Hindsight Celery Soup

Last year I planted celery seeds, it's the first time that I've attempted to grow celery and was delighted with the results. We had about twenty good sized plants of a variety called 'Red Soup', which as autumn gave way to winter, I cut the heads and froze a few pounds of celery.

I have been using the frozen celery in stews and trays of roasted mixed vegetables, but a couple of days ago I started thinking about cream of celery soup and today I decided to have a go at making it.

Now usually I am a pretty good cook, my children and Mr J can all recall the dishes that were disasters and, as there are very few total failures, I think I'm safe in saying that the rest of the meals must be either in the category of passable or jolly nice (or somewhere between the two).

Here's how I made the cream of celery soup.

I weighed about 12 ounces of frozen celery.

I put it into approximately half a pint of hot water in a saucepan.

 Then I added a small pot of lamb stock (because that was the first pot of stock I pulled from the freezer).

Once the celery was soft I whizzed it up in the liquidiser to make a puree and returned it to a large pan.



Then I made a thick white sauce from ghee, milk and gluten free flour.
I added the white sauce.

And stirred it into the celery puree.

So far it all seemed to be okay. Then I tasted it. Hmmm, it needed seasoning.

But also it needed more time in the blender to make it less stringy in texture, so I put it back into the liquidiser and blitzed it for longer. Well that didn't work either, the texture was still bitty and off-putting, there was certainly nothing creamy about it.

Next I thought sieving the soup might remove the bittiness and yes, it did, or at least it did with the small amount that managed to pass through the sieve. 

It didn't really matter though because when I tasted it again I realised that I really didn't like the taste. It looked like stagnant pond water, it smelt like stagnant pond water and although I've never tasted stagnant pond water (SPW), the soup was pretty much how I imagine SPW would be.

So the experimental cream of celery soup was relegated to the food recycling bin and we'll be having baked fillet of fish for supper instead.

This just goes to show that you can't win them all and in hindsight I should have strained the puree before I added the white sauce or perhaps, I should just stick to making cream of leek soup!

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Christmas preparations

As with so many homes at this time of year, we've had a hectic week of preparations for Christmas celebrations. Just not for our own Christmas!  

We had decided to give a few of our ducks to our friends and family for their Christmas meals and so this weeks I've processed four ducks and a chicken (for our own use last weekend) and I've made more fudge and coconut ice.

I've also been searching through my favourite recipe books for a good recipe for Tosca cake, which is a traditional Swedish cake made with almonds. It is one of Mr J's favourite cakes, I haven't had it for years and although I will be cooking one for him, I won't be having any as I developed a severe allergy to almonds several years ago (which is probably what happens if one is greedy enough to eat marzipan straight from the block!).

On Thursday I gathered armfuls of greenery from the garden to make a door wreath for my sister. I kept it very simple, using holly, ivy and a variagated euonymous.

I made lots of small bunches of stems which I tied together with fine cable ties, snipping the excess off. I then wired each bunch on to the twiggy base using florists' wire making sure that I covered the stems of the previous bunch with the leaves of the next.

I was very pleased with the final result and so was my sister, who by now will have it hanging on the front door of her cottage.

While I had all the greenery in the house I thought that it might be nice to decorate our home with some branches of leaves, so I put a few branches around the mirrors and made a candle decoration with bunches of long cinnamon sticks tied with ribbon and dried fruit.

When my sister came to visit (with her husband) on Friday, she brought with her some more of the bedding that we use for the ducks. She buys it in bulk and with the last delivery, she ordered an additional ten bales of bedding for us. It means that we can have it at a slightly cheaper price than if we bought the bales individually. We had asked for ten bales as we thought that would probably be enough for four to six months. That was before the DEFRA imposed the lockdown of the poultry. When I built the chicken palace, we needed to add a deep layer of bedding on the floor which used up five bales of bed-rap and two of wood shavings and we refreshed the floor of the chicken condo, which used three bales. So it looks as though we will be ordering more bed-rap sooner than we expected.

Little White has now grown into such a splendid cockerel that we have renamed him Big White, this also helps us distinguish him from the younger white Jersey Giant cockerel. 

