Category Archives: Food

General of the Gingerbread Army

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Goose Fair arrived in the first week of October, and started a train of thought that led to gingerbread.  From Goose Fair, through Halloween, Bonfire Night and until Christmas we will have gingerbread in a variety of forms. It started off with a look at traditional Grantham Gingerbreads. I’ve never done too well with biscuits that spread out, so I decided to look for another recipe and go back to that one.

It’s still in note form at the moment, but I will get round to writing it down properly soon.

These are more like a ginger biscuit when they are done, being crisp all the way through. My research (which meant eating several a day for three days) shows that they keep well. The residents of the Care Home we visited yesterday, and the Men in Sheds today all confirmed that they were good biscuits and had kept well. As these are people with years of experience in biscuit eating I think we will class this recipe as a success.

We also did apple juice and hoopla at the care Home, and talked of other fairs apart from Goose Fair (it turns out that most of the ladies don’t come from round here so we ended up talking of Shaftesbury, Hull, King’s Lynn and  Barnet). All in all it was an animated session even before Julia unpacked her mobile hoopla kit. Once the lure of prizes set its hook even the card school in the corner stopped to throw a hoop or two.

The only problem was that there were a lot of biscuits – forty medium size, forty small, six round and one odd shape. I tested them until I couldn’t test another one and when I went to bed I could still see them, row after row of gingerbread men…

Cutting out gingerbread men
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Cooling the biscuits
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Gingerbread Men

 

 

Apple Juice Time

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The group came and the group went. They fed the chickens and  said goodbye to the ones that are going to market tomorrow. They did some tree measuring for the Woodland Trust monitoring project and some tidying too, but I hardly noticed them because I was juicing apples.

It can be a drawn out job at the best of times, but when the people who put it away last year put it away (a) dirty and (b) at random it can be a trial. I still haven’t found the siphon tube or the filter for the funnel, so we improvised. We used a kitchen sieve for a filter and when we had to transfer the contents of one barrel to another we used that old male stand-by known as brute force and ignorance. It worked.

We also suffered delays whilst I found the powdered Vitamin C – if you don’t add it you end up with brown juice. It’s still good, and it’s all natural but the oxidation makes it look unattractive. Three teaspoons in thirty litres of juice (or 52 pints if you still use them) reverses the oxidation and turns it back to a nice golden colour

We now have 40 bottles of juice and another barrel that needs bottling tomorrow.

Things would have gone better if I’d remembered how to use the steriliser, but the temperature control dial is a bit misleading – an embossed black mark on a black dial, which isn’t great for a short-sighted man in a dimly lit shed. Yes, I used the wrong end of the pointer and set the temperature far too low. By the time we’d found that out we had to wait an extra half hour to sterilise the juice in the bottle.

Of course, you can get by without sterilising the juice, as long as you either freeze it or drink it within 3-5 days. After that the natural yeast on the apples builds up enough gas to blow tops off and cause all sorts of problems. A few years ago we had a customer who had his juice put into a 10 litre bags and then went on holiday. I didn’t do the sterilising in those days. The juice fermented, blew the bag up until it started to leak and came back to find his kitchen floor covered with juice and a fine selection of insect life.

That’s why I got the sterilising job.

Towards the end we had bottle cap roulette, which is a game played with a variety of hot recycled bottles containing hot juice. Not boiling, but 80 degrees C isn’t very comfortable. The game consists of heating up the bottles and juice then finding a cap that fits, lifting the bottle out, tightening the top and laying it on its side.

It’s always a relief when you finish that bit with no spills, burns or seepage.

Oh yes, I love the apple harvest. 😉

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The one on the left has had Vitamin C added

 

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Bottles in steriliser – steaming

 

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Ready to drink!

It’s started!

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Yes, after wrestling with a number of issues, including technology and stupidity, I’ve finally posted on the new food blog.

If you visit I apologise for the garish header photo it was one of the few I had on the camera that contained food and could be cropped to the right size. I will modify it when I have time, though it will remain garish. It doesn’t quite work with the theme, so I may well change that.

You can get very lazy (and forget an awful lot) if, like me, you start a blog and don’t alter the settings.

We had visitors today and we ate my review samples for lunch. With my palate it wasn’t possible to tell much from a quarter of a pie, so I will be repeating the tasting next week.

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As I’ve committed myself to eating soup for tea on days when I eat pork pies it looks like the soup maker will be getting a lot of use, but that’s all for the good as every soup I make is another blog post.

