Wednesday, February 25, 2009

The Pleasures of Summertime Farm

Do you like our new banner? It's the view down the lane leading to Summertime Farm where we have been staying for the past two months and is the home of my daughter and her partner.

The joy of living as gypsies (as we do) is that you have the benefit and pleasure but none of the responsibilities of sharing other peoples gardens and animals for a while--although we agreed to look after the chickens during our stay.
What a joy that has been! One of the Featherfoot Bantams was broody when we arrived and she hatched five of her eight eggs to disclose these little beauties. It's been such fun watching them grow and learn...she is the most fantastic mother although I just went to turf them out of the tractor shed where machinery was being moved around them!

Another pleasure is the vegetable garden. I picked these little beauties yesterday, smoothed and gently rolled them in a luscious blend of olive oil, basil, oregano and garlic. I placed the in a baking tray, sprinkled them with salt flakes and coarsely ground black pepper and ....


took them out of the oven when they were beginning to split and turn colour.
I also cooked mushrooms over a fierce heat and when they were brown I gave them a good slurp (technical term!) of soya sauce and sizzled them for a minute or two.

These, with grilled beef patties (tell me if you want the recipe), and homemade tomato sauce, were both part of my now-almost-famous Turkish Burgers that we had for dinner. The blokes here weren't used to being offered burgers for dinner and looked dismayed but minutes later, with sauce and mayonnaise running down their chins, they were moaning gently with pleasure and checking up if there would be 'seconds'. very pleasing for the cook :-)
There was one beef patty and a few of the tomatoes and mushrooms left over so today I fried a chopped onion, added a healthy slurp (that word again!) of red wine and the toms and mushies with their rich juices. I chopped up the beef pattie and added this with some spicy tomato sauce, simmered for a minute or two and...dinner for tonight with pasta.

2 comments:

  1. Love the new banner, Nerys.
    and the chicks are soooo cute.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks Tess...the chickies are growing fast...I've got a nasty feeling that 3 of them are roosters :-(

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for leaving a comment...always good to know that someone is reading and (hopefully) enjoying.