Sweet treats

Like almost everyone else we have walnut trees and last autumn we harvested a large shopping bag full. Plenty to keep us going. Walnuts are so common in France that the French word for walnuts is noix [literally nuts].

We had gathered far too little to have any oil pressed. In fact we didn't even know if it was still possible--we have since found out it probably is--so will explore that for Autumn 2011.

Healthy or sweet? No contest...

But back to our bag of walnuts. I had, a while back, as one does, looked on the internet for recipies with walnuts to give me some ideas beyond classic walnut cake. I don't make sweet things very often and needed inspiration. Hard to imagine we once lived sans the option of internet searches....

Up popped a blog which offered a pecan pie style recipe which sounded tasty and simple. Hurrah! I thought worth trying sometime.  

The 'sometime' was last Sunday and rashly perhaps we invited some people we had recently met to join is in being guinea pigs in the eating. They, Tim and Pauline, blog too and we had found out that we had been regulars at the same time as Pauline in same pub in York--it truly is a small world sometimes! Pauline has blogged about the pub in more detail. 

willow cuttings

They came yesterday and it was a very enjoyable visit; we are the richer for some willow cuttings, which are in water but will be planted out tomorrow. Sometime in the past, probably about 40 yrs ago, a previous owner of the house planted the 2 1/2 acres with specimen trees so we have scots pine, larch, a cedar, spruce, wild chestnut, maple as well as the more common walnut, oaks and hazel; oh and a few elderly fruit trees: quince, cherry and apple. It was very nice-- the weather has been glorious-- to have a wander round with our guests seeing things beginning to "spring". Katinka, as she does, escorted us all the way.

left over...note rustic pastry

Today we had a second sweet treat. As it is Shrove Tuesday we had crepes with sugar and lemon juice for dessert. That's twice in two days....  naughty but nice.

Oh, and the walnut tarte seemed to go down well--not much of it remained.