Sunshine - hard to believe - but yes, sunshine!

Wednesday was our first sun-filled day for so long, so I took advantage of it and cleared all of the area in and around the polytunnel frame so that it will be ready for the new cover to go on once my worker returns from his visit to the UK.  The trailer is now full of rubbish to go to the déchetterie.   

 

 

 

 

Below are the blue ceramic pots I use on my terrace, empty and waiting for the warmer weather to establish before I get them planted up.

 

The following day it was also gorgeous weather so I worked on the veggie area most of the day in the beautiful sunshine.  I planted just nine potatoes which had sprouted in my veggie rack and sowed loads of seeds.   I sowed carrot, peas, beetroot, perpetual spinach, turnip and everlasting bunching onions straight into the ground and then globe artichokes, butternut squash, Moneymaker tomatoes, Gardener’s Delight tomatoes, aubergines and courgettes into seed trays.  I planted a bag of onion sets and dug and weeded all the raised beds through except two. 

I found this wonderful small handtool at SuperU a couple of months ago.  It has two ends, one like a baby mattock and one of three tines.  This isn't a photo of mine, but it's virtually the same.  With this miracle tool,  I sped through the beds like I never have before.  If only I'd started my gardening life with one.

A French couple walking in the lane wandered into my animal/veggie area, they were doing a long walk in the sunshine.  They lived up in the north of Brittany, he worked in agricultural  polytunnels and we stood in the sunshine chatting for about 40 minutes about hens, goats and veggies.  The man described the wonderful computerised set up he has at work for heating, watering etc – my eyes were green as he talked.

Today the temperature reached 22.7°C in the shade on the terrace.  I wasn't in the shade, needless to say, but seriously sunbathing in swimsuit and listening to two weeks of The Archers recorded pocasts - bliss. 

The cats frequently sit beside me while I'm in the garden - here they are on the gravel next to me.  I read almost to the end of my current book - this has been a perfect day for me.  

The chicks enjoyed their first day outside as it was so warm.  I put them in the rabbit are on the grass in a small run 2m x 1m and they loved it. 

 

They are not yet three weeks old but were doing test flights and generally running about, pecking and scratching the ground.  I brought them in once the sun started losing its heat and they'll spend the night in the brooder as usual.

 

 

 

The rabbits seem quite interested in the chicks and I think they enjoy having something different to entertain them when they are not resting - Bert and his dad, Boris.

As I walk up the lane towards the calvaire the song thrush is singing his heart out at the top of a tree.  The song is so beautiful I often stand still and just listen for several minutes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The bergenia is blooming next to the staddlestone and looks lovely.

Three things I like:

1.   I found my Drizabone hat which had gone missing for 16 days – yippee!

2.   The virtuous feeling due to working hard all day and getting lots of stuff done.

3.   Listening to my thrush in the lane singing his song.

Most of my time this week has been taken up with the incubator eggs hatching.  Usually they all hatch within about 24 hours of each other but this time, for reasons unknown, the first little yellow chick arrived on Monday evening and the last arrived on Thursday morning.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There was a lot of uncertainty about the hatch due to the power cuts we had on Friday and Saturday last week.  The temperature had dropped considerably on the Saturday and I was worried there would be no chicks. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here the first two chicks have been transferred to the brooder under an infra-red light which, of course, tints the photograph.

 

 

Here are some grown up chickens.  Two Buff Orpingtons hens and their cockerel ready for sleep and sharing their house with a friend's four red hens.  Some more Orpingtons and her little black hen are on the other side of the house.

 

 

In spite of having a wing clipped the Muscovy ducks continue to fly and are often to be found on the barn roof.  Here my grey girl is on the top of the gate to the area before the pond field.

 

 

Here are the seven surviving chicks.  I am so pleased to write that the two dark birds, at the front of this photo, are female Cream Legbars who will eventually lay blue eggs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I met a friend from England for hot chocolate and a catch up yesterday afternoon and she had a lovely present for me - a Guinness Pie Set.  I am really happy with it and have today made a Guinness beef casserole which I shall turn into a pie tomorrow using the Guinness, special dish and funnel.

 

 

Last week, I made a beef and orange casserole in the slow cooker.  It tasted wonderful but I always think it looks particularly beautiful before it's cooked too.