The oldest Jersey Giant female is now at point of lay and although she hasn't produced an egg yet, I am sure it won't be too long before she starts laying. Big White has certainly started taking an active interest in her which she is not entirely happy about, but also isn't running away from him.

The Australorps are down to just six in number, during the lockdown they are living in the same space as the Jersey Giants and Dieselette, who prefers the company of her Australorp friend than of any of the other chickens. I still have to choose which of the young males to keep and which to despatch. I thought that I had decided but then became unsure. I am more concerned with good behaviour traits than their physical perfection, but it would be nice to have birds that aren't too far from the standards of perfection laid out for the breed.

I suspect, although I should make it clear that I have no real knowledge, that a poultry lockdown may become a regular occurrence. If we need to protect our birds during migration of wild birds, then it would seem to make sense that there will be two periods of lockdown in a year. So with that in mind, I have been thinking about what I can do ready for next year or any future lockdown to allow me to continue feeding the birds green leaves from the garden.

Having carefully grown crops to feed to the birds during the colder months, I have a garden chockablock with lush brassica that can't be fed to them during the lockdown as it is not under cover and so could potentially have been pooped on by a sick bird. Next year I think I will create a couple of beds with a selection of brassica, chards and spinach that I can cover in early November to keep them safe from contamination from overhead. I will also grow some in pots and move them into the greenhouse towards the end of summer, then I can harvest from those too for our chickens and ducks. Then, if there is no lockdown, either we or the birds can eat the leaves and, if there is a lockdown, we'll have a good source of fresh vegetables for the birds. As I plan to grow plenty of winter squash next year, they should be able to have some of those too. If the girls have to be shut away for a month or so at a time, I want to be able to offered them a varied diet.

It's almost time for us to head out to the local shop to buy a few last minute items, like cream and milk (and chocolate!). I hope that everyone has a joy-filled and peaceful Christmas.

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200th blog post

Finding this message on the freezer door was a lovely surprise earlier this week, I decided that the best way to reply was to bake some mince pies.

I think Mr J enjoyed my response to his message.

It's a delight to find that I've had enough to write about to fill the 199 blog posts before this one. Our first year or so on the smallholding has been a busy one and despite a few hiccoughs along the way, it's been an incredibly exciting and fulfilling time.

I've been engrossed in a couple of projects this week, one I will write about when it's completed and the other has been to prepare some of the birds for Christmas. We are giving three ducks as gifts, one each to my sister, our neighbours and a friend who has been very helpful throughout the year.

Having not processed a duck before I felt a little daunted by the task. We had selected which ducks were staying with us for breeding next year (two of the last five ducklings hatched, one of the first hatched and Mrs Warne), this means that there five birds for the table.  I started with one of the youngest drakes and was pleased with how calmly and peacefully the process of dispatch was completed. Plucking it was also straightforward, but I was a little stumped by the cleaning process. I am now comfortable with how to clean a chicken and although neither quick nor perfect, I am reasonably competent, but a duck is a slightly different shape and it took me a while to work out what I needed to do.

As they say 'practice makes perfect' and I am sure that with each one I will become more familiar with the process and hopefully, over time, less squeamish. This is how it looked when it was almost ready for the oven, I spent a little time with some tweezers removing a few more of the feathers. It weighed 4lbs 6ozs which I thought was a pretty good weight. Once it was cooked, we ate our first home raised duck dinner. 

It was absolutely delicious. All that rich duck fat didn't go to waste, I used some of it to cook roast potatoes and the next evening roasted parsnips in it. So far we have had two meals from the duck and there is enough meat left on it for at least one more meal. My plan is to remove all of the meat and freeze it, so that I can make a poultry pie at a later date.

Sadly, I think it is time to dispatch Frederick, he has become almost too heavy for his legs and has started limping, well not limping exactly, but he's definitely struggling and finding it hard to put his full weight on one leg. The ducks are Aylesburys and are heavy birds and he is commercial Aylesbury, bred to become large and for the table. He's about sixteen months old, is the father of a couple of offspring (one of which we are keeping for our breeding flock) and has found it increasingly difficult to do his job of treading the girls and today I have noticed that one of his offspring now seems to have taken over the role as alpha male.

