When I’m not gardening I like to get out my telescope and scan the stars, marvelling at the wonder of the universe we live in.
I was idly passing the time doing just this the other night when – imagine my surprise – I stumbled across a star I hadn’t noticed before, winking at me in a distant corner of the sky!
A twiddle of the relevant dials on the telescope sharpened the focus, and I couldn’t believe my eyes! There, staring at me down the lens, was another planet! And not just any planet, a planet with mountains and hills so beautiful they looked as if they were made of crumbs of sugar, flour and butter!
But it gets even more amazing! The surface of the planet was covered in adorable little green aliens, running around playing games and generally having lots of alien fun. I marvelled at this joyous scene, but as I watched transfixed a terrible thing started to happen.
The crumbly surface started to tremble and shake. Great cracks appeared, as what looked like a volcano erupted plumes of hot lava across the planet’s surface. This lava was like none I had ever seen before – not red, but a dark purple. Blackberry-coloured, if you will.
At this stage I snapped out of my reverie and reached for the camera. Unfortunately for interplanetary relations, the little green aliens had fled for safety, no doubt fearing for their lives, so I didn’t get a picture of them. I did however capture the apocalyptic landscape, the carnage memorialised here for all to see.
On a completely unrelated topic, here is the recipe for the Blackberry and Apply crumble we’ve been eating chez Drooling this week:
Blackberry and Apple Crumble
For the filling:
5 Bramley / cooking apples, cored, peeled and sliced
400g blackberries
pinch of cinnamon
300g sugar
For the crumble topping:
2 parts flour
1 part butter
1 part sugar
Gently fry the apples in a little butter for a few minutes. Add the cinnamon, sugar and blackberries and cook until cooked through. Pour into a ove-proof dish. To make the topping, whizz up the three ingredients together and then spoon over the fruity filling. Cook at about 200c until it looks golden brown on top (about 30 mins).
(For quantities of topping, go with however much you want, depending on whether you want a thick or thin topping. About 200g flour generally works well with this amount of filling)
Footnote: for US readers of the blog, the crumble is the British version of a cobbler. Go on, give it a whirl!
On the ipod while cooking: David Bowie / Space Oddity. Ground Control, you’re not going to believe what I’ve just taken a photo of….
The drooling vegetable 