Kitchen Update 5

Hello. How are you this hot and humid Tuesday night? My hay fever has been dreadful today, I have sneezed non stop and my eyes are very itchy, and I feel sure the heat and mugginess are not helping. I don't want to complain about the weather though, I do love it when it's warm.

I think this is my last Kitchen Update post, because after today there won't be much more to show you, other than a lovely "ooh look it's all finished!" post sometime in the future when we've settled into the room a bit more and I've faffed around with pictures on the walls.

The extractor fan was fitted. I like the way it balances out the heaviness of the cooker below, but more importantly I like the job it does, especially when we're cooking things like curry or fish.

Our floor - a type of engineered oak suitable for kitchens - was laid, and what a difference it makes.

I already love it; it's warm underfoot, doesn't show every single crumb and spill, and is easy to clean. Most importantly, it adds warmth to a very stark kitchen and colour scheme.

I spent most of last Saturday putting things back into the cupboards. Despite this being a task I was really looking forward to doing, I found it quite annoying and I had a few moments when I didn't think it would all fit in. Probably because we have So Much Stuff. I told John that actually, yes, we did have too many mugs, something he's always moaned about and I've always denied. (That doesn't mean I'm getting rid of any of them, mind.)

We have about the same amount of cupboard and worktop space as before so I had to think really carefully about what I put where. But I realised I keep a lot of things in the kitchen that I don't need to, like empty jam jars and rarely used baking tins for example, so these now live in the garage in a couple of old kitchen cupboards we hung on the wall in there. 

Our new wall cupboards either side of the cooker hold food and drink, while the drawers below hold pans and baking things on one side, crockery and often used things on the other. I like the drawers very much. Nothing can hide at the back. Everything is easily accessible. 

On the other side of the room we have the sink, dishwasher, fridge, bin and more cupboards which hold things like cups, jugs, glasses, bowls, and there is a generous amount of worktop space here. It's a nice sunny spot for preparing food.

Some of my favourite things about the kitchen are:

:: The deep windowsill.

:: The cooker. I just love it. I haven't baked a cake yet (simply because I haven't had time) but we've cooked and cooked. 

:: The sink, wide and deep and big enough to wash up our biggest Le Crueset pan. 

:: The bin. I know, not very glamorous, but I love the way it has two sections and slides away so neatly. Previously, my recycling hung in a carrier bag on the back of the kitchen door, whereas now it has it's own little bin.

The front part of the bin is for general waste and it's so handy to pull it out, take off the lid and scrape things straight into it. 

:: A fridge at eye-level. When you think how often you open a fridge during a day, how frequently you use it, this already makes such a huge difference.

Mainly I love all the light. I love coming downstairs in the morning and walking into the kitchen, not the dark garage, and opening a window, filling the kettle and switching on the radio. It's amazing. Small pleasures.

There are things still to do, the main one being to tile the splashback behind the cooker. We need to order additional shelves for some of the wall cupboards to better use every inch of space inside them.

 We need to paint the skirting boards and touch up the wall paint around them, choose a blind for the window. Small, fiddly jobs that we hope to tackle this weekend. Then we can move the table, chairs and sideboard from their temporary home in the living room back into the dining area. I can't wait. I've squeezed past that sideboard once too often.

I hope you've enjoyed watching our kitchen take shape over the last few weeks. I've certainly enjoyed sharing this project with you. Thank you for your words of encouragement along the way, and your interest. I hope I'll have lots of cooking and baking to share with you soon. 

Blackberries, everywhere.

I always think of blackberries as a September thing and every year I'm a bit surprised to see them in the hedgerows in August. They perfectly sum up this seasonal crossover from late summer to early autumn and I was glad to spend most of the bank holiday weekend surrounded by them, both indoors and outside. Last Saturday morning I went blackberry picking with the children and my parents while John worked, and between us we picked 13 lbs, or almost 6 kgs, of fruit, plus some elderberries too.

The rest of the weekend was spent - happily - in the kitchen. My last weekend pottering before going back to work and I wanted to savour it. Just me and my bubbling pans, with the radio on in the background. Faffing with pretty labels. Lovely.

I made Hedgerow Jelly first. I persist in making this mainly because I really like the evocative name and it reminds me of the Brambly Hedge books. The idea is that you use blackberries and all kinds of other seasonal hedgerow fruit - like sloes, elderberries and rosehips - plus a few windfall apples too. I used mostly blackberries (about 2 pounds or 1 kg) with two chopped cooking apples and a few big handfuls of elderberries. These completely changed the taste of the traditional bramble jelly, darkening and enriching it and adding a herby, almost slightly smoky flavour which is unbelievably good. It didn't seem so sweet either, which I liked. Then I made a batch of plain bramble jelly, which I think it one of my favourite jams/spreads ever. I like it stirred into yogurt, spooned on top of rice pudding, on toast or crumpets. 

This is how I make my bramble jelly:

• In a large pan put around 1 kg/2 lbs blackberries and two roughly chopped apples - no need to peel or core.
• Add about 500 ml/1 pint water and bring to the boil. Simmer for half an hour.
• Pour the pulpy fruity mass through a muslin strainer into a bowl or jug. It takes a couple of hours to all slowly drip through. 
• Measure your liquid and, for every 500 ml/18 fl oz use 500 g/ 1 lb 2 oz of granulated sugar. Put in a large, clean pan and slowly bring to the boil.
• I usually do the wrinkle test for testing when jam is set, but used a thermometer this time as well, as I tend to make things a bit on the soft/runny side and wanted to be sure I had a firmer set to my jelly.
• Pour into sterilised jars. This will give you 4-6 jars depending on size. 

