eggy wild food recipes

Over the weekend, I cooked two new recipes, that involved eggs – of which we have a small mountain, and wild foods.

As I have said before – whilst there are many wild foods you can eat, only a few you would actually want to.. if .. you know.. you have taste buds etc.  Those few are great though.. elderflowers.. blackberries and so on.

Wild strawberries are a particular favourite – perfect in pimms! – but I pick and stash them in the freezer too.  Faced with said egg mountain and pressure to use both the heat of the rayburn which will be turned off soon, and fruit from the freezer, I decided to make a baked egg custard and bunged a layer of wild strawberries at the bottom.  As the method is essentially mix cream, egg yolks and sugar and bung in the oven.. well predictably the strawberries floated, so it is a bit of a reversal of the wild strawberry creme brulee I make sometimes.

oh my.  This one hit the ‘please do again’ list for sure – delish!

Saturday, we went for a walk by the river, and were followed home by the scent of garlic… and I made a wild garlic and cheese quiche.

In the past I have made wild strawberry pancakes, blackberry clafoutis, elderflower fritters, wild garlic omelettes…

Does this show there is a natural affinity for recipes using foraged foods and eggs?.. or is it more to do with the fact we often have an egg mountain..

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saving cat

Yesterday evening, still feeling a bit bleuh about having lurgy whilst the sun shines, I suggested to himself we wandered down to the little field to look at the sycamore buds.  The buds of this tree are always the most pleasing, as they are huge and fat and burst open with leaves.

Once we were there, we wandered on a bit to despair over the grass, or lack of it.  by then we were nearly at the bottom of the field, so we wandered a little further talking about the heap of branches from tree felling/hedging (almost the same thing) activities during the winter.  And then we were almost upon the ‘woodland’ – ie our fenced off area with the whips of native trees.  They are alive again this year, buds showing.

And only then, because at each step we had wandered a little further, did we see him.  A black and white cat in the hedge.  We both groaned ‘oh no!’ at the same time, sure it was dead.  But as we approached, the sad eyes looked at us.

Somehow, he had caught a back leg in the stock fencing, then somehow pulled it tight around the leg. It was a tiny patch where two parts of fencing overlap.  And the leg looked very wrong.  He was stuck fast.  Himself ran and got the cutters and we cut him free, me holding the cat by the scruff of the neck.  I expected to get lashed out at, but he was meek.  And then we carried him all the way back to the house, all the way debating who he belonged to.  We recognised him, so dashed along to neighbours to see if he was theirs.  No but they suggested another.  And so – thankfully we found his owner.  The cat had been missing a week.  Their house is not so close to ours, so they had not asked us.. and if they had I don’t think I would have thought to search all the fences.

An unlucky cat to be caught just where there is an overlap of fence.  But lucky to have been found. The little field has not had animals in it for a few weeks, and we had no real reason to go down there.  And rushing it to it’s owner rather than setting it free was good too… as she in turn rushed it to the vet.  The cat will lose it’s leg, but hopefully keep its life.

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sowing, planting and harvesting w/e 25/3

sowing:

radishes, mixed – in greenhouse border

tomatoes: gardeners delight – in propagator in greenhouse

sprouts – in propagator in greenhouse

pricking out:

leeks – autumn giant – into modules

 

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always take the wether with you

yesterday morning, in a raised temperature haze, I realised my phone was ringing.  and the conversation went a bit like this

hello?

Hi, it’s me.

hello me.

Listen, can we borrow your weather?

um….

I peer uncertainly at the curtain, behind which is the glow of a beautiful day.

our weather?

yeh, please, if that’s ok

um….

It’s not making a lot of sense. We live in a village famous for it’s rainfall.  But then again, today is looking better than normal… no it’s still not making sense…

It’s just that that barren ewe looks in lamb.. and so we thought we should move her to be with the others, so that will leave the ram on his own until he have some ram lambs to keep him company…

ohhhhhhh wether!

and so.. finally that song makes sense to me.. and we sang it as we took our wether, Bertie, for a visit. To be fair.. I croaked more than sang… Happy arrangement, he keeps their ram company, and eats their grass too. We shall fetch him back at the end of the summer.

