Welcome to the cow shed

One of the drawbacks of living in the country is getting from a to b. Scant public transport and winding roads can mean a lot of time spent behind the wheel. But I treat this as an opportunity to revel in extraordinary skies, keep abreast of crop rotation and appreciate the richness of East Anglian architecture.

Time permitting, I would also mention that there are glorious surprises in store if one takes a spontaneous trip down a stony drive to investigate one of the many chalked up roadside placards. Sunday was no exception. I had completed my parental taxi duty and it was such lovely evening I decided to take the circuitous route home. I was soaking up the beautiful mackerel sky when I saw a sign that said ‘raw milk fourth left’.

Irresistible. 

It was a long drive.

Keep a troshing??

Norfolk dialect for carry on with the threshing, roughly translated as keep going! I think. 

Anyhow, I kept going. 

Past lawns peppered with geese and peacocks.

To a little wooden shed, with a fridge, an honesty box, and deliciously creamy raw milk, 

straight from the udders of six beloved Jersey cows named after Goddesses.

Yes, I’ll be volunteering for that taxi run every time!

Keep up with the developments @Old Hall Farm, Woodton, on social media, 

there are plans afoot for more local produce in a bigger shed! 

Man with a van...

Someone's pleased it's pancake day!

Squirreling away nuts

Walnuts and squirrels are hotly debated topics of conversation in the country. Any advice on how to keep the two apart is gratefully received.

A few years ago we planted two walnut trees but still barely get to enjoy a single nut.

The trees flower and fruit abundantly but I have yet to outwit the squirrels. I could snatch the nuts early on, while they are still green, and pickle them. But what I really want, is the satisfaction of cracking fully fledged, deliciously milky nuts out of their lumpy shells.

This year I tied little net bags around as many nuts as I could reach. But the fluffy tailed thieves merely used the twine as dental floss in preparation for some serious gnawing.

Last year we had one nut, this year I was chuffed to salvage twenty.
By constructing an impassable metal platform under the lower branches of his tree my neighbour, with a competitive glint in his eye, tells me he harvested four hundred and thirty. (Gardeners love to count, I know a man who keeps a tally when deadheading his dahlias!)

Fortunately I can buy as many walnuts as I want for Christmas from Geoffrey who sells his produce at the local farmer’s market. His three trees are forty years old and crop handsomely.

When I ask him about squirrels he simply smiles and says “shoot 'em”.

Salad or soup?

It might be November but on bright days the garden maintains a distinctly summery tempo. The dahlias continue to throw out dazzling blooms and there will be salad for lunch with pickled beetroot.  

 

  

More fitting for November alas, we have bleak days when mist hangs in the air and virtually obliterates the vegetable patch. Out of sight out of mind, I have to make a positive mental note to gather dinner before darkness.

This weekend I pulled up the old beanpoles and prepared the ground for planting garlic. Nothing complicated... just the painstaking removal of a barrow load of buttercups. The ground was well composted in the spring and if my garlic cloves are lucky I’ll remember to add some lime and wood ash.

As a bonus for my efforts, there were a few wizened pods clinging to the beanpoles, from which I rescued perfectly nourishing beans. They’re now squirreled away in the larder for the increasingly frequent days when a hearty soup is really more appropriate than a summer salad.

And what’s more the larder shelf is comfortingly shielded from the elements!

Fish on the menu

"Summer cooking implies a sense of immediacy, a capacity to capture the essence of the fleeting moment." 
Elizabeth David

Pop to Aldeburgh first thing in the morning and you’ll see damp fishing boats parked on the pebbly beach next to small black huts advertising the day’s catch. Almost still flapping, silvery skins glistening you literally “won’t find anything fresher”, to borrow a chalked up phrase.

 Know your fishes...

"Plaice, sole and haddock join the crustacea as some of the month's best eating. Sea bass is a rare delicacy, steamed whole for a surprisingly short time." Jeremy Round

Open Farm Sunday

Last weekend we took advantage of Open Farm Sunday to go and have a poke around the local Kenton Hall Estate; a multi generational farm with with an inspiring enthusiasm for diversity which includes not only arable, beef and pigs but also wedding venue, glamping and cookery school! 

No wellies necessary, the weather was perfect; the tractors had been scrubbed up, lawns cut, there were teeny piglets to make us ooh and ahh, and magnificent Longhorn cattle with their suckling calves. Of course in the food tent there was also home reared ham to nibble, outstanding beef to savour and tasty bacon to bring home. 

There were dozens of local food producers, all rightly fanatical about their artisan wares. Breads, sauces, cakes, honey, and superb Baron Bigod brie, hand made from raw milk.

