The Cottage Smallholder

Unless you have a shotgun and access to rough shooting, game can be a very expensive treat in the UK. A small pack of mixed game from Waitrose will set you back around a fiver. So when Danny spotted two bags of mixed game marked down to £1.25 each he grabbed them with a chortle. Read More »

  Danny is always looking for new business opportunities. He’s a real dynamo when it comes to this and has learnt a lot over the years. One of his recent gurus suggested watching the film  The Secret so he ordered it from Amazon and it sat unopened on his desk looking tantalising. A couple of Read More »

Danny loves fudge. A few weeks ago he bought some fudge in Newmarket. It was inedible, chewy, tasteless stuff. Danny has a sweet tooth and a passion for cheap sweets and even he couldn’t get beyond the first mouthful and threw the rest away. Somewhere in the back of my mind I remembered making fudge Read More »

Christmas Day and Boxing Day were great fun but exhausting so I spent most of yesterday tucked up in bed with the Min Pins and my laptop. I had planned to plant some bulbs – yes a bit late, I know. The earth is still quite frozen so bulb planting will have to wait. What Read More »

  I’ve had a longing for the past few weeks for a 1960’s sherry trifle. One made with supermarket dry trifle sponges soaked in sherry. Then partnered with fruit and packet jelly and topped with Bird’s custard, whipped cream and flaked almonds. Intuition warbled that fresh pineapple would be good so I bought one. At Read More »

  Just a brief post to wish everyone a very Happy Christmas. My mum treated us to a wonderful Christmas lunch at the Bedford Lodge Hotel complete with crackers and those clever long balloons that drifted around the dining room ceiling wailing as they lost their air. These were politely returned to the tables from which Read More »

  Even though I knew that Father Christmas didn’t exist I was always fooled by my mum’s comment during the month of December. If we were being naughty she would glance outside and say. “I’ve just seen a flash of red at the window. You better behave if you want Christmas stockings this year.” This stopped Read More »

  “I’m more excited about the gate side stand than I am about Christmas.” Danny remarked as he carefully avoided an icy patch on the country road. We were driving back from the market laden with fruit as we’ve run out of some lines. I’m delighted about our stand too. Sales have been pretty good Read More »

  We have a small range of our own mugs in the cottage. Sadly Danny dropped his favourite a few weeks ago and has moved his second favourite into the odds on position. I have mugs of different sizes for distinct times of day. A capacious Cath Kidston strawberry crush mug mug for early morning tea Read More »

  The best piece of kitchen equipment that I bought in 2008 was my slow cooker. I found mine in a sale at Tesco and had no idea how much more flavoursome slow cooking can be. So why did I buy one? I had been seduced by Angela and the thought of slow cooked steak and Read More »