Soup ... and Egg and Bacon Breakfast Muffins

The huge pan of soup I made at the start of the week has done sterling work keeping us fed every lunchtime.

After dishing us up a bowlful each at lunchtime on Monday, I cooled off two single and two double portions for the freezer, and some was put into a clean pan and popped into the fridge once it was cold.  Today we have just eaten the last of this particular batch, a smaller bowlful each this time, followed by a sandwich. 

Tomorrow while I am away at my sons, Alan can have some of last weeks Broccoli soup for a change with some of Stilton crumbled in ... his favourite.

A new favourite of his are these egg and bacon breakfast 'muffins'.

Easy to do and they cook in the time it takes you to feed dogs and drink your first coffee of the morning ... about 20 - 25 minutes.

Simply oil a muffin tray and line each section with a slice of bacon, add some chopped tomatoes, and/or mushrooms if you have them ...

... pour in some beaten eggs and cook in a medium hot oven until the egg is set as much as you like it.

You can just crack an egg into each cup of the muffin tray if you like the white and yolk separate from each other, but our eggs were quite big so he divided two eggs between four cups.

And then try and remember if you are going to do a blog post about them to catch him before he eats the first two  ;-)

Sue xx

You never know what you'll find on an Aga ....

You never know what you're going to find on the Aga, yesterday for instance it was this weeks huge pan of homemade soup.

It was just cobbled together from pickings and trimmings from the polytunnel and net tunnel with an added onion or two and a couple of slices of celery from the fridge salad drawer.  I even found a marrow that I didn't know was still left in the net tunnel when I was having a tidy up of one of the beds.  I didn't manage to fit it all in the pan so half of the chunks were popped into the freezer for next weeks pan of soup.

I've recently started adding some beetroot to most of my soups, it gives the whole pot this wonderful deep reddish colour.

Of course the Aga is not just a giant soup maker ....

... this morning it looks like this!!

I think Ginger brought a mouse in over night, and the kitchen and conservatory bore the tale of a frantic mad chase of said mouse by a cat and a Jack Russell.  My wellies were knocked over and this one had obviously been used as a refuge, although why it was soaking wet inside I'll  never know ... sometimes it's best not to dwell on these things.

Once it's dried out I'll have to stick the lining back to the rubber and put the whole incident out of my mind.

Sue xx

So ... What DID I Buy with my Vouchers

After the last post I thought it only fair that I came back on and tell you what I did actually decide to buy with my Tesco and M&S vouchers.  I had no fixed idea of what I intended to get until I got to Tesco and then I thought what would give be the absolute best value for my vouchers in terms of food shopping that would be useful for next year when we have decided to scrimp and save on the housekeeping to help us save to pay off the mortgage.

Dried goods it had to be then.  

The Basmati rice was £5.70 for 4kg, the Red Lentils £1.80, the Pearl Barley and the Yellow Split Peas came in at 55p each .... just 10p over my £8.50 worth of vouchers.

I could have gotten more rice for my money if I had gone for the Everyday Value long grain rice ... a whopping 12kgs in fact ... and we might be eating that by the end of year, but how much better to start the year with a decent supply of our favourite rice.

Today I nipped into Marks and Spencer while I was in Llandudno and decided on the spur of the moment to get treats with the £6 I had in vouchers from there.  So mince pies for Christmas for Alan and some sweets for the cinema for me.

My trip to Tesco also threw up some yellow stickered bargains.

A selection of meats for the freezer ...

... a tray of Mediterranean vegetables, that worked out cheaper than buying a couple of courgettes to go with veggies I already had at home.

And a bag of nice baking potatoes ....

... that will be in use as soon as we have finished the last of our homegrown ones.

Not a bad little shopping spree :-)

Sue xx

A Neat Cook ... and Bashed Biscuits

I've turned into a neat cook.  

I like to measure out all the ingredients and have them ready to throw into the pan as and when I need them, this saves so much time spinning around in the kitchen making myself dizzy while I rummage through cupboards for ingredients while my onions burn or my garlic singes.  It also means that I have time to put on my thinking cap and work out what I can use in place of any ingredients that I might not have.

This time I was following this recipe as I wanted to use up our last homegrown cauliflower.  It was absolutely delicious and these amounts gave us a large portion each for one night served with rice, a smaller portion for the next night again with rice for me, and with rice and a pork chop for Alan, and one also a small tub full for the freezer which will make either a lunch for one or an addition to a Buddha bowl for both of us.

Delicious ... I added peas to ours because I didn't have any fresh coriander to add that very necessary splash of green.   :-)

Pudding was a simple favourite of ours, a layer of fruit in a glass, a layer of chilled Oatly custard and then a packet each of crushed Biscoff biscuits for a crunchy topping.  We ate them before I took a photo, but this is how it all started off.

Sue xx 

Farm Gate Sales

Yay ... we're in business :-)

We have sold eggs since we first got chickens and continued selling then when we moved here over four years ago, but we have always been a bit haphazard with the 'farm gate sales'.  A box would be put out in fair weather, mostly in Summer when the eggs are plentiful, vanishing with rain or wind (before the wind made it vanish) and selling regularly in bulk to our lovely neighbour who runs a B&B.  But now we are in the farm gate sales business properly with this lovely smart box set against our wall and with the contents well protected from the elements.

It was designed by me and then hand made and painted with numerous coats of our favourite colour by Alan in his workshop, and then it spent a day or so drying out on the Aga.

It should last us a while, especially now it's got it's also got corrugated top on to protect it in even the worst of the weather.

There's lots of room inside for eggs, and anything else that we decide to sell in the Summer months.   I decided to decorate the back with some photos of the ladies that supply the eggs for a bit of added  interest.  We also have a couple of new larger signs for the wall and the fence on the opposite side of  the drive advertising that we sell eggs, which will go up when Alan has the time to mount them on wood, a new supply of green egg boxes that will tie in with the sales box and brand new labels with all of our details on them, but we are just running down supplies of the ones we already had first.

