This summer has produced some fantastic fruit. Right now the hedgerows are filling with ripe blackberries and the garden has an incredible amount of apples. The apple trees are espaliered around the wall and some are really ancient – they’ve certainly been here longer than we have – and produce both fragrant eating apples and gnarled knobbly cooking apples. We have also planted lots of crisp juicy eating apples in our time here and these trees are literally drooping with apples.

We have been picking up the windfalls and our kitchen has buckets of apples lined up against one wall. This has started an apple cooking frenzy. We have apple chutney, apple compote, apple muffins and apple tart tatin on the go.

In our house one of autumn’s special treats is an apple tart tatin. They have to be the ‘queen’ of apple tarts and they also use an impressive amount of apples to make each tart, so are ideal in the apple consuming quest. To make a tart tatin the apples are gently caramelised in butter and sugar, then covered with pastry and baked. When the tart cools it’s tipped out onto a platter so the apples sit on top. It tastes divine. I wouldn’t normally be an apple tart person but these are the business. To prevent ourselves from dying of tart over consumption we are sharing these with the shop so if you would like to try a slice pop in and get a piece.

I was going to write the tart tatin recipe but when I sat down to write it I realised it was a bit tricky. It’s one of these recipes that you really need to see to unlock the secret.

Amidst all this apple mania I have been experimenting with muffin recipes. Muffins are a North American invention and the recipes are so simple that it’s possible to imagine early pioneers with very little in the way of a kitchen knocking these out. No fancy equipment needed, just bowls, a wooden spoon and an oven. Here’s one of my successful culinary creations: apple and blackberry muffins.

Apple and Blackberry Muffins.

100g whole wheat flour

125g white flour

225mls natural yoghurt or sour cream

125g butter

2 eggs

1 dsp ground cinnamon

1tsp baking powder

1 tsp bread soda

125g light muscovado sugar or light brown sugar

2-3 eating apples

1 large cup of blackberries

A little extra sugar for the top of the muffins

Pre heat the oven 180c

Grease a twelve-portion muffin tin with butter or line with muffin cases.

Melt the butter in a small pan then put aside.

Put the flour, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and sugar into a large bowl and mix together.

Beat the eggs together with the yoghurt or sour cream.

Peel the apples and chop into small pieces.

Tip the egg/yoghurt mix, chopped apples and blackberries and melted butter into the dry ingredients and mix briefly. Put a large spoonful of the mixture into each muffin case. Sprinkle the top with a little muscovado sugar then bake for 20-25mins.

Check the muffins by inserting a clean sharp knife; if it comes out clean the muffins are ready.

It was an wonderful weekend here in West Cork. It’s difficult to imagine today as the rain hits the window, but we had wall to wall sunshine all the way, and yesterday evening we set off to join the Clonakilty Bicycle Festival’s final event, Meals on Wheels. Each course of this mystery dining experience took place in a different location reached of course by pedal power.

We all assembled in the car park with our trusty steeds. There were forty five people signed up for the event – maximum subscription – ten of which were stuck in the traffic jam getting off the beach! This held up the departure slightly but it was quite okay to wait and idly chat with the sun on our backs.

We soon caused a traffic jam of our own as we headed off out of town. The hedgerows full of flowers on one side and the sea wall on the other. We cycled to Ring, past Deasy’s Bar and onto Ring village where Ron’s mobile pizza oven had found the perfect spot to pitch up.

Great views, a couple of benches and plenty of grass for everyone else to sit on.

The first course was freshly made pitta breads, straight out of the oven, served with hummus and a selection of salads. This was washed down with delicious mint tea or an optional dash to Kitty Macs pub on the other side of the road for more fortifying beverages.

As soon as this was eaten we jumped back onto our bikes and headed further up the coast. It was slightly worrying as to where we could be going – there was talk of Dunworley which would be a major cycle along the coast – but it was a trick and next thing we did a u-turn and headed back down the RIng road and we  pulled up at Deasy’s Bar.

