Glanbrydan’s Weblog

We have been looking into using cheaper cuts of meat for meals. A breast of lamb is an ideal choice price wise but it can be very fatty. I like a stuffed, rolled breast of lamb such as that detailed in the Cottage Smallholder recipe http://www.cottagesmallholder.com/?p=658. I used the whizzer (food processor) to mix the stuffing up as I made fresh breadcrumbs (not dried as per the recipe) so it made sense to complete it all in the whizzer and not make any more washing up.

We managed to reach the meat counter at the local co-op today when they were reducing everything to half price. We came home with a breast of lamb for £2 something and decided to make T-W-O’s lamb stew.  Along with the lamb breast we purchased enough half price meat to last us the week . Most things are in the freezer to help add a bit more life. We will be feasting during the next week on pork chops, chicken beasts, coated chicken as well as 2 salmon en croute.

I have no qualms about purchasing the food at a reduced price to enhance our menu and sometimes it prompts us to make some forgotten old favourites.

To feed 2 hungry people with left overs for lunch the next day and some scraps for the animals you need:

A biggish boned lamb breast. If you get it from the butchers ask him to bone it for you.

A savoy cabbage

5 medium potatoes, peeled and diced into 1 inch (2.5 cm) cubes roughly (It will be mashed). More potatoes would make it stretch to more people.

Water & seasoning

To make:

Dice the lamb breast and put in a pan and cover with water, add a good pinch of salt. Boil for about 15 minutes. You need a fairly big pot as the entire stew ends up in here.  If you get scum on the surface of the water remove it with a spoon.

Slice up the savoy cabbage and add to the lamb. Whilst this is cooking boil up the potatoes and mash them.

Add to the lamb, give it all a good stir. Taste, add salt and pepper if needed.

Reheat to serve.

Changing the subject a bit, and as her proof reader I think I have the right, we purchased a humongous sack of peanuts for the birds (can you believe over £35!). So the birds are now happy as is Smudger one of our semi feral cats as she has already caught and killed one of the beautiful birds that are now feasting on the nuts. Perhaps not nice but that is the reality of nature.

Talking of nature we need to do something urgently about the rats that have been attracted by our hen house and all the lovely delights it holds for them. When the rats were nearer the house I just used to shoot them but since they moved up the garden we have had to resort to poison which is something I need to do again soon as they are now reinforced for the Winter. The hardest problem is keeping the poison away from the chickens and ducks so we use a two pronged attack, down the holes to their homes and safely out of range of the chickens in plastic bags under the chicken and duck house. Oh, the pleasures of living in the country and trying to feed oneself!

more Andorra in June 07

The pudding mixture has been standing for 24 hours and I am now experimenting with a 1 pound pudding in the pressure cooker. I am amazed that the times I have read on the Internet say 3 hours cooking under pressure, I would have expected much less. So I am risking one pudding this evening and will then decide how to cook the rest according to the results.

It has rained all evening following a very grey day. I understand it’s the same all over the UK, grey, dull and wet. Ah well it’s late November so I shouldn’t be too surprised.

The cooking period is going (slowly) and the pressure cooker keeps dropping below the required pressure. I wonder if they are suitable for use on halogen hobs? It’s been driving me mad!!

I have been speaking to youngest daughter this evening. She has been buying sparkly, high heels for Christmas going out. Now when was the last time I did that? Socks is more my thing these days (my new socks do go with my handbag; although I struggled to demonstrate this to T-W-O who wasn’t quite so impressed as I was).

I am off to bed shortly although. I’m struggling to sleep a full night at the moment. It seems too cold, too hot, too cold, I am determined not to get up though and lie there thinking – more thinking and more thinking. At 5.ooam I fall asleep and then at 7.00am I don’t want to get up, much less help with the animals.

We have been shopping and then cleaning leaves today. Where has the weekend gone I ask myself? We went to look at a potential farmers market venue, a new location where they have been trading for only 5 weeks. They are a little light of traders but we cannot commit every Sunday to a market and wish them well.

M & S have some reasonable socks and I now have 9 pairs – I don’t think I have ever had 9 pairs of socks in my life before. T-W-O has new under garments – no more need be said.

We feel as if the two days of rest have gone unrested. After a tea of roast beef I am now making more Christmas puds for the market next weekend. ( I can find no sweet things hiding in the cupboards so no sneaky hot choc before bedtime.)

Artwork in Andorra – taken during last years summer holiday.

Sam always puts photos up with little or no explanation so it leaves it down to me as her proofreader (just shows I an useful for somethings. The W.O.). During our break in Andorra (how did we decide to go there, but aren’t we glad we did?), we came across this site with a number of what we can only describe as modern art works of which this is the most amusing. As an aside we would recommend Andorra as a holiday destination without reservation, although we went is Summer and it was beautiful, so go and give it a go.