And as you can see although it's resting on the wall it is firmly anchored to the ground at the back.

Sales are already going really well, with people stopping on their way to and from work to pick up a box or two of eggs ... thank goodness we have the 'Welsh girls' who really are good layers all year round and should keep us in business though the Winter months. 

The money raised by the sale of the eggs goes straight back to the chickens to pay for their feed, bedding, more egg boxes etc and any other things they may need, but of course we also get eggs for our own use.  Any that are weak shelled, very small or very big stay in the kitchen for Alan's breakfast or to pop into quiches and cakes when I'm baking, and visiting family never go home empty handed if they like eggs.

Open for business.

Sue xx

The Last Of ...

At the start of the growing year it's all about 'the first of the ...', now we are into the tail end of the growing year and it's pretty much all about ' the last of the...'.  This morning I brought in the last of the Broccoli, the chickens were lucky I gave them all of the leaves and some of the stems ...

... but the rest went in a big pan to make this weeks lunchtime soups.

I padded it out with some celery, a couple of onions and a couple of homegrown potatoes, then a handful of soup mix for added goodness.  After the first stirring I decided a few cloves of garlic and a pinch of chilli flakes would be a good idea.

They were ... the finished soup is a well rounded very healthy tasting panful of green goodness.  Much nicer than some other green things we've been trying recently.  I'll tell you more about that tomorrow, for now I have to get off the computer as it's telling me it wants to start an 'important update'. 

And anyway I need to feed and walk the dogs before the weather turns any nastier than it already is here.  We woke this morning to a weird and slightly eerie yellow coloured world and after a day of sunshine and blue skies it looks like the high winds have brought the yellow clouds back again to round off the day.

So that's ' the last of ... my blogging ' for tonight then  ;-)

Sue xx

An Autumnal Still Life

Stepping out into the drizzle of this morning to pop something into the recycling stack, my eyes rested on the scene from the back door.  It's like an Autumnal still life ... so I nipped back inside to grab my camera. 

The leaves falling from the trees tumble down onto the pots on the patio with any hint of a breeze, blurring the edges of pots, saucers and tarmac and giving everywhere a coating of the finest of autumn colours.

Standing out from all this are the beautiful Cosmos flowers, pink and white and crisp for a day before the damp in the air ages the petals far too quickly, but as soon as one flower fades and drops another is there to take it's place.  I sold lots of pots of these at car boot sales over the Summer so I do hope the people that bought them from us are enjoying as good a display as we are getting.

The old tin bath full of herbs is scruffy and looks to be way past it's best, but the herbs it contains are still in almost daily use as one of us steps out from the kitchen, scissors in hand for a sprig of this or that to add to whatever dish we are making for our tea. 

An Autumnal still life .... perhaps it's hiding my mojo  ;-)

Sue xx

Bringing In the Cabbages

The high winds of the weekend took one of my little net wigwams off the Veggie Patch under cover of darkness ... where they took it too I have no idea, it's completely vanished ... so the cabbages that were safely nestled under it have been exposed to the elements and the critters that live on the hill, that last bit sounds like something out of a horror movie doesn't it  ;-)

Alan even walked along the road looking for the wigwam but no luck!! 

So I had no choice but to start bringing the cabbages in and processing them.  This first lot were soaked in salted water, rinsed and then shredded and whizzed in the salad spinner before being frozen as they are.  As we should be eating them over the course of the Winter I thought I would see if I could get away with not having to do a mammoth blanching session.

The Sweet Chestnuts in Nut Wood were falling off the trees so they have all been brought in and taken out of their very prickly coverings.  This is the first proper crop from these trees, we were really pleased to get so many/

In other news ... I still don't waste anything and this lone crust was whizzed in the Nutribullet ...

... just three seconds later and I had a tub of breadcrumbs for the freezer, the next crust I get I'll do the same to and fill the tub up to the top  :-)

Sue xx

It's October

It's October ... September has gone ... and WOW what a month.

It started off with us having no water for almost two weeks, then we had a weekend in bonny Scotland and went to one of the nicest weddings we've ever been to, when our niece Erin married the love of her life, Darren in the greatest of style. 

Yes,  my lovely hubby scrubs up very well  :-)

I was stocked up with lots bargain vegetable seeds for next year and somewhat of a change for me ... lots of flower seeds too.

I did an Approved Foods order, something I've not done for ages ...

... and saved myself a shed load of money

We managed to get a couple of rolls of the sort of wallpaper we've been looking for for ages in the bargain bin in B&Q, ready for decorating the living room later this month.

We dressed a sheep!!

She's now doing much better, she's still with us and healing nicely .... although once again she's naked apart from her own now growing woolly jumper  ;-)

I filled the freezer with meat of every description for my carnivore of a man.

Got back into menu planning.

Processed homegrown vegetables ...

... in bulk!!

Bought a new book.

It's strange that this should stand out but I really have stopped buying books like I used to .... who would have thunk it,  haha  :-)

We put some of the raised beds to sleep for Winter.

And weeded those that we are still eating from. 

Before ...

... and after.

And now to round off the month nicely I have pulled something in my back so am having to take it easy ... really easy. Not something I find easy in any way.  Although chasing one of the Lavender Pekins off the main road first thing this morning is doing nothing for it's recovery!!

Naughty Jill.

So I'm going into October with a whimper and a whine ... and luckily a still live chicken thanks to a nice man who passes daily and recognised it as one of ours and knocked on the door to let me know.

I'll probably be back tomorrow with another post, as the office chair is currently the most comfortable chair in the house  :-)

Sue xx