Steaming in the Kitchen...

 Many, many moons ago, when we lived at our old, rental house, my parents had been staying, and wanted to buy us a new appliance for the kitchen. I had been reading about healthier cooking, and had seen several recommendations for electric steamers. 

I thought it would be particularly useful for Christmas puddings, but also for the kind of vegetables which (at that period) we would typically boil: broccoli, green beans, cauliflower etc. We hadn't, at that stage, discovered that roasting works so well for anything other than potatoes, carrots and parsnips. 

There were several possible steamers available in the shop we went to, rather to my surprise, and after some discussion we opted for the Morphy Richards 'health steam', which came with English instructions, a recipe book (also in English) and a two-year guarantee. Plus it was a name we trusted. And the steamer had a fair bit of use over the first couple of years, particularly when we ran out of gas for our oven, as happened sporadically. 

The recipe book wasn't in fact all that helpful; it was produced in conjunction with a slimming agency, and had rather complex low fat ideas, none of which were really appropriate for our family of four. But we cooked vegetables, and - once I had realised that steaming takes a bit longer than boiling - they came out well, and hopefully more nutritious than if we had boiled them and then poured away the water. 

It was also invaluable for cooking my Christmas puddings each year. Previously I had steamed them in large saucepans, with water half-way up the sides, feeling stressed in case the water dried up.  With the steamer, the timer has a maximum of one hour at a time. So I fill it up with water and put it on for an hour. I usually remember to top up the water and turn it on for another hour before it's finished, but if I get distracted and forget, the steamer goes off before the water can run out. 

I had a slight glitch when I realised that the bowls I had previously used wouldn't fit in the steamer. So we acquired slightly smaller ones, and as my recipe makes three, this three-tier steamer was perfect, year after year. This photo has appeared in a previous blog (as has the one above) but it illustrates nicely how very useful the steamer has been:

When we moved to this house, back in the summer of 2006, I kept the lesser-used appliances, including the steamer, in a cupboard. Which is all very well, and makes the kitchen work surfaces look tidy. But when something is packed away, in my experience, it's likely to stay away. 

I would occasionally get the steamer out to cook rice, but then realised it's simpler in either the oven or a regular saucepan - and it's not as if we eat rice more than once or twice a month at most. Occasionally I thought of the steamer for vegetables, but we discovered the delights of roasted veg - yes, even frozen green beans can be roasted. For those that don't work well roasted (eg peas and sweetcorn), the microwave is ideal. 

But the steamer would come out early every December to steam my newly-made Christmas puddings. It would come out again on Christmas Day, to re-steam the pudding we were going to eat, and also the brussels sprouts. I expect sprouts might also be nicer roasted, but the oven is so full on Christmas Day that there's no room for anything else. 

Then... about a month ago, when the 2023 puddings were steaming, I noticed that the one on the top looked rather lopsided. I didn't investigate until the steamer had run for about six hours and then cooled down. I thought perhaps one of the bases had slipped. What I discovered was that it had rather badly cracked and broken:

Richard pondered whether he could create a new base. But it would be a very complex thing to make, with the bits that stick out to hold it in place. And after more than nineteen years, the steamer didn't owe us anything. We researched a bit online then went to two or three possible shops to see if we could find a suitable replacement. But the new ones (including a modern Morphy Richards equivalent) didn't look as sturdy, and cost €65 - €70. That was more than I was willing to pay for something that really only gets used a couple of times a year.

Since the other two bases were fine, I cooked the sprouts and reheated a pudding in the steamer without any problem on Christmas Day. A day or two later, after cleaning and drying it, I packed the steamer away. And would have thought no more about it until next December, most likely...

Then, a couple of days ago, I went out to buy some yarn. And something - or Someone, perhaps? - prompted me go into the Thrift Store, which is not far from my favourite haberdashery. I checked the DVDs, as I do, but nothing looked interesting. I found a couple of mugs I liked for 50 cents each, and as I turned around I saw, on a shelf, another Morphy Richards 'healthsteam' steamer. At €8.50. 

I was on foot, and am never good at spontaneous purchases when I'm on my own anyway. But when I told Richard about it, he suggested we go back first thing Thursday, with the car. The steamer was still there, and looked in excellent condition. It was so clean and free of scale that I suspect it has only been used a handful of times. It might be almost as old as our original one, as they're no longer made in this style. But there's not much to go wrong: the base heats up and boils the water, a bit like a kettle. 

So we bought it: another, identical steamer. 

I washed it all thoroughly, and last night steamed some cabbage and peas, just to try it out. It worked as expected. I've decided not to put it away in a cupboard, but to find space on the crowded work surface; that way, I just might use it more often...

Buying a microwave oven in Cyprus

It's nearly eight years since we bought our last microwave oven, although I wouldn't have been surprised to find that it was only four or five years ago. Time seems to be accelerating, the older we get. We bought it from Carrefour, where we tended to buy most of our small kitchen appliances eight years ago. Carrefour no longer exists. Nowadays, we are likely to check SuperHome Centre or Mr Bricolage first. 

I explained in the post linked above that this Carrefour microwave had a grill function, and rather complex instructions which were provided in several languages, but not English. I spent some time searching online for instructions in English, and eventually gave up. I typed the French into Google Translate, then printed the result. It wasn't really any more helpful. 

For instance, if I wanted to cook baked potatoes I had to remember which was the automatic menu knob, and twist that to position A5. (I only know this because I just checked the instructions - I never managed to remember any of the auto settings). Then I had to remember to confirm that by pressing a diamond button.  After that the knob could be pressed to set the weight of the potatoes (assuming I had remembered to weigh them. If not, I had to remove them and start over after weighing).  Then I had to press the diamond again. If I got any of it wrong, it lost the settings.

There was another knob to set different amounts of microwave power, or to choose the grill function, or the two combined. There was a way to set specific times too, but that was just as complicated. Below I have reproduced part of the instructions which I never managed to follow: 

Cook or grill combined cooking.

Press waves on the LED screen. LED Will show G. Press several times on waves or turn the knob to select the power and Desired G, C-1 or C-2 will appear alternately. 

Press Diamond to confirm, and turn the knob to adjust the length of cooking from 0.05 to 95.00. Press again to start cooking.

Example: if you want to use 55% power of microwave and grill power of 45% (C-1) to cook for ten minutes, set the furnace according to this method:

1) press once on waves, and "G" will show.

2) Press again or turn the knob waves to select the Mode 1 combi.

3) Press one diamond to confirm, and the screen will show C-1.

4) Turn the knob to adjust the oven up to the cooking time displays 10.00.

5) Press on the diamond to start cooking.

G - 100% Grill

C-1 - 45% grill

C-2 - 64% grill.

There was no indication as to WHY I might want to cook anything for ten minutes with 55% microwave power and 45% grill, even had I managed successfully to set it correctly.

Besides, when I use a microwave it's because I want to do something quickly. 