 A few weeks ago I shared a photograph of a pile of logs covered in frost and twinkling in the late autumn sunshine. Yesterday I noticed that this log had become a deep chestnut colour in the damp of the foggy days that have been with us for well over a week now. I love the way the two sets of rings (from where the tree branched) are so clear and also the way the ivy that grew around the tree is a completely different colour.

The cats seems to have settled in quite well, as I type Monty is curled up on the sofa with me, lying across my feet, keeping them warm. Tabitha is asleep on the chair that she has adopted as hers and occasionally I've noticed that she falls asleep mid-wash. They are still very nervous, they run and hide at bumps or noises in the house, but I am sure with time they will become more secure in their new home and ignore noises around them. They have only been here for a week and so we haven't let them outside the house to explore the garden yet. I think we will wait until after the grandchildren have been to visit next week (as I don't want them running off and not be able to find their way home) and then I will go out with them for the first couple of times as they get to know their wider surroundings.

 This evening we had a roast chicken for supper, Mr J has a very active job and so has enormous meals (and he's still not putting on weight!) and then, after supper, I cooked some fudge. My father used to make fudge when we were children and as we grew up and left home, he still made a batch of fudge for each of us every Christmas. 

Since he passed away in 2006 I have continued that tradition and made some fudge for my family and for my sister's family. My brothers both live on the other side of the Atlantic, so sadly they don't get any. If I remember I will make some for my younger brother when he visits us in the spring.

One of my favourite things about making fudge is that I get to have the sticky, gooey fudge balls that are made from what's left in the pan after I've poured the fudge mixture into a tray to set. 

I've also made some brandy butter and also some bread sauce for my sister. Mum used to make them for us each year, but now I make them for her. She is perfectly capable of making them herself, but I like being able to give her something for her Christmas lunch table. She often makes a smoked trout pate for me, from trout caught by my brother-in-law that they have smoked at home. We don't exchange gifts as such, so it is nice to be able to give her a little something.

The rest of this week will be taken up with the other project that we're tackling and some more preparation for Christmas. We will be having our usual very low key Christmas day, Mr J is working up to and including Christmas Eve and will no doubt be tired the next day, the animals will still need attending to and I'm also getting very tired. My daughter and grandchildren will be visiting on the 27th, so we will have a celebratory meal then. But tonight, I am happy to be celebrating that I have reached the milestone of 200 blog posts.

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The Whole Hog Part 3 Braised Hock

Image Credit Porc Wales

 In my continuing effort to try preparing and eating as much of a half a pig as possible, today I cooked some hocks. The hock is the portion of the leg above the trotters and below the knee. I had four to cook and this was the first time I've prepared them. 

 I cleaned them by covering them with cold water in a deep pan which I brought up to the boil and then drained after 3 minutes of rapid boiling. 

I drained them and refreshed them under cold water. I have a washing up bowl that I keep purely for food preparation and I sterilise it with vinegar after I have used it for meat or fish products.

I scored the skin to allow all the flavours to infuse.

I then returned them to the pan, covered them again in water and added some seasoning. These included pink peppercorns, fennel, nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, paprika and bay leaves. In hindsight I should have added the cloves later in the cooking as I didn't want the meat to taste too strongly of clove so scooped them out after half an hour. It would have been easier to just add them later on!

I brought the water to the boil and then turned it down to a simmer. 

After an hour I added two small diced onions and two small cored apples and continued to simmer gently the hocks for a further two hours.

I lifted the hocks from the stock (they were hard to pull out as the meat was falling away from the bones) and using a knife and fork removed the skin and fat from the meat. They didn't look terribly pretty or appetising at this stage, but they did smell wonderful.

I returned the bones and fat to the pan and continued to reduce the liquid to create some stock.

 Mr J and I had well filled hock & BBQ sauce sandwiches for lunch and after it had cooled,  I froze the remainder of the meat for use at a later date. As this was pork (rather than having been cured to make ham), I think next time I would add some salt to the stock during cooking.

