Sallygardens Smallholding

Elderflower Pancakes

Quick get out to the hedgerows and gather the last of the elderflowers, they are already beginning to fade. Whatever you do don't let the summer pass without harnessing some of this exceptional resource. The elderflower is such a fantastic bonus to the smallholder or anybody with access to the plant. It's so versatile in it's use; we've made a mountain of elderflower cordial and also a small batch of precious elderflower champagne. Another favourite of mine and one use I've not seen described on other blogs is elderflower pancakes. If you wish to delight your children, impress your other half and treat yourself all at once why not give it a go? The secret to anything made with elderflowers is to pick them on a hot sunny day (if at all possible!). Identify the elder with the help of a knowledgeable friend and/or an excellent identification book, be sure the area has not been treated or sprayed.

Make a simple pancake batter, for example Mrs Beeton uses 1 egg, 250ml milk, one 15ml spoon caster sugar and100g plain flour to serve four. For those dairy or wheat free it works well with soya or corn flour substitutes too. Beat the milk and egg into the flour and sugar. Pour some batter onto a hot buttered pan and sprinkle roughly half an elderflower head into the cooking pancake, snipping or hand stripping the flowerletts off the green stalks. Flip it and cook the other side. Serve hot with honey and lemon juice. Enjoy.

If you've missed the flowers don't worry, soon the elderberries will be ready for jam and wine! In the meantime, for more excellent foraging recipes try Cooking Weeds by Vivien Weise.

Country Wine, Chateaux Sallygardens

Wine making is something I've wanted to try for years and now that we grow the majority of our own food at home one of the biggest expenses on our tiny food bill is alcohol. The timing for having a go at this craft is perfect. It will reduce our expenses, utilise locally grown wild plants and cut down on all those air miles and energy that go into producing commercial wine. Of course, I'll still enjoy the odd bottle of Cabernet-Shiraz, St Emilion or Chateauxneuf Du Pape! The question is will our home brewed wine taste nice enough to replace our weekly bottle of bought red wine or will friends throw their eyes to heaven as we produce our dreaded liquid offering at dinner parties.  Time will tell.

I ordered a few glass demijohns, yeast and yeast nutrient  from The Homebrew Centre in Co Clare, who deliver nationwide and provide good advice if you seek it. Our wine won't be made from grapes, well at least not until the grape vines in the polytunnel are a few years old. I'm a believer in utilising what we find in our home environment and in this case we've decided to harvest a variety of seasonal flowers and berries from the surrounding fields to make our wines. There's a whole range of possible plant parts you can use to give flavour and colour to wine; dandelion, gorse, rose and elder flowers, blackberry and elderberry, even nettles, rose hips or birch tree sap can all be tried. During the summer there's usually at least one thing mother nature has on offer that you can pop into a brew. You can even try leaving out packet yeast, in the hope that wild yeasts will be there to do the business instead.

Our first attempt is a joint family effort. Dan and the children all picked a bucket full of dandelion blossom one sunny afternoon. A demijohn holds a gallon of liquid (4.5 litres) and you need to collect the same volume in blossom (berry or leaf). Place the blossom in a large pot and pour in a gallon of boiled water. Push the contents down into the water with a wooden spoon so nothing is floating dry on top. Leave the mixture to cool down to the temperature recommended on your particular packet of yeast (different strains of yeast flourish at different temperatures). Scoop out the flowers, squeezing them to release all the fluid. Enjoy the sweet aroma as you do this.

Stir in a 1.8 kilos of organic sugar, the juice of 4 lemons and a spoon of yeast nutrient. Stir well and then sprinkle the yeast on top of the liquid. After fifteen minutes stir the yeast down into the mixture. Pour the mixture through a sieve on a funnel and into the sterilised demijohn. Seal it with an air filter. As the yeast consumes the sugar and coverts it to alcohol, gas bubbles of carbon dioxide will exit through the water in the air filter. Once the yeast has stopped (a few months, depending on weather temperature) siphon off the mixture into wine bottles, leaving any sediment behind in the demijohn. Label the bottles, wait a few months or a year if you can bear it ... then drink at leisure.

I shall let you know how we rate our wine in a few months time.

Divine Salami

A couple of months ago we began processing the meat from the two most recent weaners we raised for the table. Some of it went into Ox Runners (large intestine casings) to make our very first salami. We experimented with three recipes; plain, garlic and last but not least peppercorn, garlic & port. I was glad we had the comfort of our book which reassured us that the growth of white, blue and green furry mould was perfectly normal and indeed a very good sign.  We decided against using the preservative salpetre which keeps the meat artificially pink but also reduces the risk of botulism in air dried meats. It's something to read up on and to consider carefully before you embark on processing your own pork. Time ticked on and the salami hung tantalisingly in the wood shed to air dry.

