Stuffed Peppers

I’ve been trying for years to replicate the stuffed peppers we used to get on the Greek Islands back in the 70s. In those days we’d go into a taverna, straight through to the kitchen and have a gander at what was on offer. The tray of stuffed veggies – peppers or tomatoes – always caught our eye and we’d know they’d be OK for Nobby because they didn’t put meat in them in those days. They looked and smelt abso-bleeding-lutely wonderful. Tziki and bread to start, stuffed peppers and chips and a bottle of retzina to wash it down (water wasn’t safe you see) and back to the villa for a kip – what better way to spend a hot Greek afternoon.

Then the islands became a bit more commercial and dishes were made for the foreign palate and that included more meat. Stuffed tomatoes and peppers became a bit of a lottery - a lot of tavernas used at least a small amount of meat and it became quite difficult to find anywhere that stuck to the veggie recipe resulting in a rather unhappy and hungry Nobby.

And in the before-time, Greek food used to be served either warm or at room temperature. There was no point sending your food back complaining it wasn’t hot – why would you want hot food? They'd take it away and you’d wait another hour and the same food would come back at the same temperature and you would have gained nothing but heartburn. Things have changed since then and you can get hot chips these days: hot chips and meat – where’s the fun in that?

But after all these years I think I've finally cracked it. I've tried these a few times now - never the same way of course - but last night's were a triumph: I read my original recipe wrong and made the mistake of doubling up on the passatta. I thought the rice would turn into a sloppy mess, but it didn't, and they were lovely.

I recommend you give 'em a go - just give 'em a go.

Serves 2 plus lunch next day

4 medium peppers – whatever colour you like but red’s the best
Pinch of sugar
8 tbsp basmati rice
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 small onion, finely chopped
Handful of mint, chopped
300ml Passatta
75ml Olive oil
Salt and pepper

Cook the rice in salted water until almost done. Wash, dry and cut the tops off the peppers. Take out the core and place standing upright in a dish – they need to fit quite snugly. Sprinkle the inside of the peppers with a pinch of sugar.

Mix the cooked rice with the onion, garlic, 200ml of the passatta, mint, salt and pepper and about 50ml of olive oil. Stuff the peppers with this mixture.

Replace the lids on the peppers, pour the remaining passatta mixed with an equal quantity of water and another 25ml of olive oil over the peppers and into the base of the dish. Place in oven, Gas 4-5, middle shelf, for about 1¾ hrs – the tops should have blackened a little and the peppers should be really soft – then turn off the oven and let them sit and mellow for at least an hour, preferably a lot longer. These are best served slightly warm or at room temperature. Never hot – see above.

Serving suggestion: being Greek in nature, these will obviously go well with cold chips and tziki, and/or a slice of feta. A bit of salad wouldn’t go amiss, but it’s not obligatory.

The photo shows the peppers before they’ve been in the oven, the slack in the dish being taken up with potato wedges.

It's a heart hash, nothing but a heart hash....

Lambs' Hearts with Sage and Thyme

I bought some lambs' hearts with a view to nailing them, beating, to the front door for Halloween but could only get frozen ones, and I know for a fact that you can't get previously frozen internal organs working again so I had to eat them. There's still a long way to go when it comes to cryogenics and I'm afraid I'm a busy woman - I just don't have the time.

So I threw this one together whilst trying to remember a similar recipe Marge gave me many years back, but after several seconds of trying to think I couldn’t be arsed so I just put in what I thought. It’s a quick, hearty – forgive the pun – winter’s dish, cheap and cheerful and pretty filling, and it’s a good way to use up leftover Sunday dinner veg, including roasties – a “heart hash” if you will. And you’ll only need a small… A SMALL … cherries jubilee or apple crumble and custard afterwards to fill in the gaps.

Nobby was out when I cooked this.

