Stories of bridges and spoons

I don't seem to have time to post much these days - I'm very tied up with local issues including a campaign to try and get a massive local development redesigned - but I'm still here and I'm still busy doing new and exciting things.

The craft side of my life has not been neglected even though my knitting is rather in the doldrums - I spent last weekend learning the ancient craft of spoon carving and I have to say I did not expect it to be so physically demanding! I had a romantic vision of some gentle whittling with a small knife on some nice soft wood. In fact much of the shaping and initial creation of the spoon is done using an axe - in my case a rather small axe since the full-sized one quickly tired my arm out. It takes a lot of concentration (firstly to hit the wood in the right place) and effort (repetitive movements can be very tiring) and when it's using muscles that don't normally get much of a workout, it's even more exhausting.

Just six of us were on the course in Great Bourton village hall, taught by local woodworker Martin Damen. In fact there were only five of us most of the time, after one of our number got over-excited in the first few minutes and gave himself a nasty cut on the hand from the very sharp knife we were working with.

Starting off with logs of alder and beech we sawed off a chunk which we then cleaved into two pieces using the axe and a mallet.

Martin taught us safe techniques for use of the axe, the straight knife and the bowl knife (a hooked knife used for shaping the spoon bowl) and then led us through the process of making a butter knife (this only uses the axe and the straight knife) and then a spoon the following day.

I was very proud of how my spoon and knife turned out, and am looking forward to using them. We came away with a straight knife each so if I decide to take it up as a hobby, that's one less thing I'll have to buy. But I am not sure where I would be able to get wood from to carve, and the need to have an axe and chopping block would also make it fairly difficult to take up as a sporadic hobby.

This week I was very privileged to get the opportunity to visit the Forth Railway Bridge, including the very top of one of the main trusses. It was a thrilling experience - not least the opportunity to examine this beautiful structure up close. It was a long and cold walk out along the access gantry to the middle of the bridge, and a rather shaky trip in the rack and pinion lift to the top of the tower, but it was all worth it when I got there.

Added later: another pic of the bridge since you can't really get the full glory in the picture above!

Torcross and surrounds

The Curse and I took a trip to Devon last week, and enjoyed a good few days of warm sunshine, a couple of showery days, and one day when it pissed it down all day without remorse. Such is the British summer of course - but it didn't stop me swimming in the sea nearly every day and we enjoyed a couple of good walks and some lovely visits to the towns of Dartmouth, Kingsbridge and Totnes.

We ate and drank very copiously, read the paper and did the crossword every day, a rare luxury, and had plenty of time to chill out. Here's a few highlights.

Slapton Ley at dusk

Torcross and its beach - my morning swimming spot

The River Dart at Dartmouth

Transition town Totnes - the original transition town. These guerrilla-gardened planters on the quays are full of veg, herbs and edible flowers, with signs urging people to help themselves (and handy hints too!)

Finished object - green dragon socks!

This pair of socks was finished a few weeks ago, but I didn't get round to blogging about them.

They are very green - a cut-price bargain from the sale shelves of The Yarn Yard - and the Falling Leaves pattern from Knitty makes them look a bit like dragon scales.

I enjoyed knitting them, although the pattern took quite a while to get used to. It wasn't until I was on the leg of the second sock that I finally got the logic of it lodged in my brain.

Rhubarb and ginger crumble ice-cream

Yesterday I made ice-cream for the first time in my life. Having always been scared off by the fact that I don't have an ice-cream maker (and don't want to buy one as it's just another machine to find room for) and people saying it's a faff without one, I was spurred into trying by Delia Smith, of all people.

Well, not actually Delia herself, rather her Summer Collection book which I acquired in a charity shop in Folkestone and which has a whole chapter on ice creams and sorbets. So I bought a large, shallow plastic box to make the ice-cream in, acquired a frightening amount of double cream, and set about producing my very own ice-cream flavour using a jar of rather runny rhubarb and ginger jam, and some leftover crumble crunch that I'd had from a crumble I made a few weeks ago.