As I have already said, there’s a lot more to food blogging than you think.

Take photography. I was refused entry to the kitchen today because Julia wanted to use it for jam making. I set up in the centre, but then several people decided to have an early lunch and spread their food out in camera shot.

Eventually I set up in the kitchenette at the centre but it’s very hot in there and most of the greenery I was using for props gave up and wilted almost instantly.

To be fair, that’s how it’s designed. It’s a triple glazed room that faces south and catches heat for the rammed earth wall, which acts as a storage heater in winter. Unfortunately you can’t switch it off in summer …

Got to go now – only one photo today because I only took pork pies. However, if that is your thing you know where to go to find more…

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New tricks

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I’ve always wanted to write a food blog. This blog was supposed to be about food and farming, as well as the group, but it sort of wandered away and became a ramble through life with digressions into birds, butterflies, the evils of modern life and anything else that came to mind once my fingers hit the keys.

This is probably not the way to become rich and famous from blogging, though with the exception of Jack Monroe I can’t actually name anyone else who has become rich and famous from blogging. There will be some, I’m sure, but I just don’t know them.

A friend of mine, who is neither rich nor famous despite being a top notch food blogger, once told me he didn’t have a clue what my blog was about. I was glad to hear it, because until then I thought I was the only one who didn’t know what I was doing. Incidentally, I’ve never read the article in the link before, and was surprised, when reading it, to find I was mentioned at the end. So maybe I am a little famous. Catch his blog here.

Over the weekend I have been reading a book about how to write a food blog, and as always, when faced with advice on writing I become scared. I’m not the world’s greatest writer, but I get by. I have always tried to stick to George Orwell’s advice after reading it as an earnest 16-year-old. The six rules are at the bottom of the page to save you reading through the whole essay.

I’ve drifted over the years, but I like to think I’m still writing passable English. However, after reading the new book I’m starting to worry about tinkering with my writing style. Once you start to think about the nuts and bolts you aren’t far from breaking it.

Writing is a bit like a kitten – it’s cute, magical and alive. But if you attempt to take it apart to improve individual parts I’m worried I’ll end up with a mess and have to play with my own wool.

Moving quickly on from that image, I’m also having to learn not to eat food when I see it. That’s always been a problem. I buy food, I think “photo” and I find myself looking at a pile of crumbs.

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That’s why I had a special session today practising food photography. I’m not sure I’ve got the hang of it yet, but it’s a start. One pie is from Pork Farms, and that’s going to be my “control pie”: the other is from Hampson’s Garden Centre in Wakefield. (I was in Leeds yesterday dropping Number One son off – he starts his new job today).  I thought I’d drop by and pick some pies up, buying a big meat and potato pie for tea and three pork pies. After eating one in the car park I kept the other two for photography and testing. As luck would have it the luscious, savoury, jelly-filled piece of pork pie perfection turned out to be the best of the bunch. The other two, reserved for the photographs, were just not as good.

There is more to this food blogging than meets the eye.

 

George Orwell’s Rules

(i) Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are
used to seeing in print.

(ii) Never use a long word where a short one will do.

(iii) If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.

(iv) Never use the passive where you can use the active.

(v) Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you
can think of an everyday English equivalent.

(vi) Break any of these rules sooner than say anything barbarous.

 

 

Trousers, rats and vole-au-vents

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Yesterday comprised mainly of paperwork, a meeting and fighting my way through traffic. The latter was caused by having to pick up some alterations Julia was having done. We’re going to a wedding reception on Saturday night and she wanted her new trousers to fit. I’m have new trousers too, but I have lower personal standards in matters of appearance so mine will be going on straight out of the bag.

I haven’t actually bought new trousers for the reception, it’s just that time of year. Two pairs of black, two pairs of dark green and I’m set for weddings, funerals, interviews, casual wear and anything else the world may throw at me in the next 12 months. Last year’s trousers now become working garments and don’t ask me about the year before because I’m hard on trousers and after two years you can almost sense them sighing with relief as they split, tear or simply wear through.

Being a modern couple, Julia’s niece and husband got married abroad and are holding the reception in Nottingham because that’s where they live. Suits me. In the old days we’d have had to trek down to Suffolk, where the bride’s parents live, and I’d have felt duty-bound to complain all the way down.

I suppose that isn’t a bad trade off – an hour in traffic set off against a trip to Suffolk and back.