Little sunflower oil
1 lamb’s heart per person
Dried thyme and sage
Left over cooked potatoes cut into 2cm cubes and/or other cooked veg, eg, cabbage, brussel sprouts, carrots, green beans, peas – but not so sure about cauliflower or broccoli
Lots of seasoning


Heat the oil in a frying pan. Trim the hearts and slice lengthways into 6-8 pieces, season and add to the pan. Gently fry until the outside is coloured – about 5 mins. Add the herbs and give a stir. Then add the cooked veg and season generously again. Put a lid on the pan, turn the heat to low and cook until the veg is heated through. This shouldn’t take more than 20 minutes in total to prepare and cook.

It’s a one pot dish obviously so minimal washing up – a perfect Monday night tea.

Winter draws on

Just looking out the window from the office on this autumnal afternoon – workmen and scaffolding are gone and the house is standing up straight now so I can clearly see the sun shining, tree branches gently waving in the breeze, golden leaves dancing in the air and gathering softly in heaps on the ground (and side-thoughts turn to having to be careful because if no-one sweeps up you can’t see if there’re any dead hedgehogs under there, and you’ll have to be careful riding your bike in case you run over one and it makes you shudder and go “urrggh”) but, more pressingly, culinary thoughts turn warmly to soups and stews and puddings and custard and all those dishes sorely missed during the summer.

Made the first soup of the season the other day. Vegetable of course, with potatoes, onions, carrots and celery, a handful of pearl barley, veggie stock, hint of chilli, dried thyme and sage and a smidgeon of Marmite. It was OK, but a bit thinner than my usual thick, hearty, this’ll put hairs on your chest offerings. After a couple of lunches there was just short of a portion left over, and not quite a portion of thin soup is not the way to start off the autumn term. So I threw in some gnocchi I didn’t use for the gorgonzola and spinach gnocchi we had the other day. Did it work or did it work. Within two minutes the soup had turned from a do-I-don’t-I-bother to a really substantial potage worthy of any soup kitchen. A handful of Parmesan, a hunk of bread and that was me done for the afternoon.

Thoughts have now turned to other soups so we don’t get too bored: here’s one I made earlier.

Parsnip Soup

Don’t like parsnips – soft, sweet, earthy mush when they’re cooked. I remember having them every now and again for Sunday dinner when I was little. They’d be lying there on the plate camouflaged as roasties, and I’d think oooh that’s good, more roasties than usual, and I’d bite into one thinking I was getting spud whereas in fact I was nursing a mouthful of sweet and mushy pap. Wanted to spit them out but couldn’t ‘cos mum was looking. Urrggh.

Then I found this recipe somewhere along the line and thought I’d give it a go because, believe it or not, other people do like the taste and I needed to ring the changes in the cheap soup department at the pub: lo and behold, I was converted. I still don’t like parsnips as a vegetable, boiled, mashed or roasted, but as a soup – ship it in, shag!

This soup is nothing without the cream. In fact, it tastes disgusting without the cream and, as I’m not of school age, disgusting is not a word I use freely. So don’t taste it before you’ve blended it and added the cream. You can adjust the seasoning afterwards.

Makes: a lot

50g butter
500g parsnips, peeled and chopped
2 large onions, peeled and chopped
1 tsp curry powder
1 litre vegetable stock
Salt and pepper
Single cream to taste – about 200ml

In a large saucepan, melt the butter and gently sweat the parsnips and onions for about 10 mins. Add the curry powder, vegetable stock and seasoning. Bring to the boil, cover and turn heat down to simmer for about 30 mins until everything is soft. Liquidise the soup and pour back into the saucepan. Add the cream and a little more stock if the soup is too thick, and reheat gently – test for seasoning. Don’t let the soup come to a boil after adding the cream. If you want you can serve with some kind of cheffy greenery stuff artistically strewn over the top. Parsley I think – yeah, parsnips and parsley.

Freezes well without the cream.

