Winter is here, Barley Broth to comfort and sustain!

The start of December and snow lies all around, not deep and crisp and even but sparse and slushy and slippy!  We have had two snow falls in the last fortnight here in west Aberdeenshire but so far the temperature has still been warm and to my delight the garden and polytunnel are still yielding produce for us.  I spent a few minutes rooting around the other day and picked enough to make a big pot of broth, one of our family favourites at this time of year.

I used everything apart from the cavalo nero, which I saved for the next evening's supper.

Ali's Winter Barley Broth

1 tablespoon of olive oil

2 onions 

a Handful of carrots (probably around 3 medium sized ones)

2 sticks of celery

3 leeks

Big handful of parsley

1 cup of barley, soaked overnight in plenty of water

Approximately 1.5 lt/3 pints of chicken or veggie stock (I use homemade)

Some leftover chicken (from the bird used to make the stock, I buy local free range chickens so always use every bit of them)

Salt and pepper to taste

1. Chop the onions, and start by gently softening them in the oil in a large soup pan or casserole.

2. Once the onions have started to become translucent, add the chopped carrots, celery and leeks.  Give this all a good stir and cook away until the pot starts to sizzle.

3.  Add your stock and barley at this stage, followed by as much chopped parsley as you fancy.  Bring everything to a gentle boil.

4.  At this point I pop a lid on the pot and put it in the bottom oven of my Aga for a good hour to gently simmer away.  I don't season at this stage as I always wait until the barley has become soft and toothsome before I do.  On a regular cooker just reduce the heat until you have a low simmer and cook for about the same time, stirring regularly.

5.  The broth is cooked when the Barley has plumped up but still has a bit of bite to it.  This is when I season and then add the pre-cooked left over chicken and bring it all back up to a rolling simmer for about 10 minutes before serving.  We eat this with oatcakes, it will stick to your ribs as my Mum used to say!

I make many variations of this soup, sometimes with lentils, split peas too and depending on what we have in the garden, but I have to say that this version with barley in is my favourite.  Just the thing for the dark and short days we have at this time of year.

I got this lovely shot of Brooke our Shetland pony coming in for some hay last weekend.  I am trying to keep the horses out this year, as we now only have one 'big' horse, Brea, and two little ones, Brooke (above) and the even smaller MissyBell who is an American Miniature Horse.  As the herd are all getting on a bit I'd rather they keep moving, eating ad lib hay whenever they want than stay in stables at night, however, the condition of our fields and quantity of mud is always the deciding factor.  I much prefer cold, sunny and frosty weather and I think the horses do too!

Wondering if this will be my last post for 2015?  Perhaps it is, but I hope to return more regularly in the New Year.

Wishing you and yours all the very best for the festive season and a happy and healthy 2016 to us all!

Ali
x

November musings and giving thanks

View across the road

A few days after Halloween and we are still enjoying the stunning weather we have had this Autumn. Sadly a cold and wet summer meant the garden suffered in terms of peas and beans, and I had one small bunch of sweetpeas to cut for indoors.  However, the dry conditions over the last month have meant that the autumn tree colours are stunning.   

Not really sure what to blog about nowadays, I have to admit it is easier these days just to Instagram (@ali4horses!)  I think I'll go easy on myself and start gently.  Family life has changed as we now only have one of our children at home, still at school, with the other two away at University now.  And sadly last week we said goodbye to our darling old labrador Rosie, who at 13 years old had grown up with our children and seen all the work we have done at the cottage.

Traditionally this time of year is a time to give thanks for the harvest and to store and prepare for the dark winter nights ahead, for me this year it feels as if I may need to do that for myself too.  Life is changing (in good ways) but with transition also comes a sense of loss and also that feeling of what is next.  

But as I said I need to take things easy.  Perhaps this blog will evolve, take on new ideas and challenges and take me along with it.  I have no end of ideas for things and projects to do, just not the energy or motivation right now!

There is a loaf of bread baking in my bread machine as I type, and the shelves of my larder are stacked with jars of jams, chutneys and jellies all made from the wonderful produce we did grow this year.  There is a great deal of comfort in knowing that these small things go on however life changes and for that and for a great many other things, I count my blessing and give thanks.

Spring almost springing

It's the time of year for hunkering down and getting through the last of the winter weather, all the time waiting for signs of new growth and lighter evenings.