I had already met this young man from Fen Farm Dairy at a food festival last year... I just loved the way he cradled his brie with a tenderness normally reserved for new born babies!

April

What a heady couple of days! 
A real burst of spring sunshine. Perfect conditions for gardening and bread making; which should never go hand in hand of course. I have lost count of the number of times this weekend I have interrupted my weeding, to unlace muddy boots, scrub my nails, then shape a ciabatta or check the plumpness of a hot cross bun. 

I have sown seeds, grubbed out brambles and divided perennials to the repetitive warble, whoop and twitter of happy bird song. Fat bumble bees have been flying loop the loop in the sunlight. Fingers crossed they found the broad beans that have been in flower since February and the plum blossom in the orchard.
My son tackled the jobs I have been trembling at for years. Those requiring a pickaxe, a drill and the energy of a teenager. 

For all the ebullience of spring, however, I am going to miss the criss-cross outlines of winter which have become so familiar. The generous outstretched arms of the oak, the clatter of poplar branches in the wind, and the matronly willow stripped down to her crinoline. 

A surprise Christmas present

I received these cute little pins featuring my veggie illustrations, from the creative folks at Bluehill.

    

Quite timely, as I’m busy chopping up mountains of veg. Forget mince pies, stodgy puds and fiddly canapés; all you really need in the fridge for the holidays is a huge pot of home-made Minestrone soup.

Its beauty is manifold... Start it off with all the lost souls from the vegetable garden, the split carrots, dried out beans and knobbly artichokes and then keep the pot topped up with any left over veg from dinner and once the bird is finished, the stock from the turkey bones. Just keep a vague eye on the proportion of veg to stock and it should get even tastier as time goes on. 

Such an accommodating soup always reminds me of a story we used to read to our children when they were small... 

A cold and hungry tramp arrives on the doorstep of a cosy farmhouse. The farmer’s wife very reluctantly invites him in but is adamant that she doesn’t want to share with him the mouthwatering ingredients she is preparing for her supper. 
Thinking she can fob him off she drops a rusty nail into her pot of simmering water and presents him with a bowl of “nail soup”. 
The tramp sips it, oh so gratefully and declares it delicious. She is flattered. 
There’s a but, though. 
He suggests that to elevate the soup to the next level of delectability she could maybe add an onion? 
You’ve probably guessed, she is persuaded one by one to rummage through her cupboards and add all the ingredients she was reserving for her own supper. The more she adds the more appreciative the tramp is, until they’re both sitting down together sharing a hearty stew.

While I do harbour an affection for the beauty of rusty nails, you will notice I have left them out of this soup. In the spirit of the story though, I am all for rifling through the fridge. In goes that drop of oil swilling around in the otherwise empty anchovy tin and likewise some tomatoes that are too squishy for slicing but perfect for squashing. 

Serves 6

2 tbsp olive oil
1 large garlic clove, finely sliced
1 large onion, diced
2 sticks celery, finely diced
½ bulb fennel, diced
2 decent carrots, diced
1 small parsnip, diced 
1 leek halved lengthways, then chopped

1.5 litres stock (veg or preferably turkey)
4 tomatoes (squashed!) or a 400 g can of chopped tomatoes
450 g fresh borlotti beans or a 400 g can of beans
¼ head savoy cabbage
50 g dried mini pasta shapes (or all those broken shards in the bottom of any normal bag)
2 tbsp chopped fresh marjoram
2 tbsp chopped fresh flat leaf parsley
sea salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

freshly grated parmesan to serve

Combine the olive oil and garlic in a large, heavy pot over a medium heat. Add the onion, celery and fennel and sauté for 5 minutes, stirring frequently with a spatula. Add the carrots, parsnip, and leek and continue to cook gently for a further 10 minutes, until the vegetables are beginning to soften. If they are starting to brown reduce the heat.

Add 1.2 litres of the stock, the chopped tomatoes, and the beans. Bring the soup to a boil , then reduce the heat to low and simmer, partially covered, for 45 minutes, stirring occasionally. 

Add the cabbage, pasta the fresh herbs and the remaining stock. Simmer for another 10 minutes or until the cabbage and pasta are cooked. Taste and adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper. 

Serve with freshly grated parmesan and warm crusty bread.

If you're likely to be deluged by un-announced 'first-footers' tonight, or maybe a weary tramp, there's ample time before midnight to get a pot simmering… 

In fact the local stray cat has just forced entry to my kitchen and plundered the meat I was planning to cook, so we might well be having Minestrone soup too! 

Happy New Year

Long time, no see….