So in the end, the only button we ever used was the 'quick' setting, for 30 second bursts on full microwave power.  It was fine. Three 30-second bursts to heat a cup of cold coffee. About ten of them to soften potatoes prior to baking. We made mug cakes, reheated food, melted coconut oil or chocolate or dairy-free spread, cooked frozen peas, or aubergines for baba ganoush.. sometimes opening the door before the 30 seconds were up, and sometimes pressing a few more. 

I suppose it was about a year ago that there was a problem with the buttons, possibly because we had used one of them extensively and nothing else. But Richard managed to open up the front panel, and replaced a part that had fallen out or deteriorated, as a temporary measure. It was very effective, and we continued using it with no problems. 

However we realised that it wouldn't last forever, so we had been looking at microwaves in the DIY stores when we happened to be there. One or other of them usually had a small, basic white microwave on offer. We didn't need a large one, we told ourselves, nor did we need any of the fancy functions. 

On the other hand, Richard did want a digital timer rather than just an analogue knob as he has become an expert at microwave mug cakes, and they have rather precise timing. I care more about aesthetics than precision, and really hoped we would find one in black or silver rather than white.  Nothing grabbed us, and it appeared that the digital ones were over twice the price of the basic white ones. 

Matters came to a head on Monday night, when Richard heard a strange electrical crackling sound in the kitchen, and eventually traced it to the microwave, although it wasn't in use. He unplugged it and the noise stopped. He forgot to tell me about it, so in the morning I plugged it in (assuming it was unplugged by mistake - it's right next to the plug socket that we use alternately for the kettle and frappe maker) and used the microwave to reheat some coffee. Then I heard a strange crackling noise... so I turned it off at the wall and the noise stopped.

Electrical crackling noises are a danger sign, so we knew we had to replace the microwave immediately.  We checked a few places online, and eventually found one we liked the look of, at not too steep a price, at George Theodorou, our favourite local white goods shop. It had a digital panel, and it was black and silver.  This shop has always given excellent service, so we decided to buy our new microwave there. 

We're not very good at disposing of old appliances. Our last non-functioning bread-maker sat on a table for several months before we got rid of it. But this time, Richard decided to be efficient. He put the old microwave oven in the car and we took it to the recycling centre before going to buy our new one.  

What I did not expect was that this is also a dual-function microwave, with a grill or combined way of cooking. But... this time we have instructions in English (as well as about forty other languages), and they are so much simpler.

Instead of having to remember which knob to use, and which of several apparently random functions was the one I wanted, I can do baked potatoes by pressing a single button marked, helpfully, 'jacket potato'. Last night I used the 'frozen vegetables' button, and this morning the 'reheat tea & coffee' button. I can't see us ever needing the 'pizza' or 'popcorn' buttons, and there isn't one for 'mug cake', but still.  I like it. 

This is so much easier to use that I might even try the grill or combination setting at some point if I can figure out why I might need either of them.  And it has the added benefit that the clock stays lit, making it far more useful than the one on our previous microwave, which only showed when the oven was in use. 

I expect appliances to last at least ten years, but when I checked, I found that microwaves are expected to last only about seven years (or less, with frequent use).  So eight years isn't too bad after all.

Insects in Spices in Cyprus

It was a normal Saturday, late in September.  I usually change the sheets and clean the house on Saturday mornings, in a fairly leisurely way.  Before that on this particular morning I planned to prepare our favourite pinto bean curry for the evening, and put it to simmer in the slow-cooker.  I had also bought a small crate of tomatoes, and was going to make apple and tomato chutney, as we had run out.

I had forgotten to soak the beans overnight, but put them in cold water before going for my early morning walk with my friend Sheila. So when I had finished breakfast (and turned on the air conditioning) I decided to make the chutney first. I chopped onions and apples and tomatoes, and crushed garlic... and realised I didn't have enough malt vinegar.

So I popped out, despite the heat, to the supermarket just around the corner, and bought another bottle of vinegar.

Next I wanted to add the spices.  I opened the jar of cayenne, to add a quarter teaspoonful.... and something moved inside it.  I closed it quickly, and tipped it on its side, and held it up to the light.  To my horror, there were several tiny insects crawling around.  I shuddered, and decided not to use cayenne.  I picked up the chili flakes... and they were crawling too.  Both jars were only about a quarter full, and I could see that the tops weren't fully closed - although we have never had insects in them before.

So I checked every other spice jar carefully. Most were fine, but I also found insects in the ginger and the paprika.  (When I googled later, curious as to what insects could possibly live on hot spices, I learned that they are not unusual.  They were most likely either cigarette beetles or drugstore beetles. I did not research too deeply so have no idea which one it might have been. I don't really want to know).

I have to confess that I temporarily abandoned both my humanitarian and ecological principles.  I did not empty the jars somewhere outside to let the insects escape, and to allow me to put the jars for recycling. No, I sealed the lids as tightly as I could, and put the infested jars, in a sealed plastic produced bag, in the dustbin.

Then I went to the supermarket again, despite it being even hotter, and bought new jars of the four relevant spices.

By this time the beans were ready to be boiled, so I finished making the chutney and put that to simmer. Then I thoroughly cleaned the spice rack, and sprayed it with biokill, before replacing the jars.

It was past eleven o'clock by the time I put the curry in the slow-cooker, but it's a fairly forgiving recipe and was fine.  It was later still when I finished the chutney.  The kitchen surfaces were chaotic so I sorted them... and I still hadn't started cleaning the house.  So much for a relaxed afternoon reading and possibly writing....

The dusting and mopping was rather cursory that day. But at least the spice shelf was considerably cleaner than it had been, and I had - hopefully - a year's supply of apple and tomato chutney in the cupboard.

Replacing our Freezer

Yesterday, we bought a new freezer.

But before I write about that, I will temporarily jump back in time, eleven and a quarter years. We also bought a freezer when we moved to this house in the summer of 2006. We decided, then, to have a large upright freezer. It was an unbranded one; we bought it from a showroom called Dalco that wasn't far from here. It was good value, and the freezer seemed enormous. But we soon filled it up.

Its only problem was that it frosted up regularly. I took a photo (probably for this blog...) the first time I de-frosted it, about a year after we bought it:

In a rush of nostalgia, I went through my photos looking for snaps of it, but there were very few. I suppose freezers aren't very photogenic.  The first one I found showing it in its place, at the end of our kitchen, was when we bought this useful Ikea table in 2008 and we put it next to the freezer:

This shows the context a little better, with our greatly-missed cat Sophia testing out the new table:

And there the freezer stayed, keeping lots of produce cold, needing little care other than de-frosting about once a year. I bought crates of fruit or tomatoes from the local fruit stall, lightly stewed and froze them. Healthier and a great deal less expensive than the canned equivalent.

I bought pitta bread on offer to go in the freezer, bags of frozen raspberries (since fresh ones are not available here), frozen puff pastry, and the occasional tub of ice cream. We kept a shelf for meat (mostly chicken) which we bought perhaps once every other month, and a shelf for vegetables - some ready-frozen ones such as peas or spinach, as well as my home-frozen tomatoes.  I kept one shelf for flour, beans and lentils; not that they need to be frozen, but food moths can be a problem in Cyprus, so I would always put new packs in the freezer until needed. And one shelf was dedicated to stock, made from meat bones or vegetables, and leftover portions of soups, which I make in the winter.

