Thread 18 - TalkLair: "That's no moon. It's a space station!"

[RasaSayangEh]

(Previous thread 17)

We've had our heatwave - is this it for the summer? All is lush and green in our LairGarden, flowers are blooming, berries are ripening...

In the TalkLair, all the windows are open, the Pimms is chilled, the MN massive salad is ready to serve. The denizens of the lair are a welcoming bunch, always eager for general chit-chat on all manner of topics. We just won’t mention the gnawed bones of our prey over there in the corner of the cave…

https://foodmuseum.org.uk/on-black-butter/

Sorry to hear about Mr. Vegemiteandhoneyontoast's wasp horror show, total sympathy from me.

On the apple front, we're down the country aty sister's and the girl found some windfalls, which and very red. Even the flesh inside is very red. My wife thinks she's found the variety.

Ah, thanks @NoBinturongsHereMate - I've heard of black butter, though I didn't know what it was.

In bizarre loss-of-sense-of-time news, I watched the opening show of Strictly and was gobsmacked that it's only 9 months since Chris McCausland won, because it feels like about 3 years ago. So in that sense, time has obviously really dragged. But in every other sense, it seems to have just flown by - with absolutely nothing to show for it. 🙄

@SinnerBoy that apple variety may be 'Discovery' which turns bright red in hot summers and can be pinky red inside.

Mr Veg's hand is starting to deflate now, thank goodness, and is looking much better.

Glad the wasp stings are fading.

We have some interesting mushrooms in our lawn. I think they may be king pine boletus, although we have no pine trees.

Can you eat them, @NoBinturongsHereMate ?

The swelling of Mr Veg's hand and arm is now going down quite dramatically. His hand was hot this morning but now it's cool and the speed of deflation has left the back of his hand slightly wrinkled. It's really interesting to watch.

That's a very dramatic mushroom photo @NoBinturongsHereMate! How big are they IRL?

@Vegemiteandhoneyontoast I'm tickled by your fascination at poor Mr Veg's injuries

DH's carry-on backpack got pulled out for additional security checks at Schiphol this morning, the X-ray had seen a large number of suspicious highly reflective boxes. The stern security officer instructed him gruffly to unzip his bag, rummaged around suspiciously, and pulled out box after box of... Dutch chocolate sprinkles They all had a good laugh after that.

The largest mushrooms are approx 10cm diameter. So not quite as huge as they look on the photo, but a good size. Edibility level uncertain, and I don't plan to test it.

I once had a very impressive airport security screener who not only identified a tub of hot chocolate from the scan, but the exact brand.

I'm tickled by your fascination at poor Mr Veg's injuries

He's fascinated too, I keep seeing him staring at his hand.

We were once pulled over at LAX for what turned out to be Chinese hand exercise balls, the metal ones with bells in them. Security thought they were explosives but were quite interested once we showed them what they actually were.

tsk, and he could have got sugared aniseed mousies. No wonder security was alerted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muisjes

We’ve just been in Herefordshire where there are lot of mostly cider apple trees. All were weighed down by beautiful shiny apples, often red. There were some eater trees in the garden of our cottage, groaning with tiny but delicious apples.

I came back to our quince tree, which though I’d already made 2 lots of jam, still has about 300 enormous yellow quinces on it. The branches are touching the ground.

If I had quinces I would make this stuff

https://foodrecipeshub.com/recipe/thick-quince-marmalade-recipe/

Vegemiteandhoneyontoast · Today 08:06

She used an identification app, they had a two word French name. A couple today were red and white inside, not solid red.

We have a very red apple. Deep red right the way through, as well as red skin and bronze leaves. Can't remember what it's called, but it's a German variety.

I’d forgotten about Dutch chocolate sprinkles. My dad used to bring them back from his many work trips to the Netherlands when I was a kid. Chocolate sprinkles sandwiches are a thing of wonder!

When I made work trips to Amsterdam (student field trips) I brought back Droste chocolate for my siblings as that also takes me straight back to childhood.

Droste! Wow, that's a name from early childhood.

So tonight I went to my first women's Superleague match, the semi-final at the Brick Stadium (they don't normally play there). Win this, and they are in the Grand Final against St Helens, which will also be at home. They won the right to home advantage by finishing top of the league. And win they did, defeating Leeds Rhinos handsomely by 38-0. The skill levels are very good, and there is real purpose to their work. Looking forward to the GF. I am so proud of my sport, this is one thing we have done really well in promoting the women's game. Probably made easier by the fact that so many women and girls are fans of the sport already. Well, they are here! 😀

Thank Dean. That does look good, a bit like membrillo, but not cooked as long, for sweets. I’ll give it a go.

One thing that recipe doesn’t mention is that towards the end as it gets thicker, thick fruit/sugar pastes like that often spit terribly.

I now make membrillo in the microwave which is a lot easier, using this recipe, and I see it can also be used for apples, so may have wider application:

https://jennychandlerblog.com/2013/10/17/quick-quince-paste-membrillo/

DH's sprinkle-trafficking...

Oh, can also report that apple butter was an unqualified success! It took literally all day (1.7 kg of chopped apples mixed with with brown sugar and cinnamon, 9 hours in the slow cooker, pureed with the stick blender, followed by almost 2 hours gentle reducing with the lid off). But it's produced 2 large jars of intensely appley, silky-textured, dark golden beauty.

Plans are afoot to do another batch next weekend. We've no shortage of apples still waiting on the tree.

is the second box mousies?

not that I'd take to burglary or anything like that . . .

I'd never thought of trying an apple version of membrillo. That's my culinary experiment for tomorrow sorted.

That’s an impressive array of sprinkles. I think we always got them in plain plastic bags.