Athens

Thinking laterally about interpretations of "Berried Treasure" made me think of the bottom drawer of my freezer, and the fact that it has far too many packs of cranberries in it, given that they'll be appearing in the shops again soon. So I made these:
Cranberry Spice Squares
1 cup cranberries
1 tsp each soda, cinnamon, cloves, ground nutmeg
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup milk
2 cups plain flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter
1 egg

Chop the cranberries coarsely. Sift the flour with the salt, soda and spices.
Cream butter and sugar together till light and fluffy, then add the egg. Add the flour in three parts alternately with the milk. Stir in the cranberries.
Bake in a greased 8" square pan at 350F / 170C for about an hour. Cool in the pan for ten minutes before turning out.
There's an optional frosting which I have tried but don't usually bother with - 3 oz cream cheese beaten till light, then beat in 2 tblsp cranberry sauce, then 3 1/2 cups icing/confectioners sugar.
This recipe comes from Boston Tea Parties - Recipes from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
A much loved and well used book. Back in the days when C started his job in a fine-art supplies company there were three members of staff and the boss, and I used to make a batch of cookies for them every week. By the time I joined the company there were six members of staff including a couple who were not too disciplined and the cookies didn't always last even a day, so at some stage I gave up making them, but by then I had worked my way through a considerable amount of recipes from Boston Tea Parties.


I'm starting my brief tour of Athens with a picture from our last day. We met relatives of C's sister-in-law and had a lovely time with them. They met us at the bus station and we went to where B works before they brought us back to their apartment. From up on the roof there was a great view across to the Acropolis!

I think we were lucky in that both times we were in Athens it was actually cloudy and overcast much of the time and consequently not too hot. It was such a mixture of old ruins in amongst all the buildings. The Parthenon itself is undergoing extensive restoration.

Parthenon

Temple of Athene Nike (I think)

A Fishy Tale

I think I mentioned that Astros was a busy little fishing harbour as well as having some very (VERY) fancy yachts and so on.
Quite apart from the fleet of little fishing boats, this was also evidenced by the number of fish shops in the village:

Plus one other more sterile, less photogenic sign which I didn't bother with.

Still no Greek photos

One litre of milk was lost in the taking of these photos...
C is very fussy about milk - he looks at the date on the lid, and if it's even a day over he will be very reluctant to use it. Me - I go by smell. If it smells OK, I'll drink it or have it on cereal, but if I had milk in my tea (I don't), I might hesitate a moment.
So, our milk had today's date on it and I thought I'd better buy a litre on the way to work this morning. (We had cauliflower cheese for tea, to use most of the old milk up).
I was crossing the bridge over the Liffey and saw a large cygnet with two swans - first time all summer I've seen one on the Liffey. So, I took my camera out of my bag and stuffed the milk in and took some photos...
Got into work and went to take the milk out of my backpack to store in the fridge. Out comes a geyser of milk - somehow, for the first time ever, I'd managed to shove it straight down onto a knitting needle. I was just lucky that while it was still in the bag, it didn't leak at all - and was I ever glad that I'd got just one litre instead of the two litres that I usually buy.
The photo of the swans and cygnet isn't so good but I've included it so that you can see how large the cygnet is - almost adult size.

Sloe gin - already that lovely ruby-red colour is seeping out of the berries. I read that you can freeze the berries for 24 hours which causes the skins to split and means you don't need to pierce each one, but I chose the piercing option.

Berried Treasure

I am not doing well at catching up on my photos! My hayfever is still bad, whatever is triggering it.
So the Greek photos are still waiting to be sorted - especially as we were away last weekend.
We went down to Clare and had a lovely restful, lazy time. On Saturday we went out picking sloes, so now there are several jars of sloe gin on the go - it should be ready to start drinking at Christmas. By a coincidence (I suppose not, given the time of year) there was actually a recipe for it in the magazine section of the Irish Times over the weekend, which saved me looking it up yet again. Fill a jar 1/4 full with sugar, then fill to 3/4 full with pierced sloes and then fill with gin. Shake regularly for the first couple of weeks and then occasionally thereafter. Strain and bottle after three months. Some recipes I have read say it improves the longer you can keep it, but we've never had any last more than two or three years so I can't verify this.
Inspired by our weekend I chose the theme of Berried Treasure for the photo challenge on SCS this week. And even with that in mind, I didn't find any good blackberries, just a rather scrubby bush along the driveway. I can probably do better at the end of our own garden if it's sunny tomorrow.

