Apples

Those nice people at Northern Harvest have some lovely apples available at the moment, grown just up the road from us in Cheshire. This week we opted for Ashmead's Kernel (on the left) as the eaters and Belle de Boskoop as cookers.

You can tell how successful the cookers have been by the fact there's only one left! We've been using last year's home made mincemeat - just core the apples, score them all around the middle with the point of a knife, spread a bit of butter on the outside and then fill the empty middle with mincemeat. Splash a bit of water in the bottom and it'll turn into a nice sauce. Cook in a low oven (gas 5, 190c) for 45 mins or so.

The Belle de Boskoops did the trick - beautifully fluffy and nice and sweet, with that cooking appley edge to stop them being icky.

The Ashmead's Kernel apples are totally delicious - slightly russeted on the outside, they're firm, crispy with a beautiful flavour - clean-tasting, slightly spicy. Wonderful. I hope there are some left for us to get this week!

Also, as we're thinking about fruit trees we could add to the garden over the next couple of years, we might try to get hold of one of both varieties - after researching whether or not they're likely to grow and fruit for us here.