But now to matters of the present. I saw a new incoming link from http://joannasfood.blogspot.com/ called the tree of happiness. I went over to have a read and we were listed there……….

You have to list six things that make you happy and six blogs that make you happy. So here are six blogs http://kitschenpink.blogspot.com/ making and baking in pretty Norfolk – check out her little home made dogs. They made me smile

http://bakeandsew.wordpress.com/ cooking and sewing, 2 of my loves.

http://bee-leaf.blogspot.com/ something different – camping wild, making baskets – I’d love to make baskets

http://somersetseasons.blogspot.com/ - photographs of Somerset in abundance.

http://codlinsandcream.blogspot.com/ more from Wales.

http://www.talesfromthechickenhouse.blogspot.com/ A clever young lady writing about things she loves.

6 happy things – I’ve cheated and tried to think of things that happened this week which made me smile.

• Falling asleep in the rocking chair in front of the wood-burner, feet up on the footstool (I did this yesterday!)
• Snuggling up to toasty T-W-O, I do this every evening.
• Watching some of Children in Need last night on the tele (I didn’t get any of the soap things as I don’t watch them but the Strictly spot was good)
• The bacon, sausage and egg sandwich I had for lunch – naughty but nice!
• Having a coffee and a chat with our neighbour this afternoon. What a great way to pass a Saturday afternoon. He sculpts pieces of scrap wood into all manner of things, birds, bears, a rocking horse, he’s very clever.
• Getting the Internet back this week, many thanks to the BT engineer who had to work all morning on our problem.

woodpecker

The woodpecker comes to see us when we put peanuts out, they make great viewing from the kitchen window. We hear the woodpeckers in the nearby woods starting in the spring as they tap at the bugs in the trees and search for mates.

I went to buy a big sack of peanuts from the local farmers store to stock the birds up for the winter and came away empty handed. They wanted over £50 for the sack and our budget doesn’t stretch to that. When did they get so expensive?

Lamb and veg pasties

Makes 4 big pasties or enough meat for two to have with spuds and veg (you can always double the meat if you’re hungry)

Olive oil for frying.

250g lamb (you can buy stewing lamb in packs but we use diced shoulder)

1 big onion, peeled and diced

A large carrot peeled and sliced thinly or diced

A chunk of swede about the same size as the carrot, peeled and diced

A couple of medium potatoes, peeled and diced. (Keep the potatoes in water until needed)

The veg should be diced into little chunks about half a cm.

1 clove of garlic crushed

A teaspoon mixed herbs

A beef stock cube

Salt and pepper

A wine glass of water

Beaten egg

500 g flour

250g fat (half block marge and half lard or refined veg fat)

Quarter tsp salt

10 tb cold water.

Pastry making

Sieve the flour and salt into a bowl or a food processor bowl.

Dice the fat and add to the flour. Either rub together or whiz for about ten seconds. The fat should be mixed into a bread crumb consistency (the food processor makes it an even finer mix)

Add 10 TB of cold water and bring together with your hands or whiz until you have a ball of pastry.

Put in the fridge for at least 20 minutes

Pasty filling

Heat a couple of table spoons of oil in a medium to big saucepan on medium heat. Add in the garlic and onion, turn to a medium low heat and cook for 10 minutes stirring every now and then to make sure it doesn’t stick. The onions should be softening.

Cut the lamb into little chunks about half a cm to 1 cm in size and remove the fatty bits.

Turn the heat up and add the meat. You want the meat to sizzle. Keep it moving round the pan until it is lightly browned then turn the heat back down to medium low and tip in the rest of the veg and the mixed herbs. Give it all a stir to mix the oil around and let it cook for another ten minutes.

Add the water and crumble in the stock cube. Cook for about 15 minutes and then try the stock. Add salt and pepper to your taste. Cook for another 20 minutes. Turn off the heat and put it somewhere to cool down if using for pasties or add another wine glass of water and let it gentle cook for about an hour.

To assemble the pasties.

Oven to 180 degrees C/ Gas mark 4

Roll out a chunk of your pastry weighing about 230 grams to an eight inch circle. This is a desert plate size, somewhere between a side plate and a dinner plate. Use the plate as a template to cut round. Reuse the waste pastry as you go.

Divide the meat mixture between the pastry bases keeping it in the middle. Wash the edges of the pastry with beaten egg. Fold the pasties in half and use a fork to press the edges together or use your fingers.

Place the pasties on a non stick baking tray or line a tray with baking paper and egg wash them and cook for 50 minutes.

