Pesto Pasta Al Forno

Yesterday, I was sat eating my breakfast looking at the Basil plants on the windowsill and thinking that I really must use some more of them before they go over.

Later reading some of the Blogs from my sidebar I came across Shirley's, and what should be on there but a recipe for Green Pesto, and then I was off.

It's such a simple recipe -

Green Basil Pesto

25g Basil

1 clove of Garlic

25g Pine Nuts

25g Parmesan Cheese

2 tbs Olive Oil

half a tsp of salt

Simply blitz all these together in a food processor and there you have it a lovely bowl of Green Pesto. 

 (I didn't have enough Pine Nuts so I used some raw Cashews and it still worked perfectly, (and of course I use veggie Parmesan equivalent, as no Parmesan is vegetarian).

I added my lovely Pesto to a pasta bake.

Pesto Pasta Al Forno

Pasta Shapes

Spinach or Broccoli

A Jar of rich Tomato Pasta Sauce

Goats Cheese

Green Pesto

Grated Parmesan

Cook enough pasta for 2 people in boiling water, steam some broccoli or wilt some spinach above the pasta pan, when these are cooked drain the pasta and tip the veggies in, stir through some rich tomato based pasta sauce, tip it all into an oven proof dish and dot with slices of goats cheese and dollops of your lovely fresh Pesto.  Add a sprinkle of Parmesan, saving some for when you serve it up.

Put in the oven for about 20-30 minutes, it's ready when your cheese is meltingly lovely and there are bubbles around the edge.  Enjoy.

Lovely Hubby had his with some slices of roast chicken breast, I just enjoyed it as it was and it was plenty filling enough.

Luckily there's enough Pesto leftover for me to have a bowl of pasta for lunch, and there was enough leftovers for LH to take a smaller version of last nights tea for his lunch today at work.

Al Forno just means 'in the oven', I think Italian recipe names  have a lovely 'ring' to them, I could have just called it Pesto Pasta Bake!!

I'm off to read my new book now......I'll tell you all about it tomorrow if it lives up to expectation!

Sue xx

The Polytunnel

Someone left a comment on a post the other week, asking me what a polytunnel was, I completely forgot to answer it.  The memory came rushing back to me as I picked our tea out in the tunnel this morning.  So I thought a post about my polytunnel would be a good idea. 

It is a long polythene covered area for growing plants, similar to a greenhouse but with heavy duty polythene between you and the elements instead of glass. Mine is 25ft long and 12 ft wide, they can be either smaller or much bigger.  I got mine from here.

An outside shot taken last year.

I have double doors at the front and a single door at the back, this makes for a good through draft if you need to cool it down slightly, and it also means I can get the wheelbarrow in and out without too much of a struggle. I have taken the step of covering my doors with a layer of heavy duty netting and the polythene top cover only goes on them as the days start to get cooler. The netting is preferable to opening the doors as then all the cabbage white butterflies and other pests fly in and lay their eggs.

Peppers, chillies and gooseberry plants

The temperature inside is always hotter than than on the outside.  On a Winters day when it is below freezing you will always find it just a couple of degrees higher inside so you can grow all around the seasons, if you plan properly (my downfall I'm ashamed to admit).  You should double insulate some of your more frost hating plants by putting cloches or mini tunnels over them when it's below freezing.

This is the first year the vine has had grapes.

But in Summer it can reach temperatures of over 40 degrees and this is the ideal place to grow your tomatoes, peppers, chillies and I have my vine growing in there and my Kiwi plants too.

Vine, tomato plants and Romaine lettuces

You must remember to water, usually everyday, you can skip a day only if the tunnel has been in the shade all day due to cloud cover, but the soil can dry out so easily, so it's best to have a good water supply or a good irrigation system in place.  I am lucky I have a hose running from the tap outside the house and for smaller watering sessions I have a self filling cattle trough just outside the front doors.  I also have a water but at the back which catches rainwater in the bottom of this I have comfrey or nettles and the two combined make a brilliant feed for watering the plants that are fruiting.

