This Year's Spuds

Eighty seed potatoes chitting in the shed, so if all goes well we'll have sufficient this year. Last year I only planted out 50 and we are now down to just about 10 pounds of Pink Fir Apple and a scant few Skerry Blue.
I've just found this recipe in the Plain Cookery Book for the Working Classes for the potato-lover with an excess of same.
No.64 Potato Pie
Slice up four onions and boil them in a saucepan with two ounces of butter, a quart of water, and pepper and salt, for five minutes; then add four pounds of potatoes, peeled and cut in slices; stew the whole until the potatoes are done, and pour them into a pie-dish; cover this with stiff mashed potatoes, and bake the pie of a light brown colour.

Marmalade Season

Seville oranges are in and I bottled up 3.5 kilos of very dark thick cut Oxford style marmalade last weekend. I used Delia's long slow cooking method to achieve the requisite depth of colour. Mine looks a good deal darker than that pictured on her site and it makes your teeth curl - in a good way. If I get energetic this weekend I may try making another batch of a lighter more syrupy sort. I have just found this recipe in my 'Friends of the Glencoe Museum' cookbook:
Marmalade for an Invalid
Put into a steamer and steam over water 2 lbs. Seville Oranges until the rinds are tender. Remove the rind and shred finely. Mash the oranges, remove the pips and any coarse bits, measure the pulp and rinds and add 1 lb. of wild bee honey. Cook very slowly, just to the boil, for about three quarters of an hour. Put in glasses or jars and cover with parchment, preferably pig's parchment.


*World Marmalade Festival takes place this year on February 14th! (in Cumbria)