Love Feta - straight from the heart

Feta Dip/Spread

So I know I went on about how there are only three sustainable dips in the world and that's all that's needed, but I lied, OK?

I went a bit bananas the other day and bought another 2kg bag of dried chick peas. I didn’t need them: I have at least half a bag in the cupboard but they were right at the back and I didn’t look properly when I was doing my list so didn't see them, and when I go to the Indian shop all aisles lead to pulses so I bought some. And a few months ago Nobby bought a 2kg bag of brown chick peas but they’re not the same and I’m not sure what to do with them. They still have skins on and when they’re soaked they don’t swell up as much as the ordinary ones, and they need more cooking (I tried to make hummus with them but ended up spending a tedious half an hour taking the skins off after they’d been cooked and I got fed up with ‘em so I need to do a bit of research on that one).

There’s something about the pulse aisle that pulls me in and I’m not completely sure for why. It could be that those little peas and beans look totally natural and unmucked about with in their cellophane bags and appeal to my penchant for wholesomeness, or that they’re nutritious and versatile and can be added to bulk out casseroles and soups and stuff (but not omelettes) or possibly that they’re cheap. Who knows? I don’t.

So I started thumbing through the books to see what I could do with six ton of chick peas that wasn’t hummus or balls. I could have gone the Levi Roots tamarind and butternut squash route but I don’t care for squash even when it’s masked with chillies, or the Madhur Jaffrey sour chick peas but they’re more of a side dish than a main, so I hit the interweb and got a bit distracted like you do on food sites and started pressing buttons for all sorts of unrelated categories: vegetables, pasta, rice, filo, chicken gizzards, etc. It’s all a bit of a gamble isn’t it, this web site malarkey: there’s an awful lot of dross but sometimes you hit gold. I stumbled across this cheeky little beggar on greek-recipes.com in the appetizers section. I like this web site – the recipes are simple and the ingredients are easily obtainable, and all the dishes I’ve tried so far taste surprisingly Greek. Well, as Greek as you’re gonna get with local ingredients.

Unfortunately, this does not contain chick peas.

1 x 200gm pack feta cheese cut into small cubes
Chopped basil or mint leaves – about 2 tbsp
Chopped chives – about 1 tbsp
1-2 cloves garlic, crushed
Olive oil

Process basil or mint and chives in food processor until fine. Add feta and garlic until well mixed. Add enough olive oil to make spreadable. Spread on bread, crostini, bruschetta, or little pizzas, dollop on pasta, or add to soups or vegetables.

...like the fascists they are

LENTIL & COCONUT SOUP

Easy, cheap and cheerful: everything you want in a partner - oh no, the other one - soup.

Can’t remember where this recipe came from – I’m thinking Sunday newspaper magazine, I’m thinking old Indian recipe book, I’m thinking quarterly pseudo-caring-sharing foodie publication from a fascist supermarket that appears to be on your side in that their store encourages home cooking with aisles and aisles of foodstuffs but in reality the amount of space given over to all basic ingredients – and when I say basic I mean those ingredients you have to do something with - works out at about, oh, I don’t know,15%, the remainder taken up with “convenient” fast food, packet mixes, meals in boxes (or meal kits for God’s sake!), cheap meat products, biscuits and sweets.

Take a look around next time you go supermarket shopping and see how much space is given over to crisps and snacks, packet food and soft drinks and how much to basics. We have one of those hypermarkets in Reading. It has over 30 aisles and one of those is given over to “home cooking”: it is where you go for your flour, yeast, dried fruit, eggs, sugar, baking powder, etc, but also, within this one aisle, they include packet mixes for pancakes, brownies, bread mixes, etc. They cannot fill just one aisle with what is laughingly called these days “cook’s ingredients”. What hope is there when, wherever you turn, all roads lead to an easier path which means less time, effort and mess for you in the kitchen, and more profit for them.

