The Cottage Smallholder

It’s strange but I always choose what we will eat in the evening. Even when Danny does the big shop. Even when he does the cooking.

I wake up and the second thought after”I must have a large mug of tea. Now.” Is immediately, “What will we eat tonight?

D is a carnivore with a capital K. If I am feeling tired and droopy, I want light meals with very little meat. He is understanding and agrees to the wildest whims as long as
1) I take his turn to cook
and
2) He can have chips

Chips would be an integral, pivotal element of D’s diet if he went vegetarian. Forget the Quinoa.

We don’t have a deep fat fryer or even a microwave. So we used to make our own chips and oven bake them. We briefly worried about the fat and switched to the wannabe slimmer’s choice: McCain’s (5% fat).

One dreadful day, the supermarket had sold out of low fat chips. It was steak night and steak with chips and all the trimmings (tomatoes and there must be fresh mushrooms) is D’s favourite meal. In the next section of the giant freezer display were large beefy bags bursting with chips. I thought that these were probably crinkle cut and examined them with a sniff. These were Mc Cain’s Home Fries, I read the tag line “Our best tasting oven chip” and popped a sack into my trolley.

Since then I have moved up a dress size but am happy to eat the occasional chip with anything.

Tonight we enjoyed one of our favourite comfort meals. The soufleé omelette. We call this dish The Souflette. I wrote about this in October last year and you can find our recipe here. It is always a big hit with children and the perfect light meal. Danny perked up when I mentioned the menu but when I got home the oven was already on. The souflette like any omelette is fried. Instanly suspicious, I queried what was going on.

He explained,
“I love Souflette, but if it’s going to be our supper, we really need chips for the carbs. If that’s OK?”

Donagh (pronounced Dunna) is Danny’s youngest brother. He is a superb cook. When we meet the Dublin flight at Stansted he is Talking Food. The journey to the cottage is spiced with intriguing recipes and discoveries. Sitting in the back of the car, I begin to get nervous as I always seem to cook for Donagh’s first night. Generally, it’s a disaster.

The next day we shop, he doesn’t buy the most expensive ingredients as we venture through the entire local tranche from Netto to Waitrose, with a dally at Tesco in between. In the evening he cooks and we swoon. As he drops into bed to sleep soundly, the air in the kitchen is filled with the thud of rejected cookery books.
“Why didn’t we prepare for his visit?”
“We did, but the list has vanished.”

Mysteriously, it’s never Danny’s turn to cook when his brother stays. Normally we take turns. Suddenly I am taking turns with his brother.

The thought of Donagh’s king prawns in a garlic, chilli and lemon sauce has tiny hands clapping with glee here at the cottage. It is heavenly. Quick and easy. A no effort ‘impress your friends’ sort of dish. Sublime as a starter with fresh crusty French bread and that is how we normally eat it.

The secret is to buy raw prawns. Every supermarket has them, hidden in the freezer section. When you lift the diminutive bag from the freezer compartment, ignore the price. Once you have tasted this dish, you will be snaking back with a large wad of cash.

This is perfect fast food.

I was working at the weekend with no time to do the normal big weekly shop. This morning, I uncovered a pack of raw prawns in the freezer.

We ate the Gambas al pil pil with egg spaghetti tonight. Great tasty nosh prepared in 15 minutes. It was delicious and packed with flavour.

The other ingredient to watch out for is the chilli. Chillis can be powerful and sometimes demure. The chilli needed for this dish is on the medium side of hot. I used a dried chilli pepper that we bought on our trip to Como nine months ago. Barely 2 cm long, this little fellow had me reaching for the water within seconds of tasting the teeniest bit. Even though this chilli had me vowing to wear gloves next time it flavour didn’t dominate the dish. Its intensity was perfect as it just seemed to enhance the delicate prawn, garlic and lemon flavours

Thanks Donagh. When are you coming to stay again?

Donagh’s Gambas al pil pil recipe with egg spaghetti (for 2)

Ingredients:

• 200g of raw king prawns unfrozen (double the prawns for a starter for 4 with crusty bread but keep the other ingredients the same)
• 2 chunky cloves of garlic (very thinly sliced and chopped)
• 1 small hot chilli (finely chopped)
• 5 tbls of olive oil
• Juice of one large lemon
• 1 tsp of salt
• 1 tbls of flat leafed parsley leaves (torn to garnish)
• 1 tbls of mild rape seed oil to garnish.

Method:

1. In a large saucepan of boiling salted water cook the spaghetti.
2. Meanwhile heat the olive oil (medium to hot until it is just smoking). Add the garlic and chilli. Just as the garlic is turning pale brown toss in the prawns.
3. Keep turning the prawns as you add the lemon juice.
4. When the prawns are no longer translucent (1-2 minutes) fold into to the cooked spaghetti with a decent dash of salt, splosh on the rape seed oil, toss in the flat leafed parsley and serve on warm plates.

Yesterday Jalopy and I were tootling down to Saffron Walden when I spotted a friend walking her dog. The family used to live next door, moved away about six years ago and we gradually lost touch.

Alice is now married and expecting her first baby in three weeks time. When I first met her she was 14. Brilliant with horses and highly intelligent. Our households were close, often eating together and playing games. Not Hunt the Thimble or Monopoly. We played Bob amongst the Aardvarks.

Initially we played charades. The game where one person chooses the title of a book, movie or opera and acts out each word while the rest of the group try and guess the title. At fourteen, Alice struggled as she just hadn’t read as many books or seen as many films as we adults had.

