Goosey Goosey Gander

Just wanted to share these pictures with you. We went back to the Farm the other day to see if there were any eggs. Every time we went over winter there were no eggs and we always left bereft but this time...

This time there were eggs and not just hen's eggs and bantam's eggs but a whole big fat whopping GOOSE egg!

So we bought it!  I have absolutely no idea what to do with it or how to even go about cooking it but it was just something that filled my little heart with joy so I thought I'd share it with you all too. 

XBx

Yorkshire Puddings To Die For

You don't get yummier than this...

Hello there my lovelies,
Well it's finally happened, the rain has stopped, the sun is out and I hate it already. I'm already missing my three layered outfits not to mention my knee high socks. The cold will be back soon won't it? Tell me it will, I miss it. It's nearly winter time, it must be!

So To help us all feel that little bit warmer I thought I'd write about one of mine and Mr Lardshow's favourite dishes. The honourable, deliciously proud Yorkshire Pudding. NOM!

Now Mr Lardshow likes to pretend that he is a Northerner, but in truth he's just an East Midlander with a funny accent. When it comes to Northerness I think I have the edge as my Paternal Grandmother was born in York and grew up in Leeds. That's proper Northern that! You don't have to have a little bit of Northern in you to make and enjoy Yorkshire Puddings but I don't think it can hurt, can it!?!

So to the recipe, very simple, nothing fancy, just a few key things and you can have perfect puds every time...

Ingredients

(Makes 4 puddings)

100ml milk,
2 eggs,
70g plain flour,
Pinch of pepper and salt,

I like to make my mixture in a plastic bowl that has a lid. I weigh out the flour and make a well in the middle. Break the eggs into the well and mix in until you have a thick, lump free batter. Then gradually add the milk until you have a thin single cream consistency.

Add a pinch of salt and pepper. Interestingly, Mr Lardshow's mum says that the heat from the pepper is what gives the pudding a kick and the heat from the kick is what makes it rise and go pop in th'oven.

So once the mixture is made, pop the lid on the box and put it in the fridge until you are ready to cook the yorkies. If I'm super organised I'll make it in the morning, the longer it's had in the fridge the better the puddings seem to turn out.

The puddings take a good 20 - 25 minutes to cook and you can't open the oven door once you've put them in so you need to be organised with your timings. We tend to put them in when we've taken out Mr Lardshow's meat to rest, I put the plates in to warm at the same time as the puds.

I put the tray in the oven to get it warm and then when it's time for baking I take the tray out and put it on top of the hob. I hate gas so we use an electric hob. Turn the hob up to the hottest setting, pour some oil into the pans and very bravely watch until you see smoke coming off the pan. As soon as you see the smoke pour the batter into the pans. The smoke will continue but DO NOT PANIC this is what you want. Once all the batter's in, gently put the puddings into th'oven and leave them. Pour yourself a glass of pretend wine and wait for the sloppy liquid to transform into the most delicious pillows of goldeness.

Enjoy my lovelies...

P.S if anyone has any ideas for me to blog about please let me know, Mummy Dearest has come up with a lovely idea that I'm going to get started on but lots more ideas would be very welcome!

Blueberry and Lime Drizzle Cake

Delicious Drizzle

Hello all,
Still feeling a bit rough here but I'm insisting on carrying on. We've just done cake club and here is the cake I made for it. It's my second attempt at a drizzle cake, my first attempt was a brick, used as a doorstop for a while! This was a much greater success though. The recipe made a huge cake that I have to say is absolutely delicious, thankfully there's loads left so Mr Lardshow will be taking some to work tomorrow. apparently some of his colleagues want to join cake club. Who am I to say no? I used some of the duck eggs we got the other day and they really have made the cake light and fluffy but not too rich.

So the cake is made up of 250g caster sugar, 4 eggs, 250g plain flour, 1/2 tsp baking powder, zest of 2 limes, 200g blueberries and 225g butter all those beautiful, magical ingredients that when whizzed up together in the kitchenaid turn into gorgeous goodiness (Yes, I know it's not a word).

As the eggs came from a farm I made sure i gave them a good wash before cracking them open.

I thought they'd crack open really easily but the shells seemed really tough.The yolks were huge and such a glorious sunshine yellow.

So you cream the butter and sugar together and then gradually add these perfect eggs, if the mixture looks like it's about to curdle just add a spoonful of flour and it will come back again. You then need to add the rest of the flour and baking powder ooh and the lime zest. I managed to fill the kitchen with lime zest and covered my pyjamas in it, ooh lemony, sorry limey fresh! Make sure you keep back a spoonful of flour to gently toss the blueberries in. This helps to stop the mixture turning grey and keeps the blueberries whole and not mushy in the mixture.

Line your cake tin on the bottom and the sides and plop the mixture in and then pop the cake in th'oven as Mr Lardshow would say. It's a long cook, I struggle with not opening the door all the time to check it's cooked...

While you're waiting for it to bake, get on with the lime drizzle, for this you will need the juice of 2 limes and 100g of icing sugar. Now you should you use a thin skewer to make holes in the top of the cake, however I don't have one so I used a knitting needle...it was clean I promise!

OOH! OOH! TAKE THE CAKE OUT OF THE OVEN!!!!!! 

