Thursday 30 September 2010

Signs of spring #2

The 2 young nectarine trees are flowering madly. These are self-sown trees that we dug up and put in the current location 2 years ago. We harvested a few handfuls of fruit last season. They were extremely delicious.

Wednesday 29 September 2010

Signs of spring

The elder tree is developing tons of flower buds. The leaves are looking good, too.Soon this tree will be covered in gorgeous flowers!

Monday 27 September 2010

Home-made chorizo

We sampled the first of our chorizo from our free-range Berkshire pig yesterday.Sliced and fried. With a fried egg.
Delicious! Not as hot as I thought it would be, but still very tasty.
We are still alive - no botulism, etc. So we must have done it right. :)

As long as you get the amount of salt right, you should have no problems. 2-3% of salt. (We added 2% salt.) The sausage mixture was about 70% lean meat and 30% fat. Then you add spices of your choice. We added garlic, smoked paprika, black pepper, chilli, etc.

Then dry at a cool and slightly humid place until the chorizo feels firm.The white spots on the chorizo are not mould, but salt residue from the brine we brushed them with.

Friday 24 September 2010

Yellow Fields

On the way to Clare you will pass fields and fields of flowering canola. Great contrast with the other very lush, green fields.
Taken from the car on a pretty miserable day.

Friday 17 September 2010

Watching asparagus grow...

...is not as tedious as it sounds. Once they start - they grow very quickly. You will have to harvest them every day. Can't wait!!
A touch more about our asparagus here.

Monday 13 September 2010

The BIG cheese

I was told to blog about my BIG cheese.

Here it is:

I used raw Jersey milk from a cow called Chocolate. We love Chocolate!

This is a Gouda and weighs 1.4kg.

Compared with the usual weight and size of my cheeses - this is BIG.

The Gruyere that I made a week earlier with raw Holstein/Frisian milk weighs 650g. This is about the usual weight of my cheeses made with Holstein/Frisian milk. Here they are, side by side.
Both cheeses were made with exactly the same amount of milk - 7.6l.

The Jersey milk is extremely creamy and absolutely delicious. We love to make yoghurt with it as it is very, very thick and creamy. We haven't tasted any of the cheeses yet, but I'm sure they'll be wonderful.