know that you can eat these, but they are just another kind of quince. My Dutch mother-in-law used to puree them with apples for a more intense apple-y flavoured dessert puree. They also smell delicious.
And I made apple crumble tonight, such a comfort food . So I'm full of pesto, apple crumble and virtue, for a day well spent.
"There is no love sincerer than the love of food" - G.B. Shaw
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