Living Off The Fat 'O' The Land!

Today has not been a typical July 30th.  I know this because it is my Mom's 'Happy To You'.  Amazingly she is 21 again and when the children ask her age she says 'I am as old as my tongue and a little bit older than my teeth'.  It has been a mixed day weather wise, heavy showers and warm sunshine.  My Mom was apparently born at night in a thunder storm.  We went to see her for lunch and Euan presented her with chocolates and Henry presented her with beautiful Yellow Roses.  I got her a Peg Loom and will have to help her to warp it asap.  I also collected my Aunt and her little dog, Daisy to come and have lunch.  It was a nice little get together.
               In the afternoon I finally got to work in the garden.  Weeding.  Forget everything I said in This Post when I was singing the praises of nettles.  When they are strangling my peas and beans they become the enemy!  Common all garden 'Stingers'.  Not a nice job weeding them out of the one raised bed they are determined to take over.  I donned gloves and had nasty thoughts.  I was rewarded for my nasty thoughts by pulling a large nettle and it flew out of the ground into my face, stinging me on the end of my nose and my cheek!  Youch!  War on all nettles from now on!!!  I thought there was nothing to harvest from the garden yet but I had some accidental finds.  I pulled a whole pea plant by mistake, that was disappointing.  I found the first 'runner' beans and some nice round courgettes.  Oh I nearly forgot I pulled this little potato by accident too.  Oh yes...we have rich pickings here.  The fruits of my labour.  High living indeed.
                I am trying hard to be less wasteful with food.  I have a nice little stash of eggs so I decided to make a famous Weight Watcher's Crustless Quiche (or two).  Pre Weight Watchers a Quiche had a nice crisp, buttery, pastry crust, now I am destined to be eating quiche of the 'crustless' variety for the forseable.  (Tut, 'crustless' I ask ya)!

Quiche also used to be packed with cheese if the nice full fat, cheddary kind.  Now it has 'Low Fat Cottage Cheese'.  I suppose cheese is cheese and a gal has to be grateful!  I finely chopped all of my Bountiful Harvest, adding onions and a red pepper, frying them gently in a tsp of Olive oil.  A teaspoon of Olive Oil!  I remember the good old days when Olive Oil was used in glugs too.  They I beat six eggs with 300g of Cottage Cheese and poured it into 'Victoria Sandwich' tins, with the vegetables.  Then I baked in a medium/hot oven until they looked like this.  They are good cold and keep well in the fridge for a couple of days.  Now I have no excuse, they are ready made 'Low Fat' lunches!

This photograph proves it slices like a 'Quiche'.

This photograph also proves it slices like a 'Quiche' and it gives me the chance to show you my favourite plate in the whole world.

I bought it for Euan when he was a baby.  Now he is a 'big' boy, I have inherited it.  Hoorah!

This range of 'Baby' items were sold by Sainsbury's and they were created using original designs drawn by John Lennon for his son Sean.   There is something so simple and happy about these little pictures.  Euan had several items and a cuddly elephant but somehow the plate is all we have left.  I love the birdies.

If they made 'John Lennon' wall paper I would get decorating my living room!  I could live with Happy Elephants and puzzled Birdies everywhere.  Yep, in all, today has been another day in Paradise!  xxx

Oh Good Morning!

It was a busy Monday morning, Henry has his final school exams going on at the moment, he is coping very well so far.  He has always been pretty laid back if I leave him be.  He isn't exactly a ray of sunshine in the morning but he takes after his mother!  Euan has been cough, cough, coughing pretty much non stop, so he was bleary eyed.  The dog is a sweetheart and 'asks' me for food when she wants it, she likes breakfast and dinner.  The chickens also need breakfast and letting out.  If I don't get out there early the chickens make their feelings known and you can hear them loudly clucking!  For the sake of the neighbours I try to get out there asap.  I live in a very noisy street though, so I am not to troubled by the noise the Chooks make, it is my payback for other peoples late nights, dogs barking, kids yelling, teenagers coming and going at all hours, cars revving etc etc.  If you can't beat them, join them.  Any noise me and mine make justs add to the hub bub.  As long as we are not the noisiest I figure that is ok.  This morning look what greeted me in the garden.  Wow, the first Poppy of the year.  Isn't she a beauty.  It looks like there will be plenty more where that came from too:

I thought I just discovered a stray egg in the picture, but I remember now, I chucked egg shells around the base of my Camellia.

              Today it has finally felt like May, the Sun has had his hat on.  It was lovely to get home from work and have some warm sunshine.  It motivated me to get out in the garden at last.  I found the very last of last years harvest.

  What a whopper!  I think this leek may be as tough as old boots!

Here is 'Chicken Proofed' Alcatraz.  I have to remove the fences to do any gardening.  Last week Euan and I weeded the raised beds and the chickens gobbled worms as fast as they could, they slurp them like spaghetti and ate loads of them.  I put them in their coop as they are just too helpful in the garden.  I was out for about and hour and a half and the poor things did not stop whinging and complaining the whole time they were cooped.

