Post-Christmas bubbles

Christmas has passed and the leftovers are being eaten, or at least that is so in our household.  It is hardly holiday time though when you have a garden that you really use to provide food for you and your family.    Everywhere there is food - today's harvest - beans, courgettes, a cabbage, a cauliflower, a sneaky couple of bandicooted potatoes, a bulb of elephant garlic, strawberries, red and black currants and rhubarb. 

Rhubarb, once it decides to grow, does so with very little attention.  At this time of the year a couple of crowns will be producing more than enough for a small family.  It freezes easily – just chop into small pieces and place in a plastic freezer bag, seal, label and freeze.  The crowns will multiply so you will be able to divide them (with a sharp spade) and either plant more for yourself, or give them away.  We have already frozen lots of rhubarb so today I've made us a treat to enjoy in late January

Rhubarb bubbles

3 ½  cups rhubarb
3  ½ cups sugar

1sliced lemon
150ml white vinegar  - for a more intense flavour and colour you can use Boysenberry Vinegar
5 litres water

Finely chop the rhubarb by hand, or use some of the water and chop it in the food processor.
Place all the ingredients in a food safe plastic or stainless steel bucket. 

Stir daily for at least 48 hours, but up to a week. 

If you have a jelly bag, tip the contents of the bucket into the bag (in batches) to remove the fruit etc.  If you don’t have a jelly bag, line a sieve with muslin and strain it that way.

Carefully pour the liquid into plastic soft-drink bottles and then wait.

Leave the bottles in a cool dark place for at least 2 weeks.  Chill before opening.  

For a fancy looking drink, place a couple of raspberries in the base of a champagne flute and then (very very) carefully pour the rhubarb bubbles over the top.

Making juice while the sun shines (hmm, actually while it rains)

27 December

The red currants have been wonderful this year – utterly glorious rubies – and we managed to cover them early enough to prevent the birds from having more than their fair share.  Rain earlier in the month plumped them up though the heat over Christmas has turned some of them into dried currants!  With just over one third of an acre planted in currants we do have rather a few but for a single household two bushes each of red and black will give you plenty.  We desperately needed rain but it could have waited until we had finished picking the currants!  The fruit is now wet so there will be a fine line between picking what is left after it starts to dry and before it goes mouldy with botrytis (great for grapes to make ‘stickies’, but not so good for other fruits).  Every year I make cordials but this year I think I will be making more than normal as the remaining fruit won’t be of such good quality any more.

Nothing beats homemade cordials for flavour. 

Red currant cordial

To every 1kg of red currants (don’t worry about de-strigging them, though remove the leaves and insects) add 600ml of water.  Cook gently until the fruit is soft.  Place all the fruit and the juice in a jelly bag and leave it to drip for at least 12 hours.

Put the juice into a pan with sugar (700g to every litre of juice), heat gently to dissolve the sugar.  If the juice does boil (try not to let it boil) skim any resultant froth off with a slotted spoon or similar.

Pour into sterilised bottles and seal. It keeps for several months in a cool dark place. Serve with soda water or add to a glass of chilled white wine.

Black currant cordial

900g blackcurrants

500g sugar

520ml water

juice and skin of 2 whole lemons

Simmer the blackcurrants, sugar and water for 5 minutes. Add the juice and skin of the lemons (use a potato peeler to get the skin off or grate the lemons), and simmer for another 5 minutes.   Place the fruit in a jelly bag and leave to drip for twelve hours.  Store in sterilised bottles.  Seal and keep in the fridge.

It is excellent made up with sparkling water or soda water, and also makes a good sauce for vanilla ice-cream or lemon cheesecake.  Stir it through yoghurt for a simple dessert or breakfast.

Summer(?) on the farm means too much to do and too little time

The summer is racing by with so very little spare time to write (or do anything really). Even though our farm is small, at only 20 acres, we are still utterly dependant on the weather, and this year has been a cracker. Hot, cold, wet, dry, calm, windy, and sometimes that is all in one day. Unusually for January, the grass is still growing and the stock just can't keep up. We took 570 bales of hay off a very small part of the farm (about 6 and a half acres). We did not manage to get it all stacked before it rained the day after it was cut, so I guess we'll have lots of compost this year. I intend to place some neatly on some of the gardens not currently in use, and leave them there for a year to create a ready to plant garden next Spring. I did this with pea straw last year to create the rhubarb garden this year. We also have all the wool from shearing the sheep earlier this week to mulch round some of the trees – the daggy stuff Is particularly yummy to plants and trees.

The first lot of apricots are now finished (helped on their way by a little to-rag of a visitor and his mum who insisted on picking some, for free, despite my words) but they were lovely to eat and so easy to put in the freezer for jam making later in the year.

As it has been and will be again, BBQ weather, I've been looking for ways to make the ham steaks or the lamb chops a little different.

Apricot marinade

For this recipe, as you are going to chop the fruit anyway, you can use the good bits cut off wind falls or those affected by Brown Rot (or in our case, Galloping Brown Rot).

A couple of handfuls of apricots

2T brown sugar

2T Boysenberry vinegar

2t Chunky mustard

2t Soy sauce

1T olive oil

Freshly ground black pepper

Chop all the fruit (if it is not already in small pieces) and place it in a bowl with the sugar and the vinegar (Martinborough Manner makes Boysenberry Vinegar), cover with plastic film and leave in the fridge for a couple of days.


 
On the evening of your BBQ, put the apricots in a roasting pan, or other ovenproof dish and roast at 175 ^◦ C until the fruit is cooked – watch it carefully as it won't take too long. Add the mustard, the soy sauce, the olive oil and season to taste with the pepper. If you are short of time, spread the marinade on the steaks or chops and cook straight away. However, if you have the time (and the forethought to have done this in the morning) spread the marinade on the meat and leave it covered in the fridge for a few hours. Then cook and enjoy. Any leftover marinade can be served alongside the meat as a dressing – add a little more vinegar, sugar, olive oil and salt and pepper to taste.


 
A few shots of the summer follow!

 In the beginning there was grass

 Where's my lunch gone?

 Building stage 1 of the new bunny palace

 Mother bunny and some of her babies

Magnificent rhubarb

Red Cabbage

 Broccoflower 

Curly Kale

Good enough to eat, our own hand milled goat's milk rose soap