Baking Day

We started baking this morning at 9.00 am and have just finished. We made 18 olive rolls, 13 sesame topped rolls, a chocolate cake, 11 Cypriot squash pastries and 5 Cornish pasties.

We have already eaten two delicious Cornish pasties, so there are only three in the picture. A hard mornings work but lots of rolls to keep us in lunches for quite some time.

The recipe for Cypriot squash pastries was in an earlier blog - for the recipe go to http://cyprusgardener.blogspot.com/2011/07/cypriot-squash-pastries-recipe.html The rolls were made using our bread recipe - http://cyprusgardener.blogspot.com/2011/07/make-your-own-bread-and-pitta-bread.html. The Cornish pasties were made with shortcrust pasty and have a filling of minced lamb, cubed potato, carrot and pumpkin with sliced onions and seasoning. The chocolate cake is made with cocoa powder and will be sliced in two to add a chocolate filling.

Build a wood fired earth oven (Part 1)

We started construction of a wood fired oven by building a square dry wall base up to waist height to make using the oven easier. The stones had to be transported by wheelbarrow about 100m and it took quite a few trips to get enough stone and quite some time to select stones with a flat enough sides to use.. The top layer was leveled off by using a spirit level placed across each wall on a long beam and although it's not perfectly level - it's pretty level.

The next step was to fill the center with more stone (thankfully of any shape or size) and any other available rubble. Once the center was filled to within 25cm from the top, the next layer was added which was mixture of straw and soil, mixed to a mud, to provide an insulation layer. Small stones were used to fill in any gaps in the walls and finally thick stone tiles were placed into the center to provide the oven floor. The gap between the oven floor and wall edges were filled to the same level as the oven base with a mud mixture.

We will now leave Part 2 of the oven construction until the Spring which will allow time for settling and when it will be warm enough to start building the earth oven, allowing the mud mixture to dry well..

Wood fired ovens (fourno's or firin's) are seen throughout Cyprus and have been used for many centuries. They are fired-up traditionally using olive and carob wood and once white hot the ashes and charcoal are swept to the edges of the oven. Once up to temperature the oven is ready to use for the next four to ten hours. Traditionally used to bake bread or kleftico (translated as stolen meat) which is a lamb which has been basted in olive oil and oregano and then cooked with garlic, onions and new potatoes. A wood fired oven reaches 370c and this high temperature when baking bread causes dough to rise very rapidly producing a wonderfully thick crust but at the same time trapping air bubbles inside to produce a light and very airy bread. And the even heat is ideal for cooking kleftico and other casseroles or to provide fast pizza.

Rain, rain and more rain

We have had rain showers overnight for the past few nights but it started raining hard at 10 this morning  and has now been constant for nearly five hours. Everything is sodden and puddles are starting to form as the ground cannot absorb anymore water but the fruit trees are getting a thorough watering.

The olive picking season is upon us, so the olives will be dust free and well washed but it will be at least a week of dry and windy weather before we will be able to get started as the soil will need time to dry out.

I was planning on sowing, broad beans, peas, chickpeas and french beans this morning and was just going to start when the rain began. At least the soil should be nice and moist when sowing can be done.

We started building an earth oven yesterday by erecting a dry stone wall base up to waist height which will, once filled in, provide the floor for the oven to be built on. The base is half way built and transporting the stone by wheelbarrow from about 100 meters away was tiring. There is plenty of stone available nearby but finding the right shape with flat bases is the difficult part but the wall looks good.

Hopefully, the rain will stop soon but it's so dark and dismal outside that I think we have a few more hours of rain to come.

Red Pumpkin Soup

Red pumpkins are in season at the moment in Cyprus and besides making the lovely traditional squash pastries they can be used to make a delicious soup.



Ingredients needed to serve 2 are:

(1)  500g of diced red pumpkin
(2)  1 large onion sliced
(3)  Salt & pepper to taste, a bay leaf and some lemon juice
(4)  A quarter cup of milk and 2 cups of water
(5)  Olive oil for frying

Method:

(1)  Heat the oil and fry the onions until softened
(2)  Add the red pumpkin and the rest of the ingredients
(3)  Cook on a low heat until the red pumpkin is soft enough to mash
(4)  Add additional water to achieve a thick soup consistency

Chopping Wood

We are approaching our second winter in Cyprus and our main source of heating for the living room and kitchen is a wood burning stove which we used for about 6-8 weeks last winter. The heat generated was remarkable. We even boiled a kettle every evening for a hot drink.