Regular groping of the salami gives a crude indication as to when they're ready to sample. Finally, eight weeks later, the time had come to cut down the first salami. Before sampling the bounty the mould is wiped off with kitchen towel and the salami rolled in wood ash. And the moment we waited for .... sheer bliss.

Interactive Food Map of Ireland

Paul O Mahony of Siopa Eile has launched the Interactive Food Map of Ireland. It's a brilliant idea for both producers and consumers. If you wish to locate an artisan made food product zoom into the area in question and click on the pointers to read contact information and product descriptions. Anybody can add or amend information on the map so if you are a producer go ahead and add your details, or if you know of a producer who isn't on the map please and add them. The success of the map depends on it's users adding information so don't be shy, jump in and help to make it a fantastic resource ... and don't worry you can't break it either!

What better way could there possibly be to start International Downshifting Week than to support a local food artisan in your area.

Spread the word. If you're an Irish blogger add the badge.

Now Its My Turn To Receive A Free Gift

I've been asked to review a Toyota SPA 15 ergonomic design sewing machine and afterwards I get to keep it.  This is going to fit in nicely with International Downshifting Week. How? Well instead of watching TV in the evenings I want to try and use up all those pieces of material I seem to have collected over the last few years. I'm going to start by making clothes for my children (mainly because they are the only recipients who would be delighted with my efforts!).

As well as various materials bought from bargain bins in fabric shops I've also got a variety of old clothes to cut up and remake into new garments. Another great source I've discovered are the sample books from interior design shops. Just call in and ask if you can have their out of season samples. They are only too happy to pass on their waste rather than pay to put it in the rubbish bin. Some of the pieces are really generously large and the smaller samples are perfect for various crafts, particularly quiltmaking or collage.

And The Winner Is

I'm delighted to announce that Carillon in Minnesota has won the beeswax hand balm. Thank you to everybody who entered the draw.

A Natural Handmade Gift For You

A bar of healing beeswax skin balm is on offer to one lucky reader as a way to say 'thank you' for your continued support.

So why beeswax? Everything about it is amazing. When taken direct from the hive its healing properties are most potent, unlike the beeswax found in many products which has been heated, strained and depleted of the many components that are beneficial. The wax is an emolient (hydrating), calms inflamed skin, forms a protective barrier, acts as an antibacterial agent, it's antiallergic, antioxidant, antibactericidal, germicidal, skin softening and has elasticity enhancing properties.  Bees secrete it from wax glands on their bodies and chew it before sculpting it into perfectly shaped honeycomb. It may also contain remnants of pollen and propolis (plant resins that the bees use to strengthen the comb).

Well we can read as much as we like about the various attributes of beeswax but there's nothing like trying out the real thing. Dan and I work long hours outside in all sorts of weather and this takes its toll on our hands. We've tried all sorts of creams but nothing has worked as well as our own home-made beeswax skin balm. I've even started using it on my cheeks and it works wonders to keep them moisturised in winter winds. It contains comb scraped direct from my hives which is gently melted, then mixed with avocado, olive and chamomile essential oils. It's  then poured into a mould to cool. Because the beeswax is very much a limited resource I only have enough to make a handfull of these balms but I've kept one aside to offer as a gift to my readers. Just leave a comment below this post and in a weeks time I'll pick a winner. Anyone may enter from anywhere in the world (only readers from Mars are excluded). Good luck everyone.

Making Cheese

This summer I really want to try my hand at cheese making. Last year I made some soft yogurt cheese but I'm ready to move to the next level and try a complicated hard cheese. This involves the use of rennet and a starter culture, and following a recipe to the letter. Unlike the soft cheese I won't taste the results of my efforts immediately, it will be a tantalising few months before I first cut into my cheese.

I've been reading up on cheesemaking for over a year now and I am sooo impatient to get stuck in. I keep looking at my two goats for signs of pregnancy and I'm hoping at least one of them is in kid.  We will know one way or the other when they reach their due date in roughly three weeks time. Unless they give birth I won't have a milk supply this year.

Being ever optimistic I have just ordered a few bits and pieces from a cheese making supplier in the UK and I'm waiting for the delivery like a child anticipating Santa's arrival on Christmas Eve. So assuming the delivery arrives safely, one of the goats has a successful birth and my cheese making skills are up to scratch we will be consuming our own home made cheddar and blue cheese by the end of summer.

