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!!
        *****************

Scorchio

It seems barely five minutes since I was plodding in the back door soaking wet yet again, standing wet boots by the aga to dry, and wondering if it was ever going to stop raining - well it has stopped, and as they say, be careful what you wish for, it hasn't rained for weeks, the grass is brown, and this year's hay crop which has barely landed in the barn will be coming out again for feeding in short order by the looks of things. Mr Wilkinson says that farmers are never happy, it's either "flipping raining again" or  there's "no flipping rain again", and that there's always either not enough grass, or too much grass! Well he may be right, but we could really do with a prolonged spell of warm summer showers here.

I've just got back from a week in Harrogate where we go every year. It's normally a pleasant break from farm life for us, - we can get to shops and restaurants on foot and everywhere is easy to get to. I wouldn't want to live in town but it makes a nice break to get away from livestock and garden concerns.


However this year due to some miscalculations I had a single chicken hatch out on the day I was leaving for Harrogate
and so I had no real alternative but to take it with me.

So off we went up the M1, dog on the back seat and chick in a box on the front seat. It lived happily in a box on the kitchen worktop, but because it had no chums it needed constant attention when it was awake, so I ended up taking it with me more or less everywhere I went.





I found a dog friendly coffee shop which also turned out to be chicken in a handbag friendly too as well as serving excellent coffee and cake,

and you do have to be pretty good in Harrogate because there's a lot of competition!

So I highly recommend Hoxton North Coffee if you're in Harrogate and in need of a good coffee and you happen to have a dog and a chicken with you. (Well probably not a massive big chicken, only a tiny two day old chick that fits in your handbag. If you're carrying a full grown chicken around in town with you then you're even more eccentric than I am)

Anyway as I said we're back home now and I have aquired some little chums for my chick and they have settled in happily in a box on the counter top (for now), though as you can see from this pic the chick is very tame and jumps up  for every photo op.

I Can't Stand Sheep

There comes a point every year when I decide I can't stand sheep. Not that you could tell from this picture of the two lovely lambs that arrived last week, when all was well.  But sadly this idyllic scene was fairly swiftly followed by three dead lambs, for which I could find no real reason. One ewe was a first lamber and rejected her lamb even though she had a plentiful supply of milk, and that's really annoying. Well there are still three more to go so let's hope for an easier time with them.

On a jollier note I came across this Australian Permaculture music thing, aimed mostly at kids but great fun for anyone. Not at all the usual let's all plant a seed together type of thing, but much more edgy and fun.

 My favourite is My Dad's Dunny, (you have to explain that Dunny is Australian for toilet) and No Such Thing As Waste, both of which have great videos to go with them. Highly recommended.

Spring has sprung!!

Well according to the Met Office it may have been the start of Meteorological Spring last week, (when we were knee deep in snow) and it may not be the Vernal Equinox until the end of the month, but for me, the first lambs to arrive mean that Spring is finally here in Ashleworth, especially as the snow is all but washed away, and the sun is putting on a halfway decent performance as well.







There's nothing quite like a ewe with her new lambs, in this case twins, one boy and one girl, to make you feel that winter is at last, if not over, then on the way out.

 This ewe is a Wiltshire Horn, a traditional old breed that sheds its fleece  naturally so needs no shearing, which I'm hoping will mean less work for me in the summer.

Being pretty hardy types they can lamb outside with no assistance, which is what this one did as I found when I went out to feed them this morning. I will put her in the barn tonight as the forecast is for frost and maybe some snow, but they seem good strong lambs and I think they will do well.

Fame At Last! - Home Farmer Magazine Article

I'm afraid I'm very pleased with myself this week. Having never been in print before (well there was that incident back in the sixties, but we'll draw a veil over that...) I find myself featured in this month's edition of Home Farmer magazine. Amazing! Well, me and my cow Rosie that is. The nice people at Home Farmer have kindly reprinted an extract from my blog back in 2014 when I first got Rosie, when I wrote about the trials and tribulations of learning how (and how not) to milk a cow. 

So I thought it would be a good idea to put up a few pictures of Rosie, who is still with me, and due to calve in about eight weeks time. She's been an absolutely lovely cow to have, and has put up with my often bumbling efforts to care for her with the kind of patience and stoicism that only a Jersey cow can. She has a very calm temperament  and endearing personality, and I always say she would come in and watch TV with us if we let her! 

Anyway it was great to be featured in a national monthly, even if it's a somewhat specialist readership, I feel quite proud that they thought my ramblings would be of interest to readers.  Home Farmer magazine is a great little publicaton  for people interested as the title suggests in smallholding, small farms, gardening, cooking, preserving, wildlife and other related subjects. It's presented in a down to earth no nonsense kind of way, with contributions from experts and amateurs alike (hence my inclusion!)