Let’s get real – supermarkets don’t want us cooking our own stuff. Not much mark up on a kilo bag of chick peas when they can supply their own brand falafel or hummus at ten times the profit. Who’s going to bother with soaking, cooking then processing those cheap humble peas when it’s all done for you, and look – no washing up! And who’ll need a kitchen in another 15 years: if we’re not careful that room will have gone the same way as the old parlour and dining rooms of yesteryear - redundant space that could be turned over to an indoor media entertainment complex complete with built in fridge and microwave so you need never get up off your arse to prepare a meal ever again.

Let’s stuff the supermarkets and make our own soup. It’s cheaper, healthier and won’t take long, and the satisfaction of making something where you are completely in control of the raw ingredients and final outcome will be greater than winning the lottery. Well, no it won’t, but it goes a long way.

All ingredients should be available at your local Asian grocer’s.

Serves about 4

6oz red split lentils
1½ pints water
3 tbsp coconut milk powder
2 tbsp water
1 medium onion, finely chopped
½ tsp chilli powder
¾ tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp ground turmeric
Salt and pepper
1 garlic clove, crushed – optional
Fresh coriander to serve


Wash the lentils until water runs clear and place in saucepan with the water. Bring to the boil and skim off any scummy bits that rise to the top. Take the pan off the heat to do this as, if you leave it simmering, you’ll be there for ever.

Mix the coconut powder with the 2 tbsp of cold water and mix until dissolved. Pour into the lentils and stir. Add the rest of the ingredients except for the coriander, bring back to simmering, cover and cook until lentils and onions are soft – about 20-25 mins. Season with salt and pepper, and serve with chopped fresh coriander.

There now. That didn't take long did it, and isn’t that better than a cuppa soup? Isn’t it?

DIPS

Dippidy-do-dah

Dips – dontcha just love ‘em. Quick, easy, usually healthy assembly jobs if you make them yourself – I try not to go the other route, and certainly wouldn’t pay good money for a jar of that lumpy, faux tomato red, arrowroot thickened gel you’re encouraged to dip those dry, salty, saliva diminishing tortilla chips into whilst watching the football. No sirree, not for me.

I am by nature a creature of habit and once I’ve found a way that works, tend not to deviate from that routine. I’ve found that three dips are all that are needed to tickle the taste buds of dinner guests, each dip quite easy to make and all gutsy in their outlook. The easiest, quickest and my most favourite dip is tziki, that well known Greek garlic timebomb which I’d describe as cooling without being sociable. See recipe below.

The next is hummus (and I’m never sure of how to pronounce it – is it hum-us, or hue-mus?), the earthy chic chickpea dish said to be favoured by young female vegetarian students. There are several bastardised versions sold in supermarkets these days: red pepper hummus; hummus with coriander and lemon; hummus with gravy – not worth the pitta bread if you ask me.

And the final dip: guacamole. Avocados were considered posh back in my day: I didn’t know of/see/taste an avocado until I was 19 years old and must say wasn’t too impressed with my first experience – nothing new there though. I consider them a bit 70s, but they’ve obviously become more popular as the years have passed and now they’re as common as beetroot.

I’ll come back to the recipes for hummus and guacamole but meanwhile, here’s a very simple tziki mix that you can be getting on with:

All the flavourings are to taste so just go with what you feel.

½ tub of Greek yoghurt or similar (you need the thick stuff here – watery yoghurt will not cut it in this instance)
About 4 inches of cucumber, peeled and grated
1-2 crushed cloves of garlic – to taste
Chopped fresh mint, or dill – to taste
Salt

Place the yoghurt in a bowl and add the crushed garlic, chopped mint or dill and salt. Give a stir. Taste to make sure you’ve got the flavourings right for you. Let it stand for a while so the flavours get to know each other, then just before serving, squeeze the grated cucumber to remove the excess liquid and mix into the yoghurt. If you add the cucumber much before, the salt will draw out more liquid from the cucumber and dilute the yoghurt. You don’t want that. You could also sprinkle some olive oil over the top and decorate with an olive if you’re feeling frivolous.

