4 snowy days in lockdown 3

How our world changes when it becomes winter white .

There were flurries of snow as we walked the dogs across the fields on Saturday morning, followed by sleet which washed away the slight, snowy traces. 

On Sunday morning, this was the scene from the dining room  - about three inches of snow enveloping the garden in icy white clothing.  

My husband walked the dogs early that morning which was just as well, By the time he got back stamping his feet and drying the dogs' paws,  snow was falling and settling. It continued for about five hours, until  at last there was a lull. The skies were grey and heavy, it was still freezing, but I had to get out for a short walk before dusk fell.

Looking like the Michelin man, bundled in layer upon layer, I began a short walk around the village, the dogs padding silently beside me, as we walked along our lane...

I was tempted to go into the field opposite, but it was already after four o'clock, so I decided to turn left and take the main road through our conservation village. The lane I live on has three thatched properties, a few cottages a church, an old chapel and what were two farms, very much the working part of the village. The main road through is filled with grander properties at this end, and as the road twists, the beautiful trees always catch my eye whatever the season.

I thought I was alone in this eerie winter scene until I caught a glimpse of a friend and his dog Betty. I was immediately aware how timeless this scene is...we could have been meeting in the 19th century as the sweep of the road hasn't changed for years. 

David and I stood and chattered, but Boo and Eric were getting cold standing in the snow, so I took the cut through to the church...

I love the sight of our small village church come rain or shine, but in winter, it looks breathtaking,

 

The light was fading in this monochrome world as we made our way through the churchyard, heading for home.

So, an invigorating walk, but the warmth of the kitchen when I arrived home was wonderful, especially as the snow began to fall outside again within minutes.

Yesterday though, there was a completely different feel to my afternoon walk. More snow still lying on the ground but with blue skies and sunshine for most of the day. Others walking around the village, quick chats as everyone tried to keep their footing on the ice which lay underneath the snow. It was lovely to hear the excited chatter of children playing outside,  with few cars still, in our small village on top of a hill, 170 metres above sea level.

As I walked down the hill to the next village, I admired the stark beauty of the fields beyond.

On the way back I passed the sheep who thought the dogs and I had come to feed them.  We hadn't, so they lost interest but kept close as I took this shot of them and the sun which was beginning to set.....

Today is our fourth day of snow, the roads are treacherous around here, so we're not leaving the village yet.
The cupboards are full of food, luckily there is no urgency to get out and I think how precious these slow snow days are.

Meanwhile, our garden sleeps until the rain, which is forecast for later, arrives. 

Then it's back to whatever normality is in this lockdown life.......

Eating local - the Fife diet day 3

So, it's the third day of my challenge...and already it's very interesting.

On day one, I started off with boiled eggs and soldiers.The free range eggs were from a friend's farm about  four miles away, and the bread was from Jessica, a local artisan baker who uses flour milled in Leicestershire. So a good start to the day....

For supper, I took out of the freezer a pasta sauce I made in the autumn using my homegrown tomatoes
(you can read the recipe on my other blog at www. thinkingofthedays.blogspot.com).

Now usually I would of course accompany this with some dried pasta, but that 's not an option now  so I had a jacket potato and some of  last year's homegrown peas which were also in the freezer. Unfortunately there's not many of those left so I'm going to have to start sowing peas earlier this year!


I completely forgot  to preplan what I would have for lunch though. Luckily, a hunk of the same bread  and some excellent Sparkenhoe Red Leicester cheese ( made in Market Bosworth and made from unpasteurised milk from their farm) did the trick.

So day one of the challenge was successful...at least eighty per cent of what I ate was  grown or made locally. I did have two cups of coffee though and there was a  third of a cup of red wine in the pasta sauce.Oh and I drank alot of tap water....

I was more prepared yesterday --and  luckily as it was the first Thursday of the month..I popped down to the Farmers Market in Market Harborough.

I couldn't resist some Gloucester old spot sausages from March House farm in Great Dalby. Boy, did they hit the spot last night with mashed potatoes...and a lovely crisp  January King cabbage, which I steamed and drizzled with a tablespoon of balsamic vinegar on top.

And yes I know, the balsamic vinegar isn't from Leicestershire....but that's why I 'm trying the eighty per cent local  food challenge and not a one hundred per cent one! Day two a success and I felt I simply had to celebrate with a glass of merlot...from France.

Cheers  my dears! But don't worry -this  isn't going to be a day in, day out diary of exactly what I've eaten.. Coming up will be reasons why we should all be eating more local food....and  I'll be telling you about a remarkable man from Fife who 's inspired thousands of people to really think about local food challenges.

Days of change and leaving the BBC

I've been feeling slightly discombobulated for the past few weeks.

I'm on annual leave, yet I'm not on holiday. I'm not relaxing in the sun or even having a few days away here in the UK.

Also, when I finish my annual leave, I won't be going back to work. I will officially leave the BBC on 2nd January, but I've already had my last day in the newsroom.

After twenty years of working at the BBC as a journalist, it seems strange but exciting.

I joined BBC Radio Leicester as a freelancer for two weeks initially but never left. Before then, I had worked on a cruise ship sailing around the world for a year, been to university, worked in PR, and worked at the BBC in Bristol as a reference librarian. 

I've loved it all, but being a journalist in the newsroom in a busy local radio station has been great. I’ve always been nosy you see, which drove my mother mad when I was a child. I was always asking questions. I've never stopped, and being able to find great stories and contacts and being paid for it has been amazing. 

It’s been a memorable twenty years in many ways. Although I’ve been based in Leicestershire, I’ve also travelled to Belgium, Ukraine and the Gambia working on stories I will never forget.

I've also made features for Radio 4, for 'Word of Mouth' and 'You and Yours', and occasionally for 6 Music back in the day, and my work has been featured on Pick of the Week quite a few times over the years.

