food+drink

Recipe: Sweet & Spicy Crab Apple Cheese

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Spurred on by the season of fruitfulness, I’ve been indulging in some preserving over the last week or so. I thought I’d share a couple of recipes in this post and the next. Like all my recipes they are almost infinitely adaptable.

First off here’s a recipe for Crab Apple Cheese. We have an ornamental “ballerina” (ie. columnar) crab apple tree in the garden, which produces large (for a crab) red fruit which I’ve always assumed were of no use. It is over 30 years old and now getting quite tall, but before we decided to take it out in favour of something more useful, I figured we ought to see if the fruit were of any use. And they are! So this recipe has probably saved the tree from the axeman.

Now I can’t be bothered to faff around allowing cooked fruit to strain through a muslin bag overnight to make jelly, so I did the easy version and made a “cheese” – which is much the same as jelly except you get a cloudy product, and that’s fine by me.

Sweet & Spicy Crab Apple Cheese

Based on an original recipe by the late Mary Norwak.
Makes 5-6 1lb jars.

Ingredients

  • 1.5kg crab apples (prepared weight)
  • 300ml sweet cider
  • 300ml water
  • 1 lemon, cut into eighths [a]
  • white or light soft brown sugar
  • 1tsp ground cloves
  • 1tsp ground nutmeg
  • 1tsp ground cinnamon

Method

  1. Cut the washed apples into pieces (halves/quarters is fine) removing any damaged parts but without peeling or coring.
  2. Put the apple into a pan with the water, cider and lemon.
  3. Simmer until the fruit is very soft.
  4. Press the cooked fruit through a sieve. You’re aiming to be left with only the dry fruit fibres, skins, pips and lemon peel [b].
  5. Weigh the resulting puree and return it to the pan.
  6. Add the same weight of sugar as there is puree (ie. for every 100gm puree add 100gm sugar).
  7. Stir in the sugar over a low heat until all the sugar dissolves.
  8. Add the spices and bring to the boil.
  9. Reduce the heat; simmer and stir continuously until the mixture is thick [c].
  10. Test the set as for jam [d].
  11. Once you reach the set point, pour into sterilised jars [e] (a jam funnel helps here) and put on the lids immediately.
  12. This should store in a cool dark place as long as home-made jam.

Notes

  1. The lemon should ensure there is enough pectin in the mix to get a good set, but not too much that the flavour will come through.
  2. This is arm-aching work as you need the residue as dry as possible. If you have more than one sieve try to engage a helper.
  3. This is tedious as it may take quite a time, but you do not want the mix sticking to the bottom of the pan. And be careful as the thickening mix can spit, it is very hot and can stick to the skin.
  4. If you have a sugar thermometer the jam should set well when the mix reaches 105°C. Otherwise use the saucer test. Put a saucer in the fridge at the beginning of your cooking time. Once you think the jam has reached setting point or has thickened, put a teaspoonful on the cold saucer and leave for a minute or so. Now push the test jam with your finger; if it wrinkles well it should set OK. Alternatively hold the saucer vertically; if it is set the jam will not run off the saucer (but the whole blob may glide downwards as a whole). For more see, for example, https://www.kilnerjar.co.uk/setting-points.
  5. Sterilising jars. Wash, rinse and dry the jars and lids. 30 minutes before required put the jars in the oven at 140°C. If possible warm the lids. When needed put the jars onto a wooden board (the heat may damage your nice worktop). When filled put the lids on the jars as quickly as possible – you’ll need an ovenproof mitt/glove to hold the jars – and then go round again to ensure the lids are tight. As the jam cools a slight vacuum will be created in the jar which will help preserve the contents.
  6. This is excellent for a sweet course or served with pork, ham, duck or cheese. Oh and if you make it too runny, then use as an ice cream topping. Indeed it is sufficiently sweet you could even use it as jam!

