Autumn's Here

Its definitely autumn now, the days are taking longer to get started. The evenings are colder, the mornings are damp and misty and there is the scent of wood smoke on the air as everyone lights their log burners. A few houses have oil central heating or propane but there is no mains gas supply here, nobody uses coal, and many houses – including ours – have no central heating at all. We have a couple of electric heaters upstairs but they are expensive to run so we rely on the huge log burner in the main dining/family room to keep us warm. When we first moved here I thought it would be terribly cold and a pain to have to light the fire but I love it now; it creates a bit of dirt but the dry heat is really nice, it looks fab and with the thick old walls of the house it keeps us pretty toasty; if its loaded up well at night it’s still warm in the morning.

M the Cat in a warm Kitchen

Fortunately at the moment it’s only necessary to light it for a few hours in the morning and evening; the days have been bright and sunny, warming up nicely to a respectable temperature during the afternoon. Out in the garden or walking the dogs in the afternoon can still be done in a t-shirt!

autumn arrives with fresh covering of snow on the peaks of Pyrenees that you can see from the village

I know that the warm autumn probably means a wet spring again next year but I can’t help being pleased at every extra day of sunshine.

We have now been here in France for a year! It has gone so quickly I can’t quite believe it. We went back to the UK a few weekends ago to meet some friends and to celebrate two birthdays in Bath. It was lovely to visit our friends and we had a great time despite the awful weather, but for the first time it was the flight back to France and coming back to our little village in the Hautes Pyrenees that felt like coming home!

Bath was lovely, we went to watch the rugby, found a lovely restaurant and visited a number of good British pubs for a pint and a bag of crisps (it’s the one thing I miss!!). The only disappointment was our long planned trip to Demuth’s Vegetarian Restaurant in Bath. Having read good things about it for many years we thought this would be a great night out with our vegetarian friends who usually get the short straw when it comes to our many restaurant trips. There were flashes of excellence on the quite short menu but much of that on offer was very spicy food with an Indian or Moroccan theme, the rest was bland or just plain mismatched. For example a wonderfully wholesome and well executed root vegetable bake was served with cannallotti beans which just made it stodgy and hard to eat. With the range of great organic ingredients available including seasonal vegetables and fruit, local cheeses etc being used by many restaurants these days to ensure a good range of vegetarian food on many menu’s this place did not live up to its reputation for good food or the hype that it is doing something different. Oh and the staff were really off hand which wound me up from the start…!

The night before we found a fantastic little Bistro (shamefully the name of which I cant remember) round the corner from our B&B. We ate lovely food while sitting at the bar because they were so busy, drank some great wine, and chatted to the really lovely, very friendly staff that couldn’t do enough to make sure we were happy. The other culinary treat of the visit were cookies from a great little cookie shop in a tiny little street off the main shopping area. Melt in the mouth cookies baked fresh each day with just the right amount of crisp outer and soft chewy centre. Perfect.

Back in France we harvested the last of tomatoes even the green ones which are on the guest bedroom window sill ripening during the sunny afternoons. I’ll make chutney from any ones which stay green but at the moment there is enough sun and warmth to finish most of them off. And there are figs on our two fig trees... I love figs!

A fantastic present from our friends who recently visited The River Cottage to do the Bread & Jam course was a copy of the River Cottage Handbook on Preserving by Pam Corbin. What a fantastic book! Since returning from the UK I bought a lovely jam pan and a sugar thermometer and have redoubled my efforts in pickling, preserving, and learning to make fruit cheese and fruit leather. So far I have made hedgerow jelly with rosehips, elderberries and the last of the blackberries; passata with the ripening tomatoes from the garden (fantastically delicious and sweet from slowly roasting the tomatoes with shallots and garlic) recipe below; I have bottled some of the figs which are at last swelling and ripening in the garden; made compote with the famous prunes from nearby Agen and dried apricots; and fragrant quince cheese, with quinces bought from the local market where they appeared, all yellow and knobbly, for one week only!

