Beach Love

How I do love the earth. I feel it thrill under my feet. I feel somehow as if it were conscious of my love, as if something passed into my dancing blood from it. --James Russell Lowell

A couple of days ago we visited the beach, an Autumn visit, to compare the difference in the things washed ashore by the sea at different times of year. We visited earlier in the year too, in spring, and went beach combing, the things we found this time were a lot different to the spring visit. It was wonderful to get to the beach again and we chose a really sunny day, even though we went to a beach with a town attached it was so quiet, hardly a soul to be seen strolling on the sand.

Spring

On the spring visit we found mostly young cuttlefish bones and some shark and ray egg cases. The photographs show a small sample of our finds. On our Autumn visit, there were no cuttlefish bones, there were a few egg cases (or 'mermaids purses' ) but this time we mostly found a few different kinds of shells. Mussel shells, dog whelk shells, some limpets and slipper limpets. Also much driftwood.

Autumn

We have decided to make some things from our finds to remind us of the times we spent on the seashore. I will post about the things we make at a later time but we have decided to use some of the small perfect whelk shells as jewellery charms for bracelets and to make some beach wind chimes with some of the other things.

Before leaving the seashore , while the children were playing, I took a little time to myself to feel at one with nature. Just for a second between the beach combing and playing I looked far out to sea and took a deep breath... with the wind in my hair and the sand between my toes, then as the breath left my lips I felt a kind of peace, a calmness spread over me... just for a second, I felt the freedom of the gulls and the wildness of the seals... then the call came to leave.

After our beach adventures, we decided to visit the sea life centre, which again we mostly had to ourselves. The children had the the touch pool all to themselves and the staff still gave them the educational talks. They got to touch a large crab, stroke a starfish and be cleaned by a sea anemone. There were some very happy children that day! We absolutely adore the seashore, my children especially, and often speculate what it would be like to live by the sea.

I wonder... does the seashore still hold it's magical quality if you see it everyday?

photographs numbered 1,4 and 5 were taken by my lovely husband.found here.

Getting ready for Winter!

   We have been so busy here, preserving things for over the winter months, that time seems to have flown by! After making four batches of jam / jelly, I feel totally jammed out and ready for the end of the world ( should it come). All of our jam has been made from free, foraged fruit this year. We have made blackberry jam, apple jam, wild plum jam and crab apple jelly all without adding any extra pectin,  we added a couple of apples to the blackberry jam to provide the extra pectin instead. Some of the  jam colours are very vibrant.

    We also have wine this year made from free, foraged fruit, we have several demi johns on the go containing blackberry wine and wild plum wine. They smell very nice and very strong, which I confirmed by tasting a little...YUM. As you can probably tell we found a lot of wild fruit, we ended up with about 14 pounds of blackberries, 12 pounds of wild plums, 8 pounds of crab apples and 22 pounds of normal apples, amazingly this was all free, wild and being unused by anyone. The children have really enjoyed all the preserving, freezing and extra baking that has been going on, and we have been learning about how people have been preparing for the winter months in this way for centuries. Well, until recently as the supermarket is open all year round, but we won't be needing to buy any jam and we have a freezer full of apples ready for pies.

    We have also been drying our own herbs in our dehydrator for use in the winter, as you can see in the above picture they have been a little rampant this year. All the herbs which die back in the winter have already been dried, we also have jars full of bay, sage, parsley and chive. If you want to investigate our wine, jam or dehydrator antics further you could see my husbands blog here.

    My son has been continuing with his football coaching as he loves it, my daughter also enjoys him going to sports club as she gets extra playtimes with all the other younger brothers and sisters of the home educated children. We have also been on many nature walks in woodland and meadows, as Autumn is a good time of year to look for nuts (husband has collected hazel nuts already) and my children love to go fungi spotting.

A new challenge

  Today we went to our local home education group's sports club. "What's unusual about that?" I hear you say... well 6 months ago my son (then aged 5) had surgery on both of his feet and was in casts for 3 weeks. I find that amazing and fully intend to update you all soon with a post just covering his journey...but today he played football.

 
   He did not show any interest in playing football at all until he watched the world cup over this summer, and when we heard there maybe some free spaces at the sports club he jumped at the chance to try. Today was the free trial session to see how things went. Luckily, he loved playing and he suffered no pain in his feet. It was quite unusual for us to see him playing football as his previous sporting interests were more sedate like golf. We were more likely to find him to talking about dinosaurs, pokemon or falling asleep with a book.

   
   He is definitely planning on going again and we are happy he has the chance to.

Courgette Relish

Still trying to find something to make with your excess courgettes?

We decided to be a little more organized and make relish this year, but all the recipes we found either contained something we didn't like or had enough ingredients to feed a small army. So we just tweaked lots of different recipes to fit our needs. We made it with courgette, red onion and pepper and fresh sweetcorn as my husband loves sweetcorn relish. It looked a lovely colour when we started.

The children have really been enjoying all the harvesting, working out new recipes to try and then seeing if they work. The cooking smells from the kitchen have been amazing too. This one was quite successful and I have been having trouble keeping it to mature (one jar completely gone already).

This is the finished relish, still kept it's lovely colour too.