Sugarsnap peas doing really well this year.

Something else I think you need to have on your mind is the things you use on the plants, pesticides and things like slug pellets will not get washed away by the rain so whatever you put on and into your soil stays there, building up residues and getting into your food.  This is why I garden naturally, companion planting and using only natural plant foods, the nettle, comfrey or worm tea is all that I will pour over my crops.  Every year I add a new layer of Lovely Hubbys compost and I have my own compost bin outside the tunnel that is emptied every year onto the soil. 

Sorry she wanted a close-up, not the prettiest of my chickens, but the friendliest!!
She's one of the last batch of rescue chickens that came to the farm.

I see it as my little haven, on a wet day when it is impossible to get any jobs done outside it can be lovely pottering away getting things planted and generally tidying the tunnel, with the rain bouncing noisily off the roof and the radio on in the background, just me, and occasionally Marauding Matilda (who I let in as a pest eater) spend many happy hours.

And an added advantage...... is that there is always something to nibble at if I get hungry!

Sue xx

Off to market.....

In ten minutes we are off to the Farmers Market in our lovely little village hall.  The hall comes to life with the smell of bacon butties cooking, cups of coffee and tea are drunk and a there's time to read the morning papers in the little 'tearoom' corner.  A very civilised way to start a Sunday.

Today we are taking the first of this years Lavender harvest.  Picked two weeks ago and dried in the nicest place.....

...over the Aga.  Why is it the nicest place....well it means the scent of the lavender is wafted all over the house and fills the rooms with a calming relaxing scent, that just takes all the stress out of what were up to at the moment.

The last harvest is coming with us today, along with our Free Range Eggs and some more blocks of my lovely handmade soaps, and for the first time our new line....Pickled Pekin Eggs, the girls have done us proud.

Now there is a second batch of lavender drying over the Aga so the house still smells gorgeous.

Have a lovely Sunday.

Sue xx

Watcha doin......

'Watcha doin Mum.....sitting on the grass taking photos?'

We've managed to find a really good home for our lovely girls.  The Kune Kunes are all going together to live in Somerset, and as their new Mum is off on her holidays in the next couple of weeks we said they can stay with us until the second week in August,  Because all the Large Black pigs will be off the farm by the end of this weekend they will have the whole of our 6 acre paddock to themselves.....I see lots of  Kune Kune fun and games in the month to come!!

A brilliant discovery this week, is Giant Garlicky Croutons.  I used to make my own little ones to toss in salads and soups, but we always used to eat Garlic Bread as well, now we are on our health drive we have cut out the garlic bread (as we both like it dripping with lovely garlicky butter....I know sooo naughty...!) and in its place I have been making these.

Giant Garlicky Croutons

A couple of thick slices of  Homemade Bread (or a bought unsliced loaf) stale bread is best.

 A glug of Olive Oil

A 2" squeeze of garlic Paste (or a couple of finely chopped cloves)

Simply mix the garlic into the oil in a bowl and toss in the cubed bread, leave to sit for 10 minutes then spread on a baking sheet and bake in the oven for about 10 minutes, longer if you want them very crispy, but it's nice to be able to stab them with a fork if you are tossing them in a salad.  You can also add chopped herbs or a sprinkle of Parmesan to them in the bowl if you want a change.

If you cook them until they are very crispy they will keep for up to a week in an airtight tin, if you can resist them for that long!

We find it turns a salad or a bowl of soup into a more substantial meal and you can vary the oil you use to play around with flavours even more.  It's a good way to use up some stale bread too.

This weekend we are having a tidy up day today, doing accounts and weeding the vegetable beds and then tomorrow we have our local Farmers Market in the village hall, followed by our three young Large Blacks being picked up sometime in the afternoon.

Hope you all have a good weekend.