I was asked to produce some higher quality images for the piece so we went out with my trusty phone camera, and got loads of shots of the wall, the cows feet, my feet, cowpats, and sundry other stuff before we managed to get a couple of decent shots. Cows just won't stand still when you need them to! Here's one  of me in fits of laughter with Rosie's last calf  Daisy photobombing the shot at the back.

Home Farmer magazine can be purchased at good retailers or to see what's in this month's issue click here. That's me on page 42 by the way...

Storm Doris

We have, or rather had, an old disused milking parlour down at the end of the field. 

The roof was already off when we came here, and although I  have harboured thoughts of  restoring it, I was assured by everyone thatlooked at it that it ws beyond hope, and the recent storm Doris has finally  put paid to any such ideas. This is what remained after the storm

The makings of a nice brick path somewhere in the garden I think.

 There was though, the remains of three galvanised milking stanchions, which we have removed and will try to install in the poll barn

There was a bit of tree damage as well - this lovely apple tree has been more or less halved, it had way too much misteltoe on it's branches which I think may have contributed to the damage because of the weight. So some nice logs for the fire, some applewood sawdust for the smoker, and some tidying up to do.

Bird Flu

Since the announcement of incidents of the latest strain of Avian Influenza in the UK, Apha, the Animal and Plant Health Agency, have been issuing details of recommended ways in which poultry should be protected from contact with wild birds. For large commercial producers this isn't too much of an issue, as the birds tend to live in enormous hangar type buildings anyway, but for small poultry keepers like me, it's more difficult. I can't just conjure up a building to house my chickens, so we have had to be a bit inventive. So we have made an enclosure with some old Heras fencing, the type of thing normally seen on building sites, and covered the top with some polyester netting, again the type normally seen on scaffolding on building sites (because it's cheap and readily available)
Chickens however, are very quick to find any gap in your defences,and although i though we had everything covered, it wasn't long before they found this easy exit through some broken bits of fence

 and they were all out again. So I've patched it up, and hopefully all will be ok again for tomorrow. We will of course have to move this arrangement around the field at regular intervals to make sure the birds continue to have access to fresh grass.
We all fervently hope that this latest strain of bird fly will be short lived and we can go back to our normal free ranging as soon as possible, especially now that the birds are coming into full lay. I've even had a couple of goose eggs in the last few days!

Best Ever Chocolate Brownies Recipe

I've been promising to give this recipe to my friend Dawn for ages, but haven't got round to writing it down, so as we're doing the supper for the WI ladies tomorrow, I thought I might just as well write it down now then it's there for future reference and anyone else who might like it. I've tried lots of different recipes over the years, I used Nigel Slater's recipe for ages, and it's good, but now I prefer to use the whisking eggs and sugar method rather than the creaming method he goes for, Anyway  having tweaked and tested, this is the final edit. Until I change my mind again of course...

This makes a pretty substantial slab of brownie, it fills a 9 inch 23 cm tin, but you can cut the into teeny pieces if you want to stretch it round a crowd. Or you could use an oblong 12 x 9 inch tin and make it thinner, but you will need to cook it for a shorter time. And this is one of those recipes that depends substantially on the quality of the ingredients, so don't stint.



8 oz/ 230 gr dark chocolate
8 oz/230 gr butter
4 eggs
5 oz/180 gr caster sugar
5 oz/180 gr soft light brown sugar
6 oz/150gr,  milk and white chocolate chopped up or chocolate chips
3 oz /90 gr cocoa
3 oz/90 gr self raising flour

Melt the chocolate and butter together and allow to cool a bit.
Beat the eggs and sugars together until pale and light.
Pour the chocolate mix into the egg mix.
Sift the flour and cocoa onto the mixture and fold in.
Lastly fold in the chopped chocolate pieces and turn the mixture into an 9 inch 23cm square tin, lined with parchment.
Bake at gas 4 180 electric 160 fan for 30 - 40 minutes. Timing is the most important part of the process, it should be just soft  in the middle,but not liquid. It will firm up as it cools, If you cook it too long you'll just have a chocolate slab, and a heavy one at that! So keep an eye on it.

I don't put nuts in, but you can add chopped walnuts brazils or pecans if you like.

Gardening Without Backache -No Dig Gardening

I'm a huge fan of Charles Dowding's method of No Dig Gardening. There are loads of reasons why I'm so keen,  one of the main ones being my state of aged decrepitude which prevents me from doing as much digging as I used to be able to manage. But for the best explanation take a look at  any of Charles many books and articles on the subject. In a nutshell the idea is that you cover the ground that you have, whatever it's like, with a layer of compost and you plant into it. That's about it, and because it's such a simple idea, people tend to think it can't possibly work. Surely you have to dig, trench, rake,kill the weeds, and so on? Well no, what you should really be doing is to attempt to disturb the soil as little as possible,- digging just destroys the soil structure and chops up beneficial earthworms and other soil organisms. So not only do you not need to do it, you positively shouldn't do it.