January and February 2014 were one of the wettest on record, Aberdeenshire didn't suffer as much as some parts of the country but I think I can say that the start of drier weather in March has come as a welcome relief.  I got my last 100 square bales of hay delivered, just in time as I was down to my last half dozen.  The 'girls' (my new name for the horses are we have all mares now) have all settled into our mini herd well, Brooke, our new addition starting to really relax with the others and me now, in fact a new, wee cheeky side to her appearing which is lovely.

One of my friends drew a pencil sketch of Brooke for my birthday at the end of January and it captures her beautifully.  Thank you Mel, I adore this wee portrait of her :)

In the garden we are awaiting warm earth and the first of the narcissi and daffodils.  Broad beans and sweet peas grown from seed in our conservatory are now hardening off in the greenhouse, still protected by fleece at night.  The new seeds that are now gracing our windowsills inside are beetroot, we are trying 2 new varieties Golden Detroit and Detroit White, along with salad leaves.  (I have a lovely recipe for a beetroot tarte tatin, next time I make it I'll take some photos and post it on here.)

Although it feels as if spring is almost here, the trees are still bare and winter is still keeping a bit of a hold on us!

Paul and I headed off to Leith Hall a few weeks ago, I wanted to take some photos of the carpets of snowdrops they have there.  Unfortunately I hadn't checked the battery on my camera before we got there and I didn't manage to take any photos.  Never mind, the snowdrops in the garden are lovely too.

Some very exciting news for me is that our daughter has started blogging too, I feel I may be doing more reading of her blog and less posting of this one as she is an aspiring writer!  Have a look at her blog and see what you think, here is the link;

http://lindsaymmm.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/a-blog-about-brunch.html?spref=fb

Can't wait for spring now, something very hopeful about this time of year and that makes an eternal optimist like me very happy!

January 2014, Happy New Year of the Horse and happy new pony!

Now I think it's probably too far into January to say Happy New Year, but it certainly still feels like a time of transition, of taking store and planning ahead.  The days are starting to stretch slightly but on a grey day in Aberdeenshire it can still feel as if they are too short, once we get to the end of the month I really notice the difference in daylight.
Our mild winter weather and no snow (so far!) has meant we have turned our thoughts to spring and our yearly tradition of ordering seeds is under well way.  Paul has cleared most of the well rotted muck heap and top dressed the rhododendrons and other shrubs in the front garden.
This year I am planning a cut flower bed inside our polytunnel, so far I've got freesias, anemones, gladioli and dahlias.  As this is a 'experiment' I'm just going to plant the flowers that I love and then see what our success rate is, fingers crossed I'll have beautiful bright vases of flowers for the whole summer.
2014 is the Chinese Year of the Horse and my Chinese horoscope sign is the Horse, so I am feeling that this year will be full of love, joyfulness and galloping forwards.

I believe that people and animals come into my life for a reason and last week we had a new member of our equine family join us.  A series of coincidences led us to offer a home to the lovely Brooke, she had sadly lost her elderly equine companion before Christmas and my friend who is her hoof trimmer had taken her to her yard so that Brooke wouldn't be left alone and the family that owned her could start to find a new home for her.  We had lost our darling old horse Zac last year and I had always thought of rehoming or rescuing a pony to come and join Brea and Poppy our other horses.  We brought Brooke home on Saturday and after a few days of either ignoring each other or chasing each other, the 'girls' have now settled happily into their routine and my tiny 'herd' is complete.  Of course Brooke, won't ever replace Zac but she is filling our stables and my heart with her own personality.
Quite fitting that we have a new pony almost at the start of a new year of the Horse!  I hope to find the time to blog more this year, my only excuse for lack of posts last year was the fabulous weather and being outside too much to think about it :)

Midsummer (what summer?) ramblings

Alliums, the cheerleaders in my border! 

Summer solstice tonight, that means the days will start getting shorter as from tomorrow.  Hmmm, wondering if we actually will catch up in the garden ever!

The big success we've had this year is our perinneal borders, finally things have established and right now the garden is a big, blowsy, colourful show.  These long evenings are perfect for pottering outside.

Euphorbia

my potager with ransomes, lemon balm, chives, thyme 

Last of the purple sprouting broccoli (Spooky helping himself)

Today it is raining, we need the rain as it has been a very dry June (after a very cold May) which has made things bloom later but now we need some moisture to get everything growing.  The big bonus about things being later is getting to have bluebells still blooming in the garden, I love them.

bluebells under my kitchen window

Here's hoping we get some fair weather in July to extend whats left of what seems to be a very short summer so far.

