Rosemary Salt

We are spending a lot of time up here, Bruce, Caley, M and myself.

The other forest tracks and paths we usually use are like curling rinks just now and involve at least a short car journey to get to their start. Maol Ruadh is the green, and slightly less slidy under foot, option. There is a noticeable rise in temperature this morning and there were a few light showers about. Those light showers are causing a disproportionate amount of run off because half an inch below the surface the ground remains frozen hard. Later in the day, when on Christmas tree errands, at Spean Hill on the A82 the road surface water was really deep and fast flowing despite the modest rainfall.

The phenomenon was not lost on us at Maol Ruadh either. The larger burns had become fluid again and normally soft bogs relented just a few millimetres under the pressure of a human foot. The really big swamps remained icy but with a film of water on top. On our descent in particular M and I had several episodes of a foot "skiting" out unexpectedly. Thankfully we completed the outing without a fall. Just a few swears on the occasion of such slips.

The traction control, four foot drive equipped Bruce and Caley reported no difficulty and the yellow boy seemed to be running faster than ever, even without his brother Bob to pace set.

This is a rare shot of Bruce, enjoying the fresh air and waiting for me to take down the tripod and catch up with M. He doesn't like it if his people get split up on a walk. It clearly agitates him and he will only resume a canter when the (his) party are re-united.

Oh aye; Tonight we had home made burgers, far far better than shop bought counterparts but the part of the recipe that excites me most is the rosemary salt suggested in the recipe (J Oliver Red Nose recipe book).

You need some lemon zest, salt (funnily enough) the big crystal type and rosemary. You need to pulverise this with a mortice and pestle and it takes about fifteen minutes. M gave me a present of an electric spice/coffee grinder machine a wee while ago. We use it mainly for nice Sunday morning coffee but M had reported great success for doing the RS. It is a small compact device with a lid which protects the user from a fast turning blade inside.

I used it for the first time tonight for this magical ingredient. Amazing! In ten seconds the components changed in front of my eyes to the aromatic green powder which is the wonderful rosemary salt.

It goes beautifully with the chunky potato wedges.