I just added a recipe for Fat Hen soup on the recipe page. It’s slightly misleading as there’s no hens in it, though I used butter to soften the onions so there’s plenty of fat.

We’re going to taste test it at lunchtime with fresh bread rolls that we’re cooking with the kids. (Fourteen kids of mixed age, half a dozen parents and two kilos of dough – what could possibly go wrong?)

Here’s a picture of the “staff”. We’ve been having trouble with the toaster.  It’s difficult getting staff when you don’t actually pay, even worse when you promise them toast and marmalade and the toast bit doesn’t happen because the toaster will only do one side at a time.

It’s hedgehog rolls today (another misleading recipe title) for the kids and a bread roll for the soup if the parents want to make one. I will be making spares anyway because I need to get back in practice.

I’m slightly worried about the dough. I used a half measure of yeast and put it in the fridge last night. The result is three balls of dough that have risen but not risen quite enough. They aren’t actually refusing to rise but if they were human you’d think they were typical truculent teenagers. Apart from the fact that they are out of bed at 10.25am.

After bread rolls and soup we’ll be making woodland masks and (possibly) toasting marshmallows.

Have a look at @QuercusCommy if you want a progress report on the baking. We also have some pictures of the harvesting that started yesterday, including a shot of the combine cutting between the rows of apple trees in the agroforestry field. I say trees, but you might have to squint a bit as they are only two years old.

I’ll put some pictures up on the farm page to show a bit more of  the field and harvest.