The Cottage Smallholder

Photo: Bath Oliver Biscuits

Shopping with my mum I reached for a pack of Bath Oliver biscuits and was shocked to see that they were £1.85 (price matched with Tesco). My hand hovered. I love these crackers but could I justify spending almost two quid on them?

These biscuits were invented by Dr William Oliver in the mid 1700’s. Dr Oliver was a medical man and philanthropist. The biscuits were designed as a diet biscuit for his obese clients who were taking the waters in Bath. He died leaving his secret recipe, £100 and some sacks of flour to his coachman, Atkins. The lucky Mr Atkins went on to make a fortune with these biscuits.

My mum introduced me to these in the 1960’s as possibly the best biscuit to eat with cheese. Then she discovered chocolate Bath Oliver’s – a real treat for chocoholics with a penchant for dark rich chocolate (they are a great foodie present too for just under a fiver). I put a tin of these in D’s stocking this Christmas, forgetting that he doesn’t eat dark chocolate so had a very enjoyable ramble through the tin during January.

The plain biscuits are great with Davidstow cheddar or just eaten alone with a cup of sweet tea mid morning. The Min Pins love them too.

“Surely you could make something similar. They can’t be more than flour and water.” My mum is always enthusiastically optimistic, when it comes to what I might be able to do.

I peered at the ingredients on the side of the pack
‘Wheat flour, butter oil, vegetable oil, salt, whole milk powder, malt extract, raising agent (ammonium bicarbonate), yeast, hops.’
No wonder they taste so good.

Not having hops and ammonium bicarbonate to hand I slipped a pack into the trolley. But since then I have been looking for a similar recipe to the ‘secret’ Bath Oliver one. I have discovered a lot of interesting biscuits but had failed to find a recipe for a simple savoury biscuit on a par with the Bath Oliver.

Then this evening I found this link. With a recipe! No hops or malt extract but it’s a start.

Watch this space. It could be biscuit shaped.

Photo: Inca tired of the decorating upheaval

As I only have outdoor painting jobs at the moment, the persistent soft Irish misty drizzle has meant that I’m working on our cottage instead. Repairing and decorating the inside.

Danny works from home so we have spent more time together than we have for months. His mini kingdom is the Rat Room. Here he works on his laptop with a diary full of conference calls and deadlines.
“Please make sure that The Contessa doesn’t creep upstairs to nest under the duvet. If she barks when I’m on a call I look/sound like a schmuck.”

The kitchen is almost finished. It looks bright and cottagey. I just need to replace the tiles behind the sink and cooker. The Dulux Light and Space paint works well. It does reflect much more light. Especially at night when the lights can be turned right down.

I had ordered the Absolute White trade version of the paint for the ceiling before Christmas. It’s more expensive but a far greater opacity than the paint available from the ordinary shops so it works out cheaper in the end. So if you are considering using this paint it might be worth going to your local builder’s merchant and ordering the trade version. Few stock it because it’s considered new-fangled!

The paint for the walls was mixed in Homebase where the range is a bit bigger than the premixed paints. The colour is Honey Glaze, which does not appear on the list of Light and Space colours – a very pale primrose yellow. It looks wonderful, but it did take three coats. The cupboards and doors are painted with Dulux Heritage Edwardian Lemon Eggshell. The windows, skirting and door frames are painted with Light and Space quick drying satin (Absolute White) as I was hoping this would reflect more light than ordinary Brilliant White eggshell. It does not have the sort of opacity that I’d expect from a trade paint but the end result is a very pretty room that feels calm and serene. The trick is to undercoat the woodwork with two or three layers of Dulux Trade quick drying primer undercoat and then apply the top coat, rather than one undercoat and three top coats!

I have repainted the bathroom. The walls are completely tiled in white so it was just the ceiling and woodwork (Dulux Light and Space, Absolute White). I’ve also painted the ceiling and the woodwork in The Love Gallery - that leads to the bathroom. We wanted to keep the deep pinkish coral colour on the walls but I’m planning to run over them on Saturday as they look a bit dead now that the woodwork has been buffed up.

I’ve repaired and decorated the stairwell. This is not a conventional hall landing and stairs. The cottage is so old that it’s just a flight of stairs that curve around the central chimney breast, with a little window that overlooks the garden. We used the same colour combination as the kitchen – white ceiling, pale yellow walls and white woodwork. It looks amazing as it was a bit dark and forlorn before.

This is a 360 year old cottage with very low ceilings and small windows. It needs a traditional look. We’ve tried outlandish colours in the past and they just don’t work. Good decorating is all about getting the best out of the space that you have.

A lot of my clients ask me to decorate one room and gradually over the next few months I return to do one more room and eventually decorate the entire house. Once one area is done the rest of the house starts screaming for a makeover. And we’ve experienced that same syndrome.

It will be the sitting room next. Then the bedrooms and finally the exterior. It feels so good to be investing in us for a change. It’s a well known fact that your environment has a fundamental affect on the way that you feel about yourself. Unfortunately we had forgotten this.

