Jeans First Word (by sarah)

Jean's official first words were hurrah, hurrah, hurrah - in direct imitation of Al shouting this this morning!!! 🙂

Unfortunatly mum got abit over excited and flew her hands in the air whooping and saying well done which scared poor Jean!

Christening, Birthday, House Warming! (by sarah)

The weekend of the 26th and 27th of August is the one to put in your diaries!

On the Saturday will be Jean's 1st Birthday party and our official house warming - that is Sat the 26th of August! This will be an all day event, with nibbles and an all day BBQ - bring your own drink though - sorry guys, we're running on a bit of a budget here! Rmember we have a bubble machine, paddling pool, chocolate fondue, candy floss maker, popcorn maker, doughnut maker - so be prepared for a sugar high!

Saturday starts from 11 am into the evening 🙂

Sunday sees the chistening at St James The Great, Cranham. Service starts at 11 am. There will be 'little drinks and biccies' in the churchyard followed by Tea and cakes here and another barbeque. There will also be a Tree Planting in Jean's honour (a lovely little walnut). We will be providing some wine for this occasion!

We're really sorry but we can't put people up, both space wise and money wise (there is limited floor space, only recommended for the young and hardy) but we will be posting a list of nearby campsites and B&B's.

Olives olives every where and not one to eat! (by sarah)

Mysterious olives keep turning up every where - I know I collected them as a child as thought they were brillient along with the tap fittings off of stop cocks and those ball bearing mount things, but this is rediculous! Today we found another one in the stable near the washing machine! Are they teleporting in just to confuse us?

Randomly popping into existance? Like the paper clip at the biginning of time?

Maybe they are my collection from when I was little - I have been unpacking the boxes from mum and dads house which they packed up whilst I was at uni! It is conceeivable I just didnt notice them and have some how scattered them everywhere? These are mostly uncrushed olives some in brass and some in copper! Oh well perhapse I can make them into some funky sculpture or something?

Salsify (by sarah)

The salsify are beginning to seed! When in flower they are a lovely purple dandilion type flower that only seems to open in the morning. Their name is supposed to be the corruption of the latin for 'follows the sun' I dont know if that is true but it sounds fesible. Anyway we like the to eat the roots which are tasty - basically thanks to the constriction of British tastes with all the rationing and stuff.

Unfortunatly the roots are only tender enough to eat the first year and becuase they have tended to seed themselves its not obvious which ones are old roots and which are new. Some of the roots are huge and ancient and as tough as old nials - I run on the supersition that if I cant get the knife to cut the roots easily from the roots then they are old tough ones that need discarding.

Now this plant is also could purple goats beard and the oster plant (as the root is supposed to taste like oster I dont think so as I dont like osters but I like this plant!). The seed heads are giant brown fluffy dandilion clocks - this is what I have been haversting.

The reason? Why not let them seed themselves?

We are fed up with digging up the old nails! Therefore we pull all the plants this year after they finish seeding and sow the seed ourselves insuring that we have all new plants and therefore yummy tender roots for us to consume. I am also sure that we are going to have far to many seeds - so if anyone whats them they are 50p for hundred seeds whilst stocks last! (erm p&p extra but hopefully you'll be visiting us! or we'll be visiting you!).

Even if you dont want to eat it its a lovely plant - with pretty purple flowers 🙂 Bring on the purple!!!! Also these plants were rare in the 70's so probably still are - I havent checked mind! Now these are cultivated plants not wild ones we've dug up or anything so we are not depriving the wild but if people like this type of old English rareness then this is the way to go. (this isnt ment to be a sales pitch I just love my veggies!)

Roasting Soup (by sarah)

Ok I bought lots of veg for a nice roast but with Jeans inpromptu hospital trip etc... it didnt really happen so I had stuff left over therefore I souped it! It was tasty too Al really liked it 🙂

*1/3 celeriack *1/3 swede *2 medium potatoes *1/2 butternut squash *3 salsify *1 couguette *2 large cloves of garlick *Black pepper *1 tbl spoon fennel seeds *pumpkin seed oil

I had par boiled alot of it all ready to roast and put in the left over roast veg (these had been roasted in sunflower oil with rosemarry and pepper). I had also kept the water a veg stock which I then boiled everything up in that hadnt yet been par boiled - these were the potatoes (for some reason there are never any roasted potatoes left after the meals reguardless of how many I cook?), butternut and courgette.

Then we blend the whole lot! Bzzzzzzzzzz

Into the suacepan about a quarter of it went, along with the garlick crushed and fennel seeds - also crushed. I also drisseled about 1/2 a tbl spoon of pumpkin seed oil into it and ground some pepper in (using our phallic pepper grinder from an Italian restruant!), add the fennel seeds and away we go!

Oh and don't forget to add a pint of milk - I use a 50:50 mix of semi skimed goats and skimed cows milk but thats cos of special dietry recurrements and should be fine what ever you use - it would probably be tasty just with a pint of veg stock instead!

Gentle heat until the odd bubble starts to appear, try not to let boil! This allows the garlick and fennel to permeate the soup properlly 🙂

I had it on the heat for about 1/2 hr.

Be warned me and Al have had this two days in a row and I have frozen enough (without garlick, fennel and milk) to feed 6 a thick soup and 10 a thickish soup!

Jean also loves this but she had it mixed with mash potatoe:)