Some jam making tips, while I think of it:

• Buy a jam funnel. It's the best thing I ever did. They will make everything so much easier and less messy and cost about £2.
• Don't try and cook too much fruit in a pan. The jam will increase in volume by three or four times while it's on a really fast boil, and the pan you thought was big enough wont be. I know this from experience. Jam is really hard to clean off a cooker. Use two pans, or make two batches, if you're not sure.

If all this sounds like too much hassle, then I have an amazing discovery which I feel duty bound to share with you: blackberry gin. I had no idea how easy it is! How have I never done this before? I thought there was some other kind of dark art involved, but no, it involves three ingredients and takes about five minutes.

You need:

• One 70cl bottle of gin (or vodka).
• 200 - 400 g or 7 - 14 oz blackberries (or any other fruit, come to think of it - sloes, damsons, plums...)
• About 100 g or 4 oz sugar.
• A large kilner jar.

That's it. Fruit, sugar and booze.

Put it all in the jar, shake well and put in a dark place.

Shake every day for the first two weeks, then once a week. Leave for up to three months then strain into a clean bottle. This is my version of a recipe based on about several slightly varying ones that I found on the internet and in cookery books. I think if you keep these ratios of alcohol, fruit and sugar roughly the same you can't go that far wrong.

And it'll be ready just in time for Christmas. I'm a really dutiful blogger so I'll be sure to taste it well and report back on the flavour.

I kept back some blackberries for the freezer, frozen in small amounts ready for crumbles. Blackberry and apple crumble is one of my favourite childhood puddings, and I make crumble a lot as I find pastry/pie crust a bit overrated, both to make and to eat.

I wanted to eat this with custard but forgot to buy some, so we had it with vanilla ice cream instead. Another nice summer to autumn cross-over.

Imposing Order

Every day this week, between the hours of nine and three, I have been unpacking. Unpacking and cleaning, with just the radio for company, and it's been wonderful.

Yes, that is a perfectly reasonable number of mugs to have.

The kitchen was a challenge and I didn't enjoy this task as much as I thought I might - I was even looking forward to it, seeing all our familiar and much loved things come out of the bubble wrap and newspaper. I had it all planned out in my head: the toaster next to the bread bin, the kettle near the mugs and tap, the pans by the cooker. But I felt like I was playing a game with the boxes and cupboards. Will it fit here? No. Here? Yes, but only if I move all of this...and there are all these boxes still to unpack! It was like a big rubik's cube of crockery and cardboard, and there was always a box right in front of the cupboard I needed to get to. 

But then, one the second day (yes, this was a two day job), it all clicked into place. Order prevailed over chaos and I was so pleased by the neatness of it all that I took a photo of a cupboard on my phone. Just look at those beautiful, tidy stacks of plates!

The dishwasher is plumbed in, the leak under the sink has been fixed (thanks Dad) and everything is on and in and working. I've wiped, scrubbed, mopped and polished this little room and - this I did not expect! - I'm growing rather fond of it.

In our house in Leeds, the kitchen looked directly into my neighbour's kitchen, and I couldn't see the garden. Here, the window looks out over the garden and the room is full of light all day long. I can watch the kids play outside. What a difference things like this make. 

There is no budget for a new kitchen for now - and honestly, it's a perfectly fine kitchen, if badly fitted - but there are little things we can do to make it more efficient. A rail near the cooker, from which I can hang all my utensils, would be useful.

Plus some hooks on the back of the door for aprons, and we need a bin.

We moved in yesterday and those jars are now full of pasta and rice, ready to use.

I feel a teeny bit possessive of my, I mean our, kitchen. I've been in it on my own all week, making it mine, getting to know it. I don't want anyone to make a mess in there. I scrubbed that sink, I mean really scrubbed it, and it gleams. I dont want it to get dirty! I need to get over this, or I'll be doing all the cooking and washing up on my own for the next twenty years.

*

A few lovely things happened lately which I forgot to mention. I've had three really nice coffees (lady dates, as I like to think of them) with friends I've made through this online world. I am missing my Leeds friends a great deal and, while I've started to make tentative friends at the school gate and on the PTA, these things take time and so it's wonderful to have already formed relationships with people I "know" through blogging or Instagram. A couple of weeks ago I met up with Jo; we connected through Instagram and share many things in common, and realised that we actually live about a mile away from each other! What are the chances of that? And I had a very nice morning in Chichester with Caroline and then a few days later in Arundel with Sara. With both it was like meeting up someone you already knew, and we chatted for ages about all sorts of things - children, education, blogging. Interesting, funny, intelligent ladies, all of them. Good eggs. And I hope soon to be meeting up with Chrissie and maybe even Jooles too - that would be amazing. Chatting about craft over coffee and cake - I don't think it gets much better than that.

We are now finally in our new house, surrounded by boxes. While the kitchen may look tidy, rest assured that the rest of the house is chaos. And unfortunately we won't have any broadband for the next two weeks. Agh!! This is going to be a huge test for me, for all of us. I hope I will read and crochet and spend amazing quality time with the children...hmm. We'll see. Which means blogging and emailing (and also really necessary things like internet banking!) will be challenging and so I may not be around much over the next few weeks. But don't worry, I'm not going any where. If anything, I feel like I've just come back home.