Displaying items by tag: fruit

For the rhubarb compote - see above

For the creamed rice

300ml/10floz milk (full fat is best)

300ml/10floz double cream

1 vanilla pod

150g/6oz short grain pudding rice

150g/6oz caster sugar

Place the milk and cream in a saucepan or better still, a double boiler.

Split the vanilla pod length ways and scrape out the seeds and add the whole lot to the cream and milk.

Bring the milk mixture to a gentle simmer and add the rice and sugar.

Simmer gently, stirring frequently, for about 20 minutes until the rice is soft and the liquid absorbed.

(Watch carefully to ensure that the rice and milk do not burn on the bottom of the pan.  If you do not have a decent heavy based saucepan, it is suggested that you bake the rice pudding in the oven, although it will then have a darker colour and a skin on top, but still delicious!)

Remove the vanilla pod before serving the creamed rice with the rhubarb. Delicious hot or cold!

drove to Aldeburgh and spent £25 I haven't got at one of the fish sheds. Bought two large dressed crabs, one for me - one for dad; a skate wing, a piece of cod, prawns and mussels for a fish soup that I cooked when I got home. Not very much money really for one of the most dangerous jobs there is - out at sea.

Also bought two types of pears and some apples from the side of the road in Coddenham.

What a great day for the market...I bought fresh peaches, a big pineapple, gorgeous cherries, strawberries, new potatoes  - Bury market isn't always this good but it beats a supermarket for fruit & veg any day in a summer like this.

Found out that we can buy fresh local blueberries right on our doostep here in West Suffolk. Jo Garden grows them at Hepworth www.gardenberries.co.uk and makes the best blueberry jam there too. She also sells the bushes ( currently on a special offer) if you want one in your garden to sprinkly a few on your cereal every day. Of course you can buy blueberries cheaper in supermarkets but it's a bit like blackberries - why would you buy them from a supermarket when you  can get them from a farm or a hedge near you?

We should really have a competition for the best produce displayed at the end of a garden.

A chance to taste those varieties that supermarkets don't stock and may be even buy a tree. I have a  Pitmaston Pineapple in my garden, from Crown Nursery Apple Day  two years ago. It has small but definitely pineapple-tasting sweet yellow russet apples. On Saturday I stopped at my favourite community cafe for a few pounds of theirs on their Apple Day, and a bottle of juice...and two great big slabs of apple cake which I should have made myself!  www.crown-nursery.co.uk is near Woodbridge.

Ruth's grape harvest on the way to be made into juice at the pressers - who doesn't like his picture being taken so we can't post it on here.

...but made this at home with mulberries from the freezer because the puddings are never this good.