Automatic chicken keeping - Introducing the Eggmobile

 

I'm hugely excited about this new aquisition

Well that just looks like an ancient rusty horsebox I hear you say. And what's more, you add,  you don't have any horses. 

But look, I retort, it has a tow bar on the front and four reasonable wheels.

You notice it's lacking a back door and most of the floor...

However, undaunted by your negative observations, I'm still excited. These drawbacks are not a problem. This lovely old thing is going to be transformed into my new mobile chicken house - Introducing the Luxury Eggmobile!

I will explain how it will work.  But first let's look at the problems.

The Problems

Having kept chickens for many years now, I've tried all kinds of ways of making life easier. For them and for me. These are the major difficulties I've encountered -

1. Chickens scratching areas -the chickens' tendency to strip away the plant life from any area where they are confined for more than a few weeks. We don't want bare earth or worse, bare mud. 
2. Chicken perches and thereunder - chickens need perches to sleep on and what comes out of the rear end overnight tends to accumulate under the perch and has to be cleaned out regularly to avoid a build up of manure and associated smells. Although the chicken droppings can be composted for the garden it's not a pleasant job, smelly and dusty in the summer and smelly and muddy in the winter.
3. Red Mite - This horrible pest of domestic chickens hides in the cracks and crevices of wooden hen houses and particularly under the often used roofing felt, and comes out at night whilst the hens are roosting to bite them and feed on their blood. We want to avoid this. 
4. Predators- Chief amongst these for me are foxes and occasionally rats. We definitely don't want this as predators can wipe out our flock in no time at all. Possibly overnight. Ask me how I know.

The Solutions

I decided some time ago that movable houses were the way to go. I tried hen houses  with wheels on and moveable runs. Whilst it kind of works, the wheels were too small, the houses too heavy and with the rainfall we have were soon mired in the winter mud and difficult if not impossible to move. And there was still the floor to clean out.

We tried the Heras Panel chicken house copied from Kev Alviti on An English Homestead. This worked well in the summer for table birds and I'm definitely keeping it for that purpose, But for layers it's a bit heavy and impractical for me to move, though I would still recommend it as a low cost option for people with just a few birds.

So to the Eggmobile  -I cannot claim credit for the Eggmobile myself, it's a straight copy of Richard Perkins idea on the Ridgedale Farm You Tube channel. Richard's plans are intended mostly for people wishing to have a profitable business but the idea is scaleable for anyone, and has been replicated in many forms all over the world. 

I'm a huge fan of Richard Perkins and have watched his many and varied videos on You Tube about small farming. One of his best ideas is the Eggmobile which is essentially a hen house on wheels with a slatted floor. The advantage of this which you will immediately realise if you keep chickens, is that the droppings go straight through on to the grass fertilizing your land and avoiding the job of cleaning out the floor of the hen house. The house is surrounded by an electric fence, and being on large wheels the house can be towed to new area of grass on a regular basis. I think this will work for me. As all my hens will now be in the one house, I'm also investing in a new electric pop hole which will let the birds out into a protected area at dawn and lock them in at dusk. Additionally I will have rollaway nest boxes to make egg collection easier and cleaner. 

Richard's houses are made of metal sheeting for lightness, and my horse box is aluminium (under the flaking paint and rust), so quite light to move and unattractive to red mite, hopefully.

I will keep posting about the ongoing project,  as we go along, and hopefully I will prove your skeptical observations to be entirely groundless.

Making the Most of Things - Rick Stein Restaurant Dining at Home review

 Mr Wilkinson and I have been confined to barracks for what seems like forever, but I don't like to complain since I'm in a much happier situation than many people, living in the countryside, surrounded by open spaces and fresh air, and whilst we keep our health and strength,  it's not really much of a hardship.

But we've missed eating out, and so when I saw on Saturday kitchen last week that some restaurants are doing home deliveries I thought we might give it a try. We're not fans of fast food and anyway they don't "deliveroo" to places out in the sticks like us. But we do like Rick Stein's restaurant and have visited several of his establishments when visiting Padstow.

