Category Archives: Health and Well-Being

Cheerful Chutney in Normandy, France

Several of you have written and asked for the recipe for the apple chutney after seeing the photos of the organic apples yesterday and watching the video that I took of Mark operating the mechanical apple peeler.

Organic apples in Normandy, France

Book of Preserves from the Women's Institute in the UK

I got this recipe from The Book of Preserves by the Women’s Institute in the UK.

Recipe for apple chutney

I won’t exaggerate, but it takes a lot of apples, raisins and/or dates, and chopped onions along with a hefty amount of spices to make a mere 3-4 fat jam sized jars of the finished product. So if you have plenty of large pans or kettles for simmering, you could double or triple the recipe and make a lot more of this in one go. As it was, we only had two large pans to work with. So we were doing one large pan of apple compote (simply chopped apples, no sugar, no spices, simmered for 4 hours until it looks like applesauce and is all natural!) and one pan of chutney.

This recipe produces 2 500 ml (18 fluid ounce) jars of chutney and it goes really well with cheese and meat and sandwiches. We ate some the other night with a chicken quiche. Yum!

Here’s the recipe.

APPLE CHUTNEY
250 g (9 oz) onions, chopped
1 kg (2 lb & 4 oz) cooking apples, cored and chopped
125 g (4-1/2 oz) sultanas, raisins, or chopped dates
1 tablespoon ground coriander
1 tablespoon paprika
1 tablespoon mixed spice
1 tablespoon salt
350 g (12 oz) granulated sugar
700 ml (1-1/4 pints) malt vinegar

1. Put all ingredients into a large pan. Slowly bring to the boil, stirring often, until the sugar has completely dissolved.

2. Simmer for 1-1/2 to 2 hours, stirring from time to time to stop the chutney sticking to the pan.

3. After the shortest cooking time, start checking if the chutney is ready by dragging a channel through the mixture with a wooden spoon so that the bottom of the pan is visible. If the channel immediately fills with liquid, the chutney is not ready. Cook for a further 15 minutes and then check again. The chutney is ready when the channel does not fill and the mixture is very thick.

4. Remove the pan from the heat and leave to stand briefly. Carefully pour the chutney into hot sterilised jars and seal. Allow the chutney to cool completely before labelling and storing in a cool, dark cupboard. Store for at least 2 months before eating.

Enjoy!!!

Abundantly Awash In Normandy Apples

Apples — we have an abundance of organic apples here at the house in Normandy where we are house sitting and child sitting for friends while they are in England at a conference.

It’s been remarkable to see how the apple processing in our mini production line has sped up each day as we got into the groove of peeling (with Mark’s expert assistance!), coring, chopping, and stirring-stirring-stirring.

Peeling and chopping apples in Normandy, France

Yesterday we did all of the peeling by hand since I was having problems with the mechanical peeler. And Mark certainly did come in handy when he saw how slowly I was going!

Peeling apples for chutney and compote in Normandy, France

But the most successful (and speedy!) method has been to use the small red metal mechanical peeler as seen in the video below.

Memories of canning and bottling and bread baking when my children were small have come drifting to the surface and the juggling of hot sterilised jars is now back to being second nature.

But I’d honestly forgotten how much fruit it takes to simmer down into a comparably tiny amount of final product. So I moaned a bit when I saw how few jars were created after the first on-my-feet-all-day of kitchen work. An entire afternoon and evening and only SEVEN jars???

Finished jars of apple chutney and compote

But oh my — the fragrance of apple chutney and apple compote bubbling away for hours!

Off to a new part of Normandy in a few days. Keep coming back to read about new adventures in living on the road!

Photo Of The Day: Make Every Minute Count

There doesn’t need to be a war on for this phrase to have meaning in all of our lives — “Make Every Minute Count.”

This was one of several striking vintage posters on display in Caen in Normandy, France at the Memorial Museum.

Make Every Minute Count poster from WW II at the Caen Memorial Museum in Normandy, France

Photo Of The Day: Feeling Gruesome!

Think of this grimacing stone face as a fairly accurate representation of how I have felt for most of this week — just plain YUCKY! We’ll leave it at that for now and say that ‘under the weather’ would be an understatement.

We’re still in France and shall be for another 8 days — and we’ve had a marvelous time. But these kinds of things are bound to crop up every once in awhile when you engage in long term travel. We’ve been on the road between countries for more than 7 months now and yes, I do occasionally miss the fact that I can’t always control what we are eating or drinking the way I could when we shopped in our local grocery or organic veg market and cooked everything ourselves. Ah well…

This little carved stone face, gorgeous in its own gruesomeness, is on an interior wall at Castle Howard near York in England — an amazingly elegant place and one which will eventually get some individual coverage in a post.