We bought a wood stove for a number of reasons. Living rurally there is lots of wood to collect locally, especially when the olive trees are being trimmed, and this is a sustainable heat source.  We have also been busy collecting wood which has resulted from the Council knocking down some of the derelict houses in the village and we have managed to get home, using our wheelbarrow, some really large roof beams. Collecting wood becomes an obsession and whenever we go for a walk we return with some wood. We probably have enough wood for the few next winters. 


Using a wood burning stove, and probably most importantly, is largely carbon neutral, as growing trees takes in carbon dioxide which is then released when the wood rots or is burnt.

Cleaning the stove daily is a bit of a chore but it soon becomes part of your daily routine, as is reloading it with paper and kindling ready for lighting. The ash generated is not wasted as it is useful in the garden. It comprises of about 10% potash, 1% phosphate and has traces of iron, copper and zinc but the largest component is at 25% calcium carbonate which is a common liming material. Adding ash to acidic soil, like ours, is of great benefit and raises it alkalinity.

Stove technology has really moved on and modern stoves burn very efficiency and our model burns at 72% efficiency. Modern stoves get the most out of your fuel by burning the smoke. To achieve this efficiency and best smokeless performance go for a stove with a turbo baffle or similar mechanism which creates a process called tertiary burning. The baffle directs the smoke through the fire again and again, creating an internal circular gas flow that continually mixes the exhaust gases with fresh oxygen. This mix is drawn through the base of the fire allowing the gases to reach temperatures that would not normally be reached, and then they re-burn further adding to the heat of the stove. You get remarkable bright blue, green, red and orange flames as this process occurs which is better than watching TV on most nights and very relaxing.

We purchased a Horse Flame HF-717 Elessar cast iron stove with a glass front which produces 18.5kW or 63,000 BTU and weighs 196kg. It's a large unit but it means we can use quite large logs with no problem. The suppliers installed it and it took four men to remove it from the trailer van and move it to it's location. We had the flue pipe outlet installed high up on the wall directly into the chimney breast which means two metres of piping are in the room but this provides added heat as the pipe gets very hot. 

The stove we bought, although efficient, gets through a lot of wood and a constant supply is required. When you have to cut and chop this amount you really know about it and it warms you up on a cold winters day. We needed about three full wheel barrows of wood a week to run the stove. Sawing this much wood by hand was hard work and some of the larger logs were too difficult so I purchased  a small petrol chainsaw. Spent all day today using the chainsaw to cut the large logs we have accumulated and we have plenty of chopped wood. It's still warm enough at the moment and although we have a lot we will only start using it when absolutely necessary. I'm sure we will collect plenty more on our travels and walks to keep the pile topped up.

Magical Garlic

It's now the perfect time to plant garlic. Plant you cloves with the flat end down, about 10cm deep ad 18cm apart. Your garlic bulbs will be ready for harvesting when the stems turn yellow and brown and die back. Dry your harvested cloves in the sun for a few days before storage.


Garlic has been revered for its culinary and medicinal uses for centuries and is a true superfood but not for its vitamin and mineral content but because of it's sulfur containing compounds which give garlic it’s pungent aroma and flavour.


Recent research into these sulfur compounds has found that they assist in lowering blood pressure, reducing artery clogging, improve blood flow, help to lower cholesterol levels and by there antibacterial and antifungal compounds help to support the body’s immune system against bacterial infections, colds and flu.

Do your body a favour and get planting some garlic and you can never have too much with it's many uses in the kitchen, to make your own medicines or use as a pesticide or insecticide in the vegetable garden.


A clove a day keeps the doctor away.

Gardening in Cyprusr - Tasks for November

November's weather in Cyprus is autumnal when the temperatures drop noticeably and the rainy season begins. Daytime temperatures average 22c to 24c during the day and 11c to 14c at night. The daytime temperatures make it the ideal time to enjoy countryside walks and are ideal gardening weather.

The following are jobs you might want to undertake during the month.


Plant out onion and garlic sets.

Trim Vines

Plant peas, broad beans, chickpeas

Sow beetroot, salad leaves and leeks

Plant out artichoke plantlets

Sow spinach, chard, rocket, coriander and parsley

Sow sweet peas

Fertilize fruit trees

If you have a guava or mango tree cover in late November in case of frost

Plant spring bulbs, deadhead flowering shrubs and plants and do autumn weeding and hoeing

Collect seeds from herbs and other plants

Harvest olives for curing and olive oil, citruses and persimmons

Happy gardening and harvesting for the month and if you require any further information go to
www.cyprusgardener.co.uk or http://sites.google.com/site/cyprusgardener/home