So all you do is peruse the menu online decide what and when, and place your order at Rick Stein Restaurant Dining at Home and lo and behold on the appointed day a nice man from DPD arrives with your dinner in a box.

The menus are three courses and serve two people, so you have to agree what you can both eat, and prices go from around £40 up to £100 if you go for the luxury option of lobster. We went for the hake menu. We decided that we would make an occasion  of it and dress up a bit, (not tiaras and elbow length gloves but yes I would take my wellies off)  and have a bottle of champagne and some candles on the table. 

So Friday morning arrived and Rick's smart looking box arrived bright and early. It even includes a printed menu with instructions on the back. 

To be honest the contents didn't look all that exciting and I couldn't help thinking how much more I could have got for the money. The thing about being a keen cook yourself is you can end up in a restaurant thinking to yourself, I could have made a better job of this myself, so I tend to order stuff that I either can't easily produce in my own kitchen or maybe haven't had before, or something that's a lot of trouble to do at home.  

I think Mr Wilkinson was a a bit disappointed too, but for a different reason. He's not a cook, and was surprised to find just a box full of stuff you have to do something with. I think he thought he would open the box and Rick would spring forth saute pan in hand! No such luck, but everything is prepared and ready to serve or cook, packed in little bags and plastic containers, properly chilled with a freezer pack and hefty foil insulating material. Even down to the salad in a bag and accompanying vinaigrette in a little pot.

 As I said, when I eat out I like to have things that I can't easily produce at home, or that I wouldn't often have. Since I regularly make smoked mackerel pate and sticky toffee pudding I had to do a little comparison.

I thought Rick's smoked mackerel pate was nicer than the one I normally make, lighter and more delicate my excuse being that Rick probably has access to better quality smoked mackerel than the ones I normally get from Sainsburys. 

The hake and the piperade for the main course were just delicious. My rubbish photo doesn't do it justice.  The sticky toffee pudding although very nice was not quite up to our famous family version, though the clotted cream was lovely. 

But putting such pickiness aside we had a lovely evening, it's really easy, everything's pretty well done for you, and you can put a lovely meal on the table without getting stuff on your posh frock. 

Plus it got us out of a rut, - we even put some Michael Buble on and had a dance around the kitchen. 

And Mr Wilkinson even loaded the dishwasher.

I highly recommend it. 

I'm not sure if the plastic pots are recyclable but I've washed them for re use and the cardboard box went out to the veg garden to mulch some weeds, the chill pack is in the freezer for re use for picnics. The foil insulation will make a lovely insulating cover round my beehive although I would need two to go right round the hive so maybe we will need to make another order...

Bees still flying

 It's mid November and my days are mostly spent clearing up, dodging showers, generally plonking about in the drizzle. but yesterday was quite pleasant, and there was even a good few hours of sun. And so I was pleasantly surprised to find the bees still flying -

even though there can't be much in the way for nectar to collect, they've probably found some ivy to visit, it's usually the last flowering plant of the year for bees to visit in UK gardens. So hold on for a few weeks before you pull out any overgrown ivy just to give the bees a last feed before hunkering down for the winter.

The Not - Curry Curry

Here at Wilkinson Towers we don't have Curry. It's not that I don't like it, indeed I've spent many a happy evening in Indian restaurants all over the country over the years,  but unfortunately Mr Wilkinson can't be doing with it. 

No Hot Things, no Spicy Stuff, no Indian Curry. 

Can't Abide The Taste Of It.

But anyway, since I'm partial to all sorts of Asian food myself, and it turns out that I'm the cook around here this is what we have instead.

 I make it quite mild, and I serve it with a bottle of this

for anyone who likes to spice things up a bit. Other chilli sauces are available. 

It's a very useful recipe as it can be used with chicken, or fish, or vegetables. I quite like it with just the chick peas and some chopped spinach or broccoli stirred in at the last moment. And there's another thing Mr Wilkinson's not too partial to - greens, but we'll come to that another day...