Growing and eating wishlist for 2013

Happy New Year!

It's been mild, dry and windy so far.  A brief respite from the mud and rain for our animals and a chance to get out in the garden for us.  Yesterday Paul started clearing the old chicken run area out, we moved the chickens to their free range area a couple of years ago and the old run has been left vacant for a while.  The plan this year is to move our existing fruit bushes into it.  At the moment our raspberries, blackcurrants, redcurrants and gooseberries are in the same part of the garden as the chickens and last year became overgrown and neglected, however, they did provide a lovely space for Fiona, our Cream Legbar, to lay all her eggs, it meant I was crawling about under scratchy plants trying to find them, not much fun.  By moving the plants we will be able to give them all more space and light, resulting in more fruit (and less lost eggs!)this summer.

Getting in the garden on the first weekend in January has also made us keen to plant and eat as much as possible this year.  Last night we feasted on a stew made from the last of our Cavalo Nero (loosely adapted from a Nigel Slater recipe), I cooked pancetta, onion, chorizo, tomatoes and some chunks of potato in red wine and stock for about 30 minutes, then added a couple of tins of butter beans, and some huge handfuls of roughly chopped Cavalo Nero - cooked for another 10 minutes to let the kale wilt and then seasoned with smoked paprika, a splash of red wine vinegar and topped with some parsley (we still have some growing in the polytunnel).  I have to say it was the best dinner this year (;-)).  So with the thought of making the most of our garden I have decided to list things that I would most like to grow in the garden (sadly trying to remember that we don't live in the south of the UK and are very much restricted by what we can grown up here in the far north).

Vegetable Garden Essentials 
(things we already grow, and eat and can't live without)

Cavalo Nero (of course)
Kale (the bigger type than Cavalo nero, can't remember it's name)
Onions and Shallots
Broad Beans
Garden Peas
Tomatoes
Courgettes (especially Gold rush, beautiful yellow sunny ones)
Spinach (the perpetual one works best in our garden)
Lettuce - Romaine, Cos, and Rocket (although not sure if Rocket is a lettuce?)
Beetroot
Rhubarb
Horseradish
Swiss (rainbow?) chard
Chili Peppers (inside the house, bit of a cheat but I love them)
Flat and curly parsley

Nice to have 
(have grown them before and want to grow again)

Purple Sprouting Brocoli - for some reason it hasn't done very well last few years
Pink Fir Apple Potatoes - had a potato free couple of years, but these are my faves
Strawberries - I grow the alpine ones in the herb garden but grown the 'big' ones for a while
Runner beans - taste great, hard to grow up here
Sweetcorn - grew in the garden once (a hot summer) then in the polytunnel but not very succesfully
Brussel sprouts (grew them in our last garden but they take up a lot of space)

Dream on...
(if only we didn't live in Aberdeenshire)

Aubergines
Squash - any kind, especially wee patty pan ones
Bell Peppers (especially those light green ones you get in Spain)

last year in the hen's free range garden (old raspberry canes behind their shelter)

As ever living up here, I think the worst of our winter weather has still to arrive (usually after my first snowdrops have appeared), but I love spending the long nights planning what to do when spring does arrive.

Whisky & Ginger (Marmalade) Fruit Loaf

This is a wonderful recipe, perfect for all times of year and especially around Christmas.  The joy of this Whisky Ginger loaf is that you make two at a time, I usually freeze one and then the other can be eaten.  Alternatively you could freeze both as they keep beautifully, but only if the rest of your family haven't realised you have baked them! (the smell as they come out of the oven is too good to miss).

The recipe is adapted from the orignal recipe taken from 'The Three Chimney's' cookbook by Shirley Spear.  Still on my wishlist of places to visit and eat, I enjoy cooking from this book which feels like part journal/part travel guide, with truly stunning photos.  *I will include the orginal options in the recipe for information.

INGREDIENTS

You will need;

170g raisins
170g sultanas
140g currants
250 ml water
115g butter
140g soft dark brown sugar
3 eggs beaten
280g self raising flour
2 tsp mixed spice
2 heaped tbsp Ginger preserve (*original uses marmalade)
30g roughly chopped almonds
75g chopped mixed peel
75g chopped crystallized ginger
75g chopped glace cherries* (original just uses 115g of peel and 115g of cherries)
3 tablespoons of whisky

2 x 2lb loaf tins, greased with a bit of butter and lined.  Preheat oven to 180oC (I use my Aga, grid shelf on the bottom of the top oven, cold plain shelf on second set of runners).

