Lockdown over (I think)...

As far as we're concerned (travel to London notwithstanding...who knows when that will be on the agenda once more!) it's pretty much Life back to normal. The 'mask' and distancing rules still apply at the supermarket, but since there haven't been any queues to get in to go shopping for weeks now, then the mild irritation of the mask-wearing is merely that. No schools, and so our World continues in blissful silence, without the normal background sounds from the schoolyard beyond our northern boundary. Summer is advancing and all looks set fair...

Tonight's dinner:

Courgette gratin

Lamb chops fried in parmesan batter; artichoke hearts

Banana souffles

Foie Gras with pears, in balsamic vinegar and honey.

I suppose anything with Foie Gras is considered 'incorrect' these days - but I've decided that I'm now of an age where I'm too old to change. And this recipe is deeply, deeply splendid. It's a slight re-working of the version in Raymond Blanc's 'Blanc Vite' which was his healthy-eating volume, after he'd had a cardiac event, some years ago. There's an overall emphasis throughout the book on low carb, and so it  plays well into the only kind of 'reduction' regime that will work in this house (the dessert section is a bit ho-hum, apart from his chocolate and/or lemon 'pots' and his recipe for chocolate and raspberry cake, but the rest of the volume more than makes up for this deficiency). TD decided in January that he needed to lose weight, and a low carb menu regime began there and then - with the result that in four months he has managed to lose all-but twenty kilos (and with still consuming three courses for dinner every evening, and with not having compromised on his pre-dinner prosecco and his half-a-bottle-of-wine with dinner, either...happiness all round!).

For two:

Ingredients: four generous slices of foie gras (about 100g per person); 2 ripe pears; 2 tbs balsamic vinegar; 25g butter; 2 tsp clear honey; 200 ml chicken stock; a splash of lime juice.

Method:

1. Peel, core and quarter the pears, and cook over medium heat in the butter, using a frying pan. Cook the pears for two or three minutes on each side, until they have clearly softened.

2. Add the vinegar to the pan, raise the heat, and continue to cook until the vinegar has all cooked away - keep turning the pieces of pear from time to time during this process.

3. Add the honey to the pan, and turn the pears in it as it melts and mixes with the cooking juices in the pan. Remove the pear pieces from the pan and keep to one side.

4. Add the stock to the pan and reduce by half over high heat; add to the reduced liquid the lime juice, and continue to reduce until the mixture in the pan is noticeably thick.

5. Return the pear pieces to the pan and stir to coat them thoroughly in the sauce.

6. Heat a separate small frying pan until it is very hot, and then sear the slices of foie gras, one minute on each side. (Keep the fat which is given off, and use subsequently for roasting any vegetable such as potatoes or celeriac).

7. To serve, divide the pieces of pear between two heated plates, and place the foie gras slices on top. Pour the sauce over the top of all.

And then, luxuriate.

Gardening

The House, submerged in Jasmine,
as viewed from across the Agrumi Lawn

Tonight's Dinner:

Poached Egg on Ratatouille

Roast Lamb Shanks, with roast celeriac

Peach timbales

The Roses, this year...

Princess Alexandra, beneath the bearded Iris,
and beyond the gap MaryRose (both of them David Austin)

Cassandra (deep red, at bottom right),and above Paul's Lemon Pillar,
with a flush of Pierre de Ronsard, leading into a mass of Cecile Brunner

La Marque, on the entrance pergola

Mrs Honey Dyson, leading into Rosa Laevigata (now almost finished for the year)
and City of York in the distance

Botticelli (Mailland)

Pink Perpetue

Guinee (bottom left) and Alec's Red,with, above, Kriton and
more Bloomfields Courage in the distance

Pierre de Ronsard (of which Mr Bolton, in tones of incredulity,
said upon seeing it "a lot of people seem to like this rose...")

Palais Royal (and Amadeus,in front of the spire)

La Sevillana

Bloomfield's Courage, and Kriton (to the right)

Tonight's Dinner:

Gnocchi alla Romana, with Gorgonzola Cream

Bass, baked in Red wine; buttered spinach

Vanilla Apple Tarts

Life under Lockdown (II): The Changing Season...

The garden takes no notice of the lockdown, and work continues apace. Having had it in mind for years already, I finally planted new box hedges around all of the North Lawn (and in quite a few other places as well - 550 box plants goes quite a long way....and can get fairly boring by day four of wielding the planting spade), while the TD has encased all of the pop-up sprinklers which deal with the edges of the North Garden in rather handsome copper piping, which hides their unattractive  plastic casing, and has a distinctly Sissinghurst look to it. He has also nearly finished re-making ( I would say 'restoring' but it wouldn't be true; the old wood was too far gone to be capable of saving, and so it's been a matter of building again from new...) the wooden walkway on the West side of the North Garden, while I've been ( and the job is ongoing) taking apart ten years of compost heap, and using it to mulch every plant, pretty much in the entire garden. It's wonderful stuff - rich and dark, to the extent that it looks almost edible - but the supply is endless, and I need to get it done, so that I can then re-construct the compost heap once more, in small, with what remains from the old heap which is not yet usable. 
We've made a major decision to re-work the Wooodland garden, under the pine trees, where until now there's merely been a straight path which goes through from one end to the other, and with only a passing nod to what is planted there (many camellias, with the occasional aspera, and pieris,  and some distinctly blowsy hydrangeas arborescens) and the path has now been re-cast into a very long and windy serpentine form, which allows a much closer inspection of the shrubs. I have on order some acers and a rhododendron (which is optimistic, I know, but it's a matter of getting the humidity level right) and a viburnum, and some more Serratas, and a Baggesen's Gold (lonicera)...all of them to help to define and emphasise the new layout, and already I've moved a philadelphus, and a spirea, and two hydrangeas and a rather large camellia, all to the same purpose. It keeps us busy.
The Paoli came for 'distant' coffee, on Saturday - which was the first time we'd actually seen anybody at all in nearly seven weeks - and we had garden chairs at the end of the North Lawn, and dutifully all sat two metres apart from each other. At least that seems set to change, soon!

Tonight's Dinner:

Leeks (cold), with Tomato and Basil coulis. 

Pork Chops, with sage and wine sauce; braised celery.

Bergamot souffles.

Life under lock-down...

Tonight's dinner: 

Asparagus with white-wine zabaglione

Tenderloin 'ongroise' with scorza amaro

Kulfi

Christmas 2019

...is, as of today, finally over. The last slice of the Christmas Cake was consumed, this afternoon, and so that's Christmas done, for another eleven and a half months. It was the first time I'd ever made a Christmas Cake, and the sizing was...generous. That's a 36 cm cake board in the picture, and the beast itself would probably happily have fed an entire battalion. So, no great surprise that it's made it through until today, on the basis of a daily slice each for two people (not to mention a four-footed, who takes an interest in these things) pretty much since Boxing Day. On Christmas Day itself we were up in Brancoli, and then in Belforte for a few days over New Year. All was quite splendid. Although, we did conclude by twelfth night that it had gone too quickly, and that next year we'll dig in at home for the entire period, and that the World can come to us.

Which probably means that a Cake of industrial proportions will be perfectly in order, all over again!

Tonight's Dinner:

White Crab Salad

Fegato alla Venezia

Chocolate & Raspberry Cake, with Mascarpone 'Chantilly'