The Not Curry Curry

Chicken - I use thighs  normally but I used breast here as it's what was delivered 

but you can easily substitute prawns and white fish if you like, or  vegetables of your choice, cut into bite size chunks
1 Tin of Chick Peas, drained
1 or 2  large chopped onions

1 sliced red pepper 
2 fat cloves garlic grated
about an inch of ginger grated
Some chopped red chilli to taste (if you're not entertaining Mr Wilkinson)
juice of a lime
tin of coconut cream
Red Thai Curry paste a good dollop - it varies according to brand
1 tablespoon Fish Sauce
1 teaspoon brown sugar
some chicken stock if needed
chopped coriander leaves or spinach

Brown the chicken/fish/veg in some coconut oil or ghee. Remove to a plate.

Soften the onion in the pan for a few minutes, then stir in the Thai Curry paste, the grated garlic and ginger.
Add all the other ingredients and bring to a  gentle simmer, and cook for about 10 minutes Return the chicken or whatever you are using to the pan. Simmer gently for a few more minutes until cooked through. Adorn with your chopped coriander leaves.

Serve with warm  flatbreads or rice.

Be careful though if you serve it with poppadums, as that might make it look like a curry.
Which it can't be.
Can it?
(Since Mr Wilkinson actually quite likes it..).

There should be a picture of the finished dish here but I forgot to take it, so I'll add one next time I cook it, possibly with one of Mr Wilkinson tucking in enthusiastically.

Seriously, I've had enough asparagus...

When my daughter lived in London I remember her telling me how she had overheard some overindulged child whinging in the supermarket "Mummy I'ms so bored of smoked salmon".....
Which is a bit irritating to listen to, especially for those of us who grew up in the post war years, when you ate what you were given by your mother, no consultations having been made with you about what it might be, and when it arrived you thought yourself  lucky to have it. Lest I dissolve into a Monty Python "luxury" sketch, let me say that I am lucky enough to be currently enjoying a surfeit of asparagus.

 Such that you can only really have if you grow your own or win the lottery. Well I know it's not as expensive as it used to be, because you can buy it imported from Peru or somewhere for most of the year.  But we're not even going to talk about that, this is English asparagus, seasonal and delicious and fresh, and only available in May and June. Even if you do win the lottery you are unlikely to be able to buy fresh asparagus of the quality you can grow yourself.

It's not really in the staple food category, shades of "Peel me a grape darling" I know, but if you have the space for it, and enough years of your life left to wait for it to mature into a decent crop then it's well worth the effort and the wait. My asparagus bed is about four years old and in full production.  I bought two year old plants which I recommend you do if you're thinking of planting your own, it cuts the wait from four years if you grow from seed, to two years. I've been really surprised that my crop has done so well as I'm on very heavy clay soil here and asparagus is supposed to do best on sand. I should have taken out a deep trench, lined with sand and gravel for drainage and backfilled with compost. Instead I planted straight into the ground and  hoped for the best. And the best has been very good indeed so far. I think the variety I used was Gijnlim (how you pronouce that I wonder?) and it's not only prolific but early as well. Even allowing for the good weather the crop has been early.  Starting picking in mid April we have an 8 week window after which the plants are allowed to grow on and replenish themselves for the next year, and on for the next 10 - 20 years.

The one vital thing though is to keep the bed weed free. You just cannot grow asparagus in a weed infested bed, you will destroy the emerging spears trying to get the weeds out, so start as you mean to go on as my mother told me when I got married, and start with pristine soil and top dress with some compost every year if you can, pull out any weeds at the tiny stage and that's it. When you stop picking the little spears will quickly grow into a forest of ferny foliage which you can chop off  at ground level after it turns yellow in late autumn. And wait for the next crop the following April/May.

Asparagus with Hollandaise Sauce
The first delicious spears are treated to the full works, proper hollandaise, or as near as I get to proper hollandaise which is my stick blender version

2 egg yolks (duck eggs are especially good)
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon dijon mustard
4 ounces/125 gr salted butter
Bundle of asparagus roughly coated in olive oil

Put first 3 ingredients into blender cup or small jug.
Gently heat the butter in a small saucepan until melted and hot.
Mix egg yolk mixture with stick blender and slowly pour on the hot butter keeping the blender going all the while, to make a creamy emulsified sauce. Taste and add salt, pepper, and more lemon if required. If it's too thick and mayonnaise-ey you can add a bit of thin cream or milk.
Quickly flash the asparagus in a very hot frying pan until it's hot and a little seared if you can manage it without setting off the smoke alarm.
Tip onto serving plate and pour over the sauce. Dust cheffy - fashion  with a bit of cayenne or chopped parsley.

