How to smoke bacon at home: adapting a chiminea
“Do you think that we could adapt a chiminea to smoke bacon? There are small ones on sale for £20.” It was early summer. Tessa and Colin don’t have a fireplace. Most of the smokers available in the DIY stores are hot smokers. Hot smokers cook and smoke the food. They are also quite expensive. My instant reaction was No. How could a chiminea be adapted for cold smoking? Smoke is hot, a chiminea chimney is short. The idea seemed crazy. But Tessa was stubborn. A few days later she mentioned chimineas again. We reckoned that the metal ones...
read moreSecret wet cure recipe for smoked bacon
Having had a baconless weekend, I have been actively seeking a new butcher. I’m told that there’s a great independent butcher in Bury St Edmunds, 14 miles away. When I next have a Saturday off, Jalopy and I will be pointed like an arrow towards that lovely old Cathedral city. In the interim, we’ve tasted some ‘good’ commercially produced bacon and been amazed at the thin and wishy-washy flavour and at the price. Even at special offer prices, bacon is a luxury. Finding a good pork supplier is now a priority. I drifted into Tesco...
read moreKreativ Blogger Award
Moonroot has given me the Kreativ Blogger award. She writes a great blog, that always guarantees good and interesting read. Thank you, Moonroot. The rules are simple. Nominate six blogs that you believe deserve this award and also list six things that you like. Blogging awards are a good idea. Writing a blog can be lonely, as I discovered over the past two years or so. Sometimes I find real gems that are unheralded amongst the more established blogs. So tonight I’d like to share some blogs that I really enjoy but that you might not yet have...
read moreLate morning brunch: Cheesy mushrooms on toast with a dash of spice recipe
To cut our carbon footprint we decided to combine the post run and the weekly shop and travel to Newmarket in the same car. This meant that Danny had to face an experience that he refers to with tight lipped horror. Saturday supermarket queues. In fact he hates any sort of queue. Even the queue for the tote to collect his winnings. I now refer to queues as moving lines. This seems to calm him. As we drove into the Tesco car park we couldn’t find a space. I knew that unusually long moving lines were already threading across his mind as he...
read moreUpdate on the young: teeny winter salad leaves sown under fleece and Beatyl our diminutive baby cockerel
When the dogs stopped playing with the fleece, things progressed very quickly with our winter salad leaf seeds. They germinated within a week. I also realised that the mini poly tunnel ‘self waters’ the two rows of leaves that it protects when condensation builds up with the heat exchange. It drips onto the soil morning and evening. The seedlings are so young that I was concerned that they might have been knocked on the head by the heavy frosts last week. Apparently, seeds sown mid September should have grown into robust plants by January....
read moreSaving money in 2008. October review. Battling with the cold.
“Have you got fingerless gloves too?” I’d unearthed Danny’s thermal vests, inherited by proxy from my uncle. Also I’d located his beanie hat (stored on a shelf beside his computer when the weather warmed up in the Spring). Delving deep in his cupboards, I’d found a good cashmere scarf that he had enjoyed opening one Christmas and would now finally appreciate. It’s tough working in an unheated house, when the ground is frozen outside. Especially if you are a fresh air freak and sit below an open Velux window. Consequently, the...
read moreIf you keep livestock you will always have dead stock
S told me this a few months ago. The livestock part is great and the dead stock element is always upsetting. One of the most satisfying things for us is to raise our own stock. The bond between you and the young is much stronger. You have waited impatiently through the gestation period to marvel at their first faltering steps. Each small life becomes part of your life. We are not commercial producers and our diminutive flock insures that each member is cherished. Dixie Chick seemed to recover well from her bout of chestiness but two days ago...
read moreHoliday romance
I’m babysitting a smallholding that belongs to friends. I’m not staying there, just stopping by morning and evening. For half an hour each day I can immerse myself in their world. It’s a beautiful spot. Set amongst trees, their house was built in the 1930’s, complete with cosy nooks and an old fashioned walk in larder. The door handles in houses from this era are set quite high so when I stretch to open the front door I feel age eight again. The house is enchanting, filled with animals – pictures, sculptures and the real...
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