When I moved here a year ago, we had no real garden to speak of, but lots and lots of lawn. So the first job was to fence off an area of the field to make a vegetable garden. I covered the areas to be planted with cardboard, to help kill the grass, and took delivery of a ten ton pile of compost courtesy of Severn Waste who make the compost from green waste. The compost is very reasonable in price, but unfortunately the delivery costs do add up. It all depends how far you are from your local green waste processor - check out your local depot.

All I had to do was move it to the appointed beds, which took a while I must admit. A few barrowloads every day soon made an impact.

The results have been amazing. Not everything did well, but most of what I planted did ok, considering it's the first year of a new garden. In an indifferent year for tomatoes we had tons, squashes and pumpkins grew like triffids, beans did less well, but salads and herbs were great.  The new asparagus bed is looking fine, although it's too new to harvest until next year, so we will see what next year's growth looks like in due course.

The main disappointment was my raspberry canes, most of which failed, so I will be filling in the gaps during the winter months with some new plants. Strawberrries and brassicas both grew well but were subject to caterpillar and bird attacks respectively so I will need to arrange protection for them for next year.

Anyway that was last year, and I have just availed myself of another ten tons of compost, this time for my new ornamental plantings. Luckily the very helpful lady at Severn Waste managed to find a delivery for me at a good price. So I took delivery of the ten tons on the appointed day courtesy of the lovely Louise, of Louise Ward Haulage based in Evesham, who has been operating her 18 ton tipper truck for nearly twenty years, and did an excellent job at a good price. I have a ready supply of cardboard from our warehouse, so I used it as a base, It's not really vital but it rots down readily and does help a bit to kill the weeds and grass. So it's back to barrowing for the next week or two. Before I get to do the good bit, the planting.

Christmas Pudding (Revised Recipe)

I posted my traditional Christmas pud recipe a year or two ago, but I've slightly revised a few of the ingredients. I rather like Nigella's recipe, so I've added some prunes to the mix, so it really can be called a plum pudding, but I can't be paying twenty odd quid for the Pedro Ximenes sherry, so I will stick with my mix of any sweetish sherry that's in the cupboard, and some  dark flavourful beer for the liquid part.

And speaking of beer, I seem to have struck up something of a passing relationship with my local brewery here in Gloucester, called, naturally enough, Gloucester Brewery. They have kindly allowed me to pick up an occasional bag of their spent brewery grains which my cows pigs and chickens absolutely love, and whilst I'm doing that, I get to pop in and have a look around their newly revamped shop on Gloucester Quays. It's in one of the many wonderful old buildings on the quay, and has been done up very sensitively and in keeping with the old vaults. It must have cost quite a bit, and the work has been going on for some time now, but the end result is really good. I generally take them in a few of my free range eggs in return for the spent grains, which I hope they like. So today finding myself in need of the aforementioned dark full flavoured beer, I bought a bottle of this Dockside Dark
with (it says on the label) "coffee chocolate and subtle sweetness". It's just perfect for Christmas pudding, so I might make an extra one for the guys down there as a small thank you. Mind you, I'm not sure how pleased they'll be - although I love it, I know that traditional Christmas pudding isn't everyone's thing. Still it's the thought that counts!

About a pound/450 grams of mixed dried fruit, about half currants and the rest sultanas and finely chopped ready to eat prunes.
Zest and juice of 1 lemon and 1 orange
1 teaspoon of mixed spice
half a teaspoon of cinnamon and nutmeg
6 ounces/150 grams of dark brown muscovado sugar
1 tablespoon of black treacle
a glug of rum or brandy

4 ounces/100 grams fresh white breadcrumbs
2 ounces/50 gr ground almonds
3 ounces75 gr plain flour
6 ounces/100 gr shredded suet
Around half a pint/250ml of sweetish sherry and dark beer such as Dockside Dark 50:50 mix
3 eggs
1 medium cooking apple such as Bramley, grated, I never bother peeling but you can if you like.

Soak the dried fruits in the sherry and beer mix overnight or longer. Add all the other ingredients and stir well.Everyone in the family should get to have a stir, and make a wish.
 Add your family heirloom charms or coins cleaned with an overnight vinegar soak. Turn into a large pudding basin or two smaller ones.. Cover and steam for at least six hours. Allow to cool and store until Christmas day when you will need to steam again for a couple of hours. Or if you're pushed for hob space on the day just use the microwave to reheat for  a couple of minutes or so when you're ready.