The four hocks cost around £12 and yielded 1lb 6oz of lean cooked meat, which is enough for four meals for the two of us (8 good portions of meat). I will certainly be buying hocks again and next time will try curing them.

I bought this free range pork from Martha who I know and like the way she cares for her animals. 

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The Whole Hog Part 2 Liver Pate

When we bought half a pig from Martha last week I stored most of it in the freezer with the idea that, bit by bit, I would experiment with cooking the pork in different ways. I also want to explore just how much of a pig we will enjoy eating and which parts are just too funky for us to want to eat again. So Martha bought us some offal together with the muscle cuts to start our experiment. Next time she will bring us other parts of the pig to try, I find it frustrating that generally we eat such a limited percentage of an animal.

I've called this blog part 2 because I've already talked about roasting the large joints. After they were roasted I sliced and cubed the meat and froze it in two-people portion sized containers to use in meals at a later date. I also saved the jelly from the roasting trays, freezing it to use as a stock and gravy base. The dripping has been frozen while I've been looking for the best way to use it and store it. Curiously a video has very recently been uploaded to YouTube about how to do just this by Guildbrook Farm. It's an American video so the dripping is called 'drippings' (which gave us the giggles for the entire video), but it was a timely answer to my query.

Anyway, I have started with some of the easier dishes like a rich and creamy liver pate. I used around 2.5Kg of pig's liver in this recipe and the results are very tasty.

 First I chopped three large onions and softened them in a frying pan with ghee, adding some dried mixed herbs, mixed spice (which is usually used in fruit cake but add a rich, round warmth), salt, pepper, a pinch of paprika. When the onions were soft and the seasonings well incorporated, I removed the onions from the pan draining them as much as possible and put them into a heavy based deep saucepan.

 I gently cooked the liver pieces a few at a time and then added them to the onions and added some boiling water (not quite enough to cover the livers) Then I added some other flavourings including a shot of brandy, 1/4 pint of Kopparberg elderflower and lime cider, tomato puree, lots of garlic, the zest of an orange and a lemon, more black pepper, gluten free Worcestershire Sauce and a dash or two of balsamic vinegar.

 I also added a large handful of frozen hedgerow blackberries. Then I added 500g of butter. The mixture was cooked on a medium-low heat for 30 minutes to allow the butter to melt and blend into the liver mixture and for the flavours to infuse. I checked the taste and adjusted the seasoning a little by adding more salt and more balsamic vinegar.

 After the mixture had cooled for a little while (but not cold), I spooned some into the food processor leaving enough room for it to expand and blended it into a coarse pate for Mr J.

  This photo shows the texture of the pate for Mr J. I then blended another batch for myself that was much smoother. To help make it smoother I added some cool water to the blender. 
 I blended it until it was velvety smooth and then poured it into ramekins and jars.

I melted some more ghee (clarified butter) very gently and poured it over the pate making sure that no pate was protruding through the butter. Once cold and set, I covered the ramekins with greaseproof paper and then food wrap and froze them for later use. The jars had the lids put onto them and I've stored the pate in the fridge as these are not mason jars and there is a risk that the glass would crack in the freezer. I also put some into small plastic freezer tubs and put them into the freezer. It made around 5Kg of pate which should last us a few months.

Next I am going to render the leaf fat (from around the kidneys) into lard and I'll let you know how I get on when it's done.

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Mighty meaty

It's been a highly sociable week. On Saturday, my daughter and two grandsons came for an overnight visit. It's the first time the boys have stayed with us and grandson number 1 was very excited about staying on 'Grandma's farm'. They arrived mid afternoon on Saturday and played a bit, ate supper and got settled in for the evening. On Sunday morning it was still damp outside, but dressed in our not-so-glamorous waterproofs, we still managed to get outside and do a few chores. My older grandson helped us to move flexible fencing, feed the chickens and ducks and move wood chippings onto a particularly soggy and slippery area in the duck enclosure. 

 My daughter took this photo of us on our way to get yet another barrow load of wood chips, it made me realise that I really need to invest in some waterproofs that don't give me a Michelin Man look. I loved spending this precious time with him and hearing his squeals of delight as we raced around the yard. It seems riding in a wheelbarrow is the mode of transport for a five year old, although I'm not sure which of us enjoyed this more!

