Melon!

My first melon! Hopefully I am getting the hang of it though, and next year will be EVEN more successful.We had it with our ham that Al heroically deboned so it could be sliced it in the magic slicer.

Trip to Arreau Market

Trip to Arreau market via the Col d’Aspin, then lunch at Saint Lary Soulan and a visit to the Balnéa spa. It was all work you know, research for future guests... (poor Doug stayed at home and slaved at useful things)

Amazing clouds looking towards the Pic du Midi from Col d’Aspin

Arreau market, nice but not a patch on Bagneres

Cheers!

No pictures allowed inside. Really great spa. We must go to the one in Bagnères-de-Bigorre sometime. Terrible having lived there so long and not having been!

Macaroni Cheese Pie Recipe

This is only quite loosely a recipe as amounts aren’t v precise.

Makes 12 cupcake size pies

200g mini macaroni
500ml béchamel sauce (you can buy it in Intermarché!)
2 rounds of shortcrust pastry (as bought in Intermarché - I guess they are 30cm diameter)
Grated cheddar

A cupcake tin that has quite big and deep holes.

Cook macaroni and mix in the béchamel and the cheese (no idea how much, till it's really cheesy!)
Cut out circles from the pastry, make sure you butter the tin and make sure the circles come above the top of the holes in the tin.
Fill each pastry piece with macaroni cheese and top with cheese and a slice of tomato

Cook at 180C for about 20 mins until the pastry is lightly browned

Hop Harvest

More than twice the size of last years harvest, but still not v impressive. We are not sure what we are doing wrong really. Do they want something more vertical to climb? Are they too smothered by weeds (managed to keep that down more this year) not enough compost?

They are out of sight over the hill at the right of the photo here...

Wine tasting

Oh dear! We skived off AGAIN today, abandoned the poor dog all alone, and went to one of the Plaimont vineyards for a tour, wine tasting and lunch.
Really interesting, learnt a lot and had plenty of nice wine and food. Recommended!

These grapes have been declared a Historic Monument because they are so old. In the 19th century lots of vines were wiped out by an imported bug called Phylloxera, these survived because of the sandy soil. Almost all vines now have to be grafted on to American root stock to survive!

There are 17 different varieties of ancient vines in this quite small area and they are busy studying them to help find suitable vine varieties as the climate warms. The existing ones are starting to make wine that is too strong because they develop more sugar as the climate warms!

Basement at the monastery where we did the tasting and had lunch. You can stay here, the rooms are enormous, it has a pool and lots and lots of wine! What’s not to like.

This is one of the new varieties they have developed from the ancient vines

Lamb for lunch

Shortbread Recipes

We found Recipe One to be great and like 'real' shortbread. Recipe Two was really really good but came out, we thought, like a cross between shortbread and flapjack. Kind of chewier than 'real' shortbread. Both were yummy and way way too fattening!

Recipe One
100g caster sugar
150g butter (cold from fridge)
220g plain flour
1/2 tsp salt

Put butter and flour in blender and pulse in to bread crumbs
Stir in sugar
Squish in to mould

Recipe Two
100g caster sugar
150g butter (room temp)
275g plain flour
1/2 tsp salt

Cream together sugar and butter in food mixer until pale in colour
Add flour and mix quickly. Don’t over work at this point
Squish in to mould. Depending on what mould you may need to butter it very very well to make sure you can get the shortbread out when cooked.

Bake at 175°C for about 45 mins until golden brown.
Cool fully before removing from mould. You may want to score lines in it while it is not fully set to make cutting/breaking easier later.

Strimming strimming strimming and a walk

Having finished the Bagnères flat, and while our guests get on and enjoy it, our attention has returned to our land.
Doug has been working on the fence lines, some of which have been thoroughly engulfed by brambles and squished flat mostly under the weight of them.
I have been working on finding the potager again as it has disappeared in to a jungle.

We needed a little break though and took a nice walk with Poppy (she doesn't think much of strimming)

The church in Beaudean where we started

I love walking past peoples veg gardens and seeing how huge and immaculate they look. Something to aspire to. I think lots of people round here have been doing it their whole lives - and their parents before them - so I don't feel good about ours not being a patch on theirs.

It is quite a steep walk to start off with but then amazing views and more gentle

Lunch stop Doug and faithful hound (who is trying to get out of the sun a bit in his shadow, hot day!)

Well aged ham

This ham is pretty much 2 years old. We had kind of despaired of it as we wanted to bone it so we could cut it in the electric slicer but it was too hard (literally) so we kept putting it off. I was worried as well that the fat would have gone a bit rancid in all that time as it did on another old one.

A friend who used to teach cooking and butchery kindly agreed to tackle it for us

In return Doug taught him some things about servicing skis

This is Alfie the Chihuahua, he doesn't like Poppy much and apparently thinks he is bigger and tougher than her!

It turned out to be super super tasty! Best ham yet. Unfortunately when we cured it we were in a rush and didn't write down what we did properly. Doh!

Snow on the mountains

You can’t see it very clearly, but there was snow on the mountains this morning. Pretty much gone by evening, but seems early for the first snow!
It has changed very quickly from heatwave summer to feeling autumnal.

Rocking the roccbox

Some left over pizza dough. Made it in to wrap with chicken, lettuce, tomato and chives (all homegrown!). 
Dog wants her share! (she got to lick the dishes).
Love the roccbox - now I have the hang of it. Great for pizza, naan and other things too...