Apples and marmalade

Life never seems to slow down but just seems to have periods that are either busy, really busy or frantically busy. We've been away to Cambridge for a few days for the last time this year. My husband had several days of meetings and I went too. I love having the opportunity to just potter around and Cambridge is a lovely place with lots of nice places to walk and lovely old buildings to look at.

I've had a birthday and so has my son and we had a family meal which was great fun. I do so enjoy it when all my family gets together.  My son prepared the main course and I did the pudding. We had apple crumble made from lots of the windfall apples I had been given. Most of them were very small and it took me about six hours to peel and cut up enough of the tiddlers to make apple crumble for 17, some of whom have hollow legs where pudding is concerned. I watched two films that I had recorded while I prepared the apples so it felt less like a chore. I did feel quite smug that I had not wasted all those little apples but at the same time,  I had definitely had enough of preparing apple by the time I had finished! I made two roasting tins full of apple crumble. The larger one was left plain and the smaller tin had sultanas added because I really like that. Most of my family don't like dried fruit so I felt that I had chosen the right way round. So which one did they almost all opt for? Next time (with larger apples!!!) I'll put the sultanas in the bigger tin : )

I've used up some more apples in some apple marmalade. I had not come across that before but it tastes really grapefruity and my husband thinks it is lovely so it may well become a regular on my list of preserves. It contains grapefruit and lemon but the main fruit is apple. I got the recipe here:

https://homefarmer.co.uk/recipe-apple-marmalade

438 items gone