Tiny stone head on an interior wall at Castle Howard near York in England

Photo Of The Day: Renovation Project For The Right Buyer

There could be minor challenges to navigate through or there could be major challenges to overcome for those looking for a budget house to purchase and renovate in France. This crumbling property of an indeterminate age in Naucelle in the Midi-Pyrenees probably falls into the latter category.

Part of the roof was off and the interior had been exposed to the weather for who knows how long. Even brave serial renovators such as we two wouldn’t take this one on!

A bit TOO much of a renovation project in Naucelle, Midi-Pyrenees, France

Lovely Lengthy Lunchtime in Lisle Sur Tarne

They do it well in France — the lovely, lengthy lunchtime. Almost all businesses are closed from noon until 2 PM so that the employees can have a proper sit-down lunch and then digest their food properly. It is an oh-so-civilised break in the day.

Plat du Jour — plate of the day — is the lunchtime special and it includes your choice of a main course, bread on the side, a carafe of wine, dessert, and sometimes your after-dinner coffee. And the average cost of this all-inclusive meal is usually well under €10 per person. How brilliant is that!

The central square in Lisle Sur Tarn in the Midi-Pyrenees of southern France

We stopped for our lunchtime break on this particular day in Lisle Sur Tarn — a beautiful medieval town in the Midi-Pyrenees in southern France. The hot sun was broadcasting both heat and an intensity of light that made removing your sunglasses painful on the eyes. The only place that was, thankfully, cool and comfortable was beneath the brick-arched overhanging arcade that stretched around the square. And right there was where we chose to have our own plat du jour alongside some of the local folks.

Lunchtime in Lisle Sur Tarn in the Midi-Pyrenees of southern France

We had a brief ramble through the town for about an hour after lunch and were charmed by the combination of architectural styles and the tipsy buildings leaning into the narrow streets in many places. And we found as many of those cool and quiet arcades to walk beneath as possible in that heat.

A narrow street in Lisle Sur Tarn in the Midi-Pyrenees of southern France

The cool brick arcade in Lisle Sur Tarn in the Midi-Pyrenees of southern France

Lisle Sur Tarn — a definite stopping point for your own driving tour through the Midi-Pyrenees!

Street corner in Lisle Sur Tarn in the Midi-Pyrenees of southern France

Posted on 19 June 2011

Getting Sick While Travelling

Whether it’s a long trip or a weekend getaway, no one wants it to happen and no one really ever thinks that it could be ever be them that is inconvenienced that way. But getting sick whilst travelling is something that simply must be taken into account when you are planning your trip, booking your tickets, and doing those last pre-trip errands.

A long trip of several weeks or several months will require even more planning ahead, and that means one thing above all else — a good travel insurance policy to cover all of the contingencies including illness, hospitalization, routine but unexpected trips to the doctor or dentist, and (a worst case scenario if there ever was one!), medical evacuation back to your home country.

French medication for severe bronchitis

We are currently in France and one of those unanticipated situations arose just as we arrived in Normandy. I was sick with what I thought was a routine cold picked up from the child of friends in another part of France, but things went from bad to worse in a mere few days and suddenly I had such a severe bronchial infection that I was on the verge of pneumonia.

I am very fortunate that we have friends here in Normandy who could send me to their own GP in the next village, but I would not have hesitated to go to a local hospital if we had been on the road between stops. I felt completely fine about doing that since I knew that my outpatient care or even a full hospitalization would have been covered by the excellent travel insurance policy that we purchased from Travel Insurance Direct in Australia prior to our departure at the end of 2010. We knew that we would be travelling for at least a year, so we purchased a very inclusive policy that covered everything from lost luggage to damage to a rental car to unexpected delays to the all-important medical care.

As ill as I was, it was an office visit that I shall never forget as we tried to bridge the language barrier. I speak schoolgirl French and the doctor spoke no English! But I had written down all of my symptoms, swished them into Google Translate, and then printed that out for him. He understood completely and guess what — bronchitis means bronchitis even in France. I also had to giggle when he complimented me on my splendidly low blood pressure.

My sincere advice to all of you who are still in the planning and prep stages before departure is to do an internet search for travel policies that you can purchase online. They cost a lot less and seem to include rather a lot more than insurance policies offered by travel agents or your local insurance agent. This is their specialty and the coverage is excellent in most cases as long as you read all of the fine print and choose what suits your individual trip or lifestyle.

One of my sisters, Cynthia Hatton, lives in California and she has been either a nurse or nursing administrator for all of her adult life. She offered the following additional information to share with you — and I thank her for that.
“You might also add that it is important to consult a travel medicine clinician and check the locations that you are traveling. They will check the CDC and the International Institute of Travel Medicine tells you what is going on in the area …… TB, Influenza, hepatitis etc.”

Also — make sure you have adequate coverage for all of the areas that are important to you and consider adding ‘riders’ for additional protection on items such as expensive laptops and digital SLR cameras with lenses. I did exactly that prior to leaving Australia and have travelled for six months with an amazing peace of mind.

A Wanderful Life

The Neverending Journey