The pasties should be golden to look at.

Serve hot or cold.

the red arrows 2008

This photo was taken at the Gran Prix this year. Every year I take loads of photos at the Gran Prix, mostly of the Red Arrows with the rest being of the track with the odd front or end of a car in the frame. Sadly the weather was so bad this year that the Red Arrows had to do their low level display, hence the very grey background. This year we have improved our photgraphy as our new camera can take five frames a second so now we can’t miss the car although considerable time is subsequently spent deleting the no car, front of car or rear of car shots!

I do think that work sometimes gets in the way of life. I enjoy the work I do, it is varied (to a point), has problems that need resolving and involves working with a nice bunch of people. It is not a vocation in life but it has helped pay the bills for the last ten years as well as providing some wonderful moments of satisfaction when we deliver a complete project. It can also be stressful, long hours and sometimes rather like a large and insurmountable brick wall.

I would say that food is more our vocation in life. T-W-Os Mum always used to say he would have made a great chef and our youngest son has indeed gone on to be a chef, but unless we become a business with safe and regular returns the day job will be there for a while to come.

The business provides us with an opportunity to explore new ideas and makes us work hard to deliver something others will hopefully enjoy. I am not preaching here, it really pains me every time someone eats a sample from the stall. I want them to enjoy the experience but at the same time be truthful. Not easy and a little like answering that TV famous question ‘Does my bum look big in this?’ You only want to hear one answer and yet……….

So is work less about paying the bills and more about loving what we do or is this just an ideal? Who can say and if we switched our lives to producing food would it become just another job?

I have again spent too long in the car today travelling the long and straight M4 for more than 6 hours in total which gives me too much contemplation time. Working from home tomorrow, thank goodness.

The internet has gone unless we take the phone off the hook and then we get that horrible noise (try it for a couple of minutes and see). So it’s impossible. Our spam folder will be bulging and we may even have a few emails we want to read.

BT suggested it is a fault within the house and if so they will charge us a minimum of £120!! What really riles me about this is that it is always their initial reaction that it must be our fault and they always talk to us as if we are thick. We’ve tried replacing all the cables, tried a change of phone, a new ADSL filter and still it only works with the phone off the hook. When we make a phone call it’s all crackle and hiss. Friday is our BT man’s visit. I’m sure I could get an entire blog dedicated to BT. If you mention a problem everyone has either had a problem or knows someone who has had a problem. If that is slander (or the other type whose name escapes me but is the written version of slander) then I am not blaming anyone in particular of course, as there are (not) many other suppliers of home communications.

On a happier and less stressful note we had a friend, Steffan for dinner and then we were joined by another friend (Martin who’s better half is spending a few weeks with her family in Venezualas) for after dinner drinks. That sounds very civilised!

The day started out with some promise, the sun in the sky and that wintery nip in the air meant the washing could go out on the line. It seemed a bit blowy as the whirly gig circled and danced in the wind and when I walked away it was having a go at the vienese Waltz. Having faith in my pegs and cold hands I left it to the gods to decide if my washing would stay put.

 At lunch time I padded into the kitchen to get myself a sandwich and coffee when I heard the pitter patter of rain drops against the window. I ran out to fetch in the washing and was greeted with an amazing rainbow. Throwing the washing basket aside I ran back in to get the camera. I was just too late to get the best shots but I got something. The washing is a little soggy but when the heating makes it’s once a day rumble the sheets will dry I’m sure.

Then this afternoon our broadband decided to take a holiday. Now the man on the phone at BT was very very nice and did make sure I was aware that if an engineer should come see us we would, should it be our problem not theirs, be £116 worse off. This sort of money galvernised me into action. We have norrowed it down to the cable that connects the Sky box to the phone wire or our phone. Either way at least we now have the internet back up and running.

The landscape at dusk

After a long day away at the office and a bad nights sleep I am ready for bed (again) mentally tired of the driving and the concentration at work but physically unable to settle. This mixture of feeling drained in one way but not another brings me to think that we as humans require a certain amount of physical activity in a day to be truly ready for bed.

T-W-O has been experimenting with his German sausage mixture. The results were tasty, with the savoury herb used in the mix, but the addition of chilli flakes was just too much.

The German sausages we have eaten in the past are certainly warm in taste and I think we have now decided that crushed mustard seed would probably have been used rather than crushed chilli. A relatively small dose of chilli gives a big punch as the flavour developed through the sausage mixture. Another interesting contrast to the British sausage is the use of pork shoulder rather then the traditional belly pork.

Onward with the sausage mix…………….