 

 

 

I have done lots of cooking this week and while I had nearly an hour on the telephone with my daughter I made four small quiches from scratch to finished cooked products.

 

 

 

 

I made four and have to say that none now remain.  They were so moist and gorgeous that I have eaten them all.

 

Stuffed pancakes with cheese sauce were also on the menu this week with fresh watercress from my pond.

 

 

In spite of the wet weather it has not been cold and the primroses have bloomed in the lane and my drive.    The rhubarb in the bed next to the first hen run has really got going now and crumble will definitely be on the menu before the end of February.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Claude has been very bored with the whole business of the chicks and has done a lot of yawning, although he has been seen sitting on the grid above the brooder perhaps thinking they would make a tasty lunch.

 

 

Here's Claude with Purrdy, enjoying a comfy cushion in the warmth of the woodburner.

 

I think that this budding branch in the lane is a hawthorn but I can't remember well enough to be sure.  I love the little red growths which look almost like berries and contrast so beautifully with the lichen.

 

 

Some of the sunsets in the lane recently have been beautiful and very colourful - tilt your screen backwards a little for the best colour saturation.

 

Three things I like: 

 

1.   Seeing and hearing my new little fluffy chicks.

2.   Reading The Times and The Guardian which my worker brought back from the UK  - I do miss the papers.

3.   Receiving some runner bean seeds in the post from a forum member.

Baking again and Snowdrops

 

I’ve been baking again.  How I love to make my loaves now that I’ve got my recipe off pat and can gather and add the ingredients without consulting my printed reminder.   I love the huge china bowl with its golden yellow outside.  Not a true Mason Cash bowl, officially called a “cane bowl” because of the colour created by the local clay, but a generic example which is just as good.   I no longer realise it isn’t the traditional model which my mother used and which I used to stand by in the hope of gliding my fingers round the white glossy interior to collect the last scrapings of raw cake mix.

 

As I open the paper wrapping of the strong white bread flour there is always a teaspoonful of its white dust trapped under the creases of the top fold, and the powder drifts across my wooden kitchen table settling like snow on the verges of the lane.  I so enjoy opening a fresh bag of flour and of sugar too but I always hold the sugar bag over the sink so the grains hidden in the origami of the bag top fall harmlessly onto the stainless steel so I don’t hear the crunch underfoot.

 

 

This week I made my first white plait loaf.  I  understand that you're supposed to plait from the centre out to the ends by turning the tray around half way through, but I just plaited straight down from the top, like I used to do for my daughter Libby's hair.  It worked well and it was a lovely loaf both to eat and aesthetically.

 

 

While the oven was hot I popped in a fish pie which was covered in breadcrumbs made from the remaining end of my last loaf.

 

 

It was lovely especially the sauce - so tasty and yet not overwhelming the cod and prawns.  In case anyone wants to make these individual fish pies, here is my recipe.

 

 

125g of cod per individual pie              2 shell-on prawns per individual pie

Petit pois                                            Lemon

Milk                                                    Celery leaves

Parsley                                               Bay leaves

Cornflour                                            Butter

Salt and Pepper

 

Pour some milk into a lidded flat pan and add three bay leaves, a few sprigs of parsley/stalks and a couple of celery leaves, salt and pepper. 

Put cod, without bones, into pan and top with butter before putting on the lid.

Gently poach the fish until almost cooked and remove fish to a plate.

Slake some cornflour with milk and add to the fishy milk in the flat pan stirring continuously while it thickens and cooks through, then remove from heat.

Shell the prawns.

Place the shells, a chopped garlic clove, parsley stalks, a little milk and butter in a small saucepan and cook for a few minutes.

Pour the contents of the saucepan into a liquidiser and blitz.

Use a ladle to push the result through a sieve to remove shells and bits.

Add the sieved pink sauce into the flat pan and mix well with the white sauce.

Place a good spoonful of sauce into the bottom of each 10cm/4”ramekin.

Flake a good layer of the cod onto the sauce.

Next sprinkle petit pois into the ramekin.

Place two shelled prawns on top of the peas and sprinkle with a little lemon juice.

Spoon more sauce in until it covers the prawns.

Add another good layer of fish and sauce nearly up to the top of the ramekin.

At this stage you can place them in the fridge, clingfilmed, for breadcrumbing later in the day or tomorrow.   Remove from the fridge an hour before cooking. 