We piled inside to be greeted with the vision of chilled white wine on each table and massive feed of Ling with spicy sambal sauce and coconut rice. Yum!

Well, the white wine got rid of the wobble on the bike and we cycled back to Clonakilty with the wind on our backs. Where next, we wondered, for our dessert. And where better than Aidan’s wine bar in the centre of town on the newly revamped Astna Square. Sticky orange cake, high class brownies and fresh berries all washed down with a coffee in the last of the evening sunshine.

The final leg of the journey took us through the town and out to the by-pass roundabout which we circumnavigated and headed straight back in to town where we all waved to the little traffic jam that we had caused on the way up! Down past the Emmet Square and the library and into de Barras pub where we were greeted with a massive cheese board and a glass of wine. I was so stuffed I forgot to take a photo of the cheese but we enjoyed the wine.

I’m back in Barcelona and yesterday we spent a day out of the city at the allotment. This involves the metro and a train journey. Walking out of the station it all sounded so different – no wah wahs, no traffic or bustling people, just a lot of space and birdsong. We walked from the station through the small town of Molins de Rei, then along paths through fields of wildflowers to the allotments.

I last saw the allotment in November when it left a lot to the imagination. It had just been taken over and was  a patch of thistles and weeds. Some trojan work has happened since then and it is now a slug free paradise where all the vegetables are four times size the size of mine. At least four times the size of mine as most of the vegetables in our garden are far from the stage where they will land on a plate.

And no slugs! They just aren’t a problem here. Apparently their cousins, the snail, can be a pest but it’s so dry it just isn’t a good terrain for something that relies on slime to get around.

The vegetables look really healthy. There’s been enough rain this spring to keep everything lush and green and there are beds of pert looking onions and garlic, chard, tomatoes, peppers, aubergines. beans, peas, salads and herbs .

Our friends were already hard at work when we arrived. They had also installed a large bucket full of ice, chilled water and beer to go with the picnic we had all bought along. We settled in under the trees – no self respecting Spaniard would sit in the sun – and ate the picnic before tackling the weeds, picking and watering. There weren’t many weeds to be honest. Another perk of a drier climate but the watering is a mammoth task. The vegetables are planted in beds with little moats between to hold the water and it’s a serious business ensuring there’s enough for everything to prosper. This was the job that I volunteered for, watering being an A1 all round tanning opportunity, whilst the rest of the team set to picking the beans and peas

We headed back to the city with an enormous bag of vegetables for our dinner.

The day disappeared yesterday while i was busy in the garden and when I arrived in the kitchen clutching an armful of spring greens I discovered there was very little else in the vegetable basket. Two small sweet potatoes, a handful of carrots that had seen better days and the butt end of a butternut squash. The family began to look slightly agitated, wondering if dinner was going to happen, so i had to do some quick thinking

I turned the oven on, peeled the veggies and tossed them in olive oil, salt and pepper and put them into the oven to roast. Next I put a pot of water to boil, weighed out some polenta (ground maize) and grated some parmesan. as soon as the water boiled I whisked in the polenta. I let it cook for a few minutes before taking it off the heat and beating in the Parmesan cheese and a knob of butter, salt and pepper.I poured it onto a large tray and left it to cool. The spring greens were rinsed under the tap and cut into ribbons. I chopped a couple of cloves of garlic to stir fry with the greens. By now the veggies were just about cooked so I whacked on the grill pan to heat, cut the polenta into wedges and drizzled with a little olive oil.This is where the multi tasking kicked in. Once the grill pan was hot I put the polenta wedges on to cook and lit the gas under the wok for the greens. For the greens I added a little oil and a scanty teaspoonful of flaked chilli, a teaspoon of fennel seeds and the chopped garlic. These got a quick whirl before I threw in the greens to stir fry and then I flipped the polenta to cook the other side. Once the greens had wilted down I added a little soya sauce and a splash of water to finish them off.

