Well that's just hard cheese!!!

Wow! Two posts in one month, is my resolve not to let my blog take over my life weakening?

Nah, not at all I had half an hour to spare before I finish reading the Hunger games trilogy.

If you haven't read it/them yet you need to.

What you also need to do, and you can do this immediately after you've read my blog, is to Google 'Woodworking for Mere Mortals'.  You cannot fail to be impressed!

Anyway, we've had a productive couple of weeks, well Nanny Southwellski has and I've been encouraging her so I've had a productive time too.

Our larder is filling nicely, with jams, pickles, pickled eggs, canned fruit, apple sauce and much more besides, although I can't believe the alarming regularity with which Nanny Southwellski dishes out the pickled eggs to all and sundry.

You can't walk down the drive before Nanny Southwellski has the lid off the jar.

We make our own cheese from the milk Simone our goat provides for us, and already we have a favourite in Chevre, a cream cheese not dissimilar to 'Philly', just tastier.

Cheese press

The cheddar making process is a bit more complicated and you would have to ask Nanny Southwellski about the ins and outs of it but here's my take on it.

You put the milk in a big saucepan and warm it up a bit.  Then you chuck some cheese starter in and wait until the curds have set.

The curds are cut up and scooped out of the whey.

Waxing lyrically

Put the curds in a cheesecloth and then put it in the cheese press and squeeze some of the liquid out of it.

Unwrap it after 'a while', and let it dry a bit before waxing it.

The recipe we use says let it mature for not less than 4 weeks, then gorge yourself!

We cut into our first batch of cheddar today, tasty enough (apart from the side where we cut a bit of mould off) but more akin to Parmesan than a firm but pliable cheddar.

Cheddar Mk1

We think we left it to dry out too long before waxing it, ah well live and learn.  Our second cheddar is on the way only three weeks to go.

Now, you have to have a nice bit of bread to put your cheese on, but what to have, white or wholemeal?

Why not have both, and no I don't mean one of those insipid rubbery loaves you can buy which purport to be 'Best of Both' but one which has white and wholemeal.

Best of both!

I can't take credit for this as much as I would like to.  A good friend of ours, Jo 'Coops' Cooper came to visit a couple of weeks back and brought a loaf which was both white and brown bread all in one loaf.

It's not as hard as it looks, all there is to it is to make two batches of dough, one wholemeal and one white.

Bread with a twist

The process itself is very easy, prepare enough of white and wholemeal dough to make one loaf of each, divide both dough's into two then simply twist a white and a wholemeal together, slap it in you're loaf tin and wait for it to rise.


I have at last, and let me tell you I have tried a good few recipes, found a recipe that gives me a good sized loaf that is well risen, soft on the inside and with a crust to die for and I will quite possibly share it with you next time.

And that's shallot!

This year I said I would get more organised in the veggie growing department and in all honesty it hasn't happened.

Yes we had some lousy weather, too much rain and not enough sunshine.  But that's not all bad, we are still picking cucumbers and tomato's and the alpine strawberries are still fruiting after almost three months.

Our shallots have been harvested, (I needed the plot for something else) dried and braided.  They now hang proudly from our pan rack in the kitchen.




The foraging is going well, and we now have enough Elderberries for a few bottles of wine, I just need to decant my cider and pear wine from the demi johns so I can start the next batch of wine.

Coco found this little chap/chapette on the hawthorn leaves from our foraging for berries.  The shell is 6mm across, that's 1/4" for those of us still working in proper measurements.

On the remedies front we have Hawthorn berries and Rose hips as well and I will start making the winter remedies this week.

You have much to learn grasshopper!

I will also be collecting the last of the red clover flowers to dry along with some white dead nettles.  These both make very pleasant infusions in their own rights let alone the remedial effects on hay fever and PMT respectively.

The grasshopper(right) made its way onto the deck at the back of our house this afternoon, probably thought it was safer there than trying to dodge the sheep and goats playing chase in the paddock.

Don't even think about moving me!

And finally........... yes its wood burner time again and Monty has claimed the hearth.

And don't forget,  The Hunger Games trilogy and Woodworking for Mere Mortals.

Go on, do it now.