Wine is sunlight, held together by water. ~ Galileo

And when finished, vin d'orange does seem to uphold this theory, from what I've seen :0)

I've finally got round to starting off my 'vin d'orange'. I read about it in Susan Loomis' 'Tarte Tatin' and it sounded sublime so just had to give it a go!

There are several versions of it on the net so I've amalgamted the ideas from Susan's recipe and what I read on the net and this comes pretty close to authentic as far as I'm concerned, time will tell as to whether it meets expectations :0)

I used:

6 oranges

750g of sugar (1/2 vanilla sugar and 1/2 granulated sugar)

1 vanilla pod

2 tbsps of coffee beans

2 litres of medium/dry white wine

1/2 litre of vodka

slice the oranges and split all the ingredients between 2 x 2 litre jars or, if you have a jar large enough, just bung it all in the one jar!

Shake every day for about a month then strain into bottles and leave for at least a month but apparently it's far nicer if you can leave it for 12 months.

I'll let you know! :0)

It's better to give...

...than to recieve, or so the saying goes and I wholeheartedly go along with it! :0)

I love giving gifts to people and the whole planning the gift, choosing (or in this case making) the gift and (hopefully) seeing it positively received.

I've just made 21 bags of chocolate truffles for 2 sheds' staff, 126 truffles in all! I also made the little sparkly wreath gift tags on the bags.

I thoroughly enjoyed shopping in the craft store for the beads and bits and bobs to make the tags, I loved browsing the net for truffle recipes. I especially loved the quality control testing while making the truffles, mmmm, and seeing the finished result looking all pretty on my counter top.


Isn't that what it's all about? ;0)

you see this guise...

I dreamt last night.
A dream of guise,
Compelling resolution.
Yet no relief,
From fruitless sighs
Just an hallucination.

1 potato, 2 potato, 3 potato.......for?

up late again....!

searching for 'ratte' potato tubers. I read about their delicious nutty flavour in Susan Loomis' 'Tarte Tatin' and had to have some!

Trouble is, I start looking on the seed merchant's web site and I can't stop! Before I know it I have 3 varieties of potato, lettuce seeds and onion sets in my basket! Whoa!! You have a discount card for the local garden centre, why are you paying postage and packing and buying on-line you veggie junkie!!??

And do you know what's worse, the lettuce is for the chickens...they do like the odd cooked potato too though :0)

It's not just the potatoes that are nutty!

A film, a book, a song.....just a few words.

Got a stinky cold and feeling sorry for myself.....

.....Up late watching soppy old romantic films...."Must Like Dogs" and please...anyone with a modicum of taste would have picked John Cusack in the beginning!

.....Googling for recipes for 'vin d'oranges' (got the idea from Susan Loomis' book 'Tarte Tatin' which I'm devouring at the moment!) and 'vin de pamplemousse'......

...... and listening to this lovely rendition of 'Sweet Child of Mine' by 'Taken by Trees' (love the name of the band!).....





Time for bed then and maybe a hot Ribena :0)