Somewhere in November, my mom texted me the photos below with the caption: ‘We have all these beautiful fragrant quince – what should I do with them?’ The fruits were from a tree in their garden that we planted together…
Quince & cranberry chutney
Categorie: Preserves
Homemade cream cheese with herbs
Because my sister hates cooking (her words) it is not often that she becomes a source of new recipes for me. While my love of food is what drives me to cook, it does not do the same for her.…
Nearly candied quince
The general rule for pruning fruit trees is that it’s best done when the trees are dormant, during a cold and dry spell. That, for those of us living in the Netherlands, constitutes a problem. The winters are often not…
Rhubarb beer jam
Yes, that’s right, there’s rhubarb and beer in the title of this recipe. I think this jam would be worth making just for the fun of pouring beer over rhubarb or the looks you get when you serve it to…
Speculoos pumpkin butter
Look, I don’t say you should lie to your children. But sometimes… it’s necessary to give them a slightly moderated version of the truth. Unfortunately, the older they get, the more difficult it becomes to fool them. They figure out…
Caramel Apple Jam
Apple is a fruit of mind-blowing variety – some six thousand (or more) apple cultivars exist spread throughout the world. It is therefore infinitely sad that the shops only give us access to about a dozen of them. In the…
Sour cherry and redcurrant jam
I am into memory keeping. Apart from fitful diary writing, I also take a lot of pictures and even occasionally organize them into photo books. This year I started the biggest memory-keeping project to date – a Project Life album.…
Strawberry elderflower jam
Sometimes I wonder how big a portion of our garden I would have to devote to strawberries if we were to feel like we have enough. Enough to eat as many as we want, enough to make tarts and smoothies…
Sweet and sour quinces with dried fruits
Quince (Cydonia oblonga) is right at the top of my fruit-trees-I-would-plant-if-I-had-any-room-left list. Right now, I don’t have any space left in my garden to plant one. That, however, does not really stop me. I planted quince “Champion” in my parents’…
Hot tomatillo chutney
Tomatillos are the ideal plants for the “otherwise-ingaged” vegetable grower. Because I knew we would have to leave our allotment on 1st October, I did not look after my garden as well as I normally do. We mulched very little…
Pickled pear relish
It seems a long time ago, but at midterm we went to England. The weather was much better than one is justified to hope for at the end of October and the skies were a brilliant blue most of the…
Fig confit and Marsala fig jelly
Yesterday I wrote an article about the 2011 season in the vegetable garden. So far, here in the Netherlands, we have experienced the warmest spring with the lowest rainfall in more than 100 years, followed by a cool and gloomy…
Japanese quince jelly with star anise
It looks like a quince, it smells like a quince and it is rock hard, just like a quince. What is it? Well, it is almost a quince. It is a relative, it is Japanese quince. Though the Japanese quince…