We, and when I say we I mean the family, did a Tziki Challenge on holiday in Zakynthos some years ago – every taverna we went to we ordered their tziki and rated it out of ten. Criteria were: general appearance including garnishes (ie, olive and olive oil), taste obviously; texture and quantity may have come into it: we even drew up a table to record the scores, but it was a long time ago.

Bobby’s in Vasilikos won: all roads led to Bobby’s in the tziki department. It scored a whopping 10/10 not least for its consistency. You knew what you were getting when you went to Bobby’s.

Dipping suggestions: warmed pitta bread; cucumber sticks; celery sticks at a push (but not carrot – nobody likes carrot sticks); chips – and I mean proper fried potato chips, not those horrible triangular tortilla chips or crisps. And meatballs – or chick pea balls – does the trick when you need some gutsy grub.

You could also spread tziki quite thickly over the base of a wrap, then fill with, eg, chicken or pork kebabs, a bit of salad and a couple of chips, then roll up ready for eating. We had this for lunch in a little ‘bab place in Kefalonia a couple of years ago and it kept us going all afternoon. Veggie alternatives were available.

APPLE AND BLACKBERRY

I need to give you some background to this extremely simple recipe so bear with me whilst I tell the somewhat painful story of my collecting blackberries this time last year and ending up grossly disfigured for a couple of days on account of being stung mercilessly.

It was a sultry late summer’s Sunday afternoon in Reading, and we were both in the lower garden doing what we do best, Lawton dressed to kill in his bee suit attending his lovelies and dreaming of the day we’d be able to pot our precious honey, whilst I picked blackberries. I’d already gathered and frozen a fair few as the blackberries were early that year, but there were still loads to pick and as the apples were ready it seemed a good idea – the definitive smell of early autumn for all the Lawtons is the soft scent of homegrown apples and blackberries slowly stewing with cinnamon in the kitchen, to be consumed in a crumble or just on their own with a spoonful of Greek yoghurt.
MMMmmm …… Greek yoghurt…..

Anyway, we’re both in the garden, Lawton with his bees, me with the blackberries and a half-filled bowl. I can see Lawton putting the hive back together and guess his work there is almost done when a bee comes along buzzing round my head. I’ve been lectured on this though and am not unduly worried – stay still, let the bee do his job and he’ll go away when he’s done. So I stood still, and stood still a bit more, then stood still a bit more and it was whilst I was standing still and thinking, how long do I give this standing still malarkey, when another bee came along, buzzing round my ear. I can’t shift my head as I didn’t want to make any sudden moves, and can just see out the corner of my eye Lawton making as if to go back to the house. “Ermm, Lawt”, I called, “how long do I give these bees before I move?” Lawton slowly ambled over to where I was standing but before reaching me, another bee had landed in my hair and I could feel it getting tangled up, at which point I got a bit twitchy. “Don’t move” said Lawton”. “Move??” said I – “I’ve been standing here for five fucking minutes now not moving and now this bastard has landed in my hair – and, fuck, it’s stung me now. What do I do?” I can see several more bees now buzzing around and I’m becoming slightly nervous. Lawton’s in his bee suit and well protected – I’ve got a tee shirt on. Then another sting, then another, then another – after which Lawton says “I think you’d better make a run for it – they might’ve set off the danger hormone”, and I’m thinking, great – how fast do I have to run? Will they all chase me like in a cartoon and I’ll be running with my arms stretched out in front of me with a swarm of thousands of bees just behind and will I make it to the house in time before being covered in bees and stung and stung and stung until I’m – like – dead, dead, dead. So, with all that running through my mind I make off for the house but in my haste trip up the steps leading from the lower 40 to the upper garden. I pick myself up and belt along like a whirlwind, faster than you’ve ever seen a Lawton fly before, to the kitchen slamming the door behind me. When I looked out the window there were three bees outside.

