The fruit trees, mid-October

The sun is shining, jobs are done for the day so before we put the kettle on for a well earned cup of tea we thought it would be useful to get some photos of the fruit trees in the garden and surroundings. The fruit is ripening day by day so it’s a good time to capture where each of the trees is in their cycle.

The small citrus tree is absolutely laden with fruit … they are tiny, but there are plenty of them.

Mandarins ... tangerines ... satsumas ... clementines?

So far we aren’t entirely sure what they are … mandarins, clementines, satsumas, tangerines?  Mad Alex allowed someone to strip all the fruit from the tree before we took possession last year.  For some time this wasn’t clear, leaving us thinking the tree produced no fruit at all, until we spotted two stray fruit lurking right in the very centre.  Clearly too hard to harvest for whoever took the rest of the fruit!  We picked the remaining two and they were lovely … not too sweet or too tart and not oversupplied with pips either.

So far it looks like we’ll get a good crop but at the moment over 95% of the fruit are still a dark green.  The occasional one or two are starting to turn to a pale green, then yellow before becoming bright orange in late November.

Just starting to ripen

The two lemon trees are also doing well.  The tree near the gate has larger, still solid green, lemons; the garage tree  has smaller but more advanced lemons which are just starting to turn yellow.

Green lemons on the gate-end tree

Ripening lemon on the garage-end tree

The pomegranate tree is presenting some problems with regard to its attractiveness to local wildlife, but that’s an issue for another day.  In the meantime the fruit that have escaped such attention are ripening fantastically well.  One of our neighbours has three trees in her courtyard.  Last year she estimated that they produced over 100 kg of fruit between them.  Far, far more that she could use or give away to friends, so she ended up bagging up the fruit and leaving them outside her house with a note offering them for free to tourists.

Near-ripe pomegranates

Just around the corner, down the donkey track, there is a derelict plot containing the remains of a partially renovated two storey house.  If anyone is looking for an adventurous renovation project then look no further!  In the absence of any care and maintenance pomegranate and particularly fig trees have been growing unchecked.  The figs are coming on well, with a mix of under-ripe and hard green fruit and delicious looking ripe purple figs.

Ripening figs

Yet more figs

Those with a keen eye may notice an interloper in the second of the fig photos.

The photographer gets no points for observation today having missed the tiny praying mantis posing on a branch just off to the left of the figs.

All being well, updates to come in due course!

Thursday’s Tried & Tested

One of our hopes in quitting work and moving here was that we would be able to live a simpler life. In financial terms we certainly needed to live more frugally, but we also wanted to shift down a gear or ten and live a quieter life.  Not so much “The Good Life” but with a healthy nod towards the mindful philosophy of the “Slow Food” movement.

With that in mind one of the things that we have enjoyed since we arrived is having the time to research and investigate and experiment some of the things that previously we could only say “Oh, that’s a great idea. I wonder if it actually works?”

Three years in we’ve been able to do some of that so we thought we’d share some of the things that have worked well. Some are money saving tips, some are time saving, some are using resources differently, some crafty, and so on.

To kick off, a foodie Tried & Tested.

Oven-Dried Tomatoes

From time to time (ok, a couple of times a month) we end up with a small bowl of sad and tired tomatoes languishing in the cupboard. Grocery shopping is approaching, it’d be a shame to waste the tomatoes but they’re, well, a little past their best.

And yet, it’s possible to not just refresh them but make them into something that can be used in any of half a dozen dishes. Their flavour concentrates, their texture changes entirely.  When Ian sees these being prepared he smiles. A suspicious soul would suggest that he over-buys tomatoes to make sure this happens regularly :-)

So;

• Cut the tomatoes in half, or quarters if they are absolutely huge
• Place them cut-side up in an oven proof dish (in this case, the lid of a pyrex dish bought for Mands by her grandmother as a housewarming present many year ago. Pyrex goes on forever!)
• Drizzle over a little olive oil, sprinkle a little salt and freshly ground pepper. Add some herbs if there are any hanging about … in this case some thyme straight from the freezer
• Put the dish in the oven on a very low heat for an hour, or two or even three, and allow the tomatoes to dry out
• Once they are cooked put them in a tupperware, cover them completely with oil and pop them in the fridge, or even the freezer. They’ll keep happily in the fridge for a couple of weeks, though they tend not to last that long in this house.