Bank holiday weekend... time for catching up with old friends.

 Just happened to bump into these saucy guys in the Co-Op.

Last time I saw them they were on on my drawing board!

mmnnn.… as good as homemade!

Morning treat

This morning at breakfast I celebrated the fact that Doris has started to lay again! 

Winter can be lean time for eggs.
Doris had taken some time out over Christmas to reorganise her feathers.
Hulanicki is still too busy fussing over her spring wardrobe to even think about resuming production. 

Peggy MBE, my rescue chicken, however has a tremendous work ethic and has been laying all winter. 

So, two eggs a day now and I’m hoping that will soon increase to four.

I don’t think you’ve met my youngest. She’s a Vorwerk hen; a breed that originates in Germany (and coincidentally shares its name with a company that produces vacuum cleaners!).

Her given name is ‘Berlin-da’ to remind me of a memorable trip to the city last year. 
And of all my fowl I think she is the one, like dog owners who resemble their dogs, that I have an affinity with. She’s a neat brown bird with a black head and tail... and we converse in German. Take note, regularly speaking more than one language can apparently delay the onset of Alzheimers by up to five years. There is method in my madness!

Back to my egg... which features in the current Waitrose magazine. Over the last few months I’ve enjoyed illustrating some cooking themed snippets, like making dried apple rings and almond milk and, shhhh, how to spatchcock a chicken. 

Luckily for Berlin-da I don’t know the german for ‘spatchcock’!

Busy...

…by A.A. Milne

"I think I am a Muffin Man. I haven't got a bell, 

I haven't got the muffin things that muffin people sell. 

Perhaps I am a Postman. No, I think I am a Tram. 

I'm feeling rather funny and I don't know what I am — "

Monday.

I think I am a squirrel. I haven’t got a nut

Perhaps I am a butcher with lots of meat to cut.

I have one and a half pigs lying on my kitchen table. Mostly chopped up by a real butcher. Errr, kidney, ears, heart, tongue? Freeze now, worry later. Wot, no snout?

Tuesday. 

No I think I am a chef.

Deboned a huge ham and minced up great slabs of slippery liver to made lovely garlicky country pate.

Wednesday. 

I think I am a sous chef, 

Working for the chef.

Put a couple of trotters and that big ham bone (from the pig with a limp) into the biggest stock pot I own and simmered overnight for broth.

Thursday. 

Perhaps I am a vet who is visiting for a limp.

Deconstructed the pig’s knee joint as I was straining my stock. 
Aha, found a cluster of bone spurs - little bony growths that inhibit the smooth movement of the joint.
(I would not ordinarily have been so fascinated but I have just illustrated an arthritic knee for a cookery book.)
Froze pots and pots of stock and supped restorative broth for lunch.

Friday.

No I think I am a seamstress.

Off to the Haberdashers to buy muslin to wrap up an arthritic ham for air drying. 

Saturday.

I’m feeling rather funny and I don’t know what I am!

Not for the squeamish!

At exactly the same time that my husband was limping around waiting for a knee replacement operation earlier this year, I was serendipitously commissioned to illustrate a book called “Nourishing Broth” by Sally Fallon Morell, “the definitive cookbook that can help you treat symptoms of autoimmune disorders, infectious diseases, digestive problems and other chronic ailments”.

It made fascinating reading and was definitely a first for me as far as painting gristle is concerned!

“Most people know cartilage as gristle. It’s the blob on the bone of a T-bone steak, the globs on chicken drumsticks”. 

I learnt all about boiling up bones for minerals, which in turn keep our own bones strong, marrow, which is important for stem cell regeneration and gelatin which is obtained from boiling up skin, cartilage, tendons, and ligaments. (Hmm, not your average cookbook ingredients, but worth reading on I assure you).  

I now understand that gelatin provides amino acids that the body needs to make connective tissue, i.e. all the bits that hold the body together. Perfect for an arthritic knee! 

At the risk of sounding like a school text book I even got to draw pretty pictures of glycoproteins and connective tissues.

This is all very pertinent, as the pigs are booked to go to the abattoir on Thursday and I’m busy making important decisions as to how I’d like them butchered and do I want the trotters and heads? 

Well, if only for the sake of a post operative knee I think I should boil up anything and everything!

The New Term

A week ago I took my daughter to Uni. 

She’s studying Illustration in sunny Brighton. 

She is sharing a house with six first year art students. 

The upheaval has temporarily taken its toll on my sanity.

Why was I sanding down an old chest of drawers for her the day before departure? 

And why hadn’t her washing been done sooner?

I can still only manage short sentences.

But it has been a learning curve, so here are my tips on what to take and what not to leave behind.

