On membrillo and more preserves

First and foremost, I had to reboil my membrillo - I didn't do it for long enough and it just wasn't as dense as I wanted. So now it's all done, potted in ramekins and looking pretty:

 I'm very pleased with it.

Moving on to serious matters - gin. I haven't been able to find any sloes round us, the plants are virtually bare. However, there were plenty in Somerset when we were there this weekend:

 I was so pleased, as sloe gin is one of my favourite things, and I was really looking forward to trying making it this year. I'll do it later in the week and post the recipe (I'll probably try a few permutations, and I promise to report back at Christmas with the successes).

We picked them at my cousin's husband's parents' farm (which, as I may have mentioned before, is a rather wonderful B&B/holiday cottagey place), along with a couple of pounds of almost-ripe pears:

 I have vague plans to lightly poach them and preserve them in syrup, but I haven't really decided whether they're ripe enough for that.

We also found some walnuts there:

I have not the least idea what I'll do with them - perhaps just blend them into a nut butter type thing? Except for the minor detail that I don't actually like nuts. Seemed a shame to just leave them lying on the ground though.

Speaking of preserves, I was pleased to see that my eldeflower cordial was still OK to drink, as of last weekend. I can't find a record of the recipe on the blog - possibly I made it before I started writing it - but I'm already looking forward to making an even bigger batch next year and trying out a few variations on the recipe.