Here's another photo, from 2009. The table is still there, the bin evidently sat next to the freezer. The fridge is in the foreground; it has a freezer at the top as well, but I tend to use that for open bags of vegetables, and individual portions of meals left over from slow cooking.

We never used the radiator that's pictured behind the freezer. At least, we didn't ever turn it on. We used it as a shelf for random boxes, or old batteries, or whatever needed a temporary space. And the area behind the freezer gradually filled up with plastic bags to re-use, and things to recycle... and it got messier and messier.

This is how it looked by 2014:

It wasn't just cluttered, it was a horrible and rather embarrassing mess. We decided that we needed something tidier that would hold all the plastic bags and recycling, now that Cyprus has a good recycling scheme.  We eventually found a chest of drawers in the Ikea children's department, and it was ideal. We put it behind the freezer, where it fitted perfectly, and (once I had filled it) that space started to look a great deal tidier:

A couple of years later, when we acquired more bookcases, I decided to put one in the kitchen with recipe books and the potatoes and onions, right next to the freezer... which was looking a little battered and rusty by now. But still, for the most part, working well.

There was a glitch when I turned it on after a defrosting session, and nothing happened. But I hit it, and it sprang into life. Then the handle broke off... but Richard fixed that with some extra strong glue. Several of the shelf fronts had also broken off, not helped by the way it iced up so easily.  But it kept working, and was extremely useful during the past summer when the family were staying, even though it got left slightly open one night and iced up very badly. So I had to do a major de-frost shortly afterwards.

While some appliances seem to last for decades (our fridge freezer must be approaching fifteen years old) we realised that our tall freezer was nearing the end of its days. A week ago I noticed (thankfully) that it had gone silent, and the temperature gauge was showing almost zero. I hit it, and it started making a noise and grew gradually colder, but not down to its expected temperature.

We finished the last of the ice cream, and I moved the most critical things to the freezer at the top of the fridge. We talked about it, and realised that a new, more energy-efficient freezer would probably pay for itself over about three or four years, in electricity saving. Possibly even sooner.  We also decided that we didn't want to hang on until the old one stopped working entirely. We could lose a great deal of food if we didn't notice in time, and I was starting to feel quite stressed, continually glancing at the temperature, not wanting to open it in case it warmed up too much.

So on Friday morning, after checking the relevant website, we went to the local George Theodorou white goods shop. It's where we usually buy electrical goods now. They offer good value, they deliver at no extra cost, and on the rare occasions we've had to ask them to mend something, they have been efficient and not over-priced. We didn't even check any other shops, though I glanced at some of the regular junk mail that appears in our mail box, and realised that at other shops, prices were higher.

The freezer I had seen online was the one that the owner suggested. It's smaller than our other one, but there are only two of us at home most of the time. It doesn't have a temperature sensor, and the warning lights are inside the door, which seems a tad pointless, but we didn't think we'd find anything better. Most importantly, it's 'frost-free', which means that it won't ice up. No more de-frosting!

So we ordered it, and they said they would deliver later that morning.

I turned off the old freezer, then transferred the contents - it was about two-thirds full - to two biggish picnic cool-boxes and the fridge.  I just had time to clean the gunk that had accumulated underneath the freezer when the doorbell rang - our new freezer was being delivered. The men put it in place, and checked it... then took the old one away.

Then it occurred to me that it would make a lot more space, and look tidier, if we moved the freezer almost against the non-functional radiator, with the drawer unit next to it. I don't know why we never thought of that before. The bookcase now sticks out rather awkwardly, but the space is much better used:

Modern freezers can be turned on at once, and we were told to wait a couple of hours before putting anything in.  So early in the afternoon I packed everything into the new one.

Well, most things. It doesn't look that much smaller than the old one, but it only has six shelves rather than seven. They're quite deep, but the walls are so well insulated that there's rather a lot less space in each one. So I had to re-organise somewhat, and just managed, with a lot of things still in the freezer over the fridge. It's more efficient having it full, and I need to be more careful about what to freeze - I discovered, for instance, that I had more than twelve 500g tubs of cooked tomatoes, and at least six of lightly stewed peaches.

A plethora of inexpensive tomatoes in Cyprus

Yesterday morning, I went to Achna Fruitaria. I wanted to buy some oranges, and a couple of sweet potatoes. I also thought I would get some bananas, since Tim has now gone back to the UK. Oh, and I wanted a few cherry tomatoes for lunch.

As always, I looked at the special offers. I noticed that amongst the pre-bagged produce for a euro, there were some cherry tomatoes. I shook my head inwardly.. we would never get through that many, even if they were a remarkably good deal. I did pick up a bag of regular tomatoes, also at a euro, however. I find them hard to resist.

However, when I looked at the ordinary cherry tomatoes, they were something like 3.79 per kilogram. I only wanted about 250g, if that... but it suddenly occurred to me that it would be far better value to buy the huge euro bag, even if we ended up throwing half of them away. And they looked to be fairly good quality.

So I staggered home with, in all, about 14kg produce (which cost me a grand total of just over 7 euros). I put all the tomatoes straight in the fridge.

Today, I thought I should sort through the cherry tomatoes, throwing out any that had gone bad, and selecting the best ones for eating. I was surprised at how many good ones there were, and chose quite a few - nearly a kilogram of them - which we can eat over the next few days:

Even more surprising, none of them were bad, or mouldy. Quite a few had split, some were a little squashy, and some had slightly brown skins, but they all smelled good. So I thought I might as well boil them quickly to produce juice, and then freeze them for future use. There were this many in the saucepan:

.. and after simmering for a few minutes and cooling, I froze five tubs, each with a little over 400g tomatoes - the equivalent of one medium sized can:

Then I looked at the large tomatoes I had also bought. I kept a few out to bake, then cleaned, chopped and simmered the rest of those too. Those eventually made NINE tubs, again at a little over 400g each:

And that would have been fine, except that when I opened the vegetable drawer of our large freezer, I realised that I already had six tubs of tomatoes, frozen from previous batches.

So now we have the equivalent of 20 cans of tomatoes in our freezer. They will be useful for making soup, and ketchup, and for general cooking use in the next few months...

But I really must try and resist buying more tomatoes when I see them on special offer!

Summer has arrived in Cyprus

So, the first day of Summer was a couple of days ago, June 21st. Tomorrow, June 24th, is Midsummer's Day.

Logically speaking, then, the last day of summer should be June 27th.

Alas, it doesn't work that way in Cyprus. In the UK, some summers do seem to have only about a week of warm weather (though not, I gather, right now). But we're pretty much guaranteed heat and high humidity for the next two or three months, now that June is coming to an end. I really can't complain: the weather during May was warm but not over-hot. We had a couple of days earlier in June that seemed to threaten summer, but then a thunderstorm and some rain about ten days ago cooled the climate down, to about 27-28C, which is quite bearable.