While I was parked behind a building waiting for Julia I was treated to the sight of a young rat cavorting in an overgrown margin. It seemed full of the joys of spring and looked very well fed, but you would do if you have access to an endless supply of discarded take-away food.

I used to shout at rats and throw things at them, but they don’t understand me and I always miss. I now take a more laid back approach and merely think bad things about them. I don’t like them but I’m not going to raise my blood pressure over them when it achieves nothing.

I have an inventive solution to the rat problem, which I wrote about a year ago but was never able to find a reason to use it. I have a reason now. It also addresses another modern problem.

They say you’re never more than six feet away from a rat (or two metres for my younger readers) and estimates vary from one rat per person to two rats per person, according to something I was reading recently.

These rats are free range and at six foot the food miles are not great.

Ah, the “food miles” bit rather gives it away. Think about it, rats are seen as a legitimate foodstuff in some parts of the world and they are certainly more traditional than tofu and micro-veg.

Free range local food. If you applied that label to chicken people would pay a premium for it.

I was almost saddened to see that both figures are probably wrong, with only one rat to share between six of us and a distance of 50 metres. However, it’s still a practical proposition, and with the new super rat there will be more meat to go around. Incidentally, that last link also says there will be three times as many rats as people, which is a good example of why it’s a bad idea to believe anything you read on the net.

If you don’t fancy a rat, how about starting with something smaller and cuter – the vole-au-vent. A cute rodent garnished with something tasty in a puff pastry shell. I’m wondering if I could send out a press release and get anyone to believe that. Or to see if I could get Heston Blumenthal interested in the recipe.

 

 

Nanny McFlee

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Well, it was either that or Billy and Clyde. tarnegolita has suggested a few others so I’m in  a good position with titles now.

Even as I was writing the last post the goats were out again. The only one that doesn’t escape is the youngest one: she just stands by herself and bleats. We think it’s possibly because she’s the youngest and may have been weaned too early. The rest of them are now fully recovered from being taken from their mothers and are enjoying a rebellious youth.

The mothers all seem happy and relaxed now the kids are off their hands.

On the subject of goats and relaxation, the Kenyans are coming at the weekend. They will make a big fuss of the goats, which is one of the reasons we keep them, as they feel it is a way for children to keep in contact with their culture..Although we never use the term I suppose the goats are culturally appropriate livestock. I may start calling them that, as it sounds more important than goat. Being constantly outsmarted by culturally appropriate livestock also seems more respectable than being outsmarted by goats.

One of the big attractions on Saturday will be the traditional nyama choma.

That’s the other reason we keep goats.

So far nobody has told them they are invited.

 

 

 

Tea, Tact and Talent

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We sat under the awning to eat lunch and drink freshly brewed mint tea and the first thing I saw was a large reddish brown dragonfly. It was about twelve feet up in the air and flying strongly so after consulting the internet I’m thinking it may have been a brown hawker. They are widespread and common, so it seems like a good ID. I’m always suspicious when people like me (with little knowledge and an internet connection) claim to have seen a rarity. Unfortunately I didn’t have the camera but if I had I doubt I would have got a meaningful shot.

As we ate, I was concious of a lot of movement and raucous calls in the trees that line the boundary. Eventually two wrens popped out. There may have been more, they move so fast I’m never quite sure. Once they decided to show themselves they spent a good ten minutes perching on fence rails and the edges of raised beds. Oh, for that camera again!

I like wrens, though they always sound so cross.

Last Saturday, I spent the afternoon at a food festival run by a local school. It’s completely out of context here, but I’ve nowhere else to put it. I was surrounded by people giving out free food, mainly fruit, which was irritating because I couldn’t get away to eat any. As we packed up I did notice that someone had a poster up claiming they could sell you a vitamin supplement to make your kids more intelligent. They haven’t met mine.

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I suspect that it was mainly snake oil, though the weren’t the only ones peddling a good line in…er…the latest fad. Note how I select my words carefully. Note how I carefully add a link there too, in case anyone thinks I am accusing local vitamin pedlars or being cruel to snakes.

I’d watched Saturday Kitchen before going to the fair and Jay Rayner had stated quite clearly that there was no such thing as a superfood – just a marketing opportunity. Now, I’m not qualified to judge, but I do find merit in his argument that a varied, balanced diet is healthier than a load of superfoods.

Imagine my surprise upon finding myself next to a stand from a well-known supermarket and two staff members who kept saying “It’s a superfood, you know.”