The poor things.  It was only because I was in earshot and they really think they should be out if I am.  I was determined to sow some seeds though and get the bean poles ready.  I planted two types of beetroot, some dwarf  peas, swede, turnips and kale in the raised beds.  I planted some oca in a large container.  Oca is a new one on me.  It is like a small potato.  I will let you know how I get on.  I should have photographed it for you as it is a bit weird.  Check out this link for Oca to read more about it.  If you have grown it, tried it, cooked it, eaten it, do let me know what you think....

   I planted the potatoes about a month ago and the spinach is left over from last year.  My next job will be weeding this bed.  The spinach is soon destined for soup or curry.

Meet my Fartychokes.  Jerusalem Artichokes.  They are delicious and come back every year.  Sadly now we just enjoy them for their tall yellow 'sunflowers' as when consumed they have some most unfortunate side effects which have earned them their pet name.  In the name of good manners I shall just leave it there, nuff said!

This used to be the chicken pen...how naive!  It is a large pen and more than adequate for a chicken run, but it simply isn't good enough for my girls!  They need half of the garden.  The biggest half no less.  Rhubarb is supposed to be poisonous to chickens so they leave it alone.  My chickens did not read that page of the book and ransack the rhubarb, hence the rhubarb is now penned in the chicken pen.  It seems to be their favourite and they would scratch it to oblivion.

The soft fruit is looking promising.  This old blackcurrant bush is heavily laden again.  The raspberries are also coming along ok.  They are not fenced off yet...  I don't know what to do about them.  I am sure as the fruit ripens it will take a greedy chicken ten minutes to strip the whole bush.  The rhubarb may be set free and the chickens penned again.  It is funny watching them jump for the fruit though.  Chickens can do quite high standing jumps and 'boing' like they are on springs for ripe juicy berries.  

          When my gardening was done and I had watered thoroughly and replaced the fences, I went to the coop to find three noisy, disgruntled girls.  They were elated to see me.  I opened the door to the coop and they shot out like 'grease lightening'.  

I love this photograph!  I know it is not the most aesthetic part of my garden.  I like it up there though.  As soon as the door is opened these girls move like a trio of 'Road Runners'.  Beep beep!  Just look at the speed and gusto in their sprint for freedom!  After the impertinence of their incarceration here they are doing what chickens love to do best;

Scratching and pecking.

Here's to hoping this is the first sunny day of many.  xxx

Jamming

Blackcurrant 'No Bits' Jam

I have been busy working my way through my list of recipes to make with Fresh Blackcurrants.

Five-recipes-to-make-with-fresh Blackcurrants

I made the Cheesecake.

Blackcurrant-Marbled-Cheesecake

Now I have made the 'No Bits Jam'.  Again I adapted the recipe.  I only used two ingredients.

Ingredients
Fresh Blackcurrants
Sugar

Method
I used the same amount of sugar to Blackcurrants.  I didn't add any water.  I simmered the blackcurrants and pressed them through a sieve.  Then I added the sugar and boiled until the jam reached the setting point.  This has made a firm set Jam.  It is important to my youngest son that his jam has 'no bits'!

Today I picked fruit in the garden again.  The sun was shining and almost ripening them faster than I could pick them!  This year there seems to be a bumper harvest.

and ................

I have already turned the Raspberries into five jars of Raspberry 'No Bits' Jam.  The Raspberries are ripening and want picking everyday.  I have a 'Creative Spinning Workshop' to go to tomorrow evening and again on Saturday, I am going to bake 'Raspberry Buns' and 'Blackcurrant Muffins' to help me keep my strength up!

My son had an English Literature Exam yesterday he had to write an Essay on 'Of Mice and Men'.  I had to do that when I was at school!   I can remember one quote from the whole book!  The character Lenny used to repeat to himself;
'Live of the fat of the land'.  It gave him hope and comfort to dream of a day when he could own his own land and become self sufficient!  I wonder if he liked jam and turnips?

What a lovely pair!

A lovely pair of turnips, the first two of the year!  Turnips are my accidental speciality.  With my abundance of Blackcurrants and this pair of beauties I am really 'living off the fat of the land'.

They were washed, peeled and chopped within minutes along with swede, carrots and onion.

It was all mixed thoroughly together with some minced steak and seasoned with lots of salt and black pepper.

Wrapped up in a circle of Shortcrust  Pastry and Baked until Golden Brown.

A Cornish Pasty to my mind has to contain a bit of turnip for it to be 'Proper' 

I have shown you 'Cornish Pasties with the recipe in this previous post' I just wanted to show off my turnips!  I am off to Google 'Vegetable shows', I think mine are winners!

Spinach - Garden Harvest

Here is some Homegrown Spinach.  This spinach was actually planted last year and it survived the harsh winter!  This Spinach is very Hardy.  I think it is 'Matador' variety.  I try to use what I grow rather than waste it.  Popeye would be proud of me.

I put some in this Chicken and Chick Pea Curry.

I also made a Spinach and Feta Quiche.  I just made a shortcrust pastry case, blind baked it for about ten minutes then crumbled about 300g of Feta into the base, with all of the wilted chopped spinach I could gather.  I beat three eggs with 150ml of milk, poured it over the Feta and Spinach and baked it until golden and set.

I have lots of vegetables threatening to put in an appearance this year so I am looking forward to more concoctions.  Last year I had a large glut of Turnips...I was going to write a book '101 ways with the Humble Turnip!'  I wonder what this year will bring...