Succulents and potted herbs are fundamental, don’t argue.

Clothes pegs have many uses and have assisted mankind for over 150 years. Don’t let any student tell you they’ve been superceeded by an App.

Empty nutella jars will be very handy for keeping leftovers in the shared fridge. And a house full of art students should have some fancy pens between them for labelling the little snap on lids. 

Don’t worry about seeming to be eccentric... sneak in a tray of home-grown apples, courgettes, carrots, garlic, onions, home-made jam, chutney, fragrant plum sauce and crabapple and chilli jelly. It WILL be appreciated because it’s FREE.

Check the clothes dryer before you set off. 
(Today in a gesture of unconditional love, I have searched for, found, packed up and posted underwear!)

Break your journey at IKEA. It is integral to the rite of passage... even if you only buy another plant, over door hooks and a toilet brush.

If you can, also stop off at the grandparents en route. They will love being involved in this exciting stage of their granddaughter’s life. It also means you can borrow a duvet when your daughter’s own is inexplicably still lying on her bed at home.

And finally, when you arrive at the house, be prepared to do the lion’s share of carrying boxes and A1 portfolios up to the top floor. After all your daughter will need time to get her succulents arranged on the shabby chic chest of drawers!

My New Best Friend

There is one thing that really, really irks me about jam making... apart from standing over a spitting cauldron in the middle of August, with cobwebs in my hair because I’ve just been searching for empty jam jars (and matching lids!!) in the outhouse... 

Yes, it’s that irritating rectangle of glue left smirking at me from the side of the jar once I’ve soaked the old label off. Am I alone?

Well, now I’m the one smiling. Meet my knight in shining armour, my solvent in a gleaming tin, who goes by the name of WD-40 and not only dissolves adhesive in a trice but also promises to ‘stop squeaks, drive out moisture, clean and protect, loosen rusted parts and free sticky mechanisms’. What a thoroughly decent gentleman!

P.S. Just in case our relationship doesn’t last, I've decided to make my labels out of gumstrip which will soak off easily next time around!

A question for you...

What do a teaspoon, potato curry and a five pence piece have in common?

They all turned up in my compost heap yesterday! Well, strictly speaking the potatoes were not curried when I found them. The thin skinned, firm fleshed, tiny new potatoes were growing happily from a potato discarded months ago. Was it cruel to curry them? I guess mint and a knob of butter might have been sufficient. 

Too late, and anyway they were just the inspiration I needed for dinner. I’d had a long day in the garden. I’d planted out my sweetcorn, celeriac and celery, dug over some compacted soil, sown some more salad and potted up some more tomatoes (why did I sow so many?), culled barrow loads of weeds and now I needed comfort food!

..and a scattering of fresh coriander.

P.S. I am not the only one who has been taking advantage of a serendipitous dinner. A fox has been cruising past lately, picking up his supper 'to go'. Just four chickens left and my heart in my mouth every time I take the register at night!

'Out with the old, in with the new'

We’ve just got a new pig!

Which has got me thinking about the highlights of the old pig.... so before I pare our final delicious slivers of air dried ham here’s a snapshot.

Six months ago I was faced with 'pig' laid out before me on the kitchen table, head, shoulders, loin, legs, trotters, everything, the possibilities were endless… sausages, bacon, chorizo, brawn, ham...

Dealing with a pig requires a ton of salt, a sharp knife, an uncomfortably chilly working environment and for hams and chorizo, a frustrating wait of several months. 

I found the whole process definitely lacks the finger-lickin’ bliss that goes hand in glove with an afternoon cocooned in a warm kitchen whipping up sticky cakes. But frankly I’d swap a constant supply of air dried ham for an iced bun any day. 

I simply followed Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s guidance and it couldn’t have been easier. 

Very approximately... debone a hind leg, leaving just the knuckle protruding- easier than than you think with a really sharp knife. Rub inside and out with salt then resurrect your needlework skills with a nice bit of blanket stitch to sow up the joint. (Sadly not as photogenic as an iced bun!)

Completely cover the ham in a box of salt, weight the lid and leave in a cool place for a couple of weeks to cure.

Wash and dry the ham, rub all over with vinegar then wrap tightly in muslin.

Hang in a cool, well ventilated place for a few months until it is firm but not rock hard. Mine swung from the garage rafters, (encased in chicken wire as a deterrent to vermin and hungry cats and only moderately impeding access to the bicycles, ouch).

The only mistake I made was to do one leg not two.... but I can rectify that this year!

P.S. If you're wondering what happened to that box full of salt, it makes a very good weedkiller, more on that later.