Now, I’m not one to bear grudges, but that particular supermarket branch refused to let me have a day there for bag packing when Nottingham Outlaws Juniors needed new shirts. When I applied to their community fund for backing they turned us down. And when Julia tried to see if there was any way we could work together on the education side we were told that they only worked with farms that supplied them. It’s a good thing that I’m not one to bear grudges, as I say.

I was tempted to quote Jay Rayner, and I was also tempted to say that the best thing about chia seeds is the hour of amusement you get from picking your teeth after eating. But I didn’t, after all, do we really need more sarcasm and ridicule in the world?

Unfortunately, though I’d like to share a photo with you, I don’t think it would be ethical. Plus I’m having trouble cropping it to hide identities

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. However, there’s a message on the shirt – “Farm to Fork – I’m helping children learn where their food comes from”.

Their table was heavy with water melon, mango, avocado, pineapple and chia seed, so I suggest that they must be teaching kids that  a lot of food comes from far away.

The eyes in the top picture are something Julia bought – we are rehearsing for Britain’s Got Talent. We don’t have much talent so we should fit right in.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sheep, doves and teddy bears

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A couple of hours before I took the teddy bear picture that bear was just an idea and a ball of cotton yarn. Compared to my day (writing minutes, avoiding goosegrass, answering emails, wrestling with camera manuals and stalking birds on feeders) it seems a good use of time. When you think that the collared dove and robin pictured above were the best shots of the day you can see I’m not going to set the world of nature photography on fire.

I should have known the moth photo in the previous post was too good to be true.

After much heart-searching we’ve finally cleared out the old bus shelter in preparation for demolition. It’s just too rotten to merit the work we would have to do to restore it, particularly as someone has donated a very serviceable second hand shed.

As you may have guessed from my comment, I didn’t get round to cooking goosegrass. In truth, I’m not that inspired and, having been a bit rushed this week, I have procrastinated. I am leaving it till Friday, and hope to have found some decent recipes by then. So far the ones I have found suggest tossing it in butter, putting it in a stew or using it to stuff a mattress. I know someone who juices it, but instead of inspiring me it just fills me with dread.

Frankly, I don’t trust green juice. It may be full of goodness, and it must be character-forming, but I’ve never felt the need to drink anything that wasn’t red, orange or yellow.

 

 

Tell me what you eat

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Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are.

I’m at work today, seeing someone about a booking. I quite like working on Sundays as it’s peaceful and I can get a lot done. Apart from walking round showing our facilities, I’ve caught up with emails, sent photos to people, done some invoicing and seen what is happening out there in the wordpress universe. As usual I have found there is more information out there than I can comfortably absorb.

That reminded me I wanted to look up a quotation from Brillat-Savarin. The quotation was duly found.

“You first parents of the human race…who ruined yourself for an apple, what might you have done for a truffled turkey?”

It seems simpler, and less funny, than when I heard it on Radio 4 a couple of weeks ago, and with the mention of truffles (I swear they had been chestnuts on the radio) it’s a lot less useful for marketing the Christmas turkeys.

Fortunately I did find the quote I used in the first line of this post, so it wasn’t a wasted visit.

So, what does my eating tell you about me?

Well, I had sausage, beans and chips last night, so I’m not a gourmet. The night before that we had vegetable curry with flatbreads. That tells you I’m too lazy to cook rice, and (as the sausages establish me as a non-vegetarian) that I’m too tight to buy meat for every meal. And then we come to today’s lunch – Stilton cheese in croissants. That may mean that I appreciate good cheese and have a sophisticated taste in baked goods.

Or it may merely tell you that I still have a child at home who ate all the cheddar and bread and didn’t tell me I needed to buy more. I say “child” – he was 23 this week but while he’s raiding the fridge he’ll always be a child to me.

I should be grateful to him, because it was a rather fine combination, even though it was born from lack of choice. It is one I’m eager to repeat and a search is now on for an appropriate relish to go with it. TESCO Finest Chilli Relish is my current favourite and seems to work well with everything I’ve tried it with. I may look for something slightly more traditional, maybe something with pears or figs.

The customary food blog photograph of Stilton and croissants is, you may notice, missing. As usual with my attempts at food blogging my appetite suppressed my photographic urges and the resulting plate of croissant crumbs didn’t really do the subject justice.

Greedy, lazy, tight. If Brillat-Savarin is right I really need to alter my diet.

Anyone for truffle sandwiches on sourdough?