But the Min Pins loathe this sojourn. I’m at home but busy and attached to a smelly paint brush. Eventually Inca just sat on the outside edge of the dust cloths on the floor and wept. So I filled the teddy bear hot water bottle that she loves and let her climb into the human dog basket and lie beside the teddy for the afternoon. I know that she has investigated my unusual behaviour and the paint pots. Examine the tips of her ears. Dr Q is also covered with splashes of paint. D’s fleece is streaked back and front.

Only the elegant Contessa has no daubs of paint. She is far too superior to get involved. Holed up in her basket she steps out and stretches when the brushes are finally cleaned and put away for the evening.

Photo: Roast poussin with honey and star anise

I discovered several great cut priced food bargains at Waitrose on Saturday evening. Wild rabbit, two poussin (baby chickens), beef mince and wonderful organic bread. One of the poussin would do for Sunday. Danny peered at the tiny baby chickens and contemplated sharing one the next evening. He swallowed and said nothing. This is a man who loves to cook and carve enormous slabs of meat.

I decided to diffuse the anxiety by talking.
“Don’t worry. I’ll cook. Perhaps lemon butter poussin with mini roasts. Or I’d quite like to have a go at a herb infused spatchcock chicken.”
He hared off upstairs with a spring to his step.

By Sunday evening I fancied making a roast with a difference. The young flesh of poussin can be succulent yet tasteless and needs help to shine. I’ve been wanting to try the combination of honey and star anise with chicken for some time. This recipe worked very well. The star anise and honey had permeated the meat, the lemon enhanced the flavours and cut through the sweetness. The tamarind gave the dish just the right edge and turned it into a wonderful sauce.

I chanced my arm and made Tabbouleh to go with it – adding herbs, finely sliced raw continental onions, uncooked Romano peppers and roasted pinenuts to ours. Using vegetable stock to soak the Bulgar Wheat. It was good but far more fresh herbs would have made it great – they were just not available from our garden the U.K. – the frosts had wrecked them.

This could be an easy supper party dish without the stress of standing in the kitchen cooking vegetables when everyone is having fun elsewhere. Most recipes allow one poussin per person. I reckon that a poussin will easily feed two, especially with a starter or pud. I just ate the breast of one half. Danny ate the rest but he did take three helpings!
“The chicken is succulent but the sauce is divine.”
He guzzled the sauce infused Tabbouleh and didn’t even mention the forgotten promise of mini roasts.

For the best Tabbouleh that I’ve ever tasted check out Mark Hix’s recipe in The Independent here.

Roast poussin with honey, lemon, star anise and tamarind recipe (for two)

Ingredients:

• 1 poussin
• 4 tbsp of honey
• Half a tsp of tamarind sauce
• Large pinch of cayenne pepper
• Half a lemon – zest sprinkled over the breast of the bird and juice rubbed into the flesh. Place the half lemon shell into the cavity of the bird just before roasting.
• 2 star anise placed under the bird
• 2 tbsp of water poured under the bird
• Quarter tsp of garlic paste (or one clove of fresh garlic finely chopped)
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 1 flat tsp of cornflour to thicken the sauce at the end
• Foil to make a roasting cave

Method:

Heat your oven to 190c/170c fan

1. Roll out a decent length of foil – at least 4 x the size of the poussin and lay half into a roasting pan or ovenproof dish. Pull up the sides to form a boat.
2. Place the poussin breast up in this boat and pour the ingredients over the breast. Apart from the water that needs to be added under the chicken to avoid washing off the other ingredients.
3. Pull over the rest of the foil and make an airtight chamber around the baby chicken, crimping well. Put into the centre of a pre heated oven for 50 minutes. Pull the foil way from the breast. Whap the oven temperature to 220c /200c fan for ten minutes to brown the breast.
4. Remove the chicken to a warm place for ten minutes to relax while you thicken your sauce with the cornflour. Cut the poussin in half, arrange them on a dish and spoon the sauce over each portion.

Photo: Pile of books

Quite often I buy or am given packs of greeting cards. They are a great stop gap if suddenly I need to produce a card at a moment’s notice.

Years ago we had a true Picasso moment with a small pack of greeting cards that I had been given and placed in between the books on the shelves in The Rat Room. As this used to be my studio, I had a lot of reference and poetry books up there. In fact this was my core collection of books. The rest were scattered across the rest of the upstairs rooms.

One day Danny was examining the shelves, spotted the spine of the small pack and assumed that it was a book of poems written by Notelet Folder. Clearly European and probably German.

A few weeks later he finally opened this book of poetry and discovered that it was just a cardboard cover holding six small cards. But by then he had already conjured up the sort of poet that Notelet would be. The precious male heir of the Folder family. Danny was so disappointed, he rushed downstairs.
“I thought that this was a book of verse. And it just turns out to be a handful cards in a pretty cover. I didn’t read notelet folder, rather No-tel-let Fol-dur.”

I must admit I was tickled by this and laughed so much that I wept tears of joy. We imagined The Folders bending over the crib and choosing the name for their newborn son.
“Fritz?”
“Max?”
“He looks more like a Notelet.”
“Yes he does.”

D reminded me about Notelet this evening. I had briefly forgotten that Notelet Folder had become a chapter in our annals.  A misunderstood, romantic poet who spends all his money on printing cheap editions of his verse. 

We needed this boost of laughter – so thank you Notelet. Every time that I buy a pack of cards I’ll think of you and smile.