Easter....

Just a quick post to say we hope everyone had a fantastic Easter... Ours was spent at home keeping warm! Oh and cooking of course...

Andre managed to check on our bees while the sun was shining (despite the cold they were out foraging!) - its been a hard and long Winter for them but thankfully most have made it through and will be anxious to start getting out there into the Spring flowers. We topped up their feed with some fondant which should set them right until the weather warms up a bit.

Santi kept busy painting some colourful bird boxes which we've started to put up outside - hopefully we'll have a garden full of sunshine and birds and bees very soon... (All fingers crossed!) 

Piglets for sale!

We've got 11 lovely Saddleback piglets for sale from our prize winning sow 'Scoops' a mix of female and male - already chubby and 10 weeks old - Saddlebacks are great porkers and make excellent meat. If you're new to rearing pigs we can help with lots of advice too...

Piglets can be sold with or without Pedigree papers - we can arrange delivery for a small fee too.

Give Andre a call on 07958 655962 to discuss...

Hope all your Chrissie preparations are going well - Don't forget to order your Christmas hams soon! (Not many left now)

Jane and Andre x

Bee Update... 2012 Season

We've had an interesting year with the bees - well that is a slight understatement! As was widely reported amongst bee circles all over the UK it was the worst Summer for over 100 years. Some would argue it wasn't really a Summer at all - and I think the bees would agree!

Because of all the rain it made it nigh on impossible for our bees to forage as they normally would - they ended up being stuck in their hives alot of the time - The little honey they did bring in they had to use for food, we had to keep a very close eye on them to make sure they had enough food and didn't end up starving. One week I would check up and see some full frames of honey, then the next it would be all gone! It was certainly up and down like this all Summer.

We managed two harvests from all the hives during the season regardless, but the yeild was much, much lower than usual. Funnily enough it seems like over the last month the bees have brought more honey into their hives than during the whole Summer put together!

I was still busy collecting swarms (some even out of chimneys!) - but they didn't tend to fare so well once I'd settled them into their new hives - either losing the Queen (lost on her mating flight) or she wasn't able to mate for one reason or another. That was really disappointing as I really try my hardest to look after all the girls.

Now is the time to settle the bees in for the Winter - They've all been fed with sugar fondant to keep their stores up, I've put mouse guards on and reduced the size of the entrance to stop any little creatures robbing the hives. I've also added weights to the rooves to stop the Winter wind blowing them over. I'll be checking them once a month during the Winter to make sure they're OK - fingers crossed they'll all be safe and sound and we'll have a better season next year!

Venison, Apples and Pie!

Some more of what we've been up to recently.... 

We were very lucky to be given some venison - which begged the question 'What to cook?' Well, sausages of course! We made a mixture of Pork and Venison - one batch with a little white wine and paprika and the other batch plain - so we could get a good meaty taste. Both were delicious!

 Here's our Venison - all ready for mincing...

 Venison, Pork and some fat minced ready for the sausage mix...

 These were the paprika ones which had a lovely dark reddish colour

 And finally, separating into sausages... Still haven't mastered the art of stringing them together to hang.. Need some lessons on that front.

We're also lucky enough to live opposite some very old orchards which are part of Fairfield Park - There are so many trees which are always laden with fruit. The boys headed over with the wheelbarrow to collect some. Most of these were juiced and made into cider for Christmas - but we kept some aside so I could try out a simple Apple Pie recipe I saw on the telly recently...

 This was the finished product and they didn't last long! Apples were chopped up and stewed with some cinnamon and brown sugar - recipe says to add lemon zest and ground ginger too. Then left to cool before adding to squares of puff pastry and baked in an oven for 20 mins. They were crunchy and buttery and smelt amazing - I highly recommend it, so easy :-)

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