METHOD

Weigh out the raisins, sultanas and currants.  Place in a large saucepan along with the water, sugar and butter.

Heat gently until the butter and sugar have melted together and the whole kitchen smells of delicious sweet, warm fruit.  Don't let the mixture boil.

Take the pan off the heat and allow to cool slightly.  Now assemble the rest of your ingredients, and when the fruit mix has cooled, mix through everything else (sieve the flour and mixed spice).

I add the Ginger preserve and whisky last, giving it all a quick stir together to make sure everything is mixed through.

Split the mixture between two greased and lined 2lb loaf tins (I don't have two the same size but it doesn't seem to matter).  Bake for about 1 hour, the finished cake should be lovely and brown.

Out of the Aga!  Leave the cakes to cool in their tins for about 30 minutes before putting on a wire rack to cool.  My Aga was quite hot when I baked these, so they only took 50 minutes and the one in the silicon 'tin' is slightly over (well lets say a bit more caramelised!!).  But it still tastes delicious.  Keep in an airtight tin until ready to use or wrap well and freeze (defrost thoroughly before using).

The finished Whisky Ginger loaves

Easy Garden Soup for a Summer (?) Day

Well, Summer what can I say?  Wettest June on record, greyest too.  I've been putting rugs on my horses as the temperature, wind and driving rain has been making them miserable.  The garden has suffered, thank goodness for the greenhouse and polytunnel or there would be nothing to eat from the garden this year (slugs are doing well but I don't fancy eating them!).

To cheer myself up on another wet Monday I've made soup, I know it sounds odd and shouldn't make me feel cheerful - but it worked.

It's sort of based on a summer minestrone or soup au pistou but I just used what I had in the fridge and polytunnel.

You will need;

Olive oil (scant amount - 1 tablespoon?)
One onion, finely chopped
Two carrots - peeled and sliced
Three large celery sticks, chopped
Two courgettes (I had one yellow and one green - looks pretty)
Handful of flat leaved (Italian) parsley
Tin of ready chopped tomatoes (organic)
1 teaspoon of Marigold Swiss Vegetable Bouillion powder
salt and pepper

Method

Saute onion, carrot and celery in olive oil for 5 minutes

Courgettes and parsley from the greenhouse

Add sliced courgettes to the vegetable mix and soften gently for about 5 minutes.  Next add the tin of tomatoes, then fill the empty tin with water and rinse the leftover tomatoes and water into the pan as well.

Now I added my chopped parsley and the parsley stalks chopped very fine too.  Bring to the boil and simmer for about 15 minutes.  Do not overcook otherwise the vegetables will lose their colour and crunch.

After 10/15 minutes taste and adjust seasoning.  I added salt and pepper and a couple of dashes of Piri Piri sauce, to give it a bit of warmth.

Serve topped with some shavings of a hard cheese (Parmesan, Pecorino, Cheddar etc, I used Manchego it was all I had in the fridge).

Other ideas to top it, a drizzle of basil or garlic infused oil, a swirl of pesto, some crumbled goats cheese, I tend to go with whatever I have.

So delicious, colourful and healthy - it almost makes up for our lack of summer (almost).

Hot Cross Bun (Bread) and Butter Pudding just in time for Easter

I made this last week and enthusiastically tweeted about it, promising to post the full recipe and photos on here later that day (ahem!).  So here we are a week or so later.  Anyway, life has been busy I've finished painting the outside of my stables, we've been planting up plants in the greenhouse ready for planting out later and Paul has been getting on with the new deck outside.  Spring really felt like it was springing, until this Monday when we had a slight dusting on snow and then on Tuesday 3rd, my Dad's birthday, he was up visiting from Glasgow, we woke up to 7 inches of snow.  Winter not quite ready to let go of us yet!   It was sad to see our tiny narcissi daffs flopped over underneath the snow but hopefully it will warm up again soon (-2oC when I woke this morning).

Hey ho, back to the task in hand.  Here is my recipe for a bread and butter pudding made with slightly stale hot cross buns, it was truly delicious.  This recipe is not terribly sweet as I served it with Vanilla ice cream, if you prefer a sweeter pudding I would add a couple more tablespoons of caster sugar in the custard mix.