Sloes on the Burren

Some sort of wild rose, I think - I know I've seen it in flower on the Burren

Hawthorn in the garden

Spindle berry in Dromore Wood

Sloes and unknown tree in Dromore Wood

Unknown Burren plant - possibly the little wild rose

As you can see from the blue skies we did well with the weather - apart from getting pretty soaked on our way back to the car after picking the sloes.

Views from the Beach

Goodness, it already hardly feels as if we'd been away. Boiler problems today, and when we went through our mail we discovered that C's insurance company had NOT transferred his motorbike insurance from one bike to another as requested, and in spite of the fact that he'd emailed them all the info they were requesting, they had just re-issued insurance on the same bike. Lucky he didn't have an accident during the week he was riding the new one, assuming they had done their job properly...
We did have a very lazy and relaxing two weeks; we were three minutes from the beach and spent most of our time either on the beach or in the sea. One of these photos is the view if you looked left as you were swimming, with the older part of the village, castle on the hill, lighthouse and two piers. The other is the view to the right - a couple of villages and just ranges of mountains in monochrome. The water was very salty which made floating easy; a lot of local people would come and just gently drift, chatting away. With their sun-hats, it looked rather like a whole load of buoys bobbing in the water.

The other photo is from one of our longer walks around the curve of the bay. As well as all the sailing holiday ships and larger cruisers it was a real working port with a lot of small fishing ships. So one afternoon we watched as something like 12 yachts from one group tried to find space to moor on the far pier, and another afternoon we watched as a fisherman prepared his octopus for sale on the stones at the back of the nearer pier.

Butterflies Can Fly Away

And so can we...
This butterfly was on the roof of one of the derelict greenhouses in Birr - I really liked the texture of the painted glass underneath.

A couple of butterfly/dragonfly cards from the MMTPT challenge this week.

By the time this posts we should be in Athens, with time for a bit of sightseeing before we get the bus to where we're staying. I've had two bad dreams about leaving the keys for the apartment here, so they are already safely packed in my handbag along with passports and boarding cards. I just have to remember that if I have another dream tonight.

Do you remember I knit my nephew a little hooded jacket for his birthday. My brother just recently sent me this photo, although from the ones my sister showed me when she was here, he's grown quite a lot since this one was taken.

Birr Miscellany

Since we leave on holidays at the weekend I'd better finish off with my Birr photos. I mentioned the carpet of colchicum, so here a couple of photos of that. I'd seen it from the near side of the river, and as I thought I still had half an hour till C would be ready for lunch, I crossed the river to get nearer. And then he rang and said he'd be at the café for lunch in 5 minutes and he didn't have very long as the meeting still wasn't over. So I went back after lunch to get some better, less rushed photos.

A lovely sculpture made from oak, commemorating the completed restoration of the Millennium Gardens, which include the hornbeam cloisters.

Derelict greenhouses

By one of the rivers

Another riverside path

Do you remember this ? I left it longer than I should have to strain it, it should only have been a few weeks. But I strained it recently - first through a strainer, then through muslin, then through coffee filters. Even after all that it still as some sediment, but it smells heavenly,  like essence of Christmas cooking - mincemeat, plum-puddings, all those lovely spicy treats. My sister tried it as an aperitif when they were here over the weekend, and enjoyed it.

Little Boxes...

...makes me think of the Pete Seeger song, but these are not at all ticky tacky, just very rich and chocolatey. I made an easy dinner for my sister, and put more effort into a prepare-ahead dessert. These used to be my dessert of choice on my birthday when I was growing up, although Mum used to make them with After Eights. In hindsight I wonder how on earth we managed to eat them - they would have been bigger, and these days I couldn't eat more than two After Eights in a sitting, never mind the cake and chocolate cream. And as my sister pointed out, she's sure we didn't used to have chopped pistachio either, just birthday candles.
The recipe comes from an old Family Circle Christmas magazine dating back, I think, to the early sixties. At least, we presume that Mum brought it with her when she moved here from Canada - she'd certainly never have got it here back then. I can remember doing some of the crafts from it, too. There are lovely string balls made by dipping coloured yarns in starch and wrapping them round balloons. Then when the starch is set, you burst the balloon and are left with a lovely lacy balloon shape. I remember we made those one Easter...

