British Summertime

Today is the Summer Solstice.  The longest day of the year.  Not that we’ve seen much sun today or even recently.  Today was a day for staring pensively out of the window at the endless rain.

Rainy rooftops

I have to admit that the lack of warmth and sunlight have been getting to me. However, I’ve been staying cosy at home.  Turning the heating on and dressing in my silk, wool and sheepskin loungewear.  Steve came home tonight after a few days away.  I made baked chicken and roasted vegetables for dinner.

Hot and spicy!

Baby carrots, courgettes, tomatoes & red onions.

We had Pimm’s for an aperitif to celebrate the solstice.

I went out especially to buy some flowers and found these gorgeous peonies.  I’m looking forward to watching these open up over the next few days.

So summer’s not so bad after all.  Just a bit greyer, colder and wetter than I’d like.  Still, as long as I can bundle up, pour a glass of Cabernet, bask in the glow from the kitchen light and (guilty pleasure) read some chick-lit, it’s pretty darn good.

Caught in the act

Summer’s Bounty

Here’s a beautiful thing to make and eat when you can get ahold of Sweet Eve strawberries grown in Somerset, England, or any locally grown, freshly picked strawberries.  Of course, they’re great on their own.  So sweet and juicy!  It turned into a sunsplashed summer’s day today and our late afternoon kitchen is bathed in honeyed sunshine, which sets everything aglow.  The blueberries are from Lustleigh, a village about 4 miles from home.

Tonight I made a summer supper of oven-BBQed chicken, stovetop grilled veggies with harissa marinade and corn on the cob

(during which time the kitchen got pretty smoky (maybe this is what cooking in Heaven is like!))

We also had a fantastic new wine with dinner:  Navazos-Niepoort 2009.

It’s a fascinating white wine made as a recreation of how still white wines were made 150 years or so ago in Jerez.  This wine was fermented in sherry barrels but is unfortified. There are floral and citrus notes on the nose with the tangy notes of fino sherry.   The wine is quite buttery yellow with a reddish tinge.  On the palate there is a lightness of body which is initially slightly surprising if you think you’re about to get a mouthful of sherry.   Very good!

Steve has been really busy with his work this weekend and will be away most of next week, so I decided to make a special treat for dessert – strawberries with balsamic vinegar.

Here’s how do it:

• 500g (1 1/4 lb) fresh strawberries, hulled and halved
• 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
• 4 tablespoons caster sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, or to taste

Place strawberries in a bowl. Drizzle vinegar over them and sprinkle with sugar.   Stir gently to combine.   Cover and let sit at room temperature for at least 1 hour, but not more than 4 hours.   Just before serving,  grind pepper over the berries.

Fab find from the vintage shop - still smells of coffee, but I keep my caster sugar in it

We had some new friends over for brunch this morning and I picked some luscious, fragrant roses from our front garden and set them afloat in a bowl we received for our wedding.  They got this morning’s sunlight.

They have been subtly perfuming our living room all day long.  Now the sun has journeyed West and gone behind the rooftops (it’s setting earlier with each passing day).

The view from our kitchen

I think it’s time to join my husband in the living room, where he’s been working all afternoon, with a bowl full of succulent summer berries and share the rose-scented late  summer evening.

Summer Angel Raspberry Fool

Aaaah, summer is drawing to a soft and gentle close.  The skies look grey and misty and cool, but when I step outside, I am wrapped in a warm embrace – the gentle mists and enveloping fog softly surround me like a feather stole.  And yes, I feel in this first summer of newlywed bliss, like a summer angel.

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We had this lovely raspberry fool for dessert one lunchtime with some new friends and our next door neighbour.  Summer day in England, right??  Well we went out for a walk on Dartmoor after lunch and got absolutely SOAKED in a summer rainstorm.  It was great fun and we walked for a couple of hours, talking about favourite films and books, forging new connections and friendships.  A wonderful day!

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Summer Angel Raspberry Fool

• 1/2 lb (225 g) fresh raspberries
• 1/4 cup (4 Tbls) 50 g caster sugar (superfine granulated)
• 2/3 cup (150 ml) 1/4 pt fresh double cream (heavy cream)
• 3/4 cup (150 ml) 5 fl oz plain yoghurt
• a few fresh mint leaves

Method

Crush the raspberries with a stainless steel or silver fork in a china or glass bowl.  Mix them with the sugar and put them on one side for 10 minutes. The sugar on the raspberries will draw out juice and bright colour.

Beat the double cream until it is thick, then, tablespoon by tablespoon, beat the yoghurt into it. The yoghurt will not thin it down; if you beat it each time you put in a dollop of yoghurt, it will bulk back up again. It allows you to have twice the amount of cream, as it were, with only half the amount of fat.

Swirl the raspberry and sugar mixture into the cream and yoghurt – do not mix it so thoroughly that it looks like pink yoghurt, swirl it in so that it is marbled.

It looks beautiful and tastes heavenly. Pour it into glasses so you can see the marbled effect, decorate each one with a sprig of mint and put to set in the fridge for 1-2 hours.

bliss

Cuckoo-spit. What the heck is it?

I’ve been doing  a lot of some things and not much of other things.  Since the wedding and the advent of summer, Steve and I have been doing lots of socialising with friends old and new, completing the feathering of our nest, and I have been finishing two quilts to enter into the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham.  For the past few weeks, I haven’t been moved to write on either of my blogs, or participate much in my online community.   However, I have been practicing the gentle art of doing nothing.   I’ve been relaxing at home, reading, visiting a certain feline friend of mine, running in the countryside surrounding my village, cooking summer foods, watching movies and not a whole lot else.

For now, here is one of my latest discoveries .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .

Nothing says summertime in England quite like cuckoo-spit.

The name cuckoo-spit is said to have derived from the arrival of the spittle on plants which coincided with the first call of the cuckoo in spring. There are also oblique references to superstitions about spitting, whenever a cuckoo is heard, to avoid bad luck. Cuckoo-spit is the white, frothy substance found on certain plants during the spring and early summer. It is produced by the froghopper, or ‘cuckoo-spit insect’ which is also sometimes called the ‘spittle-bug’.

The froghopper is an insect.  A member of the order Homoptera, best known for the nymph stage, which produces a cover of frothed-up plant sap resembling spit.  The froth serves a number of purposes. It hides the nymph from the view of predators and parasites, it insulates against heat and cold, thus providing thermal control and also moisture control. Without the froth the bug would quickly dry up. The nymphs pierce plants and suck sap.  Much of the excess filtered fluids go into the production of the froth, which has an acrid taste, deterring predators.

Now that I know what the heck it is and the little buggers are probably beyond the larva stage, maybe I’ll see if I can find a froghopper under some cuckoo-spit.

Info source:  Wikipedia