So one day she made up a title. This was a book and also a movie. The title “Bob Amongst the Aardvarks” was tricky to guess but we got there eventually.

After a while we realised that making up titles was far more fun than using real ones. This required great ingenuity as every word had to be communicated and all players were in with a real chance, whatever their age. Sometimes other friends would drop by as we were playing this surreal game and just not get it at all,
“I haven’t heard of that movie. Or any of those books. What’s going on?”
We’d explain and they’d have a go and within minutes get hooked.

Yesterday, as I waved goodbye to Alice she called out,
“Goodbye, Bob.”
I had forgotten that she used to call me Bob and that I was the heroine of her first book title. The book that changed our game playing lives forever.

Ten days ago, Sara from Farming Friends tagged me for seven random facts about my garden.

I have lived here for fifteen years now, creating and maintaining my garden is how I keep vaguely sane.

When I first moved here it was just after I had been released from a short, unhappy marriage. A marriage that was so brief that all I tottered away with was half the wedding presents and a tattered heart.

I am extremely lucky in “The boy stood on the burning deck” sort of way. My aunt had unexpectedly died and left me some money. I could move to this cottage and start a new life. This life would not include a man, or a therapist. I found two new interests that would not give me any time to dwell on the past. I trained as a computer animator and spent three days a week making a garden.

After a few months I realised that I needed more of a focus than just filling beds with shrubs and flowers. I decided to create a garden full of mystery and surprise, with a whole range of different areas to delight and soothe. I decided to create a backdrop for the greatest love affair of all time. This made creating the garden far more exciting as I was playing with the feel and effect of the plants within the space. Five years later I peered over the parapet and spotted Danny. This was just after I had planted the last rose. Guinee is a rose that begs you to loose yourself in its velvety petals and heavy scent.

I divided the garden into three distinct areas using mainly yew hedging, with box edging small borders and beech hedging along the north side of the garden. Danny finds this useful for drying the washing when the line is full.

Last summer I created this bower in the large herbaceous border in the first part of the garden. At the moment I am busy replanting the side to the left of the path. The Min Pins enjoy standing by the bower and barking at the bank manager next door.

A few years ago we cut an arch in the yew hedge creating a bit more mystery. It is planted with flowers and a honey scented euphorbia. There is also a large statue of a dog holding a basket of flowers in his mouth. This is invisible in high summer.

Years ago a very old friend admitted to me that he would be happy to sit beside a pond and watch the fish all day. I think of him when I stand and lose myself in our stretch of water. The pond is 28 feet long and a haven for wildlife.

A small brick path leads to the orchard area, chicken run and kitchen garden.

This is the hub of vegetable, egg and fruit production. I spend a lot of time in this section of the garden particularly the greenhouse. I love that special greenhouse smell.

Years ago I made a red border, designed to shock as it was planted at a time when everyone was into pastel colours. This was eaten up by the yew hedge eventually. The aubrietia are still clinging on and have a tendency to grow flat on the grass. I love the splash of colour at this time of year. Inca, our youngest Min Pin is always nearby when I potter in the garden.

Now it’s my turn to tag – here are the seven sites that I would like to share their seven random gardening facts (in no particular order of preference);
1. Little Foodies http://www.littlefoodie.blogspot.com/
2. Purple Podded Peas http://purplepoddedpeas.blogspot.com/
3. Joanna’s Food http://joannasfood.blogspot.com/
4. My Dutch Garden http://mydutchgarden.blogspot.com/
5. Kate Smudges http://katesmudges.blogspot.com/
6. Fluffius Muppetus http://www.coopette.com/blog
7. Garden Dogs http://gardendogs.blogspot.com/

The rules:
Each player starts with 7 random facts/habits about themselves. People who are tagged need to then report this on their own blog with their 7 random facts as well as these rules. They then need to tag 7 other garden blogs and list their names on their blog. They are also asked to leave a comment for each of the tagged, letting them know they have been tagged and to read the blog.

Mrs Boss is the Bantam heroine of the Farming Friends – Cottage Smallholder Interblog Guinea Fowl Breeding Event. She has been broody more often than not throughout her four summers. As a result, she spends weeks either in the anti broody coop or being bullied by the other hens in our flock.

Sara at Farming Friends took pity on this diminutive feather footed hen and sent six guinea fowl eggs to us in the post for Mrs B to hatch out. Within days Mrs boss was living in her own castle within the main chicken run. Suddenly she had privacy, her own apartment with garden, six eggs and the prospect of a brood. Even though Hello has not yet telephoned she is already a cyberspace superstar, drawing comments from all over the world. Five out of the six eggs hatched out and the keets are now one month old.

I have never seen a happier Bantam chicken. The keets are quite a handful but still very much her brood, rushing to shelter under her wing when it rains or something rattles them.

They are growing fast and taking more interest in the outside world as each day passes. Now they know that my arrival in the run at lunchtime usually means a tasty treat of chickweed or chopped lettuce.

They shoot out of the castle followed by a clucking Mrs Boss and then cluster beside her, jumping up out down with anticipation. They play tag rugby with the lettuce leaves. Mrs Boss is generous. If she gets a leaf she immediately drops it for one of her brood.

Yesterday I had an afternoon off work so I filmed them so you can see how they are developing. Mrs Boss stunned me by performing a magnificent leap, jumping right out of shot. The keets are clearly bringing out the Svengali strain in her ancestry. Her new movie Mrs Boss Jumps – Svengali Bantam was released on YouTube today and you can see it here.