Onto the plates went a pile of chilli greens, a couple of wedges of polenta and a little heap of roasted veggies, To top it off I dropped a spoonful of Greek yoghurt on top and drizzled a little rocket pesto around.

It looked pretty posh and tasted delicious!

The thing to remember about woofas (willing workers on organic farms) is that they don’t necessarily know anything about vegetables and to send them on a picking mission unaccompanied is dodgy. The shop requested a bucket of spinach and a bucket of chard for tomorrow and our lovely woofa volunteered to go picking. This was such a tempting offer that after a brief ‘do you know’ conversation, off she went armed with two buckets. Some time later she returned with a beautiful bucketful of rainbow chard and a large pile of baby rocket. I was horrified, as for a moment I thought she’d destroyed the fledgling crop of rocket, but it’s fine. In fact it didn’t harm the rocket at all, as it does like to be picked, and I certainly wouldn’t have had the patience to get down and pick such baby leaves singularly. So no harm done and  after having a spinach identifying and picking lesson we have the added bonus of rocket pesto with linguine for our dinner.

Yum!

Rocket Pesto

20g sunflower seeds

20g pinenuts

150g rocket

50g Parmesan cheese

1-2 cloves garlic

approx 100ml olive oil

juice of 1/2 lemon

salt

Place the sunflower seeds and pinenuts into a food processor with the garlic and blitz until fairly finely ground. Add the rocket and slowly pour in the olive oil and lemon juice. Add the Parmesan and mix well. Season with a little salt and adjust the consistency by adding a little more oil if necessary. Tip into a bowl. Put a layer of olive oil over the top if the pesto isn’t going to be used immediately. This will stop the pesto from oxidising. Use within the week.

This is a recipe which I have put together for the West Cork People Holiday guide. I wrote it with people staying in holiday accommodation in mind so it’s very simple and ready for good weather

Here’s hoping for sunshine!

Here is a recipe for a summer chickpea salad, which can be made by opening cans and jars. It’s a very popular dish in Spain where they use an incredible amount of canned beans and tuna in the kitchen. It’s very tasty and nutritious and makes for easy holiday cooking or indeed anytime cooking. This makes a great lunch and is perfectly portable for a picnic.

It is worth splashing out on a decent can of tuna as you definitely get what you pay for. White tuna, also known as Bonito del Norte is delicious and quite a different animal from standard tuna. This is used widely in Spain but isn’t as well known here. It’s worth seeking out. Ortiz is the most well-known and widely available brand, the only trouble is that once you’re seduced it’s difficult to return to the other kind.

If you don’t like tuna or are a vegetarian substitute the tuna with feta cheese.

Summer Chickpea salad

1-2 cans chickpeas

1 small red onion

2 large red peppers or one jar roasted peppers

200g cherry tomatoes

1 small can tuna – Ortiz is best, or about 100g feta cheese

a handful fresh parsley

1-2 cloves garlic, peeled

2 tbs sherry vinegar or red wine vinegar

4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

If you are using fresh peppers you need to roast them first. Pre-heat the oven to 200c and place the peppers directly onto the shelf. Cook for ten minutes then turn and cook for further 5-10 minutes. The peppers are ready when the skin is blistered. Take the peppers from the oven and pop them into a plastic bag. This will make them sweat and the skins will be easier to remove. When the peppers have cooled enough to handle peel away the skins and remove the seeds.

If you are using a jar of roasted peppers drain them.

Cut the peppers into long strips then cut into approx 5cm pieces

Peel and chop the onion and halve or quarter the cherry tomatoes, depending how big they are.

Drain the chickpeas and rinse.

Drain the can of tuna and flake the fish with a fork..

Put all of the above ingredients into a bowl and season with a little salt and pepper. Peel and chop the garlic and whisk together with the vinegar and olive oil.

Pour the dressing over the salad and gently toss together.

Chop the parsley and scatter over the top.

Best served at room temperature.