My cheese set solid. We had a small amount left after filling the jars and put it in a ramekin. Once cold you could turn the ramekin upside down and the cheese didn’t fall out! We road-tested it at lunch today with a good cheddar cheese, and it was universally acclaimed as “excellent”.

amusements, memes

Ten Things: September

This year our Ten Things series, on the tenth of each month, is concentrating on things which are wackier than usual, if not by much. From odd road names to Christmas carols by way of saints and scientists. So here goes with September …

Ten Relatively Unknown Scientists

  1. Robert Hooke (1653-1703)
  2. John Flamstead (1646-1719)
  3. Paul Dirac (1902-84)
  4. Mary Anning (1799-1847)
  5. Eric Laithwaite (1921-97)
  6. Alice Hamilton (1869-1970) (right)
  7. Paul Flory (1910-85)
  8. Paracelcus (1493-1541)
  9. Emmy Noether (1882-1935)
  10. Grace Hopper (1906-92)

If you’re interested to know more, all have Wikipedia entries.

arts, history, links, medical, science

Monthly Links

It’s been quiet round here recently. Nevertheless we’ve been collecting our usual list of links to items you missed the first time. And this month we have an edition packed with some good (long) reads …

Science, Technology, Natural World

Astronomer Martin Rees looks at how we’ve discovered that the universe is much bigger and weirder than anyone thought … [£££] [LONG READ]

… or as our favourite theoretical physicist, Katie Mack, points out: space is big and our planet a tiny porthole, looking over a cosmic sea.

Whoops! We didn’t see it coming and it nearly got us. [£££]

Flat Earthers’ “science” may be wrong, but they aren’t entirely stupid.

Now to more mundane matters … here are two articles, one from the Conversation the other from the Guardian, on how vets identified Coronavirus in a cat.

A few weeks back, when the weather was nicely tropical, Diamond Geezer took a look at the technical definition of a heatwave – and it isn’t as simple as you might think.

Really tiny, but really cute: Leaf Sheep,
apparently the only animal that can photosynthesise.

The Somali Sengi (a species of elephant shrew) is a really cool critter: it mates for life, can race around at 30km/h and sucks up ants with its trunk-like nose – and having been thought extinct ecologists have recently rediscovered it in Djibouti.

Health, Medicine

A view from inside the NHS on what it was like trying to cope with a sudden deluge of Covid-19 patients. [LONG READ]

Covid-19 is here for the long haul: here’s how scientists predict the pandemic might play out over the next months and years.

Ed Yong looks at the totally non-intuitive complexity of the immune system, and why trying to understand it is so important. [LONG READ]

Here’s one doctor who avoids soap (except for hand-washing) and says we’re showering all wrong.

[TRIGGER WARNING] Unlike in animals, we know that around 25% of all pregnancies end in an early miscarriage, but do we really understand why? [£££] [LONG READ]

Then again, we’ve only just discovered that human sperm swim differently than we thought they did.

Social Sciences, Business, Law

For two decades scientists and officials played pandemic war games, but they didn’t factor in the effects of a Donald Trump. [LONG READ]

Be concerned; be very concerned. A lawyer looks at the government’s current review of Judicial Review.

History, Archaeology, Anthropology

Pace Richard Dawkins, it is suggested that humans aren’t inherently selfish, but hardwired to work together. (Until the ship gets overcrowded that is.)

The origins of modern humans get more complex with every new twist of DNA analysed. I have to ask whether we’re actually sure that Homo sapiens, Neanderthals, Denisovans, H. erectus (and maybe others) aren’t actually just one species with some very well-defined sub-species. [LONG READ]

Archaeologists believe they’ve found the source of Stonehenge’s giant sarsen stones.

It turns out that our medieval friends had a thing about sex with demons. [LONG READ]

And now to almost modern demons of a different kind. Here’s an old article about a potentially huge explosion lurking in a wreck off the Kent coast. [LONG READ]

London

Archaeologists have uncovered the lost medieval Great Sacristy of Westminster Abbey.

The history and workings of the Port of London in Tudor times. [LONG READ]

On the dissolution of London’s monasteries.

And another piece from The History of London on the building of Regents Canal.

A short history of the London Hackney Coach and the Horse Cab.

Food, Drink

At long last someone is waking up to the ideas that dieting per se doesn’t work and that we all have different food and metabolic requirements.