We did run the air conditioning at night a few times, for a couple of hours, since the evenings were rather sticky. I've also got into my summer mode of doing any housework or shopping before 9.00am... as far as possible. Except that yesterday it wasn't possible. On Wednesdays I change our sheets and clean upstairs, and we have someone from the office to a cold lunch... and last night we were expecting friends for a meal too, who needed to go to the airport later.

So I needed to get out to the Froutaria; I did manage to do that fairly early. And I put a loaf of bread to cook in the breadmaker, and made some more lemonade as we had run out, and froze some extra lemon juice in ice cube trays...

By which time it was almost 10.00.

I was aware that I was feeling warmer than I like to be, but I took things fairly slowly. I changed the sheets, and did the laundry, and put away Monday's laundry, and dusted and mopped and cleaned out the cat litter trays and made the bed... which doesn't sound like much, but took me until nearly 1.00, with very few (short) breaks to sit down. Then I cleaned out the glass bottles where we store lemonade (using crushed eggshells to do so - very useful) and bottled the lemonade and made egg mayonnaise and washed tomatoes and hung the sheets and towels out to dry...

Then we had lunch and I sat down for half an hour or so to look at email and Facebook, etc. And was aware that I was feeling extremely hot and rather headachey and very tired.

So when I went to the kitchen at 2.30 to start cutting up fruit for fruit salad, and making ice cream, I put the air conditioning on. At 28C as usual... and I was astounded at what a difference it made. I don't think the kitchen was more than about 30C, but having the cooler air, and the humidity removed gave me a new lease of life. So I washed vegetables and fruit and chopped them and prepared food for an hour or two, feeling much more energetic than I had expected. I cleaned the kitchen too, fairly thoroughly, and emptied the dishwasher which went on after lunch, and FINALLY got into the shower around 5.00pm.

By then it was a little cooler, and I'd switched off the kitchen a/c. Our friends arrived with Richard shortly after 6.00 and we ate our meal by open windows with the ceiling fan on, and it didn't feel too hot at all. When we went to bed we ran the bedroom a/c for a couple of hours, as it gets humid in the evenings, but I slept just fine, and at 5.30am when I woke this morning it was still a little cooler out than in.

But I had a feeling it was going to be hot today. The prediction was for 33C in the shade. So I put away the laundry, and even did a little ironing, and emptied the dishwasher, and made orange juice, and froze 2.5kg tomatoes in a-little-over-400g pots, all before 8.00.

At 8.30, even having just had my shower, I felt rather over-warm. I checked the weather forecast, and it told me that it was already 32C. So I turned on my study air conditioner, and will probably leave it on for most of the day. Running it at 28 isn't very expensive, and is amazingly effective. I am very, very thankful for air conditioning.

So, summer is here, and will probably stay here for at least three more months.

Ketchup-making experiment

It's quite a confession for someone who generally avoids pre-processed foods, and makes pretty much everything from scratch.. but I really like tomato ketchup. I have done pretty much all my life, right back to young childhood when it was known as 'red sauce' in our family, since (at the time) I didn't like tomatoes.

I don't, of course, use ketchup every day. I wouldn't dream of using it with, say, roast chicken or a slow-cooked casserole (although one or two of my favourite crockpot recipes have ketchup as an ingredient) but I think it goes very well with lunch-time snacks such as cheese-on-toast or scrambled eggs. And it's also a good complement to some of the dishes I make regularly for our evening meal: cauliflower cheese, omelettes, chicken pie. We like it on chili con carne, too. It was quite encouraging to learn, about five or six years ago, that tomato ketchup is an excellent source of lycopene, which is a necessary nutrient in fighting all kinds of diseases, but not so easy to get from other sources.

Having experimented with one or two of the ultra-cheap brands when we came to Cyprus, we decided that the nicest, and best value for money was the DF brand:


I wasn't too happy that one of the ingredients is 'modified starch' (which probably means 'genetically modified') but it's only a tiny amount, and the thought of making one's own ketchup seemed like a huge hassle. I make jam and chutneys, but have never got into the process of canning (requiring simmering after bottling).

So, with just two of us in the house we got through about one bottle of DF ketchup per month, on average. Occasionally we'd buy Heinz if it was on special offer, but on balance I think I preferred the DF.

Then, last time we were in Metro, about four weeks ago, Richard saw a large container of ketchup, sitting next to the regular-sized bottles. He compared prices, and asked me, puzzled, why we didn't buy the big container and decant it as necessary into the squeezy bottles.

I was sure there was a reason, but couldn't think what it was, so I shrugged, and we bought it.


When we got home, I wondered why the large container didn't need to be refrigerated (though it was a good thing as it would take up rather too much fridge space). I compared ingredients, and noticed that the large container of ketchup had an extra one, not present in the smaller bottles: sodium benzoate. It sounded dubiously chemical to me, but a quick Google search suggested that it was a harmless preservative. I wasn't keen on the idea, so Richard suggested I eat up the regular DF that we still had, and he would decant the large container into a Heinz bottle, and eat it himself.

That worked well until about ten days ago when I finished my ketchup. I looked at the large container. I guessed it was probably what they use in restaurants, and when I tasted it, rather gingerly, it seemed to be exactly the same as the ketchup in the small bottles. I tried a very small amount of it last week, and had no ill effects... so thought I might as well use it too, at least until we'd finished the large container.

This past week, I had a migraine type headache on Monday. It was gone by the evening, and I was fine on Tuesday. Then it was back on Wednesday, AND Thursday. It was a long time since I'd had a migraine... they are triggered any time I eat MSG (monosodium glutamate) which is found in a lot of pre-processed foods and junk food, and also (sadly) in Marmite and soy sauce. Giving those up wasn't easy, but turned out to be well worth it.

I thought back to what I'd eaten since last weekend.

On Sunday, Richard was out sailing and didn't come back for lunch. So I pulled a leftover cauliflower cheese from the freezer, and ate that for lunch. With a LARGE dollop (or two) of ketchup.

On Monday, we ate crockpot Stifado with roast veggies, so I didn't use any ketchup on that.

On Tuesday, we ate chili con carne with baked jacket potatoes and peas, and I went rather overboard on the ketchup.

On Wednesday evening, I cooked omelettes and potato wedges (with mushrooms and peas)... and slathered on the ketchup.

On Thursday evening, we were about to eat fish pie (the old-fashioned English sort, with a white sauce, and mushrooms, and mashed potato on the top) - with, if anyone's interested, roasted garlic tomatoes, broccoli, and glazed carrots. Fish pie isn't something I make very often as it seems rather bland to me, but Richard loves it.

To counteract the blandness, I was about to use, again, a rather large amount of ketchup... and suddenly paused. I don't know if it was gut instinct, or Introverted Intuition, or a whisper from God... I felt suddenly sure that the migraines had to be connected to the ketchup. So I squeezed the very last drops out of the small bottles that didn't contain the extra presevative.

After we'd eaten, I looked up sodium benzoate more thoroughly - I wish I'd done so before - and discovered in various blogs and discussions that, for people who are sensitive to MSG, sodium benzoate is another likely migraine trigger.

