Mid September and second crop of Figs!

The figs this year have been amazing!. The first crop was over very quickly, but they were large and thousands of them appeared very quickly. So much so that we couldn't get rid of them all, however many we tried to give away!!! So I ended up making jelly! Yes.... jelly not jam. I'm not a great lover of the seeds in figs, so I wanted a jam with just the flavours of the fig! I looked up various recipes, and decided to use Constance Spry's recipe ... the method 1 where no water is used. 'This is more extravagant but results in a better and finer jelly', she says, and as we had so many figs we decided to do just that!!

Method 1. For this the fruit is put in to a vessel and this is then set in a pan of water. The surrounding water is allowed to boil and the warmth causes the fruit in the inner vessel to render its juice. The fruit should be mashed a little from time to time. It is turned in to a jelly bag and allowed to drain overnight.

We then discussed why we had to use sugar.... and again as we had so many figs we decided to experiment..... and amazingly made a great jelly (not overly firm) without using sugar. We left the figs over night in the jelly bag, and the juice that came out was actually solidifying before we did anything else to it. We heated the juice for a few minutes, and had varying degrees of success. Some became jelly, but the juice that didn't really set became a wonderful coulis to drizzle over ice-cream and various desserts. Yum!!

So we're just about to attack the second crop of figs, before Caline (the labrador) eats them all!! They are smaller, but still plenty of them, and then we'll be deciding what to do with the plethora of almonds, and then perhaps harvest the olives unless we decide to leave them for oil this year!! It's a busy life at Domaine La Veronique!!