Baguette anyone?

 The Preserving Patch has been very quiet for a while as we have been on holiday. I tried to remember to take photos wherever I could so that I could report on our food adventures but it has taken me a while to get around to start writing about them.

There is something about markets in France that farmer's markets in Australia don't quite match. Perhaps its this saucisson man with the fag hanging out his mouth offering tastings of his wares.


Or a stall selling massive blocks of nougat.

We chanced upon this market in the old town of Annecy .....not to be confused with Annecy le Vieux (which translates to the old Annecy) and is just a suburb. Annecy is not far from the Swiss border and Geneva, sits on the edge of a beautiful glacial green lake with snow capped alps in the distance.

The thing is....how do you choose which cheese to buy when there is this much choice?

 And what to choose for lunch to go with the bread?

 Better have some fruit to finish off with.  What a treat!

Bottling some of the apple crop, roasted capsicums in oil and how is that Emmental doing?

It's been raining today so a good opportunity to stew up some of the apples which have been sitting in the fridge since I picked them. By bottling them in Fowlers Vacola jars, they will last for a long time, years even, so it is a very energy efficient way to preserve. There are 10 jars now waiting to cool down before they get put in the store room.

Yesterday I picked 10 green capsicums while weeding my way around the garden. That gave me a good opportunity to try one of the recipes I have been saving up. Actually I kept on weeding and my kitchen assistant Pico made the recipe instead.  Roasted capsicums in oil. First roast the capsicums until you can peel the skin off (actually this wasn't possible to do so they ended up still with the skin on) then chop them up and put them in olive oil with some spices- coriander, peppercorns, garlic and bay leaves. We had to try them for lunch today. Tasted pretty good but it seems like a lot of capsicums to just make one jar.

And finally the Emmental that I made a few weeks ago has spent a week in the cheese fridge then 2 weeks in a warm room so that the bacteria in the cheese are able to multiply. The cheese swells up and now I have waxed it and put it in the cheese fridge to mature for a few months.

More cheese from the Pyrenees

The old and ......

Last May I made a second wheel of Pyrenees Pepper cheese but haven't actually tried it until a few days ago. Now it is 11 months old and I think it is my best cheese ever. It is very crumbly and has a fantastic flavour - of similar quality to a Mersey Valley cheese from Tasmania, an aged cheddar. It is a slightly strange colour as the peppers leach a bit of pinkish/purple colour. I was so pleased with the outcome that I set to and have made another wheel this weekend. It is now drying on a board for a few days before I wax it.

the new

Also this weekend I picked my huge quince crop....6.....and so stewed them up with some apples and bottled them for another day.

Making the most of the last zucchinis of summer and getting ready for Easter

The zucchini plants in the vege patch are looking like they are on their last legs although still producing a few giants. Last week I found a recipe for Zucchini (courgette) chutney in a library book so thought I would give it a go. It was a slightly unusual recipe in that the zucchini slices had to be salted for a couple of hours first before washing, drying then adding to the mix of onions, tomatoes, red wine and malt vinegar, sugar and cinnamon. It was meant to have grated orange rind in it as well but I left that until last as it meant going out in to the garden to get an orange, and then I forgot to do it.

After cooking it all down for a couple of hours it had thickened up and was ready to bottle. Ready to have with my lunch.

Also yesterday morning I made a loaf of Panettone bread ready for Easter. It is a really a Christmas bread but it is so delicious that I like to make it at Easter time too!This is the yeast version not the sourdough version which I made once before and which ended up being as solid as a brick!

Emmental - the right way

Last year I tried to make Emmental but got the pressing times and weights mixed up when a page turned in my recipe book without me realising. The resulting Gremmental (Gruyere/Emmental) was actually really good but I thought I would try doing it the  proper way. I had to buy some more Proprioni shermani culture as my last year's batch had solidified so it has taken me some time to get around to doing it. This time I followed the pressing times perfectly and now my cheese is sitting in a brine bath for the next 12 hours. It then goes to the cheese fridge for a week to be washed in brine every day and then sits out in a warm spot for a couple of weeks for the holes to develop. Let's hope in a few months' time it is a winner!

The Pantry's almost full

Yesterday I made a big batch of tomato relish as I am running out of preserving bottles to do any more tomato paste or puree. When I tried to fit all 9 jars in the preserves cupboard, I had a bit of trouble finding space!

There is so much to do at this time of year I don't have much time to write this blog. The vege garden needs cleaning up and planting for winter, there is pruning to be done in the orchard and then there is all the harvest produce to do something with. I try to make sourdough bread once a week and make some cheese every couple of weeks too!

Here is the relish on the boil........

..........and the finished product.

When Camembert goes wrong - what does it become?

After the success of my January batch of Camembert, I decided to have another go a couple of weekends ago. I followed exactly the same recipe. I don't know if it was that the weather was quite humid that day and so didn't allow for enough drainage but something went radically wrong this time. First of all there was no mould growth after a few days and secondly the initially 3cm or more thick rounds collapsed. Eventually I gave up on expecting the mould growth and tried spraying some penicillium culture on mixed with a little water, using an atomiser bottle. This is the result. A bit of mould growth but the cheese is starting to ooze. Actually it sort of tastes ok - at least the people who came to my book discussion group the other night seemed to think so. They wolfed it down! I had a store-bought King Island brie on the plate as well - what a bland flavour after the super ripeness of my January batch. And the nice thing was - my cheese was all eaten and there was brie left over.....so whose did they prefer?