A Jerusalem artichoke flower

I took the photo above in our garden a few weeks ago just as the evening was closing in. After writing the blog below all hell has broken loose here with heavy rain, thunder and lightning and a big storm. The dogs house has flooded as has the perimeter drainage channel of the house and we have been out in the dark trying to clear the drains. No damage done (so far, fingers crossed, touch wood) just all very soggy! The water is cascading down both hills towards us but happily is going where it is supposed to go although we are continually having to clear the fallen leaves that block just about everything.

At the farmers market we met some of the other stall holders, quite a fascinating lot along with their fascinating produce.  Opposite us was a very nice Belgium chocolate stall man and all his produce. I was tempted to take my glasses off so I couldn’t see the shiny chocolates all crying out ‘eat me, eat me!’ He came over for a pasty late morning but we couldn’t chat as he had to run back to his customers.

Next to us a Dutch couple were selling cheeses their family produces. We indulged in a bit of old fashioned barter, cheese for a hot lamb and vegetable pasty. I now have a lovely piece of cheddar with seaweed in the fridge waiting for some nice crackers. They chatted away to each other in Dutch and also to their toddler son who didn’t seem that impressed to be there.

There was also a vegetable seller and a butcher who frequents the Llandovery market so we have friendly faces to say hello to. I make sure I buy something from the vegetable man at every market as he mainly sells what he grows. He’s a lovely man who has a kind but somehow happy smile. He is convincing us to attend the Lampeter markets next year.

I said hello to the meat lady that I was next to at the last Brecon market, Sue. She has rare breed pigs and makes a few pies and things from her meat. We are tempted to buy a couple of rare breed weeners from her and try our hand at bringing on our own meat.

Up the hall a ways is a chilli stall which sells all things chilli from jelly to the plants. They run a confirmed vegetarian kitchen. We chatted a little when he came and purchased a veggie pasty. Next to the chilli man is an apple juice stall making juices from the fruits of their orchard, also vegetarians who enjoyed a pasty from us.

Lucky for us our pasties make a handy lunch for the stall holders so we get to see many of them even if it’s briefly.  

For the pasties

Please note that the squash will need to be cooked and cooled off a bit before putting the pasties together and cooking so you can do this the day the day before and keep it in the fridge until needed.

This mix makes about 6 full pasties. You may get a spoon of the filling left over.

Oven to 180 degrees C, Gas mark 4.

2 onions, peeled and diced.

A clove of garlic, crushed and peeled.

A Butter nut squash. Peeled, seeds scraped out and the flesh cut into small chunks.  Or after removing the seeds, cut in the food processor using the knife blade but you have to be very careful and watch them like a hawk. As they can go from big chunks to mush in seconds. My squash left me with about 550 grams of flesh.

3 teaspoons tomato puree

2 teaspoons vegetable stock powder (I use Swiss bouillon, expensive but I believe it’s the best)

250ml of water

Twists of pepper and a bit of extra salt to taste

100 g cheddar, grated

A biggish potato, peeled

A small packet of Pumpkin seeds

You will need to make 2x batch of pastry http://glanbrydan.wordpress.com/2008/10/03/

Beaten egg

Gently fry off the onion and garlic for 5 to 10 minutes until it begins to soften.

Add the prepared squash flesh, stir and gently fry for a few minutes more.

Pour in the water, add the stock powder and the tomato puree, stir and bring to the boil.

Simmer on a medium heat for about 10 minutes. You want the squash to be soft on the outside but not all the way through and the water should have reduced by about a third or more.  Taste it and add the pepper and more salt if needed.

Take off the heat and leave to cool.

Stir in the grated cheddar to the squash mix.

Making a pasty

Flour a board, a rolling pin and your hands. Take a lump of the pastry, about 240 grams (give or take 20 grams) and roll into a ball shape with your hands.

Pat the lump to flatten it out, put it on the floured board and start to roll,  turning a quarter circle after each forward and backward roll. This should help it stay round.

Keep an 8 inch plate next to you and check the pastry for size with the plate. When the pastry is just a bit bigger than the plate use the plate as a template and cut round it.

Cut out all the pasties and if you have room lay them all out on a clean surface. Egg wash the pasties and then use the blade side of a grater cut the potato into slivers.

Divide the potato between the pasty centres. You should have 4-6 slices for each pasty. Sprinkle a tiny bit of salt over the potatoes.

Divide the squash mixture between the pasties, spooning over the potatoes. Keep it all well away from the edges.

Now bring the sides of the pasty together crimping the edges between your fingers. If your not happy doing this fold the pasties in half and crimp the edges with a fork.

Egg wash the pasty surfaces you can see thoroughly and sprinkle with pumpkin seeds.

Place on a baking tray lined with baking paper or greased well with oil and cook in the middle of the oven for 50 minutes.