You need;


6 hot cross buns;
softened butter (enough to spread over the bread and grease the dish);
6 fl oz double cream;
6 fl oz milk;
2 tablespoons caster sugar;
3 large eggs;
2 tablespoons brown or demerara sugar.

Preheat oven to 180oC - I baked in Aga, shelf on the bottom of the top oven, plain shelf on the 2nd set of runners.

Slice up the buns, across the way.  Butter both sides and layer in a buttered dish.

 Combine the cream, milk, eggs and caster sugar - mix well in a jug.

There is almost a pint of custardy mix.  Pour this over the buttered buns in your baking dish. 



Finally sprinkle brown sugar over the top and bake for around 35 minutes in a moderate oven.

Remove from the oven, leave to cool for about 5 minutes, then serve with your choice of ice cream, custard, double cream or all 3!! 

The finished pudding - and very delicious it was too.  Happy Easter everyone!

Come on Spring - more springing please!

Goodbye February, you've been a short but sweet month, complete with Scottish Higher prelim exams (daughter), a ski trip to Meribel in the Three Valleys (en familie), France and then rounded off with tonsilitis (youngest son) and a broken hand (oldest son)!

Me and the kids skiing - blurry photo!

View down the Doron piste from the chalet we stayed in - iPhone photo

In Aberdeenshire we had the warmest recorded temperatures for February since 1998.  Zac and Brea went from winter rugs to no rugs (naked horses, the nicest thing is to see them rolling, it makes me so happy!) and now we are back into winter rugs as the temperature has dropped this weekend.

I've only got a few photos for this month, I had taken our small point and shoot (ie idiot proof) camera to France for skiing, so I could stick it in my ski jacket and not worry about lens caps etc.  Unfortunately, the camera was not idiot proof enough for me as I managed to get a sticky finger print on the lens, which I didn't realise until I got home and loaded the pics on the pc - lots of nice 'soft, smudgy' focus pics!  Never mind, you live and learn.  The photo below was the day we arrived back in Aberdeenshire from France, we brought some snow home with us you see - Dash and Coco enjoyed being back home after their stay at the local Pet Hotel.

We have crocuses out in the garden at the moment, no daffodils or narcissi yet but spring is definitely arriving according to the amounts of garden birds singing, courting and fighting.

home sweet home

I love this time of year, so much promise for long days in the garden and stables ahead.

Stuff that works for me in cold (baltic) weather!

Another very cold and absolutely freezing day today!  However, the sunshine and clear blue skies make up for the fact that it's still -6oC at 10.00 am.

Having kept animals at home for the last ten years I have found the following things really help when we hit the 'very cold' part of winter.  This year hasn't been so bad so far, last year our lowest temp was -27oC and we stayed at below -20oC for a week.  All this is fine for us humans, central heating, an Aga, a couple of log burning stoves and even some electric fan heaters kept us warm inside but dealing with our horses and chickens outside was more challenging.

Here is my list -

• Musto snug jodpurs - warm legs and happy me
• Muck boots - these are neoprene wellies, and keep your feet warm and dry (but they do really stink when you take them off, I Febreze mine and my OH's!!)
• I have two galvanised waterers for our chickens - one is always defrosting/defrosted inside the house, ready to be swapped over for the outside one once it freezes (and this can happen a couple of times a day if it's -20!)
• Last year we finally bought and fitted a heatsource tape to the water pipe that supplies my stables - it has a built in thermostat which automatically heats the length of blue water pipe if the temp drops below 3oC.  It means that I can fill the horses water buckets in the stable and also outside without having to fill containers from the house and move to the stables/field by wheelbarrow.
• I now use large Tub Trugs as water buckets in the horses stables and in my fields (especially as my automatic waterer freezes solid pretty quickly).  They are easy to remove the ice from and flex a bit if they get frozen solid.
• I use a kids (clean) shavings fork to lift ice out from the buckets before I refill them with water - bit basic but stops the water freezing again so quickly.
• We have a section of hardstanding in our paddock nearest the stables, I feed the horses hay from a round (Highland Cattle!) feeding ring there, it stops them standing in mud and means I don't have too far to go to move hay.
• When the temp is really cold, I feed the horses in their stables, do rug checks etc etc and then I leave the stable doors and the gate to the field open.  This means they are free to come and go as they please.  My two big horses moved home with us from Calgary, Alberta and are used to cold temperatures, but I have found on really cold nights that they keep warmer if they can move/walk around rather than standing in a loose box all night.  This seems especially true with Zac, my paint horse, he is around 24 years old and is quite stiff in his pelvis so keeping moving is much better for him.
•  I keep a chicken feeder filled up with layers pellets under a small weather shelter at all times.  The chickens also get two poultry corn feeds a day, and an extra feed of grain at night just before roosting.  My theory is that this keeps them a bit warmer when they are roosting!
• We have a automatic pop hole opener on our chicken house, which is great, but sometimes if there is a lot of snow I dig small paths for the chickens to go from their house, to the water, to the feeder etc.  A sprinkling of hay outside their door can help them jump down, they don't seem to like the initial shock of going onto cold snow.  We just rake it up again once the hay has gone. 