My plans are to try making some of the flavoured vinegars and the Mulled Pears sound divine. I can’t recommend this book highly enough for anyone who likes the idea of keeping the best of the summer and autumn crops and turning them into something even more special that you can eat during the lean winter months. The book takes the mystery out of the equipment and the jargon and makes you realise how it’s all pretty straight forward if you follow some simple rules for keeping things sterile.

Having said that it’s not all plain sailing my first pan of hedgerow jelly became, fruit toffee having been allowed to get too hot when I answered the phone at the crucial moment! But it’s not put me off!

Tomato and Mascarpone Pasta

Roasted Tomato Passata
(this recipe from the Preserves book can be made and either used immediately or you can bottle it or freeze it for future use)

1kg ripe tomatoes
100g shallots, peeled and thinly sliced
2 large garlic cloves, peeled and thinly sliced
A few sprigs of rosemary and thyme
Salt and pepper
½ tsp sugar
olive oil

Preheat the oven to 180º C/Gas Mark 4

Cut the tomatoes in half and place them cut side up in a single layer in a large roasting pan. Scatter the shallots, garlic, herbs, a generous pinch of salt and grind of pepper, the sugar and add a drizzle of oil all over the top. Roast for about 1 hour, or until they are well softened. Remove from the oven and rub through a nylon sieve to remove the skins, pips, herb stalks etc.

I found this made a small tub full which can be kept in the fridge for a few days.

Tomato & Marscarpone Pasta (2 servings) boil your favourite pasta till it is cooked but not soggy. Mix in half of the tub of tomato passata, add 2 large tablespoons of Mascarpone and mix over a low heat to warm through. Season with salt, pepper and ripped basil; serve with parmesan to grate over the top, a green salad and loads of garlic bread.

10 tomatoes… 3 beans!

Yes just 3 beans! We won’t be winning any awards for our beans this year but the tomato plants are just loaded. Despite early promise the beans have failed spectacularly whilst the tomatoes have grown like wild things and the big surprise for any British gardener is that they do so well outside; no glass in sight! No patient nurturing and doing battle with the insects…. just plant and watch them grow.

Of course I still have to out wit the 'nutty dog' to make sure I get to the tomatoes before he does...

On the weekend I collected several pounds of ripe tomatoes so its fantastic Tomato Soup time, then traditional french Ratatouille with fresh tomatoes instead of tinned, then later I will make some tomato sauces to freeze. And finally when the weather changes (I pray that won’t be for a few weeks yet) and the last few pounds won’t have enough sun to ripen I’ll pick them green and make scrumptious Green Tomato Chutney to last through the winter.

I use an old Delia recipe for Tomato Soup which is quick and easy and beats the flavour of a tin of soup by miles. I have modified the original recipe through trial and error to make the method even easier (Delia’s Complete Cookery Course is a permanent companion in my kitchen, and a starting point for anything I’m not sure what to do with… )

(Better than the well known tinned variety) Tomato Soup

750g ripe tomatoes (mark a cross on the bottom of each tomato and dip in boiling water for a few seconds, rinse off under cold water and remove the skins, then roughly chop the tomatoes)
1 medium onion (preferably a red onion but any one will do) finely chopped
1 medium potato diced
Olive Oil
275ml of good vegetable stock
2 fat garlic cloves crushed

Basil and Cream or Basil Oil and Parmesan to finish

In a large heavy based saucepan heat a large slug of olive oil, add the onion and diced potato and over a medium heat soften them slowly without browning.

When the onions and potatoes are soft add the garlic and cook with the onion for a minute or so then add the chopped tomatoes stirring them in well and cooking for a further minute. Add the stock and season with salt and pepper. Cover and leave to simmer for about 25 minutes.

Take the pan off the stove and carefully pass the soup through a sieve to remove the pips and any hard tomato cores. Return to the saucepan check the seasoning and re-heat.

Here you can get creative, sometimes I like to add ripped basil leaves and/or a large slug of cream and heat very gently. Sometimes I prefer to leave the soup plain then when it is hot pour into heated dishes and drizzle a little basil oil (or garlic oil or other fragrant flavoured oil) and add parmesan shavings to the top.

Always serve with plenty of bread… french if you can get it of course!