 Yesterday morning Mr J and I cleaned out the chicken shed. The eight inch deep bed of sawdust certainly made interesting scratching material for the chickens and it also helped to soak up some of the rainwater that was sitting on the surface of the ground unable to drain away fast enough.

 The chickens will scratch through this and turn it over and over during the winter months and then, in the spring, I will fence some of the area off and plant kale, spinach and other vegetables that the chickens like to eat. It will be quick and easy to feed the chickens some of their favourite leafy greens when they are growing in the chicken's field.

We then refreshed the deep bedding sawdust in the chicken shed and I treated the perches and fixings with diatomaceous earth as a preventative measure against red mite and then we headed indoors for a quick wash so that we didn't smell of chicken poop for the rest of the day.

Martha of @MarthaRoberts arrived early afternoon to deliver a couple of boxes of pork. I met Martha via Twitter, which has proved a great place to get to know some like-minded smallholders. She has a smallholding near Abergavenny on which she raises rare breed pigs that happily spend their days foraging on her hillside amongst woodland and grass. 

Photo courtesy of  Martha Roberts

A few weeks ago I asked Martha for a half a pig when the next batch of free range animals were despatched. She gave me plenty of notice so I was able to make sure that we had lots of space in the freezer.

I asked for some of the parts of a pig that aren't as popular now as they were in the past. So yesterday I took delivery of my half a pig together with some liver, hearts, kidneys, hock and leaf fat (the fat from around the kidneys).

I'm going to make liver pate, a coarse pate for Mr J and a smooth one for me. I'm going to render the leaf fat to make lard, which is high in omega 3 and I understand that if it's rendered very slowly and makes a very white lard, it is perfect for pastry as well as for using as a cooking fat. I'd like to try a rich slow casserole with the kidneys and slow roast stuffed hearts.

I'm really keen to experiment with old recipes and find ways to use as much of the carcass as I can because I feel that so much of the animal must go to waste. While we love a pork joint for a roast dinner, there are an awful lot of other dishes that can be made using other cuts.

Photo courtesy of  Martha Roberts

This experimentation has a reason. Mr J and I have been discussing our mid term plans for the smallholding and have decided that we may have a couple of pigs in the future. This certainly won't happen in 2017 and depending on how far we get with upgrading the dilapidated piggieries, it may happen in 2018 or later. In the meantime, we can learn how to make the very best use of as much of a pig as possible. There are some parts of the animal that I can't face trying, it makes no logical sense at all, but still, I don't fancy the lungs or spleen despite finding several recipes of how to cook them.

I've been searching through my mother's cookery books (like this 1961 edition of Mrs Beeton's) and looking online for recipes, hints and tips of how to prepare our new food. My plan for the next couple of months is to try out new recipes and decide which appeal to us the most and to share the successes on my blog. 

This morning Helen and Jane came to visit. Actually, Helen came to collect the flexible fencing that she kindly lent to us earlier in the year. We spent a lovely couple of hours drinking tea, eating cake and talking all things smallholding. Helen keeps pigs and Jane has sheep, so we swapped stories of muddy incidents, rainy days chasing our animals and shared lots of laughter.

This afternoon I started turned my attention to the pork. I started with the easiest joints to cook, the roast shoulder joints with crispy crackling.

I unwrapped the joints and left them to get to room temperature. I put them into a roasting tin. I scored the skin and rubbed some sea salt over the skin and into the scoring and put them into the oven on 220 degrees C. After about 25 minutes I turned the temperature down to 170 degrees C and cooked the joints until they were ready (I like meat well cooked). I poured off some of the fat and juices into a bowl after the first hour and again once they were cooked. Once they are cold, the fat and juices can be separated and I will freeze the juices in small portions until I want to use it as a base for gravy.

This evening's supper was a celebration of smallholders' food. We had roast pork, crackling, apple sauce that I made in September using our neighbours' windfall apples, gravy and purple sprouting broccoli which I picked from the garden just before dusk. We took a few moments to appreciate how lucky we are.

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