We've open frozen most of them and they cut into small chunks and bagged them up. But we've also been eating them fresh ... hmmm lovely, we've had soup, and last night I cooked pasta and made a delicious sauce . I sauted onions, garlic and some of my home grown sundried tomatoes (I'd soaked them in balsamic vinegar and olive oil all day to rehydrate them) two of the lovely big mushrooms cut into chunks, a diced courgette, and then a large handfull of basil a dash of water and when almost cooked, a dash of cream... yummy... we ate it with homemade beanburgers and a little salad... delicious...
One of our helpers has moved on, (Sarah) but worked really hard and accomplished a lot while she was with us, and I enjoyed meeting her immensely. Valeri our French helper is staying on longer as we are having such a good time, yesterday we made some excellent herbal skin and lip balm, and later maybe some toothpaste and we are preparing the ingredients for soap. Its so exciting to have someone who really knows what they are doing and can share and swap recipes and tips with me. Im learning sooooooooo much !! She's been so kind and helpful, and giving me some real ideas as to the planning of the medicinal herb garden, its good to get another persons input when you are in the planning stages , she's already come up with some problems in my plans that I hadnt thought about... better to find out now than later when Ive planted... Im really excited and impatient for the Spring to come now so I can do more than plan...
All the vines around the front of the cottage have now been clipped back to the wall... wow its such a shock when you walk round there... hopefully this will improve the grapes for next year... Im busy pulling Ivy off walls too, a horrible bugridden job..
This morning I finished stacking all the split and chopped wood, the pile looked so big... now we can see we dont have enough for winter, so a few mre days and I'll be out in the forest dragging out logs... oh joy..
Also this morning Valeri worked hard and cleared and broke up the ground on a patch for us to plant Grelos, (turnip greens) and we managed to get those in before lunch too... so we've been very busy today...
When we get home we are going to crush olives and start off some mixture for soap making... and I have all my notes to write up ...
The fine weather continues and its been wonderfull, fine dry and sunny, its getting very cold at night now, we had to shut the bedroom window last night for the first time.. but during the day its still over 20ยบ so perfect working weather..