A list of simple things, but they mean I can look after my animals, even when it does feel like we're in a freezer outside.

It's February and it's fantastic!

Hurrah! it really feels like the days really are getting longer now.  The first snowdrops have appeared in the garden and with the nice (cold but not too cold and no snow!) winter we are having we've managed to get on with quite a few jobs around the garden.  Including completely clearing out our greenhouse and managing to lay slabs completely covering the ground inside it too, this means we will just use the deep beds inside the polytunnel for growing beans etc in and use the greenhouse for stuff in containers and seeds etc.

I'm making marmalade, again, I make my own every year.  I love when we get Seville oranges in the shops, their gorgeous smell of sunshine and Spain really lift my spirits.  This recipe is from a very old book I have called the Complete Book of Home Preserves - by Jill Nice and the Woman's Institute.  The recipes in it never fail and if you grow a lot of your own soft fruit, tomatoes etc it's well worth seeing if you can get hold of a copy, I really recommend it!

Not quite marmalade yet!

Seville Orange Marmalade

1 kg Seville oranges
1 lemon
2 kg white sugar
4 pints water

(8 or 9 hot, dry, sterilized jam jars - I wash mine in the dishwasher then pop them in the bottom oven of my Aga and take them out just before filling)

Wash all the fruit, using a large dish or bowl slice the fruit up thinly, or chunkily (depending on how you like your marmalade - as you can see mine is pretty random, I like the chunks!).  Collect all the pips and tie them into a muslin bag or pop them in a spice ball/strainer (what I do).  Put the pips, fruit and water in a large bowl, cover and leave to stand for 24 hours (as above). 

When ready to make, transfer the soaked fruit etc to a preserving/jam pam and simmer gently until you have reduced the contents by half (the peel should be soft and transparent by now).  Meanwhile put your sugar in a dish and warm it through (I put mine in the bottom Aga oven).  Once the contents are reduced add the warmed sugar and stir until it is dissolved.  Now bring the marmalade back to boil and boil hard until you have obtained a set. I start testing after 5 minutes, I put a pile of saucers in my freezer, if I think the marmalade is almost set I take a saucer out, (take the marmalade off the heat while you are doing this) pour a spoonful of marmalade on the saucer and after about 30 seconds if you can push a clean finger through the marmalade and it leaves a gap then it is done.

Take the marmalade off the heat and leave to stand for 10 minutes before potting (this stops all the peel sinking to the bottom of the jars).  I use a soup ladle and a jam funnel as I'm very clumsy when it comes to this sort of thing and have ended up with marmalade everywhere before!

This recipe gives a dark, chunky marmalade which has that background bitterness which I love, if you want to pep it up a wee bit try adding 2 tablespoons of whisky to the marmalade just before removing from the boil and stir well - I suppose you could use Brandy or Rum too, but I like whisky so Whisky Marmalade it is for me.


 

January ramblings

Happy New Year to one and all!  I know it's a bit late but at least the thought is there :-)

What a gorgeous start to the year, (sadly not for skiing this year as there really has been no snow in Scotland) but we've had clear blue skies, frosty mornings and cold sunshiney days.  Zac and Brea are in their stables at night but out grazing and eating ad-lib hay during the day, Poppy our Welsh Sec A is on "holiday" at my friends' farm, they sadly lost one of their horses before Xmas and needed a companion for their other horse.  Poppy has stayed up there before so she is happily moved in, she'll stay up at their farm until they manage to buy or rehome another horse.

We have been out for some lovely walks, I'll post some photos below.  I've been inspired to try and take more photos with the camera I got for Christmas (2010!!!) - so have been amusing myself trying to capture some of the beautiful sunsets, long shadows and frosty mornings.

twisty tree

Craigievar Castle in all it's pink splendour!