Sorry, I forgot that part, the cake will take about 50 minutes, you'll know it's done when a fork that you've poked in it comes out clean.

So leave the cake for 5 minutes and then spoon the drizzle into the holes that you've made and leave the cake to cool completely in the tin.

Now make the icing, more limes and icing sugar! 5 tsp of lime juice and 125g of icing sugar. Take the cake out of the tin and plate it up. Drizzle the icing generously over the cake and down the sides if you can. Sprinkle some lime zest over the top. Put the coffee pot on, slice, eat, enjoy. 

Done!

P.S This makes a cake that will last for a good few days under a big glass cloche, a tin went to work with Mr Lardshow for Simon, Marlon and the rest of his work colleagues who are literally wasting away in their office. There's also plenty left for Pain Management Group tomorrow. NOM!

Chick, Chick, Chick, Chick, Chicken, Lay A Little Egg For Me!

OK I think I need to admit something to the group... *stands up and takes a deep breath* "my name is Beth and I am an egg addict, I need help!"

I fear they want their eggs back!

I am desperate to get some chickens of my own but until then I'm going to have to make do with visiting my fabulously feathered friends at the farm.

Geoff the chicken trying to get in the car with us

Valerie the Bantam

We just happened to pop by the farm as I had gone into 'I've only got 4 eggs left in the house and I might run out' panic mode, I'm the same with milk, you just never know, do you? I got out of the car with my collection of pennies to put in the egg post box and as I looked through the box on the wall to hopefully find some bantam eggs poor Mr Lardshow was trying to prevent a steady stream of chickens from getting into the car!

As we herded the chucks out of the way another car approached, trundling down the lane. The chickens went clucking mad! As the people in the car got out, more and more chickens streamed through a gate. They obviously knew the people in the car!

 

Daddy's home and he's got food!

We asked the farm owners how many chickens they had, they have 'about' 200! can you believe that? But they're not all cooped up in a barn, they're roaming free around the farm, in the fields and outhouses. How wonderful is that? Happy chickens = happy eggs = Happy Betsan!

Happy Eggs

 So the question for all of you out there, hopefully reading this is...Do you think it's possible to have a house chicken? Finn and Berry wouldn't mind would they?

Happy Happy Chucks

Baby Bantams

We went back to the farm...

And inside the box of chicken delights there were some bantam eggs! Such excitement, much scrabbling to get enough pennies together to be able to buy the bantam and hen's eggs. Yup we now have enough eggs to keep us going until ooh at least next week. 

There's just something so perfect about the shape and colour of an egg that's come from a happy chicken. I just can't understand why any one would buy caged hen's eggs nowadays. 

I've never eaten bantam eggs before and I assumed that they would be just like mini eggs (not the chocolate ones!). When we cracked them open we were greeted with the sight of the brightest yellow-orange yolk I've ever seen  and when we fried it we realised the yolk was pretty much the same size as a normal egg. There was much less egg white, perfect for me!

So as you can probably tell I've been having a go at taking more photos using Mr Lardshow's camera, he says it's now my camera but I fear that if I say it's my camera he'll make me carry it and it weighs a bloomin ton! Much better to say I'm borrowing it... I've never really been that creative or arty (More of a home economics girl, me) but I'm trying to use different colours and textures to make my pictures more interesting. I'm now starting to look at everything with a camera's lense. The good thing is you can add shadow, depth and texture after you've taken a really bad photo!

An Egg-celent Adventure!

Good Morning to you! I say morning, it is, I know, the afternoon. My body clock has gone a bit haywire since I started taking more of my tablets. I've been awake for two hours and I'm exhausted again now. All I manage is a quick potter downstairs and then I flop back into bed. Finn looks at me each time I return, climbs on top of me and gives me that look. The look that means "Why don't you just stay in bed with me?"

Anyway to the adventure. Adventure I hear you say? Yes ADVENTURE! Let me just clarify, an adventure for me is just leaving the house, nothing fancy like climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, just putting on outdoor shoes! So last night after tea, we decided to go out for a drive to get me out of the house. We packed the car bag (full of emergency tablets, moisturiser and lipsticks), filled the hot water bottles and away we went. Mr Lardshow wanted to try and work out how to get to a pond filled with trees that he wants to photograph, we couldn't actually work out how to get there but we did end up going down a road filled with hidden farmhouses. As we were trying to find a place to turn round and head back home we noticed a box attached to the wall of one of the farmhouses. We stopped and opened the box that was covered in little chickens. Inside were little egg boxes, full of the most perfect, freshly laid, free range eggs!

It is the simple things in life that give me pleasure and you would not believe the giddiness that buying these eggs has given me. They are just beautiful. I cannot wait to eat them.

So now the big question is what to use them for? I've got my eye on the biggest one for my lunch today. Although it'll probably be afternoon tea by the time I get round to making lunch. Mr Lardshow spent the night trying to persuade me that we should have a fry up for tea tonight, I have taken to responding with 'hmmmm' when he gets these fanciful ideas in his head. 'Hmmmm' means 'Er, I think you'll find my love, the answer to that request is NO!'

I want to bake with them, I can just picture the yellow fluffy sponge that you would get from these little delights...Now if I can just stay awake enough to do it...