Home and Away…

We have had a great summer and are now busy harvesting fruit, vegetables and honey. We have two Pick and Pickle Courses lined up and are gathering up all spare apples to make cider…

Le Marche…

After a couple of camping trips, Andy and I packed the kids into the car for a long drive down to the Midi Pyrennes region of France. We were staying in the middle of nowhere and with the nearest boulanger shut for his holiday, we had a 10 km drive just to collect baguettes for breakfast each morning! So imagine our delight to visit the Sunday Market at Saint Antonin Noble Val, with stalls lining every street of the small town, we discovered the widest range of products that spanned food, homeware, jewellery, ceramics, fashion, craft, toys and more. Here is just some of the food we bought, and my lovely new shopping bag, we also treated ourselves to some fine fillet steak, a large Toulouse sausage, pates, cheeses and a beautiful handmade ceramic jug. We arrived home to Hen Corner to find all in order thanks to our good friend Katie who had been taking care of the animals and garden whilst we were away – thanks Katie!

Iles Flottante…

Whilst in France, we were fortunate enough to enjoy a few wonderful meals at regional restaurants. We broke our homeward journey in the Loire Valley at the Auberge a la Tete De Lard (The Pig’s Head) and, whilst the accommodation was pretty basic, the food was outstanding! We had stayed there previously and looked forward to checking that their Iles Flottante were still as good as they were in 2008. They were even better. Now safely home, we have been following The Great British Bake Off and were so inspired by desserts week, I had to have a go myself. So the meringue islands floating on fresh custard pictured here are made by me using just some of the 72 eggs that Katie collected whilst we were away, what would Paul and Mary think of them?

Book of the Blog Post:

Mary Berry’s Desserts and Confections

If we recommend books here, they are always books that we own here at Hen Corner. I won’t apologise that my Mary Berry book is from 1991, I am proud to own one of the first of her seventy plus books. She truly is the queen of baking!

This book is available with many of our other favourites books from the Hen Corner Shop!

Other News:

• We were pleased to help Primary Teacher Update with an article about incorporating bee keeping in Key Stages 1 & 2 to support the National Curriculum
• 30kg of windfall apples were a recent treat for the pigs, they are getting very big now!
• The honey is coming off in two batches to keep the distinction between the flavours of two of our colonies

Jobs for next week:

• Cook up loads of Chilli Con Carne to hand out to students at the local university Fresher’s Fair
• Pick and Pickle as much of our harvest as possible
• Join in with the Cultivate London Open Day

Have a good week yourself…

Join us on the Journey!