Rosemary Oil

 

 

I promised I would take some photos of what I was up to next with my Rosemary at the end of yesterday's post, so here they are. 

 

I have this lovely oil bottle that sits next to the cooker for use in so many things, it came with posh oil in and cost me a pretty penny but I have refilled it over and over and now I feel I have had more than my moneys worth.  It holds half a litre, so half of a one litre bottle, which of course always leaves me with half a bottle tucked in the cupboard for the next refill, but this time I thought I would do something different with that leftover half litre.

 

 

Luckily I had an empty half litre bottle in the cupboard so I simply filled it with some Extra Virgin Olive Oil (I always buy it when it is on offer and get as many bottles as I can afford) and popped in a washed and dried sprig of fresh Rosemary straight from the garden.

 

 

It looks and smells lovely ...

 

 

 

... and looks even better in the natural daylight. 

 

But for now it is back in the cupboard sat in the dark while the lovely taste and scent of the Rosemary infuses with the oil.  Another way of doing this is to gently simmer a sprig of Rosemary in the oil for a few minutes and then cool and pour into the bottle, putting a fresh sprig in the oil for aesthetic purposes and to identify the oil.  Either way a really handy flavoured oil to use in cooking or for salad dressing or simply to dunk chunks of homemade bread into as a lovely starter.  

 

So next time I make Mediterranean Vegetables I will have my flavoured oil ready, now I'm wondering if I should make up some Chilli Oil to expand my repertoire even further, after all I have lots of Chilli Flakes in the storecupboard.

 

Sue xx

 

 

My Favourite, Our Favourite ......

 

My favourite herb of all time, for it's scent, for it's taste and for the look of it growing so majestically is Rosemary.  I love the stuff, in fact I find it very hard to visit a garden centre or nursery or any place that sells plants and not buy one.  I stroke them as I walk around and then enjoy the scent all the way home in the car, it's a good job I use so much of the stuff in my cooking :-)

 

And I use it most often in our favourite meal, Mediterranean Vegetables.

 

 

Start with a sprig or two of Rosemary in the bottom of your ovenproof dish, and in a jug mix couple of tablespoons of Olive Oil with some freshly ground Black Pepper, some Garlic Flakes or Paste (or add a couple of cloves of Garlic, chopped up if you have some fresh) a sprinkle of Chilli Flakes, stir these all together and then pour over the Rosemary.

 

 

Next get a selection of vegetables, these are what we usually use, it doesn't matter if they are a bit sad or out of date.  Chop them rouchly the same size, Cherry Tomatoes can go in whole, chop any big tomatoes into wedges, the onions are also lovely if you leave them in wedge shapes (cut in half and then into wedges).

 

 

Tip them all into the dish on top of the Rosemary and then give everything a really good stir so that the oil ends up coating everything.  Make sure the Rosemary is tucked deep amongst the veggies and then put it in the oven on a medium heat for about 40 minutes.  Halfway through give everything another good stir and, if you want to prepare it as a whole meal in one dish place either a salmon fillet, a chicken portion, or a Quorn fillet amongst the veggies and then pop back into the oven.

 

 

 

I always prepare much more than we need for one meal and then Lovely Hubby can take a good portion of it to work on top of a serving of Cous Cous the next day AND I have a tub or two to pop into the freezer ready to use for a miriad of other meals.

 

 

A spoonful or two makes for a brilliant topping on homemade pizzas, or cheat and use the little value ones from the supermarket as your base, add the Mediterranean Veggies and then a good sprinkle of cheese straight from the freezer.

 

It also makes a lovely lunch mixed with some cooked pasta, and is tasty either hot or cold, this time topped with some grated Parmesan style cheese.

 

So a really good dish to make up either at the start or the end of the week using all those leftovers that you can find lurking with intent at the bottom of the fridge.  I have enough veggies left in the fridge for one more batch of it and then I will have to dig deep in the chest freezer for all those little tubs of leftovers that I know are in there.

 

So in our opinion this is the best possible use for my favourite herb.

 

 

There's something else I'm just about to do with some of my Rosemary from the herb sink, I'll let you in on that one tomorrow, when I've taken some photos.

 

Sue xx

 

 

Farm Gate Sales

 

Selling from the farm gate is something we've only started doing recently.  The main reason was my allergy to Goose eggs, the geese were laying prolifically and at work, where Lovely Hubby usually sells our free range hens eggs, there was only a limited demand for the goose eggs and he couldn't manage to eat them all by himself.

 

So we bit the bullet and hotched potched together a way of selling at the gate.  The old tyres were already there from last year, a very necessary marker for folks looking out for the end of our drive in amongst all the hedges and undergrowth, and something we could tell visitors to look out for as most Sat Navs tell folk to turn in one turn too early.  Believe it or not they were painted white, but after only a day or so of being sat out there they had changed to this dull grey colour, but hey ho they were still there.

 

My lovely old tin bowl has been in use for years as my weeding bowl, pull up the weeds and then carry them over to the chickens,  and then more recently it was in use as the geese's paddling pool, but now they have progressed to the old 'dust bath' paddling pool that we used last year for the chickens, it never really worked as the sifted soil would turn to mud at the first rainfall, and you know how much rain we had last year!!  Are you keeping up with all this chopping and changing, we do like to move things round and get multi purpose use from everything we own :-)

 

Well anyway, we knew this bowl would sit nicely in the tyres as this was how we had it for the geese so they wouldn't upset the water each time they climbed in and out.  So I put together a few posters, one for Bantam Eggs as you can see above, one for Goose Eggs and one for the free range eggs.  With a brief desciption of who was laying the eggs that were for sale.

 

Now most days it is sat out there catching folk's eyes as they drive by. 

 

 

 

With a sign on each side of our American Postbox folk know if there are any available each day.

 

Up to now everyone has been extremely honest and has left the right money for their eggs in the little 'Honesty Box'.  One lovely lady even left me a cheque for £2 with a note on the back saying she only had 30p in her purse, she left me her phone number so I sent off a quick text thanking her for the cheque so she would know I had safely got it and she replied with the most lovely message,

 

in her words.......

 

'Thank you for putting out these lovely Goose Eggs and for making such a great contribution to my little ones understanding of fresh food. They were so excited to bring them home (and so was I).  So sorry we didn't have more than 30p cash on us to pay for them.  We'll certainly keep an eye out for more.'  Mrs T**** 

 

It's little things like this that make my day.

 

Oh, and one day there was a little note with a smiley face along with money for eggs from our old milkman, now that shows our eggs are good value .... he sells free range eggs on his wagon!!

 

Off to do some more weeding now, this weather is proving perfect for the blighters, little pockets of sunshine followed by lots of warm heavy showers.  I could do with the exact opposite, lots of sunshine followed by brief showers (preferably at night), but up to now it's drier than this time last year so it's not all bad.

 

Hope everyone's having a good weekend.

Karan this post should help you :-), see you on Tuesday!!

 

Sue xx