Rhubarb and ginger crumble ice-cream

two tubs (approx 560ml) double cream
one jar of rhubarb & ginger jam (or any other type of fruit jam - if it's runny, so much the better!)
leftover crumble crunch* in small pieces

Whisk the double cream until it is thick (but stop before it stands in peaks). Stir in the jam and mix thoroughly. Fold in the crumble crunch and place into a shallow freezer box (mine had a capacity of 3 litres) with a lid on.

Put it in the freezer and set a timer for about 90 minutes. When the timer goes off, take the box out and stir the ice-cream thoroughly again. (It should be part frozen by now, the stirring helps to give it an even consistency although this doesn't seem to be a great problem when you are using just cream). Put it back in a freeze thoroughly.

The only drawback with this recipe is that it sets extremely solidly. About half an hour before you intend to serve it, take the box out of the freezer and put it in the fridge. It should be soft enough to scoop when you need it.

*the crumble crunch was spare from a crumble I made using the recipe in Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's excellent River Cottage Everyday book. As well as 225g plain flour, 200g butter, and 150g caster sugar, the crumble topping includes 75g oatmeal and 75g ground almonds. Once you've rubbed the butter into the flour, mix in the other ingredients and then squeeze bits of the crumble together to make 'lumps' before spreading it on a baking tray and baking at gas mark 5/190C for 20-25 minutes. You can cool it and store in a jar for several weeks to use either as a topping on desserts, or in ice-cream as I did above.

Two at a time

This is my current work in progress - first attempt at knitting two socks at the same time. I've made great strides over the last week due to train journeys to Eastbourne and Bishops Stortford to visit friends, and am finding it pretty easy.

The Magic Carpet yarn from the Yarn Yard was the catalyst that made me try two at a time; it's knitted out of two strands of sock yarn, and dyed in its knitted state, so that when you unravel it and knit it into socks, the colour changes match.

Loving the colours although finding the unravelled yarn a bit annoying, obviously it doesn't knit up as evenly as it would if I were to wash it and straighten it out a bit. I'm assuming it will all even out when I wash and block the finished socks.

Now slightly curious about the heels (I do short rows). I guess I have to do one at a time, won't be able to manipulate the needles otherwise?

Pickled courgettes II

A couple of years ago I posted about pickled courgettes, linking to the recipe on the Riverford website that I had adapted.

Since then, it has gone off the website and left no trace.

Luckily I wrote it down in my cookbook and it's been in use today for pickling the lovely yellow courgettes given to me by knitting friend Jenny, which I stupidly forgot to photograph before slicing them up...!

Pickled courgettes

500g courgettes
2tbsp salt
1 small onion
chilled tap water (I usually put a bottle in the fridge the day before)

500ml cider vinegar
120g sugar
1.5tsp mustard powder
1.5tsp crushed mustard seeds
1tsp turmeric

Slice the courgettes as thinly as possible, using a mandoline or cheese slicer if you have one, and slice the onion into thin rings. Put them in a large bowl, sprinkle over the salt and cover with chilled water.

Leave for an hour, then drain, rinse and dry thoroughly on a clean teatowel in batches.

Put all the spices, sugar and vinegar in a saucepan, heat and simmer for three minutes, then leave to cool.

Pack the courgette and onions into a large sterilised pickling jar, then pour the warm pickling mix over them. Refrigerate for at least a day before serving. Will keep indefinitely in the fridge (and should be ok out of it too).

Spiced damson jelly

Last weekend I was lucky enough to find a new internet friend who was offering spare fruit from his garden trees. He turned out to have a garden full of damson, greengage, apple and fruit trees, not to mention some rather luscious blackberries.

I had hoped to pick a bag of greengages that myself and the Curse could gorge on, but it turned out there weren't many gages left. Instead I picked a kilo of damsons and about a pound of blackberries, and brought them home to process.

The blackberries are now blackberry vinegar (using this recipe) and the damsons have been made into a slightly runny spiced damson jelly.

I used the basic jelly recipe in Pam Corbin's River Cottage Preserves book, and added a chunk of cinnamon stick, some cloves and some allspice to the damsons and water as I cooked them up.

After straining through muslin overnight, I boiled up the liquid with some sugar until it was starting to set, then put it into jars. It's still not very well set but that's fine as I will probably use it mainly to add to gravy and other sauces.