You have got to be kidding!

Emerald with her brand new kids

Our first kids for the season greeted us when we got home tonight.  Emmy was the second Saanen goat we bought in 2011.  She was very shy when we got her but over the years she has become very tame.  Baby goats have got to be one of the cutest baby animals on the farm.  Our six black lambs are cute (with their white tails and white noses) but goat babies are just special.  To us they really announce Spring, so we're hoping for a spell of nice weather so that a few more are born.  These littlies have fresh straw in their house and will no doubt be tucked up with several of the other goat "aunts" tonight and be snuggly warm - it feels like there will be a frost tonight, but at least it is not raining.  Yay!!!!

Since I spent much time outside at dusk, sneaking cuddles and spraying navels (with iodine to keep out the nasties that hide in the mud) and generally praising Emmy, dinner was, of necessity going to have to be something quick. That was the plan anyway.  We had left-over Bolognese sauce, some home-made feta cheese and had harvested the first mesclun salad from the greenhouse.  I was also making tortillas.  This was the slow bit and I should have made them much earlier.  But, they were the best tortillas I have ever made!  Some of them weren't pretty and their rollability was a little dodgy but yum yum yum.  The ones that were a little holey were stacked - perfect solution.

Tortillas (makes 16, so freeze some)
6 cups flour
1t baking powder
1/2 t salt
1/2 a cup of butter, cut into small piece
2 1/2 cups of warm water

Place the flour, salt and baking powder in the bowl of a mixer.  Unless you have a very large food processor, you will find it too small.   Add the pieces of butter and run the mixer with a k-beater until the mix is like breadcrumbs.  Slowly pour in the water with the motor running and leave it beating on slow for about a minute and a half.  Remove all mixture from the bowl and place on a floured board.  Very lightly knead the dough with a little extra flour if necessary so that it is no longer sticky.  Cut the dough in half and leave in a warm place for about half an hour.  Cut each half into eight and either roll into little balls or cubes.  Rollout thinly until each piece is  the size of a frying pan.  Stack them, interleaved with greaseproof or baking paper and leave for another 15 minutes.   (You can see now why it was a little slower than I had planned).  Fry them one at a time in a frying pan - I used oil but butter would also do - for a few minutes on each side.  They will loosen from the bottom and bubble when a side is cooked.

Depending on how well you have managed to get the tortillas into the frying pan roll them with a meat or chicken sauce filling, salad vegetables and crumbled feta (or some grated cheese) or stack them on a platter with the fillings between the layers.

Would you like some courgettes with that?

Sometimes things just happen.  Today I stood on the biggest pig poop imaginable.  Then I tried to rescue 11 brand new Pekin ducklings from the pond and got beaten up not once, not twice but three times by the mother duck.  Then there are times when you make something for dinner and forget to serve it.  Sometimes that is good, sometimes it is bad.

It is courgette (zucchini) season.  I repeat, it is courgette (zucchini) season.  It is the time of the year when anyone who has a garden approaches everyone else with a “would you like some courgettes?”

We enjoy them raw when they are small, so I had prepared some and then forgotten to serve them.  The next night, they were superb.  Now they are called Marinated courgettes!

Marinated Courgettes

For 6 small or 12 really small courgettes:

3T lemon juice (about that from 2 lemons)

the finely grated zest of the 2 lemons

a large pinch of salt

freshly ground black pepper

about 100 ml good quality olive oil

Whisk together the lemon juice, the zest, salt and pepper, then slowly whisk in the oil.

Slice the courgettes as thinly as possible.  Use a potato peeler or a cheese slicer.  Place the slices in a flat dish and pour over the marinade.  Cover with cling film or an up-turned plate and leave to marinate for at least an hour.  Turn the slices occasionally.

Arrange the slices on a serving dish and drizzle a little of the marinade over the top.

As I have already been out this morning and picked an armful of the things, watch this space!

Dressing salads differently

Even if you live in an apartment with a balcony or only have a small garden you can plant a bucketful of potting mix with salad greens.  Sprinkling a few seeds at weekly intervals will give you salads all summer.  Another bucket or two can be planted in herbs so that you can enhance your salads.  Dressing the salad though is what gives it that zing. 

Most people don’t grow as many citrus bushes as we do, but one lemon and one grapefruit would keep a family in fruit (we have 41 bushes, long story there, but it will keep for another day).   We spent the afternoon weeding in the citrus grove and trimming off the water shoots – the nasty prickly shoots from below the graft.  Our last winter was very odd and much of the fruit has not (yet) ripened.  I picked a couple of grapefruit, initially thinking I would have them for breakfast, but had raspberries instead (yum yum yum).  Waste not want not as the saying goes, so I decided to ring the changes in dressing the salad.  Much of the time we squeeze a lemon over the salad and then drizzle over good quality olive oil (usually from one of our neighbours’ grove).  On other occasions  we mix equal quantities of olive oil and boysenberry vinegar (really quick and easy but so delicious).  However, I had two grapefruit so experimented.   

Grapefruit vinaigrette

3T grapefruit juice

2T Boysenberry vinegar (or some other fruity vinegar)

1t good quality mustard (Dijon is good)

½ cup olive oil

Salt, freshly ground black pepper and sugar to taste.

Whisk the juice, vinegar and mustard and then slowly add the oil, whisking as you do so.  Add salt, freshly ground black pepper and sugar to taste.

Grapefruit and yoghurt dressing

2T grapefruit juice

1T balsamic vinegar

1 clove of garlic, crushed (use elephant garlic if you want a milder taste)

1t wholegrain mustard

1 cup of natural (unsweetened) yoghurt

A small handful of chopped fresh herbs

Mix all the ingredients together – simple as that!