Lifestyle, Personal Development, Beliefs

There’s a Zoroastrian centre not far from here, so I’ve always wondered what they’re about. Here’s a look into the very closed world of a strange religion. [LONG READ]

Here are nine common myths about naturism which are totally wrong.

Postcrossing has been around for a while. It’s an interesting idea involving swapping postcards with unknown people around the world as a way of building global friendship.

Shock, Horror, Humour, Wow!

And finally … Only the Japanese could invent a public toilet with transparent walls. They’re quite pretty really.

quotes

Monthly Quotes

Our monthly collection of recently encountered quotes …

We as humans are built to ignore big problems.
[Katie Mack at https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/space-the-nation-katie-mack-the-mansplainer-slayer-on-getting-science-right]

It’s very hard to just tell someone, “This is a thing” and have that change their mind … just presenting facts, just throwing facts in people’s faces does not change their minds.
[Katie Mack at https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/space-the-nation-katie-mack-the-mansplainer-slayer-on-getting-science-right]

Almost all of ordinary matter (99.9999999% of it) is empty space. If you took out all of the space in our atoms, the entire human race (all 7 billion of us) would fit into the volume of a sugar cube.

“My dog does magic tricks.”
“Really? What breed is he?”
“He’s a labracadabrador.”
[Stolen from Twitter]

All political lives, unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure, because that is the nature of politics and of human affairs.
[Enoch Powell]

Vice, if you gild it lavishly enough, is always attractive … thoughts of the aftermath rarely intrude themselves on such occasions.
[Sidney Felstead]

“Si quis sederet super pellem leonis recedent ab illo emorroides”
If someone sits on a lion’s skin their piles will go away.
[Ortus sanitatis, 1499. “Description of the properties of lions”. Quoted by Katie Birkwood at https://twitter.com/Girlinthe/status/1290593981424902144]

We’ve become incredibly entomologically dumb. We just don’t distinguish the dangerous from the harmless from the helpful. The average kid can probably distinguish more makes of cars or superheroes than insects.
[Jeffrey Lockwood, University of Wyoming]
In Maine, selling weed is illegal but it’s legal to have and use. So there are these guys who run a “psychic” location service and for a fee they will find your lost weed and deliver it to you.
[Twitter]

The best food ever is nonexistent or you will never find it. My reason for this, is that people create new food all the time. Also you have to try every thing that ever existed since the beginning of time. And the reason is that you would have [to] eat things, that you can’t eat, like dark matter. Even if you figured out how to fly around, eating every single quark and lepton you [would] eventually explode because you would contain the whole universe. So, in conclusion don’t try to find the best food in the world because you will explode.
[Anonymous 10-year old asked to write about the best food in the world; quoted on Twitter]

The cult of female modesty is as much part of ““patriarchy” as anything else – it gives men power to shame and demean women … As ever, that modesty cult claims to be in a woman’s own interest.
[Dr Victoria Bateman]

Orange and gold carp.
Living beneath the ice.
Uncaring of the world above,
sustained by the water below.
[Deng Ming-Dao]

There is no greater enemy to dictators than people actually being allowed to vote.

amusements, memes

Ten Things: August

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This year our Ten Things series, on the tenth of each month, is concentrating on things which are wackier than usual, if not by much. From odd road names to Christmas carols by way of saints and scientists. So here goes with August amusement …

Ten Amusing (but Real) UK Placenames

  1. Brass Knocker Hill, Claverton, Bath
  2. Dead Woman’s Bottom, Somerset
  3. Fanny’s Cross, Devon
  4. Fishpond Bottom, Dorset (right)
  5. Fryup, Yorkshire
  6. Marsh Gibbon, Buckinghamshire
  7. Berrick Salome, Oxford
  8. Twatt, Orkney
  9. Ugley, Essex
  10. Bell End, Worcester
personal, ramblings

Horrible Times 13: Day 150

Here we are at day 150 of Covid isolation from the world. FFS that’s five months of house arrest. And as a result what has changed? Absolutely bugger all.

We still have a government which is interested only in lining its own nests, and those of its mates, and who can’t – more likely won’t – see what’s important in the big picture (see my post of a few days ago). So they start loosening things up, to get the economy moving. They want eateries to reopen, and bribe us to use them. Then moan because we’re obese! “Free burgers and free bullying for all.”