Great.

Since tomatoes are so cheap in Cyprus - about 60c/kg normally, in our local froutaria, and sometimes a special offer with around 3kg for one euro - I decided to think once more about home-made ketchup. I was pleased to discover various recipes which could be frozen rather than canned, but most of them used canned tomatoes and pre-processed tomato paste.

Then I found this recipe for ketchup using fresh tomatoes. It looked extremely good. Naturally, I decided to adapt it somewhat; the author of that blog said that it was quite spicy, so I decided I'd leave out the cayenne. I like spicy food very much, but not spicy ketchup. I don't have any mustard seeds, so decided that, rather than buying some specially, I'd leave them out too. I don't have any allspice, so thought I'd use mixed spice instead. And since I follow Delia Smith's dictum that one can't have too much garlic, I planned to use four garlic cloves rather than two.

So, yesterday afternoon I washed, de-stalked and roughly chopped about 1.4kg tomatoes, and stuck them in a pan with a large chopped onion and about six crushed garlic cloves.


I was a bit surprised that I didn't need to add any water, but the tomatoes made their own juice pretty quickly. I figured that I would probably blend with my hand blending tool, rather than the liquidizer, and that I wouldn't bother to strain it (not wanting to waste anything) so rather than peppercorns, I ground some black pepper over it for a few seconds. I used a pinch of powdered cloves, too, rather than whole ones.

And when I was about to add paprika, I noticed that there were little weevils in the jar. Ugh. I have no idea where these nasties come from, but more than once I've found them in a half-empty spice jar, usually one that is probably well beyond its use-by date anyway. I don't use paprika much, so probably bought it years ago. It went straight in the bin, and I glanced at my other spice jars, wondering if I had anything similar. I remembered that turmeric has been hailed recently as a wonder-spice, so added a teaspoonful of that instead. Turmeric and lycopene... my ketchup will be a health food!

I simmered it for about 40 minutes, stirring from time to time, then let it cool for twenty minutes or so, removed the cinnamon stick and bay leaf, and liquidised it with the hand blender, as I would for soup. It took three or four minutes - possibly I should have simmered it for longer - but the result was fairly fine and smooth, if not quite ketchup consistency.

So I added the rest of the ingredients, reducing the salt to two teaspoons, and stirred them in:


It was rather orange, probably due to the turmeric, but smelled rather good. I brought it back to the boil and simmered for another twenty minutes or so, stirring frequently. Then I let it cool... and later on, put it in jars in the fridge.

I did taste it, and was astounded to find that it really did taste like commercial ketchup, with a more pronounced tomato flavour. I'm not sure what I was expecting, exactly, but it was good!

Richard's out today, so for my lunch I made some cheese on toast as a vehicle for the new home-made ketchup. If I'm being ultra-critical, I think there's a tad too much cinnamon, and also slightly more of a clove flavour than I want. But only slightly. Next time I might try leaving out the mixed spice (which is, after all, basically allspice, cinnamon, nutmeg and clove...). Or perhaps I'll just the mixed spice, leaving out the extra clove and cinnammon stick.

It's a bit runnier than I expected, but simmering for a bit longer would solve that one - not that it's really a problem. I liked the texture, despite it still having tomato seeds in it, since I didn't strain it. All in all, it feels like a most successful experiment. Perhaps we can now give up buying ketchup altogether...

Cold, and a cold

I just checked my camera. I haven't taken a single photograph since last Monday. The rain has cooled Cyprus - or our part of it - rather significantly, so we're using the heating a bit more than we were, and I regularly wear a fleece in the house as well as a sweater. It's not actually bitterly cold outside - the weather site tells me it's about 16C at present, but with the sky overcast it isn't exactly warm. Cyprus houses are not, generally, designed with winter in mind. It makes sense: one can always put on more layers in winter, but there's a limit to how much can be removed in the hot, humid summers.

The last week passed as most weeks do when we don't have guests or public holidays. At least, it started out that way. On Wednesday I felt quite tired and achey, for no obvious reason. I did my usual upstairs cleaning, washing sheets and towels, and generally organising the house as I do on Wednesdays, but it all seemed like a whole lot more effort than usual. I had to take regular breaks, and it was late afternoon by the time I'd finished. In the evening we went to play Settlers of Catan with our good friends who live nearby; we enjoyed their company and the game, but I was very, very tired by the end. And my throat was somewhat sore.

On Thursday I felt decidedly unwell. Wondering if I'd be worse by Friday, I did get various things done in the kitchen, about which I had been procrastinating. I froze another litre of lemon juice with some peel, for a future batch of lemonade; I also froze some apple slices in syrup, and made more applesauce, as I'd bought a euro bag of apples (about 3kg in all) earlier in the week, and didn't think they'd keep many days longer. I sorted out the fridge, too. But by lunch-time I was feeling shivery and extremely achey, and by mid-afternoon had a headache as well, and no energy at all. I assumed that after a month of fighting it off, I had finally caught the bug Richard had over Christmas.

As an aside: I've never much liked the idea of living each day as if it might be my last. If I knew for sure that I wasn't going to see tomorrow, I wouldn't spend today cleaning, or doing laundry - what would be the point? - or cooking. I'd want to spend most of my time with the people I care about the most, trying to appreciate every second. Possibly I'd also an hour or so curled up on my beanbag, eating chocolate (no point worrying about one's waistline in such circumstances), and finishing as many books as possible.

In other words, I'd get nothing constructive done at all.

However, it did strike me as that it might be quite a good idea to live each day as if I were going to be incapacitated by the flu for the next week...!

I did manage to organise our evening meal, including half a dozen cloves of roasted garlic each, and I must have had 3g or more of Vitamin C on Thursday, plus a couple of doses of echinacea. Richard made me some honey and lemon in the evening, which was very soothing, and I went to bed early with Olbas Oil on my pillow, and slept surprisingly well. So much so that I actually felt rather better on Friday. But, remembering how Richard's bad cold lasted far longer than it should have done, I determined to take it easy rather than doing the various housework I normally do on a Friday. So much for good intentions...

Thus I wrote a bit of email, and read some friends' blogs, and vegged out on Facebook. In the evening we went to the usual cell group meeting, which was good, although I was extremely tired by the end, and once again slept surprisingly well.

On Saturday, Richard went sailing, and I took it easy again. Some Facebook games can be very addictive. I have been regularly reassured by Philip Yancey's comment, "They also serve who only sit and click"... but he was referring to research and writing on the computer. I can extend the principle to blogging, website building, email, and doing the accounts on the computer. But I'm not serving anyone other than myself by clicking to harvest Farmville trees, or collect Cityville rent, or re-stock Ravenwood Fair games...

By the evening I'd had enough. No more computer games, I decided... except possibly on free evenings, or at weekends. A timely post by a friend in Paphos about her 'media fast' inspired me to switch the computer off, and think about having a day each week - Sunday, perhaps? - without turning it on.

Richard and I played a couple of board games on Saturday evening, although I found myself starting to cough rather badly, which was exhausting. Honey and lemon helped, and also some cough lozenges I bought recently, although they contain anise (which tastes like liquorice - ugh) so I won't be using those much.