As the season goes on, and the crop needs to be used up, I find myself eating it raw on the way to the polytunnel, chucking it onto the barbeque, wrapping it  in smoked salmon, (if I'm not too bored with smoked salmon of course) choppping it into salads and so on.


 And Asparagus Surprise, the surprise being something that doesn't have asparagus in it, sorry I know I've made that joke before...And then I get to the stage I'm at now where I've had enough. No really. Enough already.

Asparagus and smoked salmon, not again....Yawn....

Quick Scones

I've just looked at the weather forcast, and the lovely weather we've been enjoying lately is all set to change. It's going down from 23 degrees to 12 tomorrow, so we will have to make the most of today's lovely sun, and spend the day in the garden, and not too much time faffing about indoors.

So quick cream tea...
 I've posted my traditional scone recipe before, but I've made some today and as I was in a bit of a rush to get out in the garden, and my flour supplies are not what I'd  ideally like, I used up some self raising flour that I had spare and it seems to have worked well so here's the recipe.

As I've also said before, scones are quick and easy to make, and if you keep some of my freezer raspberry jam in your freezer, and some cream in the fridge, clotted is best,  you can pretty much have an instant cream tea.

Quick Scones - 
For light scones work as fast as you can and handle as little as possible. Start to finish 10 mins max.

1 lb/500 gr self raising flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
3 oz 75gr caster sugar
3- 4 oz75-100gr soft butter
half a pint of milk

1 Switch on the oven 180 degees.
2 Put first four ingredients in large bowl and rub in until like breadcrumbs
3 Stir in milk and form a rough wet dough
4 Turn onto floured surface, Dredge with more flout and pat down to a thick slab
5 Cut out with cutter or just into squares with a knife.
6. Bake 10 - 15 minutes until lightly browned.

We haven't got any clotted cream at the moment** but we do have some good double cream from our local village shop so we used that, together with my raspberry freezer jam which being uncooked has a lovely fresh fruit flavour, this is how you make it -

Freezer Raspberry Jam

1 lb/ 500gr raspberries lightly crushed
2 kg caster sugar
2 tablespoons lemon juice
half a bottle of Certo

Add the sugar to the fruit and leave for a few hours for sugar to fully dissolve.
Add the Certo and stir continuously for 2 minutes
Add the lemone juice and stir for another 2 minutes
Leave to stand at room temperature overnight.
Ladle into small containers. Jam will gradually thicken over next day or so, when fully set store in freezer.
This jam keeps for ages and thaws out very quickly and is perfect for cream teas as it is quite soft set and can be easily ladled on top of clotted cream Devon style. The recipe shouldn't take you more than ten minutes to make and ten minutes to bake, (and ten minutes to scoff!!)

**Of course if you've got your own Jersey cow as I have, you have really no excuse for not having a ready supply of clotted cream. However, as I've discussed with my cow keeping friend Sally, there's a bit of a knack to making it, and getting it just right. I should practise more....

Covid Cake - Or Make Do And Mend Cake

I was tempted to call this post Old Jam Cake, which is what's in my head when I make it, but then I thought that no one would read it, let alone bake it, so I thought I would call it  Covid Cake, in the spirit of my theme of using whatever you have to hand in these unusual times. Mr Wilkinson thinks that sounds even less attractive. But in my defence, let me say that this is a really good family recipe for normal times, but for these times it seems even more relevant, - It's easy, quick, versatile, and yes frugal.
.
Like many people at the moment I'm restricted in what shopping I can do, and have to manage with 

a) what I've already got in and 

b) stuff that has been delivered to me as "substitutes" for what I ordered, and that I don't really want. 

So if you're clearing your cupboards out don't throw away the jam and marmalade that's half used. and the fruit you don't fancy.  You really can make something quite delicious with it.

Make some Covid Cake.

