Baking, Jam and Honey!

Its inevitable that the rain will arrive over a long weekend - luckily we had some delicious home grown goodies to keep us going. Some people like to DIY but I prefer to bake :-) and the boys appreciated it... Our bees have been busy too, Andre found a frame packed with honey, it weighed over 2 kilograms!

So we had a batch of sausage rolls made with our own sweet chilli and pork and leek sausages - they were amazing and so easy to make. I did cheat with packet puff pastry - Its a Lorraine Pascale recipe - And finally, some home grown jam made with fruit from the garden - Greengage and Victoria plum. Theres lots more fruit on the trees so I think we'll make up a huge pot of chutney - my favourite!

Hope you all had a fantastic long weekend despite the soggy weather!

Jane x

Bee Testimonial... (and sausages too!)

I contacted several people to solve my ‘bee in the chimney’ problem, and only Andre stepped up to the challenge. Whilst others told me it wouldn’t be possible to get rid of them without killing them, Andre told me confidently that he’d be able to smoke them out, then rehouse them. Due to his patient approach over the course of an afternoon and evening, this is exactly what happened, and my family and I watched in amazement as he worked.

Perhaps even better than his bee skills, though, are his talents as a pig breeder. There can’t be many beekeepers who can offer you pork and ribs after they finish, but Andre assured me that his sweet chilli rare breed sausages would be amongst the best I’ve ever tasted. Once again, he was as good as his word, and when these came off the barbeque, they caused a virtual riot as everyone fought over who’d get the last one.

So gracias for dealing with the bees, Andre, and hasta la proxima delivery of meat!

Michael Dunn, Cambridge

Thanks Michael!