Leochel Burn

Craigievar - our 'local' castle

 

 

 

 

This next lot of photos was taken at home one evening this week, I don't think they are quite right (over-exposed?) and I have no idea about how to chose the right settings, and mostly snap away in "auto", but I'm sure with trial and error I'll get better.  It's probably a good think that it's a digital camera and I'm not having to spend money on wasted prints!  On the positive side, there is lots of room for improvement too. 

Pink sky over the paddock

Brea - "does my rug match this?"

 Here's to a good 2012 for us all, looking forwards to more blogging about cakes, horses, gardening, knitting and life in general!

My Mum, Irene's Sultana Cake

Yesterday, I made a sultana cake, following the recipe of my Mum's that I've used ever since I left home.  My Mum's sultana cake was famous in our family, she used to make quite a few, sometimes to give to friends and relatives or perhaps for her church sale but mostly she made it for my Dad as it was his favourite cake.  Always made at Christmas, you couldn't have a cup of tea or coffee in Mum's house around Christmas or Hogmanay without getting a piece of her wonderful sultana cake, so buttery and delicious, I had cousins who used to drop by specifically to get a piece of cake and perhaps be sent home with some wrapped in foil!

The last time my Mum made this cake was January 2nd 2009, I had just arrived at  my childhood home in Glasgow as my father had been admitted to hospital with pneumonia over Christmas.  I had driven for 4 hours  to stay with Mum and visit him.  As I walked in the door the wonderful smell of sultana cake greeted me like a blast from my childhood.  Mum was going to take some into hospital for Dad as she had been worrying that he wasn't eating enough.  She had struggled making the cake she said, the fingers on her left hands were stiff and not working properly - she mentioned going to see her doctor as she thought she perhaps had a trapped nerve or maybe her osteoarthitis was playing up.  That was the last sultana cake she ever made, she was admitted to hospital four weeks later with a suspected stroke but sadly diagnosed with an incurable Glioblastoma multiforme brain tumour.  She passed away in December 2009 before the next Christmas.

Like my Mum, I too have always made sultana cake every Christmas, I make a proper full-on Christmas fruit cake every year as well, as that is my husbands favourite, but for me nothing beats a piece of Mum's cake.  I decided to blog this as a small tribute to my Mum whom I miss terribly - she was the most generous, loving and caring women ever and I think she would approve of me sharing her recipe and the love that went with her cake.

Irene's Sultana Cake

Ingredients ready!

1lb Plain Flour
10oz Caster Sugar
1tsp baking powder
12oz Butter (softened)
12oz Sultanas
4 eggs
1 or 2 tbs milk

Grease and line a 8" diameter round cake tin, mine is
3" deep.  Mum used to line hers with brown paper
too - but I don't bother.
 
Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

a LOT of butter - not for the faint hearted!

Cream butter and sugar

Add the eggs to the creamed mixture one at a time, beat in well (I add a tablespoon of flour between eggs to prevent curdling).

Add eggs - one at a time

Now add the flour and baking powder

Once the eggs are mixed through, add the flour and baking powder (I always sift mine together first).

Now fold in the sultanas, adding 1 or 2 tablespoons of milk to the mixture depending on how moist the batter is.  It should be nice and firm but not dry.

Sultana's in

Spoon into tin

Spoon into your prepared cake tin, smooth out the top and then use the back of a spoon to make a small well in the middle of the mix (this stops the cake over rising and splitting at the top).

Into trivet

then into Aga Cake Baker - and into the top oven

Bake in a pre-heated oven for 1 - 1.5 hours depending on your oven.  My Mum used to put the cake in an oven at 200oC for the first hour, then lower the temperature to 170oC and continue to cook for another 40/50 minutes.

Just out the Aga

Yum - Mum would be proud

The cake is ready when a skewer comes out clean, remove from tin and leave to cool on a wire rack.  This cake freezes beautifully too, perfect for stocking up before the festive season.

I have a 2-oven traditional Aga, I use the Aga cake baker, which preheats on the floor of the roasting oven while I'm making the cake.  Then the cake is put in the trivet and placed in the cakebaker, lid on top and then baked in that oven for 1 - 1.5 hours.  I always check my cake after about an hour, if my Aga is hot in the morning I find the cake only takes 1 hour and 15 minutes.

For my darling Mum, Irene - love you Mum and miss you so much x