Sue xx

The Large Blacks in their New Home

Don't you just love it when......you know you've done the right thing.

We've known Lulu and Lottie since they were two weeks old, they came to live with us when they were seven weeks old.  Liz and Jack both came to us when they were four months old.  So they've known us and we've known them almost all their lives.

We felt like parents sending their children away when they left the farm this week.  They trusted us and we felt we'd let them down.  Then we get a phone call to say that Lulu has settled in well after we delivered her to Jimmy's Farm last week, and has made her home ready for her babies to be born.  Then yesterday we get an email with the picture at the top of this post, along with others showing more of Jack, Lottie and Liz's new home, grassy pastures surrounded by woodlands.

The lovely folk that picked them up from our farm took loads of pictures in the orchard, documenting the loading at our end and the fun and games we had in trying to move a 30st boar in a direction he's not keen on going in.  Luckily Lovely Hubby is a strong man and Jack is a friendly boar.  Henk and Annemie who are the new owners, were amazed at Jacks lovely temperament, and that he walked into the trailer and let them close the dividing door ready for the loading of his wives.

Now we feel we can take a deep breath, like parents who have raised their children well and sent them off into the big bad world with the knowledge to live their lives well, we feel in a small way we have done the same for our pigs. 

Jack, Lottie, Liz, and later Lulu and her litter when she joins them, are forming the start of a breeding herd of Large Black pigs in the Netherlands, supplying rare breed quality pork and keeping their rare bloodlines going.  Animals reared the natural way.  Henk has had to work miracles to get permission to do this, animals are not permitted to be kept outdoors in the Netherlands, something I knew nothing about.  He is breaking new ground and bringing a better quality of life to farm animals and educating people on what their meat should taste like through his restaurant.

We are so happy to be a part of this.

Sue xx



Thank You Spotty Jug

Remember the Spotty Jug Challenge, when I saved all surplus housekeeping from 1st January until our holiday in May (gosh that seems like a long time ago).  Well I said then that we weren't going to just blow our hard earned savings on bits and bobs and see it frittered away, we wanted something that fitted in with Our Year of Living Simply plan. 

We decided to buy ourselves a Brennan, and turn this cluttered area of our lives.....

...into this clear space.

It is simply a little hard drive thingy (I know very technical...) that now holds all our CD collection and we can play specific tracks, albums or just have it on random, whenever we feel the need for a bit of relaxing music in the house (or in Lovely Hubbys case......HEAVY stuff), NO we do not share the same taste in music, but we do like a lot of compromises thank goodness.  Ours can hold up to 3000 Cd's some hold even more!

And the good news, with the money left over from the holiday spending and the money we made selling the stereo system and most of our CDs (we kept a few to play in the cars) , we had enough to pay for it completely so a win, win, no spend situation.

If you want more information on our new little toy click on this link.

Sue xx

Rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb......

Gorgeous rhubarb.  At last it's turning red and I've harvested about a third of it.   We have been eating it for a couple of weeks now and it's been really tasty but it was green and it just didn't seem to want to go red.  But once I spotted the change I decided to start freezing some of it for use later in the year.

After washing simply cut into bite sized pieces,

a spoonful or two of brown sugar seems to sweeten it better than white sugar, and I use as little as possible just enough to take the sour 'edge' away.   Cook it in the tiniest bit of water, the water left on it from the rinsing is usually enough.

After about 3 mins of cooking simply drain in a colander or sieve and spread out on parchment paper.

 Pop into the freezer and couple of hours later it will have frozen enough for you to tip it into freezer bags, because you have frozen the pieces individually they won't clump together and you can tip as much or as little out as you need to use at a later date.

Always, always label everything, I used to have so many unidentifiable things in the freezer....UFOs....Unidentifiable Freezer Objects!!  Especially the date so you can learn how well your own things can be frozen for.....I'm finding that it's a lot longer than you think!

Sue xx