Perfect present
With Mother’s Day approaching I often smile about the first time that my sister and I actually sat down and thought what my mum would like for her birthday. I must have been about five at the time. Until then it had been the sort of Indian giving that children go in for – liquorish laces that I knew would be returned (she hated liquorice). Or an afternoon playing with my favourite Dinky Noddy car. She’d put it on the kitchen table beside the ironing blanket as she thumped away. I’d stand beside her keeping my eye carefully on the...
read moreThe slow cooker chef: Organic steak and kidney pie for carnivores on a budget
We are eating far less meat these days. Eating superb meals most evenings. But sometimes we long for a real alpha carnivore meal, especially as we have ditched the Cottage Smallholder Friday night steak treat – just too expensive at the moment. This recipe is so easy, delicious and cheap. If you used non organic ingredients you could probably cut the price by at least 30% (just 62p per portion. A steal for a rich meat heavy dish.) I decided to turn some of our shin of beef (£8.00 for 2 kilos from the organic butcher) into a slow cooked...
read moreChoosing the seeds for 2009
I woke up a couple of nights ago with the name “White Lady” on my lips. I lay quite still, wondering where the words had come from. A few minutes later I remembered that Maurice had recommended “White Lady” as the best runner bean seed available in the UK. Jalopy and I were loitering in with intent in Fordham yesterday, visiting the organic butcher and the Secret Garden stand. Just opposite this wonderful resource there is a small branch of Scotsdale’s in the Fordham High Street. A good garden centre which is a mini version of the...
read moreDreaming of butchers and home smoked bacon
Our new organic butcher buys his beef from farmers whose steers graze the fields in the local studs around our village. Something like ox kidney has to be ordered in advance. Last week I invested in organic shin of beef, just £8.00 for 2 kilos. And a large oxtail that was quite a bit more expensive. Some shin and oxtail went into a beef and vegetable soup and the rest was frozen until an organic ox kidney was available to make our favourite Steak and Kidney Pie. So this morning I motored over to Fordham to collect the kidney and buy an...
read moreGarden update: March 2009
Even though our broad beans were planted in November they have only just come through over the last couple of weeks. Usually they appear by late December. I was beginning to think that the seeds might have failed. John Coe planted his own beans a good couple of weeks before he sowed ours. Just before Christmas we stood surveying the kitchen garden. “Your beans will be coming through very soon. Mine started peeping through last week.” But the freezing weather in late December and January must have set them back. I don’t mind at all. We...
read morePassata and rice water can remove the metallic tang of leeks in a dish
I’ve discovered that using non slow cooker recipes in the slow cooker enhances the flavours. This is generally great except in the case of onions and leeks. The quantities of these ingredients need to be halved. I’ve tried reducing them by a third and then had to battle with making the dish palatable. Earlier this week I tried making our conventionally cooked oxtail recipe in the slow cooker. I halved the oxtail and made up the weight with shin of beef. I cut down the onion and leeks by a third. I was planning a thick soup rather than a...
read moreSave trees and money and scatter some joy with Jaquie Lawson e-cards
I received my first Jaquie Lawson Christmas card seven years ago. It was one of her Chudleigh (black Labrador) cards. I was thrilled. Great animation and top marks on the feel good factor. Then I forgot all about them. A couple of years ago an old friend started sending us Jaquie Lawson cards at Christmas and Easter. Margaret and her husband Tony had been our neighbours and had moved far away to Cumbria. Each card was a delightful reminder of an old and lasting friendship. There’s something very magical about these cards. This Christmas we...
read moreMilk pouches
We recycle our plastic bottles. These are collected every two weeks and by the end of this period the large sack is bursting with 4 pint plastic milk bottles and a few fizzy water bottles. If we keep the sack outside the house it’s a palaver going outside to chuck in an empty bottle but if we keep it in the kitchen it becomes a dominant intruder that always seems to be toppling over. On Sunday I was shopping with my mum in Waitrose, Cambridge and my eye fell on a pile of milk pouches. In fact I’d been attracted to the word Free on a sign...
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