I'm always thinking ahead for my next project and at the moment I'm toying with the idea of home made wine. Cheese and wine, the perfect combination!

Eating Weeds - Nettle Soup

Nature provides a wide range of free 'weeds' that are bursting with vitamins and minerals. The nutrient levels found in weeds are often far in excess of  home grown herbs and salads.  Don't let this time of year pass by without indulging in the delights of nettle soup and harnessing its nutritional potential.  As the tender new spring shoots rise above the soil it's the perfect time to harvest this plant. As spring advances the leaves become tough and once flowers appear the nettles have passed their peak in terms of nutrients. Spinach has an iron content of 4.1mg/100g and magnesium at 51 compared to  nettles with iron at 7.8  and Mag at 71.  In terms of the healing effects of nettle recipes they are said to be a great tonic during menstruation or the menopause. In Ireland the plant was also added to bedding to treat rheumatism, although I wouldn't advise trying this!

Our children were enthralled by what seemed to them as the totally mad notion of eating nettles and couldn't wait to taste the final product.

I came across a lovely little recipe for nettle soup in a book called 'Cooking Weeds: Vegetarian Recipes' by Vivien Weise which I adapted slightly. Choose plants in areas that you know without doubt have not been sprayed with chemicals or contaminated by animals. Take care not to get stung!

First collect 100grams of nettle leaves by snipping with a scissors and letting the leaves fall into a paper bag. Rinse the leaves several times in fresh water. Chop two onions finely and fry them in olive oil for eight minutes in a soup pot, stirring occasionally, until golden. Add one clove of crushed garlic, 500g of diced potato (I leave skins on) and one litre of water. Bring to the boil for fifteen minutes, then add the nettle leaves and boil for another fifteen minutes. Add 200ml of cream, milk or soya milk and leave to cool slightly before using a hand blender. Add salt to taste and prepare to be amazed (by the taste, not the photo!).

Serve garnished with grated carrot, beetroot, cheese or a dollop of creme fraise. It's delicious and you can literally taste the goodness, chi, prana, or whatever you want to call it.

Culinary Heartbreak

As you know our first ever home reared air dried ham venture was a huge success and we are still licking our lips and patting ourselves on the backs.  The joint lasted a couple of months. It weighed roughly 1500g, and comparing the cost of something similar such as prosciutto or parma at €80 a kilo, ours would have been roughly valued at €120.  Is that too cheeky, comparing our own ham to such famous delicacies?!

Having finished our first air dried ham at Christmas, we were savouring the moment of cutting into the  next culinary extravaganza with anticipation. Our mouths watered at the thought of it and one day we could hold off no longer. I tripped out to the wood barn to cut down the next ham, and shock horror ... a huge hole chewed into the side of the muslin where some blasted unidentified creature had been helping itself to the most delicious and expensive  meal in its entire life. The whole thing was a disaster, it looked like a gaping leg wound, there was nothing salvageable. I hope theres a rat, or a cat out there, suffering badly with gout after its selfish over indulgence!

We've no idea what creature was responsible. What makes it more infuriating is that it was nobodies fault but our own. When the first ham was taken down it shifted the balance, so that the second ham swung to the side of the cage and was touching the edge. This provided any creature a perfect ladder down to the food source. Next time we will be far more careful, and instead of string to suspend the joints, I will use fishing line.

But the story doesn't end there, no, there's another link in the chain ...  butterfly wings and all that. Having decided democratically that it wasn't worth eating the remains we gave it to the dog. She devoured it and, not surprisingly, was very very thirsty. That night our children came down with a particularly aggressive vomiting bug and when I went to the kitchen at 5am to collect puke buckets I noted, with due agitation, that the entire kitchen floor was flooded. After a process of eliminating other possible culprits such as burst pipes, or rising water under the house, I had to concede that it was indeed the dog (the one looking sheepish in the corner) who was responsible for the flood. She has always had a bladder of steal, but unfortunately the huge salt intake from the ham, followed by the volume of water she needed to drink to quench her thirst, all proved to be too much.  Mind you, after cleaning up the consequences of projectile vomiting bug from the girls bedroom (even had to put curtains in the wash), dog wee was an altogether more pleasant and light hearted task.

When the meat has been raised and cared for by us, and when we have seen it walk in our woods for months, and in the end been directly responsible for taking its life to sustain us, it really does ache when something like this happens and it goes to waste.  A loss is felt and a failure in terms of respect to the pig.