Slightly tired tomatoes, pre-cooking

To use them;

• Toss them through pasta or add them to an existing pasta sauce
• Add them to salads, using some of the oil to make the salad dressing
• Stand at the fridge door and eat them direct from the tupperware, remembering to mop up the telltale oil dribbles before anyone notices
• Drain them and pile them, with some parmesan or olives or herbs, onto lightly toasted bread to make bruschetta
• Add them to homemade pizzas, or to shop-bought to make them a little more interesting

Things worth noting;

• When the tomatoes are all gone the oil is great for adding a tomatoey flavour to other dishes
• If the oven temperature is low enough they can be cooking along with something else. If the oven is on but the temperature is a little high they’ll probably be ok but do keep a close eye on them
• They can be made in huge batches which is useful when the summer tomato glut comes
• They cook really well in a halogen oven, particularly if there are round containers to hand
• They are fairly robust in terms of the flavours they’ll accept. Thyme, oregano, garlic, chilli, balsamic vinegar (but skip the drizzle of oil) all work well
• They are a great fridge standy-by for when folks drop by unexpectedly … a little like biscotti

Post-cooking

Bruschetta with oven-dried tomatoes, smoked turkey & parmesan

Happy cooking!

Village Life #1

There is an olive tree just beyond our back door on a small piece of village land.  The land itself is a the dead-end of the donkey track that runs through the village and past our house.  In time we hope to adopt the piece of land, clearing the weeds and rubble and adding some seating and the like.   Until then, and since we moved in, we’ve been waiting with interest to see who owns or rents the tree.

Olive trees are a precious commodity here and often, if people don’t have space for their own tree, they rent one from someone else.  This tree is a good, healthy, mature tree and had been harvested last year so we knew someone would be around eventually.  Here in Cyprus olive harvesting starts as early as September and continues for a couple of months depending on the weather, the location of the tree and whether the desire is for oil or green olives or black olives.

The olive tree

Someone we met on our travels once asked us if our tree produced green olives or black.  Both, is the answer.

The olives start green and eventually turn black.  If they aren’t harvested by then they usually fall off the tree.  Until we arrived here, and rented a house with its own tree, we didn’t realise either.

Anyway, MrOliveHarvester appeared recently in search of this year’s crop.  Rather than walk through the village and up the donkey track he clambered up from the derelict plot below.  That would be the derelict plot full of other folk’s rubbish, some rats and a snake or two.  Suddenly the longer walk doesn’t seem too bad!

Curious to see what the noise was we popped our head out of the back (donkey/pomegranate/used to be front) door.  Having said “hello” in Greek and consequently used up about 25% of our combined Greek vocabulary he made the optimistic assumption that we must be able to speak the language – otherwise why would we have moved to the village?

Happy in his logic he proceeded to explain, in fluent Greek (actually, Cypriot … but that’s an explanation for another day) about his tree and how his olives looked this year and so on and so on.  Body language, gestures and context can give a fair indication of what’s going on, though the specifics can be trickier.

He then went on to explain how the olives should be treated.  Wait until they are fat with oil … pick them … use a heavy stone and a firm base (aka the wall) to crush to show the stone … then rinse them and soak them in a brine solution.  From previous research we knew some of this so were able to follow a little.  MrOliveHarvester appeared to be advocating soaking them and changing the water three times, but it could have been every three days.

Before he left he stuck his head through the kitchen window and gestured for a container.  When we checked back later the container was full of fat juicing olives for us to deal with … if only we knew the water needed changing three times or every three days.

A little language can be a dangerous thing :-)

Olives!

Yet more oranges

The orange-fest continues.  

 

To date we’ve been gifted around 40 Seville oranges by friends who have a tree outside their house.  They are happy that they have finally found people willing to take them, in previous years this has proved to be a challenge.  This year another friend is making marmalade and we have sent a bag of empty jam jars in her direction and are hoping for a filled jar in return.  With the rate at which we eat marmalade a single jar should last us a year!

 

This week, since it is Ian’s birthday, we had offered to take something food-wise to a regular gathering of people.  What on earth could we make/take that would feed fifty, could be eaten standing up, in a field, probably in the dark and without making a mess?

 

Yeah, we got rid of some of the oranges ;-)

 

Syllabub for 50, garnished with slivers of zest and served in small plastic cups was the order of the day.  

 

Generally it went down well although there was a slightly odd reaction from a brand new member of the group.

 

The male of the couple was busy helping himself to a second portion when his wife screeched at Mands …

 

That’s my pension you are jeopardising!

 

Apparently she was concerned that the double cream would cause a heart attack, kill him and then rob her of a stable financial future aka access to his pension.  Not a bad day’s work for 100mls of cream really. 

 

She then went on to say that we should have added oats to the mix as it would have “improved the flavour” and that raspberries would have been better than oranges because then “it would have been more Scottish”. 

 

Since we are in the middle of the Med and overwhelmed with free Sevilles neither of her suggestions made an ounce of sense.  However when we pointed this out she became distracted by the notion of Seville oranges and demanded to know where they had come from.

 

She would very much like some, she said, because “they are so wonderful and sweet and so much tastier than normal oranges!”. 

 

For those of you who have never tasted a Seville orange there is a reason why they are used for making marmalade.  Using the same volume of sugar as oranges goes some way to offsetting the overwhelming sourness.   