    I love cooking when everyone is in the kitchen helping, even the littlest  ones,(who make lots of mess) it makes the end product a real family concoction, where everyone has had a little input into making the recipe work. The best bit is ... my son has declared it the best relish EVER!

Recipe for the courgette relish.

-750g grated courgette and 1 finely chopped medium red onion.

put in a bowl, sprinkle with salt (about 3tbsps), cover and leave overnight.
 in the morning drain, rinse and put in a large pan along with;

 -a chopped red pepper and the sweetcorn removed from a cob (recipe could easily take 2 cobs though).

-about 325ml of cider vinegar, a large pinch of cayenne and a tbsp each of mustard powder, turmeric and cornflour.

-500g sugar.

bring to the boil and then simmer for about 45 mins until relish has reduced and thickened and put into your sterilized jars (about 2-3 depending on size).

you might want to add some of your favourite things instead of ours if you prefer, then just enjoy.

Garden Love

    We are not lucky enough as yet have an allotment, so my poor hard working husband has to fit as much as he can in our garden. We have been blessed with some good crops though, so we definitely owe the garden a little love. One of our best croppers has been our blackcurrant bush as you have seen in previous posts it has produced many fruits, at the moment it is in the middle of a second crop. Sometimes you get surprises, the plums below were picked today from our new plum tree, which must only be three foot tall, we certainly weren't expecting any plums from it this year.

    Not only is the garden good for growing things it has excellent educational potential for our children. Right from the start they have been involved in the seed selection, planting, care and harvesting, and they have enjoyed every minute (especially the eating). We still have the "bean in the jar" science experiment on the kitchen window ledge in spring, but this is because my husband gets a little concerned if my son pulls up the beans to look at the roots.

    They also love their bug hunts, but even this has advantages when the cabbage white caterpillars are on your brassicas and someone needs to pick them off. There is great excitement in the tomato bed too, as this year we decided to grow four different kinds of tomato just to see the different growing styles and tastes, two are pictured below the plum tomato and the marmande.

   So, I'd like to say thank-you to my garden, for the bountiful crops, for the education provided to my children, for the fun times, even for the frogs and toads that jump out of the undergrowth and scare me half to death and the abundant mini beasts that I've had thrust under my nose... to the chants of "WOW, Mum have you ever seen one of these?"
    How about you? I hope I'm not alone with the garden love thing.

Can one have too many courgettes?

       Well, it's that time of year again when the courgettes from our plants just keep on coming and everyone you meet gives you some more. I'm constantly thinking about what to make with them so they are not wasted... something new... that my courgette avoiding children may eat. This year I'm planning to make a courgette relish, courgette bread and I've even got a recipe for courgette cupcakes that I may consider, but while I was laying awake in the early hours of this morning ( yes, courgette induced insomnia) I thought I would try adding courgettes to something the children loved... cheese scones.

    
    I just used my usual cheese scone recipe and added grated courgette and amazingly all the children loved them and so did we. I recommend adding courgette to your own usual recipe for a slight change, especially if you have fussy children like mine who don't like too much change. They didn't mind when I added herbs to the recipe last week, that's what gave me the idea of trying to add the courgette too.


     In case you don't have a usual recipe here is my much simplified recipe;
8oz self-raising flour, 1 tsp baking powder, 2oz butter. Rub these together in a bowl. Add your chosen flavoring to taste approximately 2-3oz (more if you prefer).

   I doubled the ingredients for a larger batch, I put in a grated courgette and the cheese. Add enough milk gradually to bring the mixture together in a firm scone consistency probably about 1/4 pint. roll out shape or cut, I always add a quick brush of milk and a little cheese to the top to give it a crispy cheese topping. cook on 200C for about 15-20 mins. There you go, something simple, everyone knows how to make and the children ate them... definitely a bonus.

Blackcurrant ice cream

   I'm not one for really complicated recipes, I know they are much loved by food connoisseurs, but speaking as a busy mum the simpler the better for me, especially if I only have a few minutes spare to wow the kids.

   We have been making good use of the blackcurrants from the bush in our garden, which always has a very large crop every year. This is one of the many things we have made from our harvest.
 

  We used about 250g of blackcurrants, after washing and preparing they were liquidized with 3 tablespoons of juice (any type can be used apple, orange, or we have even used squash once) and sieve to get rid of any larger bits.

    Then you need to add icing sugar, how much is up to your taste. Blackcurrants are not very sweet so we added about 75g and stirred it in well. If you are using a sweeter fruit, you can use less icing sugar or none at all.

    Now for the creamy piece. we have used about 300ml of cream, and whipped it until it was quite firm.

    Then add the blackcurrant mixture to the cream and stir it in. The colour you get after this is amazing.

All that is left to do now is tip your mixture into a freezable tub, cover with cling film and put into the freezer.  It takes a few hours to freeze in my freezer but I have a big industrial thing, so keep checking it. I prefer to get it out when it's just scoop-able, or you could get it out half an hour before you want to eat it.

   My kids really love making this, I have to say I do too, it tastes incredible, and it is so simple and adaptable. My son loves this and he doesn't even like blackcurrants! He also said that this was his favourite ice cream.

   We have recently been thinking up some really exotic recipes using these same basic guidelines. The measurements here are just a rough guide as we tend to just throw it all in. Why not give it a try, see what flavours you can think of...