Saint-Honoré Chocolate Creams (Saint Honoré is the French patron saint of bakers and pastry chefs)
12 servings

Boxes:  4 squares unsweetened chocolate, 1 6 0z package semi-sweet chocolate pieces and 2 tblsp butter. (Given that we STILL can't get unsweetened (as in Bakers) chocolate here in the year 2010, no wonder my mother opted for After Eights back in the seventies!!)
Combine these ingredients and heat gently over hot water till melted. Line a cookie sheet with tin foil and spread the chocolate into a 13"x10" rectangle. When cool but not totally set, mark into 1 1/2" squares and then leave for several hours till set firm.

Filling: 1/2 cup butter, 3/4 cup sugar, 1 square unsweetened chocolate melted and cooled, 1 tsp vanilla, 2 eggs.
3 slices pound cake cut 3/4" thick.
Finely chopped pistachios.

For the filling, cream the butter till soft, and then add the sugar very slowly (take about 10 minutes) beating continuously. Mix in the cooled chocolate and vanilla. Add the eggs one at a time, beating for 4 or 5 minutes after each addition. Chill till firm. Although it starts out slightly granular because of the sugar, in the end it is ultra-smooth and rich and creamy. And I suppose not to be made if you think your local eggs might be contaminated with salmonella.

To assemble: cut 12 strips of double-thickness tin foil 1" high by about 7" long. Make a cardboard form 1 1/2" square and using paper clips to hold it, form the foil into square collars. Put on a board.
Cut the cake into squares a bit smaller than 1 3/4 inch, so that when you fit the chocolate around them, it will fit. Put a square of cake into each foil collar, and then carefully slip in the chocolate squares. Fill generously with the chocolate cream and sprinkle with nuts. Chill till serving time. To serve, unclip the paper-fasteners and remove the collars.

I went the whole hog and tried making a pound cake as I didn't think I'd ever made one before (well, I made a half-pound cake, as I didn't want too much left over), but I think if I make these again I'd make something lighter like a Genoese sponge.
We ate six on the night, my sister took a couple home in a doggy bag and we'll finish them off tomorrow.

Birr - Hornbeam Cloisters

If I had to choose a favourite part of Birr, which would be an almost impossible task, this part of the garden might  just be it. For years I had a couple of enlarged photos hanging on the wall. There are old weathered statues at the ends of two of the alleys, with rambling old roses growing around them. Since it was far too late for the roses, I've opted for a photo looking in the opposite direction with a ladder at the end. This time round the cloisters weren't the usual haven of peace, as they were being trimmed for the winter. So when I went around in the morning, the gardeners were on their break and they had the radio on, and when I went back in the afternoon there was a duet of hedge-trimmers. But it's still a place that always fascinates me, even with that noise going on! It was grey in the morning, lovely and sunny in the afternoon. I'd love to see it in the winter when it's more bare and skeletal. But then, I am just assuming that hornbeam is deciduous.
p.s. - that big dragonfly was a Brown Hawker -

I have a sudden horrendous attack of hay-fever caused by I don't know what; I am itchy and scratchy, my eyes are itchy and scratchy, my throat is itchy and scratchy. I brought in the last of my Stargazer lilies, but I didn't react like this to any of the others. Off to bed, hoping that it's better tomorrow as we are expecting my sister and her husband round.

Feeding Frenzy

We take an unscheduled break from Birr to bring you these action photos of the sparrows. I derive a lot of entertainment from watching them, they're such an unruly, scruffy little gang. You'd think they might come to the feeder in smaller groups, but they often arrive in a whole flock of around a dozen or so, and they're not all the same age so I think they might be two or three different broods. One or two fly in, and then a couple more, and then it's a case of the gang's all here. And goodness, do they fight - and make so much noise. There's only room for two on the feeder,  because I don't fill it above the first two hoppers, and then a couple can also go on the peanut feeder - which is why you'd think they'd make solo forays, but they must be a very gregarious bunch. With all the fighting and squabbling it's no wonder I am forever picking up a few feathers each morning when I go out to put some seed. I had to take these through the back door, so they are slightly less sharp than I would like, but it always amazes me what I see in a frozen fraction of a second that I don't see when I am watching with the naked eye.

The little one at the bottom is the youngest, and a smart cookie. He perches there till there's a free space on the perch and then hops in - no fighting and flapping for him!

Side-steppin'