No wonder the number of infections goes up and there’s a return to restrictions. Why should we be surprised? Well we shouldn’t, as this is essentially only a re-release of “Brexit Fiasco – the game without rules”. So, yes, let’s not forget we yet have the fallout from Brexit to negotiate over the next 18+ months. Not so much a car crash as a railroad train/road train crash.

At a more personal level things are much the same as well. We are still muddling along; still very much in lockdown. Although we are told we can do things, neither Noreen nor I are at all comfortable with the idea of going out and about, even with masks. Which means procrastination and bone-idleness continue to be the order of the day.

So, a few things (good and not so good) that have happened since my last report on day 125.

Good Not So Good
  • I’ve made some small family history discoveries. Amongst them, in 1901 one of my 2nd-great-uncles was Butler to the Dowager Countess of Londonderry.
  • Being able to sit around in the nude: who wants to wear clothes in this heat?
  • Our friend Tom is back and getting the garden straightened out.
  • Home-grown tomatoes, marrow and chillies.
  • Continuing good food. As Noreen says, our g-g-grandfathers would think we’re living like the gentry. And why not? We deserve some consolation!
  • Having Tom around, lovely though it is, is disruptive; neither of us gets anything much done while he’s here.
  • Continuing episodes of “Cat and Mouse: the Soap Opera”.
    S4E9: Live Mouse in the Study.
    S5E17: Dead Rat under Desk.
  • I’ve been sleeping incredibly badly.
  • I’ve an annoying boil under my left jaw. At least that’s what the doctor thinks it is.
  • As a consequence of these last two, the depression doesn’t improve and there’s no “get up and go” to be found.
Yesterday’s haul: the first marrow and another batch of tomatoes

So I wonder what happens next? Will I be able to report some welcome improvements in my next report on (maybe) day 200? I must admit doing so would be a great relief! But I won’t put the Champagne on ice just yet.

current affairs, thoughts

Horrible Times 12: Business doesn’t Matter

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I’m thinking, again, about Covid-19 and the overall scheme of things.

What I suspected long long ago is still true.

No-one gets it! Not just the government, but YOU, out there 🠞 🠟 🠜 🠝 🠞

In the overall scheme of things, BUSINESS DOESN’T MATTER!

Yes, that’s right: protecting business, in these troubled times, is NOT the first, or even a high, priority.

What has to be done is to protect, and look after, the people. Get the people through this pandemic. And do that at the expense of almost anything else!

Yes, that’s a draconian – and no doubt unpopular – view. And I make no pretence it will be easy or comfortable.

But look at it this way … Businesses are expendable. It doesn’t matter if they fail. Businesses can be rebuilt, started afresh, etc. but only if there are people there to do it. There is no point in having a business if there is no-one there to run it or buy from it. And if the people are there then at least a core of businesses will survive. And when all this is over those surviving businesses can grow to fill the new demand, along with new start-ups and resurrections.

Business is secondary to people. No people = No business.

Yes, OK, there are a core of businesses which are essential: specifically utilities (water, electricity, gas, sewerage, rubbish collection), food supply (farm to shop), healthcare (drugs, doctors, hospitals), and transport (haulage, some public transport, fuel).

Beyond that it isn’t important if pubs, restaurants, car manufacture, garden centres, tailors, fashion houses, gunsmiths, jewellers, publishing, and so on, cease. It doesn’t matter if I can’t buy Epsom salt, a mousetrap, or a new camera. All these can, and will, be rebuilt to the extent that the post-pandemic world, and it’s population, needs them and there are people to work them. If there aren’t the people (either as employees or customers) then the business isn’t viable.

Even education (all of it from kindergarten to university) isn’t essential. Yes, we need educated people, because educated people feed business. But missing a year or two won’t be a tragedy, as many who’ve been long-term sick demonstrate. You can catch up on education later. Although again it may not be easy or pretty.

People’s ability to survive has to be supported and protected, first and foremost.

So wake up governments. People first. Then education. And business later.