When you are ready to cook, blitz bread into crumbs to give a good final layer on the pie fillings.  Then put ramekins on a baking tray and cook in the oven for 8-10 minutes until heated through and golden.   Salad or chips – you choose. 

I ate my first one with fresh, peppery watercress.  I picked some roots from my neighbour's, currently with all this rain, fast flowing stream and put them in my fish pond which has pumped water running through it.  

You can double click any photograph to see it enlarged.

 

 

 

The leaves are large and wonderful to eat with a little fresh ground salt sprinkling their leaves.

My grumpy neighbours in Cornwall had watercress growing in their stream but refused to allow me to pick it.  They were mostly away as it was a holiday home, so for ten months of the year I enjoyed fresh watercress in salads and sandwiches.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the banks of the watercress stream there are bright clumps of brilliant white snowdrops - just lovely.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 There are catkins - fully developed now - on the young hazels bordering the little triangle of grass outside my west facing kitchen window.

 

In spite of the dreadful winds and rain we are experiencing so far this winter, nature is managing to carry on and bring a little beauty to the village.

Three things I like:

1.   Being able to use my washing machine again after having the water turned off for two days of plumbing repairs.

2.   Hearing from my Deerhurst-based cousin that so far, their flood defences are working.

3.   Looking forward to lunch with friends the day after tomorrow.

 

 

Wet weather and good food

The rain continues to fall even though the ground cannot absorb any more water.  The hen runs are lethal and I fall frequently in spite of always holding a very long handled fork and stabbing this into the quagmire to try and stay upright.  This is the short cut I usually take

 

 

but it is now too wet to use this path without ending up lying on the sodden grass.

 

We have also had hail and, I think overnight one night, a very light sprinkle of snow.  This was left on the ground when I walked up to the field.  The winds have been very strong, noisy and frightening.  The rain seems to have been relentless although we have had periods of sunshine which have been lovely but too short.

 

Because of the rain and not wanting to go outside I have been cooking.  I bought from SuperU four aubergines for just one euro.  I have only eaten aubergine once before and so I searched the internet for recipes.  I ended up doing my own thing which was:

 

Halve, drizzle with olive oil and put in the oven on a baking tray for about fifty minutes until soft.  Then with a spoon carefully empty the half skins of the aubergine flesh and save the skins for stuffing.  Meanwhile in a frying pan gently fry in olive oil chopped onion and garlic and then a tomato in small cubes with chopped parsley, salt and pepper.  Add the onion and garlic back into the pan with cooked basmati rice, a good handful of golden sultanas, which give the dish intriguingly sweet notes, and the chopped flesh of the aubergine.  Add one teaspoon of cumin powder.  I had never used cumin before and it is delicious.  Gently stir everything together before stuffing the aubergine skins and putting them onto the baking tray.

 

 Using fresh breadcrumbs, cover the heaped filling of the aubergines and drizzle with olive oil before placing in the oven for 5-10 minutes or until they are a deep golden colour.

 

 

They were lovely and I will be making them again and again.

This afternoon I made cauliflower cheese with English Cheddar cheese, which I then ate with fresh tomato and crispy fried streaky bacon rashers.

While I was cooking, my oldest cat, Purrdy, brought in a robin.  Luckily I saw her coming through the cat corridor and managed to get it away from her.   I calmed him for a few minutes and took his photo before placing him on the garden wall from where he flew to freedom.

There was another taste of wildlife inside at the Pub Quiz this week when a Red Admiral butterfly was flying around the room.  At one point he landed on a paper I was holding but he ended up resting for about thirty minutes on one lady's white hair.

 

 

 

This is a photo of some of the horses in the village being exercised in the lane.  I love that the riders are texting with mobile phones while in the saddle!  You can click on the pictures to enlarge them if you like.

 

 

In Cornwall too the weather has been atrocious.  Here is Emma, Mia's Mummy, lying on the wind at Trevose Head with the sea crashing in below and the waves coming over the top too in the second photo.  I stole these from her Facebook page. 

 

Lastly Claude and Grace lying on the settee.  I think Gracie is telling Claude that her legs have gone to sleep and will he please shift himself.

 

Three things I like:

 

1.   Experimenting with food and making something I want to eat again and again.

2.   Getting back into the warm  and dry after dealing with the animals.

3.   Linking up two of my friends who may get together.