On Sunday I went to a church service in the morning and sat with friends, taking my small friend Helen out to the crêche when she became too lively. I walked there and back, and popped to the PO box for mail too since I was nearby. I really felt much better. Then as well as lunch for Richard and myself, I made soup and bread and a dessert for the evening, and then played Seafarers of Catan with the same friends in the afternoon, and another couple. Later, we all shared a cold evening meal. I didn't switch the computer on at all until 8.00pm when they'd all gone home - and then only for forty-five minutes, since we played a game of Settlers-by-Skype with Tim after that.

Today I feel mostly like myself again, other than having lost my voice almost entirely. And I'm still coughing. But not as badly as Richard did a month ago, so perhaps it was good to take it easy for a few days. I am trying to remind myself that I like cold weather MUCH more than the hot weather of summer, but somehow it's hard to imagine July and August when sitting here in several layers feeling a bit chilly...

Dishwasher update... (sigh)

There is no longer a hole in our kitchen.


It definitely looks better this way, with a dishwasher in place.

So why am I sighing?

Well.. this IS Cyprus.

Two weeks ago, we were promised that the overheating problem should be solved 'tomorrow'. I didn't think it likely, knowing that the Greek word 'avrio' simply means 'some time in the future'. So I wasn't disappointed when nothing happened... and a few days later, Richard called in again. No news.

A week or so later, he tried again.

Ah, said the shop owner. The engineers are having a bad time with this dishwasher. They have blown up three controllers already, but they think they have discovered what the problem is now. They had to wait for a spare part to be delivered, but we hope to have it ready soon.

I wasn't holding my breath, but did comment that I really hoped we might have it back before Christmas...

Yesterday, out of the blue, Richard had a phone call from someone who didn't speak great English, asking when we would be in today. They said they were going to deliver a 'new' dishwasher which we could borrow until our old one is fixed. He said any time after 8.30am would be just fine.

I said, a little cynically, that they were probably going to lend us an elderly machine that someone else had replaced, and hope that we might forget about our own dishwasher, which will get put to the bottom of the pile (so to speak). Maybe they don't even know how to fix it.

Richard said his guess was that they were going to 'lend' us a brand new machine, and then, in a week or two, tell us that ours can't be fixed but that they can offer us a discount on the one we've been borrowing.

This morning, Richard waited in until I'd been out to the fruit shop, and then I've been at home all day. It wasn't until 3.30pm that Richard phoned to tell me that the dishwasher was on its way and would be here in a few minutes.

It was about 4.15 when a truck finally arrived, with a dishwasher strapped to the back. Clearly not a new one - I could see a bit of rust at the back, and the two engineers (who spoke virtually no English) emptied some water out before they carried it up the stairs.

They spent about half an hour in the kitchen, muttering to each other, popping down to the truck from time to time. Then one of them said, 'Small problem'. The other one was on the phone to the shop owner (who speaks pretty good English) and eventually passed his phone to me.

Apparently our taps are the wrong size, and the engineers don't want to force them as they're afraid something might break. So we need to get in a plumber.

I said I would speak to Richard when he got home.

What's odd is that it's the same make as our own dishwasher, and looks almost identical. Perhaps it's so old that the tap fittings are imperial rather than metric...

The thing is, we hope we might have our own dishwasher back one day. So changing the tap fittings doesn't sound like a great idea as we'd then have to change them back again...

Oh well. I guess we'll be washing dishes by hand again this evening.

Mincemeat is now made

This time last year, thinking that I might be away for the first week of December, I was more organised for Christmas than I had ever been. It was a little scary, and in the end I wasn't away. I still seemed to have lots of last-minute thing to do, so I'm not sure there was any real benefit to such efficiency.

At least, that's how I see it now, when - until yesterday - the only single thing I'd done towards Christmas was to make this year's cake.

This morning, I decided to take my second step. I made a couple of kilograms of mincemeat, using our traditional family recipe.


It doesn't even take long - about fifteen minutes, I suppose, including peeling and grating apples, grating lemon rind and squeezing the juice.

So, at least that's done. And it's still only November.

(And the temperature is still 25C during the day. A stark contrast to the UK where there is, currently, ice and snow....)

Little visitors that we really don't want...

I mentioned last Tuesday that our dishwasher had to be taken away to be repaired.

It still hasn't returned. Richard did call on Friday, and they said there was a problem with the thermostat, but gave no idea as to when we might see it again.

In the meantime, the cats, naturally curious, sniffed around the space where the dishwasher has sat for the past four years and more. They were interested when it was gunky, and also interested when it was clean.

Sophia seemed to be showing particular interest.


We couldn't understand why it was taking her so long to get used to this space. Then on Friday morning, as I wandered sleepily into the kitchen to put the kettle on, Sophia suddenly belted across the kitchen like a rocket, made a leap, and quickly rushed into the dining room. I wondered if she'd found a cockroach, perhaps... it's not the season for them, but I had seen a sleepy one the previous day. She doesn't usually race for them, though, and if she does find one, she bats it around the floor.

She wouldn't let me go near her - any time I approached, she turned around. But I could see a tail dangling out of her mouth. I then heard a crunch from behind the television. Being of a squeamish disposition, I didn't go and investigate. But my great powers of deduction suggested that she must have caught and eaten a mouse.

We didn't find any evidence. But she kept on sniffing around the dishwasher hole (when she wasn't sniffing around behind the television) although, as far as I know, she hasn't found anything else.

It's rather worrying, really. Years ago, we were told that most households in Cyprus get mice at some point, but not if they have indoor cats. Mice are usually intelligent enough to keep away from homes where cats are in charge. And our part of the house is upstairs, which I would have thought would be quite tricky from a mouse entry perspective.

Richard did tidy the boiler room, which is below the kitchen window and might well have had a mouse's nest in it - he didn't find anything. And as far as we know, none of the cats has found any more mice. So we hope it was just a one-off.

We also hope we'll get the dishwasher back some time this week, preferably without too huge a bill...

There's a hole in my kitchen...

There's a sad-looking gap in our kitchen at present:


Those familiar with the layout will spot that it's where the dishwasher usually sits. I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that it was running much too hot - washing the dishes very effectively, but at such a hot temperature that it has to cool down for about half an hour - at least - before I'm comfortable removing them.

In addition to probably using a lot of extra electricity heating the water so much, it made us concerned about safety so we were no longer running the dishwasher overnight, or while out. Not a huge problem.. but a concern.

So, yesterday Richard went to talk to our friendly white goods shop, where we bought the dishwasher four-and-a-half years ago. They mended the controller a few months ago - the first thing that had gone wrong since we bought it. But when Richard described the problem, they said they'd have to take it away to be checked.

The engineer arrived late morning yesterday, just as the dishwasher was finishing a full load. Good timing, really, since he could see - and feel - immediately what the problem was, since I opened it and a gush of steam came out of the top. He didn't have a whole lot of English, but agreed with me that it was indeed 'too hot'.

