Hitchin Food + Drink Festival!

We'll be at the Hitchin Food and Drink Festival this Saturday and Sunday (8th and 9th September) selling our lovely sausages - to take home AND gobble up straight away! Come by and say hello!

Andre + Jane x

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! 

Chilli Fiesta Shenanigans....

The sun finally came out to shine on us at the annual Chilli Fiesta organised by Edible Ornamentals at Mansion House... We were serving up our tasty Sweet Chilli sausages all day long - They went down a treat! Lots of families out and about celebrating Father's Day in the sun, sampling lots of chilli delights - our personal favourite was the Hot Headz Smoky Chilli Ketchup.... Mmmmm...

Big thanks to Ben and Cheryl who came to help out on the day - We couldn't have done it without you! Not forgetting Ben handing over his rather 'bright' sunnies for the day - Thanks!

Was great to meet some new friends and we look forward to coming along again next year...

Andre and Jane

We're making a book!

Here are some sample images taken during a photo shoot at The Radcliffe Arms recently - we're putting together a book of fantastic dishes (Yes, we did try some of them...) The pork was especially delicious, however, we may be slightly biased there! 

We'll be publishing before the end of the Summer - so watch this space! 

And for those who can't wait to see the book - pop in to the Radcliffe Arms in Hitchin to sample some tasty fare - make sure you tell them we sent you :-) 

Andre and Jane

Mid Summer Revels love our sausages!

Last year they sold out on the BBQ (for the first time ever...) so delicious were our sausages... So this year they're back with an even bigger order! Make sure you make your way over to St Nicholas' in Norton (Letchworth) for a fantastic family day out on Saturday 23rd June - as well as a chance to get some great grub :-)

We keep the fat content low and the meat content high in our sausages making them a great choice for kids - we can tone down the herbs and spices too for those who are a little fussy - great to have a local school supporting local business, we'd welcome any other schools interested to get in touch!

Andre and Jane

Thinking of getting into beekeeping?

The recent warm weather has really brought out the bees - We've been flat out collecting swarms from all over the local area - some enormous, some little - mostly honeybees but not always... One of the swarms we collected was from a street in Royston - a young family had called us to have it removed. It turned out that the chap concerned's Mum used to keep bees and he was quite interested in taking it up now himself. 

So, last Friday we did our first official one to one training - We organised everything from the hives, bees, suits and equipment and gave an introduction to beekeeping - some great hands on experience and put our customer in touch with his local beekeepers association. We'll also give follow up support when he needs extra advice and help. 

The smell of beeswax brought back lots of memories of his Mum and he was delighted to be well on his way to a satisfying future in being a beekeeper. 

So if anyone out there is interested in getting into beekeeping and would like our help to set everything up please get in touch - We love talking about bees! 

Andre and Jane

Chris Parsons