Even more achey today, if aching muscles are anything to go by, I should have buns of steel by next week!  More of the same as yesterday today. Cut down a very old pear tree that only produced a handful of inedible fruits. That made room to pull down the two water tanks that I have filled with sandy soil and asparagus. They were a bit too far in the shade before. Blimey they were heavy! Took two of us and some sturdy industrial webbing to move them. Can’t wait for this years crop – yum.

Yanked out some huge blackberry vines that were hiding behind the water tanks, and some ivy. The blackberries grow so quickly, that before you know it, they have produced a thick stem and deep roots and put down more roots everywhere they touch the soil.

Planted some cornflowers in the ‘pretty’ part of the garden a few years ago. I had no idea they were invasive 🙁 They have thick underground roots that run through the soil and they are resisting being kept to the place I want them. This is a fight that is going to run and run! The day lilies are up now, so the annual slug and snail battle commences. A friend has recommended a new weapon. You water it in – hah! like the garden needs any more water! And it kills the slug eggs. I am going to try it and see how effective it is.

On the kitchen front, I tried an ice cream today using minimal ingredients. I was going to do some using a tin of value custard and a tin of value peaches. But I couldn’t find the peaches and I suspect they have been eaten. So instead, I did some using a tin of value mandarins and some milk powder.

Makes 3 portions
Tin of value mandarins 26p
57g milk powder, cheapest on mySupermarket, Tesco £1.15/454g, 14p
About 20g sugar, 2p
Total cost 42p, so 14p a portion

I used a tin of mandarins from a big batch of them I got from Approved Food for 12.5p each, making each portion 9p

I used a hand blender and whizzed everything together until smooth and with a little air incorporated. If you don’t have a blender, mash the fruit with a fork and whisk in the milk powder until there are no lumps.
Then just pop it into a container and into the freezer. Give it a good stir every now and then to break up any ice crystals, until it’s frozen.

Adjust the sugar until it as sweet as you like, you may prefer less. Bear in mind that frozen things taste less sweet than room temperature things.

It was light, tangy and delicious. Plain yogort would work, although the texture would be different. Whilst eating it, we decided that a little coconut milk powder would be good, so we stirred some in and yes, it was good, but would have benefited from the coconut powder being allowed to soak in the mix and soften. The third portion is in the freezer and I have stirred some coconut in.

I could have used less milk powder, or even just frozen the whizzed mandarins on their own

You could chop some value chocolate up fine and stir that in for a chocolate orange effect. Any of the value tins of fruit would be delish, so peaches or pineapple. All with or without milk powder, and/or coconut milk powder. I shall try one with value tinned custard and see what that is like.

I shall have stacks of custard soon as Approved Food are offering a 50p value box today, so I made up an order including a manhoosive bag of custard. And a 2.3kg box of clementines. The price is marginally more than they would be in Aldi, but I would have to drive 17 miles to get them. So I shall be looking at recipes for clementines, any ideas?