Of course, not such good timing in that I had to remove everything while it was still burning to the touch.

The engineer unwired and unplumbed the dishwasher, and then wheeled it down our outside steps on one of those ingenious sack trolleys whose wheels go down step by step, rather like an overgrown Slinky toy. He said that he would call when he had any news.

I did take the opportunity of cleaning the square on the floor where the dishwasher had stood all this time, before taking the photo. It was rather disgustingly gunky. A friend who called in to return some books said that everyone has gunk under large appliances. I suppose she's right.

No news from the dishwasher hospital to date. So I've been re-discovering the art of washing up dishes in the sink. Perhaps I had started taking the dishwasher for granted too much...

Baking in November

During the Summer in Cyprus, I do minimal baking. If I do need to make a dessert for some reason, either I cut up some fresh fruit and make a fruit salad, or I throw together a basic bar cake in a roasting pan.

But now the weather's a little cooler, I like pottering in the kitchen a bit more, and I also like trying out new recipes. Yesterday might have been a lazy day for the cats, but it wasn't for me. We were expecting our good friends - a family of eight - and two other friends who are staying with them, for the evening. We get together every couple of weeks for a cold meal; they bring cut up salad veggies and cheese, while I make some bread, and some kind of dessert.

Making bread is easy with my breadmaker. I now have a recipe that's pretty much foolproof, so long as I remember to adjust the temperature depending on the season. Here are the first two loaves I made:


Sometimes two is sufficient for this group, but I thought I'd make a third anyway. Just as well I did, since they brought two other teenage girls with them, making us a party of thirteen at the table (the youngest member of the family is not quite five months old, so doesn't have a seat to herself).

I was thinking about making some kind of apple cake, since I had about four small, soft apples in the fruit bowl. Since my non-citrus juice extractor is broken, and the one on the food processor isn't great, I've only been making orange juice recently.

So when, browsing Google Reader to see what my favourite bloggers had been posting lately, I saw a recipe called Marie-Helene apple cake, I knew I had to make it... particularly since two of the people in the family who were coming are called Marie and Helen.

It came out pretty well, although I think I used rather too much apple:


I wanted to make something else as well, since I realised that it wasn't very big. Browsing more cake recipes on the same blog,
I came across a chocolate banana cake. It looked extremely good. At the last minute I decided not to use my largest loaf pan (which was not quite as big as the one in the instructions) since there appeared to be a vast amount of mixture. Instead, I used my seven-inch square cake pan, which turned out to be exactly the right size:


Slightly to my surprise, the apple cake proved to be the more popular. Everyone thought it extremely good. The chocolate cake was very chocolatey, with only the faintest hint of banana, but rather dryer than I'd expected. I'm not sure why.

Since I also cooked lunch for Richard and myself, and had a fair amount of cleaning up to do after all the baking, and then our friends arrived around 5.00pm, it was far from a lazy day from my perspective.

In praise of my slow cooker (crockpot)

I'm basically a 'morning' person.

I'm also, basically, inclined to inertia. After lunch, when I sit down at my computer to read email, or whatever it happens to be, I find that the hours whizz by, and suddenly my stomach alerts me that it's nearly time to eat.

I no longer make the mistake of buying pre-prepared food, with high prices and low nutritional value. If I have them in the freezer, it's far too tempting to use them. Instead, prompted years ago by Tim, I keep a rough menu - currently on a two-weekly cycle, although at times in the past it's been a monthly thing.

And because the thought of doing a lot of food preparation around 5.00pm tends to make me sigh, and try to think of something as simple as possible, I am delighted to have a slow cooker (known in some places as a crockpot, although to my mind the crockpot is the removable inside pot in which the food is cooked, while the slow cooker is the whole appliances, which cooks slowly:


Whatever you wish to call it, it's a wonderful invention. Ideal for someone like me who quite likes to potter in the kitchen first thing in the morning, and also ideal for Cyprus summers, where nobody in their right mind would want to do food preparation late afternoon. Or even late morning.

Of course, with only two of us living here most of the time, it might be considered that a slow-cooker is a little excessive. Even a smallish one like ours is not good at cooking meals for two. It does much better with large quantities - using at least a kilogram of meat - which provides around eight portions in all.

So I make the most of it. Yesterday, for instance, I made lemon chicken with carrots. Actually, I only did about half the quantities in that recipe, since we now have only a 3.5litre size slow cooker. I thawed the chicken overnight, cut up the vegetables in the morning, threw it all into the crockpot around 8.00am... and when we came to eat, eleven hours later, an appetising meal emerged. I did remember to put a couple of potatoes in the oven to bake at around 5.30, and also steamed a bit of broccoli to go with it, but those are easy to do.

Today, I'm making a bolognese sauce in the slow cooker. In about ten minutes I'm going to prepare a cheese sauce [using almond milk and goat's cheese, since Richard tries to be dairy-free], and then layer it with lasagne pasta and a few scoops of the sauce to make a two-person lasagne. Yes, it does mean a bit of extra preparation now, and I shall probably top-and-tail some green beans to go with it... but it's no longer summer, and I don't mind a little extra food preparation when the temperatures are cool.

What of the leftovers?

Since we don't like to eat the same thing for several days in a row, I simply wait until the meal has cooled down, then decant individual portions into small tubs (empty 250g margarine/spread containers, usually, of which we have dozens), label, and freeze. If I have six portions of a casserole, which is usual, then that's another three complete meals where I don't even have to do early morning food preparation; I just have to remember to thaw them during the afternoon, then stick them in the oven in a pyrex dish to reheat, along with whatever kind of potatoes I happen to be doing that day. Or, in the case of bolognese, make another batch of cheese sauce to go with it. If I'm in a real hurry, I could even serve it plain with spaghetti.

I'm totally converted to slow-cooking. I only wish I'd discovered it years earlier, when the boys were still at home!

The sad demise of our juice extractor

Our dishwasher seems to have been running considerably hotter than it ought to, in the last couple of weeks. It's not a huge problem - it just means that I have to switch it off after it's finished, and then leave it to cool down for at least a couple of hours before unloading. I'm not sure if it's the washing or the drying that's over-hot, but everything in it is coming out sparkling clean. Richard plans to talk to our friendly repairman at some point... when he has a moment. And since it's working, it's not a huge disaster. Glasses are not cracking, the empty margarine containers I use for freezing portions of food are not melting...

..indeed, all was well until I decided that the bowl part of our juice extractor could do with a wash in the dishwasher. Not, I'm happy to say, our citrus juicer, but the centrifugal one for apples and other non-citrus fruit. We have fresh fruit juice every morning, and I usually alternate oranges and apples, with other seasonal fruit added as relevant.

Alas, when I came to remove the items from the dishwasher, this is what I found:


It's hard to do it justice with a photo. It has become distorted; and as it's hard plastic, it won't bend back. There's no way it will fit into the machine:


Getting small appliances repaired in Cyprus is both difficult and expensive, and not generally worth it. I don't remember exactly when we bought this juice extractor, but it must have been about four years ago. Still, I've found a very useful site in the UK which supplies spare parts for just about anything. So on Sunday, I got in touch with them - the site is Belstar Electrics. I couldn't find any trace of this juicer (a Tefal Elea) but they had a contact form, so I used it.