I then took the time to survey the damage done. I had four stings which may not sound much but boy were they painful; one on my scalp, one on my right eyebrow, one right at the corner of my right eye and one under my chin. Witch hazel and antihistamine were applied and the full results seen the next morning when I looked like Charles Laughton’s Quasimodo with Bell’s Palsy.

The pain went after about five days; the swelling took a little longer to go down. Was it worth it? Well, no, of course it wasn’t, but apple and blackberry remains one of my firm favourites either in a crumble, or naked with custard, or as a jam, in small pies or as an ice-cream (which I made and surprisingly turned out lovely), or warmed up and put in a pancake and served with some vanilla ice-cream, or as an apple and blackberry fool, or apple and blackberry meringue pie or on me museli, and no doubt I’ll be taking a chance again this summer only I’ll have my running shoes on.

So – the very easy recipe:

1 kg homegrown apples
500gms homegrown blackberries
Sugar to taste
Pinch of ground cinnamon or cloves – optional

Put the blackberries in a bowl of salted water and leave to stand for a couple of hours. Fish out the dead insects, leaves and other greenery that rise to the top, and pour off the water. Rinse a couple more times. Peel, core and chop the apples. Place both in a saucepan (use a stainless steel one as the fruit will discolour enamel and use a stainless steel spoon to stir), add the sugar and spice and heat slowly, stirring until the sugar has dissolved, Put a lid on the pan and cook gently until soft. Freezes well if you've got loads.

MRS L'S BALSAMIC DRESSING

Farmers’ markets are great aren’t they? A resplendent two fingers up at Tescos whichever way you look at them. Our local one in Reading isn’t a patch on the French markets of course, not enough stalls and it only happens twice a month, but we have at last been given some hope that there is an alternative to the money-grabbing, community-killing, cheaply-convenient bastards who decimate a small town in one not-so-easy-to-get-to monstrosity of a warehouse they call a “super market”. There’s nothing “market” about them at all, well, not in the traditional sense.

I went to the Reading Farmers’ Market a few years ago and spent a fortune on some artisan balsamic dressing thinking it would entice me to eat more boring salads if I drenched lettuce in the stuff. Well, that worked - and I drenched just about everything else in it too. It was far too expensive to buy every couple of weeks and I was getting hooked, so I had a look at the ingredients and thought I’d give a go at making it myself. A few trials and errors later, there was my balsamic dressing ready for the pouring. All the family have requested gallons of the stuff so on that basis I guess it’s OK.


250 ml balsamic vinegar
125-150g sugar – or to taste

1 tbsp dried onion - optional
½ tsp mustard powder – optional
½ tsp dried herbs, eg, rosemary - optional
1-2 tsp honey to taste – optional


Put the vinegar and sugar into a saucepan and heat gently, stirring, until the sugar has dissolved. Add whichever other ingredients you want for flavouring (except the honey), if any, then bring to a boil, turn down the heat and simmer until the liquid has thickened slightly. Test a drop on a cold saucer – when you can run your finger through it and it leaves a path, it’s ready. If you want the dressing a little thinner, don’t boil it for so long.

You can add honey at this stage to taste although it’s perfectly OK without.

You’ll need to remove the onion and herbs so I strain it through muslin, wait until it cools a bit, then pour into bottles and label. It can be used at once.

CHICK PEA BALLS

No, not an affliction suffered by the vegetarian male whereby he thinks twice about going for a long swim for fear of a very gradual and unprovoked swelling of intimate parts, but a decent alternative to the rather dry falafel recipes I’ve tried and discarded.

I slung together a version of this as burgers years ago and they were OK, but obviously not so OK that they became a favourite. However, I stumbled across the recipe card in the box I was sorting through recently and thought that, as I had some cooked chick peas and breadcrumbs sitting in the fridge doing nothing, where was the harm in giving them another go. So I did.