 In principle this is really a kind of ginger cake as it contains no sugar, but uses  instead melted preserves/honey or syrup instead. So you can name it for whatever surplus preserves and leftover fruit you have around Marmalade and Ginger say, or Plum and Apple.  I used some plum jam that was fine but  a bit dull, and as I have lots of other lovely preserves it wasn't going to get used any time soon, so that with half a jar of marmalade that had been open a while, and the remains of some golden syrup to empty the tin. Topping was a couple of Granny Smith apples sent to me in a delivery which I didn't order and which were horrible to eat raw but lovely sliced onto the top of this cake. 


You could use pears, plums, cherries  or nothing at all. I'm sure you get the idea.  


 You end up with a lovely tea time cake, which also doubles as pudding served hot with a drizzle of syrup or honey, and cream or custard.

Not to mention the warm glow of smug satisfaction at your amazing ability to conjure something out of nothing.




















Covid Cake

Stand a saucepan on your digital scales and weigh in
700grams/1 lb 8 ounces of jam, golden syrup, honey and/or marmalade in whatever proportions you like or have available.
Add 300 grams/10 ounces of butter
and warm over gentle heat until just melted.

Put the pan back on the scales and add
500 grams  of plain flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda
4 teaspoons ground ginger
good pinch salt
4  eggs
about a half pint/300 ml milk


and beat briefly with a hand mixer till smooth.


Pour into a lined tin, mine was 11" x8"/ 27cm x 20cm

Thinly slice Two apples/pears/plums and place gently on the top of the mixture.


Bake at 160C  for about 45 mins or until risen and firm.









NB If you save a spoonful of the melted jam from the recipe you can brush it over the cake when you take it out of the oven, to give a nice shine and then sprinkle generously with demerara sugar.

Covid Snacks - Make Your Own Healthy Cereal Bars

One of the things about being at home all the time, especially if you're not used to it, is the continuous access to the fridge. It's all too easy to think I'll just have a quick coffee, and maybe a biscuit or three while I wait for the kettle to boil....you know the scenario. Or if you're a bit bored there's the Standing in Front of the Open Fridge Door Wondering What Can I Eat Syndrome?  Or is that just me...? 

Anyway, short of installing a padlock with a timer on the fridge door, it may be worth thinking about stocking up on slightly healthier snacks than chocolate hobnobs, and kitkats.

I posted my recommendations for making your own cereal bars some years ago, -  it has been one of the most visited posts I've ever done, you can still read it here.  Since then there has been a bit of a downer on carbohydrates, so you might want to think of having some little bags of chopped veg ready to eat in the fridge as well, or maybe little cheese cubes if you're trying not to have sugar. But these home made cereal bars  can really be much better for you than commercial efforts which are very high in sugar and not so much on the seeds nuts and oats which you can adjust according to your own taste if you make your own. I would probably substitute a light flavourless olive oil for the sunflower oil I recommended back then to help keep your Omegas balanced, but otherwise I still use the same basic recipe and adjust according to what's in the store cupboard. 
Happy snacking.

Boris is picking up...

I planted Geum Borisii last year, and to be honest it didn't do much. Ok but not particularly impressive. Plenty of flappy leaves, some orange flowers.

So I kind of forgot about Borisii and it got a bit overgrown with creeping buttercups, to which it bears a superficial resemblance, so I was surprised to find it coming into flower a few weeks ago, around the time the lockdown started. It was doing ok actually, but then there were a few sharp frosts and all those overwhelming weed issues, and it started to look a bit sick. 

Very sick in fact, so I carefully dug it up and put it in a pot in the Intensive Care Unit by the greenhouse. It looked a bit dodgy at first, I don't think it liked being moved, but I watered it every day, looked after it as best I could, and I'm pleased to say it has picked up nicely and is starting to look like it might be ready to go back into the border quite soon. where hopefully it will make an impressive show. All of which has made me think that maybe I should spend a bit of money on improving the Intensive Care Unit, so that, comfortingly, one could rely on it being available whenever it might be needed, it as I'm sure Boris(ii) would be the first to agree.

Just to be clear,this is Geum Borisii of course,  not the Johnson cultivar you may have been thinking of.

