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Francesca

Autunno


What better autumn sweet treat than acorn pastry tartlets with quince jam? Well, perhaps rosehip jam. I think I'll do that next year.

The acorns were from our holly oaks which are meant to have less tannin than say, English oaks. These are all that I could collect from our two fairly large trees. Next year I will try with some of the thousands the English oaks produce, I was too late this year, the wildlife got to them before I did. There is a lot of work involved. Once shelled they need to be leached of their tannins in several changes of water before they are palatable. Then they are dried and ground to a meal. They taste much like chestnuts if you are curious.

I did some preserving this autumn: Chutney from the last of the tomatoes which wouldn't have ripened. Pickled nasturtium buds: "poor man's capers". Quince jam, quince BBQ sauce, quince glaze. So many quinces and we only have one tree producing at the moment! I find the best way to get that wonderful deep red colour is to poach them in sugar syrup in the oven for 3 or 4 hours.


A few years back I pickled a variety of crab apple we have that are pretty much like a miniature apple. They were delicious but as the birds got them all this year I tried pickling the other type we have - a little bright red variety which looks like a cherry.... Not as successfully I'm afraid, they are mostly all core. They made brilliant jelly though.

I made sweet chilli sauce as Dad went a bit over board with the chillies again. To be fair he only planted one plant of each variety because they are such heavy croppers. Our fig trees had a lot of figs this year too. Unfortunately they were mostly late in the season which meant they also were not going to ripen. So I preserved the green figs in syrup - to which I added a few fig leaves for extra flavour. They were boiled in a couple of changes of water before going into the syrup and they will be perfect on a cheese platter.

Some other delicacies which did not escape my attention were fuchsia berries - it took me a month to collect 1 cupful in the freezer so I simply preserved them in sugar syrup. They have a green spiciness - which will be interesting with savoury dishes - and a lovely purple colour which was hard to capture in a photograph. Then there was dandelion jelly - often called vegan honey - and I tried with gorse flowers but their characteristic coconut aroma must be more of a spring/summer thing as it tasted more like grass!


I grew burdock this year intending to brew dandelion and burdock root beer. I didn't get around to that but it is tasty sautéed teriyaki style and delicious as chips. We had a bumper crop of Jerusalem artichokes too but I have a feeling the deer will be treated to most of those.




And then there were the cakes of course. A gorgeous rose covered wedding cake in gold and cream was my absolute favourite.


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