A few hours later, I had a friendly reply saying that they were sorry, but they didn't have anything for this machine.

So I tried Tefal's own recommended site for spare parts, Britcom. I couldn't find the juice extractor listed there either, but they also had a contact form. So I got in touch.

Today I had a reply saying, 'I'm sorry, but this product and its parts are now obsolete'.

Probably it was obsolete when we bought it. That does, sometimes, seem to be the case in Cyprus; items no longer available in the UK or mainland Europe can still be bought here. It's a good machine, so I don't know why they would have withdrawn it; we haven't had any problems with it, and it must have run at least three times per week for four years, which is quite a bit of juicing.

Yesterday I remembered, suddenly, that our food processor has a juice extractor attachment. This morning I hunted in several likely cupboards before finally running it to earth. Rather dusty, so I washed it and will see how well it works. If it manages apples successfully, then I may simply use that, which is simpler (and considerably cheaper) than having a new juice extractor.

A productive weekend, courtesy of the Froutaria special offers

I mentioned - when writing recently about making and freezing raw apple sauce - that I have determined to make more use of the special offer pre-bagged produce at a euro per bag at our local froutaria.

On Friday last week, I went there and spotted a bag of lemons. They looked rather grubby and spotty - perhaps even windfalls - but as far as I could tell, they were locally grown ones. I hadn't made any lemonade since just before Tim arrived, early August, and Richard very much likes my home made lemon squash.

So I carried home a bag of lemons, along with other produce I wanted, and when I weighed them, discovered that I had bought over two and a half kilogrammes:


They were distinctly dirty...


But I scrubbed them well, particularly the ones I was using for peel. As they were small, and rather hard, they weren't all that juicy; it took 25 of them to make a litre of juice. But I got my three bottles of lemonade to put in the fridge, which should last a couple of weeks, probably:


Cost: approximately two euros (a little less than one bag of lemons, one kilogramme of sugar, and some cooking time).

I actually made the lemonade on Saturday morning, after I'd popped to the froutaria again. This time, the one-euro shelf was piled high with produce. I immediately decided on two bags of tomatoes:


- which turned out to be about 7kg in all when I weighed them. I also bought another bag of apples - big ones, this time - although I hadn't quite decided what to do with them. With the other fruit and veg I wanted, I was quite weighed down on the walk home.

Still, despite continued high temperatures, I was feeling quite energetic. So while the lemonade was simmering, I chose about two and a half kilogrammes of the slightly better tomatoes, and popped them, a few at a time, in boiling water until they had softened. The first time I prepared chopped tomatoes for the freezer (to replace canned chopped tomatoes, which are expensive in Cyprus, and apparently not very good for us as the tomato juice reacts with the inner coating on the cans) I carefully skinned them all after blanching. It was time-consuming, and seemed like rather a waste.

The second time, I left the skins on when I chopped them... and they were just fine when used in lasagnes or casseroles or soups. I still do the blanching, because it helps the juice to be released as I chop the tomatoes, but it's a great deal quicker not having to skin them.

The result of this was six 450g containers of chopped tomatoes in their juice to be put in the freezer:


As for the remaining tomatoes (more than 4kg of them) I had decided to make passata - thick tomato puree - which I also planned to freeze. I found many recipes online, some of them suggesting that the tomatoes be roasted first, most of them recommending that chopped onions and garlic be gently fried in olive oil before adding the tomatoes (roasted or raw). There were many variations on the theme, so I thought I'd begin with as simple a recipe as possible. I had a very large onion, so I chopped that and gently stir-fried it. Then I cut up about eight or nine smallish garlic cloves - too small to be worth roasting whole. But no point crushing, since they were going to be put in the blender anyway. I threw in about a tablespoon of basil, as I think it goes well with tomatoes. Then I roughly chopped all the remaining tomatoes, and added them, a few at a time, stirring as I did. My largest saucepan was fairly full by the time I'd put them all in:


Then I left them to simmer, stirring now and again. The recipes I'd found online gave different times for this process, but all agreed that the contents of the pan should be softened and reduced. A bit like preparing fruit for jam, apparently.

After about an hour, the contents all felt soft, and were somewhat reduced, although not as much as I had expected. I was also a little surprised to see that the colour now looked more like tomato soup than passata from packets:


It even tasted rather like tomato soup, although I hadn't added any stock, or flour, or any of the other tomato soup ingredients. So I've no idea how well it will work as passata. I went ahead and blended it in the liquidizer in smallish quantities, after it had cooled down a little, and found myself with fifteen 250g containers of pureed tomato mixture:


So they, too, had to be cooled, labelled and frozen.

By that time - late Saturday morning - I'd had enough of cooking, and I planned to use my bag of apples for dessert the following day, anyway, when we were expecting our friends for a cold evening meal.

I weighed the apples on Sunday morning, early, and found there were nearly three kilogrammes.


I kept a couple of the nicer-looking ones for eating or juicing, and browsed through some recipes. I decided to try some apple pies. I discovered that pies with pastry on top only are the English style of pie, while the sort we call double-crust pies (with pastry at the bottom as well) are more normal in America. The pies with pastry at the bottom and not at the top (such as pecan pie or lemon meringue) are technically tarts.

I also discovered a packet of frozen blackberries in the freezer. Commercial ones, which were probably well past their sell-by date and probably bought by mistake when I wanted a few frozen raspberries for smoothies. (Neither fresh raspberries nor fresh blackberries are available in Cyprus, other than in tiny quantities at extortionate cost for a few weeks of the year). So I thought I'd make one basic apple pie, and two smaller apple-and-blackberry pies.

Unlike crumbles, the fruit doesn't need to be pre-cooked for apple pies, so I peeled and chopped five, to fit in my larger pie dish, sprinkling with brown sugar (less than any of my recipes asked for, as these were not cooking apples) and a little cinnamon:


Then I cut up another three for each of the smaller pie dishes, and divided the frozen blackberries between them, sprinkling sugar on top:


I then made shortcrust pastry, using half whole-wheat flour as I usually do, and was pleased that I'd estimated almost exactly the right amount for topping these three pies, with just a few scraps left to decorate them:


I then even remembered to brush them all with egg before cooking, and was rather pleased with the result:


The consensus on Sunday evening was that they were good, although the blackberries didn't really affect the taste at all. Perhaps they really were too old to have used, although they didn't do any harm.

We didn't even start the second of the blackberry-and-apple pies, so I put it in the freezer for some future occasion.

Yesterday morning I went to the froutaria for various bits and pieces, and there was nothing on the one-euro pre-bagged shelves other than pickling onions. Not something I use - so I didn't get any special offers. Just as well, really, because despite my burst of enthusiasm for working in the kitchen at the weekend, I feel less energetic this week and am glad not to have to do any more preparation. I shall probably feel better when the weather starts to become more autumnal, which must surely be some time soon...