Small Luxuries in Troubled Times

I thought I would do a blog post, which I haven't done for ages although I'm always meaning to do an update, stuff just gets in the way, you know how it is. Well now with this Covid 19 business I'm finding a bit more time on my hands than I'm used to, and having almost caught up with the weeding and planting, I'm moving onto baking (anything to avoid cleaning and dusting...not to mention bleach spraying everything that keeps still long enough to within an inch of it's life....)

So here's a nice recipe for Shortbread that most people will have the ingredients for in the house. And simple as it is, you just can't seem to buy proper shortbread any more, if you ever could. You just have to make it yourself.

When I say proper shortbread I mean the kind that melts in your mouth, and has a buttery richness even though it's just a plain old biscuit. I don't like a massive amount of crunch in shortbread, some recipes call for added rice flour or semolina and so on, but I demur. Simplicity is the word here.

You can cook this in a big round in the traditional way, marked into triangles and stabbed with a fork but I think it comes out best if you can be bothered to roll it out and cut shapes, they need to be fairly thick, it's shortbread after all, and it's easier to get an even bake that way.

For about 30 generously sized biscuits

300gr 10oz Plain flour
50 gr 2 oz Cornflour (Cornstarch in US)
250gr 8 oz Butter
75 gr 3 oz caster sugar
half teaspoon vanilla extract

Cream the butter and sugar - I use a stand mixer, -until light and creamy, or cream with a wooden spoon, and elbow grease.


Add the flour and cornflour and continue mixing gently until roughly combined
Turn onto floured board and form into a dough, roll out quite thickly and cut your shapes.


Bake for 20 minutes 160c 300F or on the lower shelf of the Aga with the cold plain shelf above. As always with biscuits, don't over cook them, you want the merest trace of gold, certainly not brown, and then take them out. Cool on a wire tray.

They also freeze really well and so are handy to have in for unexpected visitors, as they defrost almost instantly, certainly by the time you've answered the door, and said Hello Vicar do come in, lovely weather isn't it, do have a seat, would you like some tea and biscuits.





And with the bits left over you can either re-roll for extra biscuits or use as the base for a Millionaire's Shortbread for which I make no apology for revisiting my old recipe here

I also make these as an accompaniment for strawberries and cream, maybe rolled out a bit thinner,  and as such they add a nice home made touch. Makes an ordinary bowl of summer fruit and cream seem like you've gone to a lot of trouble, when you haven't really.  And in troubled times small luxuries are well, a luxury. So win-win.


Stay safe, stay home, bake something.

Egg Pinny

I've got an Egg Pinny! I saw a post somewhere ages ago about an apron with lots of little pockets that you can put eggs in when collecting from the hen house. I thought it was a brilliant idea - I can't tell you how many times I've put an egg or two in my pocket and by the time I get back to the house I put my hand in my pocket and find a pocketful of broken eggs, yuk! Even worse, if you forget they're there and leave your coat hanging up for a day or two....

So anyway I thought the idea of this apron was rather clever but sadly my stitchery skills are not up to the job so imagine my delight when I received this in the post

 It's made by my very clever friend Jan, who used to be my neighbour when our children were children, but who I now don't see often enough because we live  in different parts of the country.

Here we are many years ago, dressed up as pirates for some reason or another
Anyway I digress...















 This should save me dozens of broken eggs apart from looking very beautiful as well.


When it comes to gardening I have this romantic image of myself  meandering gently around on a balmy summer's evening in a floaty dress, wicker basket in hand, perhaps to the delicate strains of Mr Wilkinson performing his daily harp practice, sniffing the roses, snipping off the occasional dead head, as opposed to what I know of course is the reality of gardening and entails rather more dirt, sweat, and manure than my romantic imaginings. But one day.....

 Similarly with the chickens rather than stomping about with a shovel and a sack of wheat, I can now see myself floating down the garden to collect the eggs, in the same floaty dress, cue harp music....the eggs of course  will of course be pristine clean or they won't be allowed in the pinny, so watch out you hens with the big muddy feet.....

And then of course it's always useful for accommodating the occasional orphan chick... (see previous post)

Thank you so much Jan you are a star!!
        *****************