These oranges were, at some time in their evolutionary history, crossed with lemons … or perhaps battery acid.  We nibbled on a small piece of zest a couple of days ago and are still waiting for the sensation to return to the taste buds involved.

 

Anyway, new rude mad Scottish woman thinks they are sweet!

 

Meanwhile we’ve been finding other uses for the remaining oranges.  A friend suggested that she’d made an orange version of Limoncello … which got us thinking.  Wouldn’t it be lovely to be sitting on a sundrenched patio sipping a tiny glass of chilled orange flavoured limoncello equivalent?  A little searching established that such a drink existed, called Arancello.

 

So, we spent a happy afternoon paring the zest from some of the oranges and stuffing placing it gently into bottles of Zivania - the local fire water.  Only time will tell whether it is any good … more news in due course!

Meanwhile, feel free to learn from our experience.  There is a knack to zesting and paring.  Once you have the knack it isn’t too hard (note orange on front right of plate).  Until you acquire the knack it seems to be an awful lot of effort for little return (back right!).

 

 

 

 

 

Cold … but Orangey

These first few weeks of 2008 have been cold. Very unlike the rest of the year, but not entirely unexpected for the coldest and darkest months here in the northern hemisphere.

But Cypriot houses aren’t always built for warmth and, often, have little in the way of insulation. Since our rental house is built of concrete blocks and finished in plaster the wind not only whistles through gaps around the doors and windows but through the walls themselves.

Oh, and we have no heating.

Actually, that’s not true. There’s no heating installed in the house. Theo, the landlord, had some interesting ideas as to what was necessary and what wasn’t when finishing a house.

On the “Not Necessary” list was things like … heating … air conditioning … curtain poles.

On the “Necessary” was … a fitted kitchen shipped out from London because his wife was bored with it and wanted a new one … fitted wardrobes shipped out from London because his wife was bored with them and wanted a new ones. Hmmm, is there a theme there do you think?

Of course, the detail-orientated among you will realise that fitted cupboards and wardrobes are unlikely to fit in more than one location. So the fitted things …well … they don’t actually!

And, to add to the interest, it seems Theo forgot to mention to the electrician that these things would be arriving. Had he know it’s possible that he’d have put light switches and the like in different locations. No matter, there’s always a practical solution if you look hard enough.

And really, we’re getting used to opening kitchen cupboards to turn on the lights.

Anyhow, back to the heat. Theo didn’t install any so we’re making do with a portable gas heater downstairs. Most folk here have them to suplement their regular heating. Not sure we’ve found anyone who has just a heater to heat a 2,000 sq ft open plan house though.

We’ve given up trying to heat upstairs, particularly since it is often colder inside, than out. In the height of the summer we couldn’t get the heat in the bedroom below 37 degrees (99 degrees Fahrenheit). Right now, the bedroom is about 11 degrees (52 degrees Fahrenheit) and is unlikely to get any warmer until the weather changes. Thank goodness for thick fluffy duckdown quilts!

On an entirely different note remember the comment about getting more Seville oranges? Well, on Monday we saw the givers-of-the-oranges for the first time this year. Mands had hardly finished thanking them and saying how wonderful they were when she was handed another carrier bag full.

We’re starting to get the impression that they are looking for folks daft enough to be able to think of uses for yet another couple of dozen Sevilles.

Not to worry though … it wasn’t really dozens … when we counted them there were only 23!

Luckily we have a cunning plan. We just need to track down a local supply of Everclear or similar …

End of Year round-up

Well, there are about two hours to go until 2008 so just time for a few end-of-year round-ups.

The Beef

Since so many of you have asked we are happy to report that it was absolutely wonderful. Seasoned with mustard and freshly crushed black pepper, it roasted happily in the oven while the trimmings cooked around it. Before the sun set the joint was stripped and the remaining meat was back in a casserole dish with some caramelised onions and the remains of the red wine gravy. Having bubbled for an hour or two it was portioned and popped into the freezer.

That lovely joint will be keeping us fed for some time to come … at least another three meals in cold January!

The Seville Oranges

About a week before Christmas we were offered some Seville oranges. A friend has a tree and, as so often the way here, once it starts to crop it is a challenge to use all of the fruit before it goes bad. Marmalade-makers wandered off with carrier bags full but we have no such leanings. However, if there were half a dozen oranges to spare we might have a beef recipe that would appreciate them, said we.

A few days later we were presented with a carrier containing 17 goodly sized oranges.

Mands did a little research and then amended menus. Instead of Christmas beef followed by tart au citron perhaps there could be a light orange syllabub instead?

After a couple of false starts it ended up being one of the foodie highlights of the holiday, and a perfect foil to rich Christmas pudding.