The mixture was a bit sticky so I thought I’d make balls this time and indeed they were easier to form and cook than burgers, so Chick Pea Balls they became and the card went back in the box under “C”.

I have a 2 kilo bag of dried chick peas to get through. I’m sick of hummus. I can see me munching my way through these spicy balls for a while yet.

This is much easier if you have a food processor.

Makes 18-20 balls

3 scant handfuls of dried chick peas, soaked and cooked
or 400gm tin chick peas, rinsed
4oz breadcrumbs
1 small onion, peeled
1 carrot, peeled
½ courgette
10ml olive oil
1 clove garlic, crushed
3 tbsp peanut butter – smooth or crunchy, doesn’t matter which
2 dessert spoons coconut milk powder, mixed with a little water to dissolve
½ egg, beaten
Chilli to taste
Salt and pepper

Grate the onion, carrot and courgette in a processor, heat the oil and fry the veg gently until soft and dry.

Put the chick peas in the processor with the blade attachment and process until they resemble large breadcrumbs. Tip into a bowl, add the cooked veg and garlic. Season. Mix the peanut butter and dissolved coconut milk powder together to make a paste. Add this to the veg and chick peas. Add whatever chilli you want, give a really good mix and then take up the slack with the breadcrumbs. Add some more generous seasoning and taste at this stage to make sure all the flavours are there. Add the beaten egg and stir well. It might be a bit sticky but should be quite firm – not sloppy. Don’t need sloppy balls.

At this stage the whole mix should go into the fridge to firm up – 20 mins minimum, then shape into balls – slightly bigger than a walnut, not quite as big as a golf ball. Deep fry at 160 degrees for about 10 mins until nicely browned – you’ll need to do two batches. Drain on kitchen paper.

Serving suggestion:
* With dips – sweet chilli mayo goes rather nicely;
* In pitta bread with salad and Tziki;

It's a bit sticky!

First blog, first post and first attempt at harvesting the honey from the bee hives at the bottom of the garden. What a day!

We've had the bees for nearly a year now and, apart from a few hairy moments - see Apple and Blackberry to be posted in the near future - they've been no trouble. Well, not for me because I'm not in charge of 'em, but I don't think N0bby's lost any sleep over them either.

I've been banging on for a couple of weeks now about harvesting the honey but Nobby's been a bit reluctant and I wasn't sure for why. But late yesterday afternoon, he donned his sexy, figure hugging, fits where it touches bee suit and, armed with his smoker, casually sauntered off to the bottom of the garden. I didn't see him go, he didn't say goodbye, so I couldn't wish him luck in his adventure, but I did see him come back with two frames from the hives. Most of the equipment was out - except of course the book telling us how to extract the stuff - and so we proceeded to do what we do best - wing it. I took the wax caps off the frames (it would have been better if I'd heated the knife, but I'll know next time), and some of it was runny and some wasn't. We put the frames in the spinner and spun, but not for long enough and we didn't turn the frames round to get the honey out of the other side, but we'll know next time, then we sieved it but the set honey doesn't go through the sieve so we'll have to think about that one. Not sure how much honey we're going to get from this forage - a couple of pounds for a few tasters I suppose, but I did extract some beeswax, and I've made a cross between a lip balm and a furniture polish. I'll be honest here, lavender lip balm doesn't taste particularly pleasant so minor adjustment to be made there but I reckon once I've polished the bedside cabinet, it'll look ravishing. The honey's still being sieved, and apparently we have to let it stand for a day to let the air bubbles rise before we bottle it, so the kitchen's still looking a bit like a Queen Bee's boudoir.

The honey tastes like .... honey. The whole of downstairs smells of honey and I'm having honey on toast for breakfast tomorrey if I'm not sick of it by then. And tonight I'll spend my evening washing up honey covered buckets, sieves, taps, muslin, floors and walls. We should have collected the whole hive really to make it worthwhile, but we'll know next time.