Bertie got to meet his first cow.. was non-plused. The ram met Bertie.. decided he was not a threat

 

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bonfire cooking

I have the lurgy. and to say I’m a bit miffed would be a huge understatement – as this has been a particularly  gorgeous weekend, so sunny.. so summerlike.  And I have been zombie like.  All ideas of walks and trips out, and getting on with everything went away.. gah.

In an effort to cheer me up, and it did, himself organised a bonfire party.  Just us three.

This is the perfect time of year for bonfire cooking.  Too cold for a barbecue, but not too cold if you have a nice big bonfire to sit by.  And it gets dark just about at tea time, and we prefer to light bonfires an hour or so before dusk, so as not to annoy the neighbours or smoke out our own washing.

We are only burning bits of twigs etc from our hedging efforts this year – anything of size goes in the log pile,  or the bean pole pile, or the pea stick pile.  It’s nice to get enjoyment and food out of it too.

We cooked sausages on forks, and bacon and sausages in our cast iron griddle pan (note the obligatory bit of ash to add that certain flavour), and ate it with cous cous and garlic bread (foiled wrapped also cooked on the fire), and then followed that with a lot of toasted marshmallows. yum

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sowing, planting and harvesting w/e 18/3

sowing:

lettuce, in greenhouse

mange tout – in greenhouse

jalapeno – in propagator in greenhouse

basil – in propagator in greenhouse

pricking out:

leeks, musselborough – into modules

harvested:

leeks

cress

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chicks and cats

I just want to start by saying – no we have not had a cat related chick disaster.. in case the title worried some.

Not for want of hoping by Ebby the cat. He is a shame to us, as he is the only member  of the family who insists on being fed ready meals.  And life is really too short to argue with a cat. Besides.. cats always win.  As it is, Ebb can often turn his nose up at a sachet and go out and bring back a mouse rather pointedly.  Or he can just sit by his full bowl ignoring it…I’ve tried all sorts – cooking and cutting up lights for him…etc. no. I suspect cat food manufacturers sprinkle the food with some sort of cat drugs…

He is an excellent ratter and mouser, and has brought home squirrels and moles too.  Largely nocturnal, he only ventures out in day time to supervise our activities or find a nice comfortable place to sleep.. such as on my seed trays… *sigh*.  He is not adverse to the idea of eating birds though.. and thinks this whole incubation idea is brilliant.  Take some eggs – and being a confirmed carnevore, he has no interest in eggs, bung them in that warm box thing, and a few weeks later.. voilà! ready made snacks! He is sure we grow the chicks for him.

Suffice to say we keep the dining room door shut.  Actually, now that I type it, I don’t know why we call that small room the dining room.  It houses the incubators, a freezer, the home ed table, a pedal sewing machine, our library.  The only we don’t seem to do in there is dine… we eat in the kitchen.

So the other day I was freezer diving, as you do, when out of the corner of my eye I saw Ebby slip into the room.  Once I had retreived what I wanted, I looked around for the cat – who had vanished again.  I’m not fooled. I looked under the table, on the chairs and behind the curtain.  He was found behind the sewing machine cabinet, squeezed into an impossibly small gap, trying to make himself invisible, and whistling nonchalantly.  Well ok I might have made that last bit up..

For obvious reasons, we also keep a mesh lid on the brooder box…

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brimstone

Warm again today.  We ate lunch in the garden, and lay on the blankie briefly, during our lunch half hour. All this unprecedented sunshine has caught me out.. or more to the point, I have caught it, a little on my face.

It’s also brought the butterflies out.  I have already seen a few elderly red admirals and tortoiseshells, but today was I saw my first brimstone. It was happy to feed on some glory of the snow flowers, that are flowering under our huge bay tree.

I hope he has not come out of hibernation too early.

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