For 4
o Juice and zest enough oranges to yield 1/4 pint of juice (about two large oranges)
o Reduce juice to about 1/3 of the original volume. Allow to cool
o Mix reduced juice with icing sugar to thicken and sweeten. About 4 tablespoons gives a good consistency
o Whip one pint of cream
o Fold sweetened juice mixture into the cream
o Spoon into small glasses. Serve with almond thin biscuits

Tonight, as part of our NYE meal, we cooked a variation of Gary Rhodes’ Beef with Seville Oranges. This too was fantastic, but does mean that of the original batch of oranges we only have two left. Hmmmm, wonder if there’s another dozen available?

We made another batch of syllabub today to say thank-you to the providers-of-the-oranges. Pity we didn’t know that they’ve gone to Dubai for a holiday! Another friend, who is staying at home by choice, was happy to take them home to add to her planned meal.

The Weather

Bright, clear, warm in the sun but chilly out of the sun.

These last couple of days have given us some of the coldest temperatures this year. Overnight it is dropping to around 6 or 7 degrees. The irony of getting a lightly sunburnt nose during an afternoon and then huddling under a 13.5 tog quilt at night isn’t lost on us! To some extent the issue is made worse by the very poor insulation of our rental house.

At 5pm today the bedroom temperature was 12 degrees and falling. We have no real heating upstairs, and only a gas burning heater downstairs. It isn’t expensive to run but doesn’t heat much beyond that which is in front of it.

The Euro

At midnight tonight we join the Euro. The Cyprus pound will be no more. Well, apart from those liberated from mattress hiding places and cashed in at the bank for the coming six months. There are reams of stories in other locations about the mechanics and the legalities and the difficulties and the dual currency calculators.

Suffice to say that tomorrow we can pay for our groceries (if anywhere were open) with a trusty 10 Euro note rather than a £10 CYP note but we’d almost certainly be standing next to someone, Cypriot or English, complaining that prices have gone up. Same old, same old!

And Finally

Best wishes for the outgoing and the incoming years. We wish you happiness, prosperity and shorter bank queues. Oh, maybe that last one is only relevant to those on the island ;-)

Ian & Mands

Christmas Beef

Warning: Not suitable for vegetarians!

This year we are cooking lunch on Christmas Day. It’s been several years since we cooked turkey for Christmas and didn’t really relish the idea of going back to it. When we were in London we often cooked a rib of beef on the bone, sometimes known as a standing rib, but here it is not a common cut of meat. Actually, many of the cuts that we are used to are not well known here which has led to changes in the types of meals we cook.

That aside we thought we might have a solution. A butcher in one of the villages, Xylotymbou, advertises as selling English (actually, the original butcher was from Scotland, so make that Scottish) cuts. Early last week we hopped in the car and drove there to place our Christmas order. Business must be good because despite it being before his published last order day he was already sold out. Not a single rib of beef to be had, though we could have had a dull sirloin in its place.

Somewhat dejected, we got back in the car and drove back towards Larnaca. The Christmas meal plan revolved around this piece of beef and now it looked like we would not be able to get it. Driving back we talked about where else we might get a joint … certainly not any of the supermarkets but maybe one of the other butchers might understand the cut we wanted?

We stopped at one just outside Larnaca, overlooking the sea.

“No problem” he said when we asked if he could do a rib of beef for Christmas. After quick conversation about the number of people and therefore size of joint and the number of ribs we wanted he made a note in his diary and we agreed to come back to collect it on Saturday. As we drove away we weren’t entirely convinced that we and he had been talking about the same cut. We certainly didn’t know how much this might cost – the price wasn’t mentioned at all.

Today we headed back there as part of our last run of errands.

He recognised us as we walked in and quickly disappeared into the chiller at the back where he hangs the meat. He came back, not with a neat joint, but with a half carcass of beef.

Having confirmed that it was a three-rib piece we wanted he asked if we would prefer the joint cut straight or following the rib. Cutting straight would mean a joint which would stand better but would mean slicing through one of the ribs. Following the ribs would mean a sloping joint but three intact ribs. We agreed that following the rib was a better option so he proceeded to cut. A single slice, with a scarily sharp knife, separated our joint from the rest of the carcass. Then a cleaver was used to shorten the length of the ribs “Otherwise they will not fit in your oven” he said. A slice or two more to neaten and the joint was brought over for inspection.

It looks not unlike this.

Having agreed it looked wonderful it was bagged, popped on the scales and we handed over a little under £15CYP (£18GBP, $36USD) for about eight pounds of prime beef. Had we bought a similar joint from our old London supermarket we would have paid two, if not three, times the price.

The beef is now lightly oiled and seasoned and is sitting in the fridge. Only a few more days before we know whether it tastes as good as it looks. If so, it may be on the menu more than once a year ;-)

Merry Christmas to you all. We hope all of your holidays are wonderful, peaceful and joyous.

Ian & Mands