Being a journalist in local radio is so rewarding, because you meet people at extraordinary times in their lives, as they share a special achievement, a harrowing story that needs to be told, or a wrong which needs to be righted. It's a privilege to help them tell their story, even though I've sobbed my socks off at times.

I've loved finding stories that no one else had, and I always say that everyone has a story, and it's often not a story you expect.

Of course, as a journalist, you also get to do things that you wouldn't necessarily expect to do. Such as driving a World War II tank,

Do have a listen... I nearly lost control of the tank at one stage.....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtdf-7Bkvg0

I've also flown in an air ambulance helicopter and interviewed some of my favourite celebrities. Each day has been different and surprising, one day being sent to interview a team of Olympic sportsmen, the next going into a prison to interview people who've been locked up for a long time, or another day being spattered with paint whilst reporting live at the Hindu festival of Holi...

I've also enjoyed presenting gardening and history programmes on numerous occasions. One of my favourites has been BBC Radio Leicester's Down to Earth, very much like Gardeners' Question Time on Radio 4. I loved careering around Leicestershire and Rutland chairing recordings with a much-loved panel of gardening experts.

I was also lucky enough to be a part of the biggest historical story of this century. Obviously, I didn't dig up Richard III personally, but I got to know the team who did, very well! The memories of reporting on and having a grandstand view of the finding of The King in a Leicester car park and his subsequent burial in Leicester Cathedral will always stay with me.

I've enjoyed working with so many talented people at BBC Radio Leicester too. The laughs, the larks, the banter with colleagues and friends who I know I will miss, but shall still see socially when we are allowed. I've so many happy, funny and brilliant memories of my mad, marvellous work family.

Still, I'm looking forward to some new adventures as a freelancer. I shall continue giving talks, there's talk of a few lectures and voice-overs, and I'm going to continue to blog, and to write and to travel. Who knows what I'll get up to?

There will be more time for gardening though, both at home and on my allotment. Most of all, there will be lots of time spent having fun with my three gorgeous grandchildren. Jasper, Clementine and Raffy have all been born during the last twenty months. 

I can't wait, but in the meantime, goodbye to the BBC. I've adored being part of such a brilliant broadcasting corporation ....the best in the world. 

. 

Foodie Friday - the fishmonger, buying more British fish and a fish dish..

I'd never been a fan of fish, except battered fish from the chip shop.

There, I've said it. Call me what you will, but I just didn't like it. I suppose being allergic to shellfish put me off all kinds of fish, except a piece of cod,  haddock or salmon.. You know where you are with them.

Until this year that is. 

As the covid pandemic spread and the lockdown began, most of us only left our small village to buy food or fetch medicines. 

During the first lockdown, I was cooking lots of different recipes and decided I would try cooking with fish more. A fishmonger visits the neighbouring village every Tuesday afternoon so I wondered whether he would drive a mile up the hill to our village if there was enough demand.

Paul Farrell, or Paul the Fish as a few of us call him, said yes, he would come once to see if it would be worth it. So, was it? Let's just put it this way, like Julius Caesar, he came, he saw, he conquered.

It was a sunny Tuesday lunchtime, and as he arrived by the church gates,  there were about fifteen people waiting for him in a socially distanced queue. It was very convivial as we all saw people we hadn't seen for weeks, and everyone eagerly bought fish as if it were going out of fashion.

Paul has been coming to our village ever since, and do you know what? I'm really enjoying trying different types of fish.

His immaculately clean refrigerated vehicle always has a good selection of fresh fish and shellfish. Haddock....plain, smoked yellow and plain smoked, cod, plaice, hake, halibut, salmon, dressed crab, prawns, mussels, crevettes, lemon sole, Dover sole, trout and if you want lobster, he will order it in for you.

 

 

These days he visits each house individually and has built up a devoted following here. 

Paul lives in Grimsby but can be seen whizzing around the villages in Leicestershire, and at the market in Market Harborough.  

He's busy and works long hours, but he's thankful. This year hasn't been kind to the fishing industry in this country. In March,  the beginning of the first lockdown, he wondered whether his business would survive. 

Why we should eat more fish

Now in November, fishermen are in dire straights again during this second wave of Covid. So much so that we are all being urged to buy more fish from our local fishmongers or to buy direct from many fishermen who are now selling their fish directly online to customers' homes all over the country. Spread Christmas cheer, buy more fish this year.....or even send fish this year..

So I'm doing just that and enjoying many new recipes along the way.

A favourite though is Arbroath smokies or smoked haddock gratin, whatever you like to call it. This is a fairly vague recipe which was dictated to me via a friend of mine, but it's delicious...

Ingredients

large onion, finely sliced or died

large glass of white wine

6 rashers of bacon, cuts into strips

250gms of cheddar cheese, grated 

450 gms smoked haddock, cut into small pieces

half a stock cube - (fish, or vegetable,I use Swiss bouillon powder)

300 mls of water 

300mls of double cream

How to make it

Chop the onion and bacon.

Heat a few glugs of olive oil in a saucepan, and then brown the onion and bacon.

When browned, add the wine and the stock you have made with the stock cube and water.

Reduce by about a half, then add the cream. As soon as it starts to boil turn the heat down. Add the grated cheese

 

Add the cubed haddock and cook gently for about 6 minutes, then transfer to an oven dish.

Top with some more grated cheese and some chopped parsley.

Finally, brown under a preheated grill until the cheese bubbles. Or, like I do, put into the oven and bake for another 5 - 10 minutes before serving.

This is a very forgiving dish, and it will stay in the oven on a very low light quite happily for a while.  This week, I added mushrooms to brown at the same time as the onion and bacon, for a change, which worked well.

This serves four people and I usually serve this with some new potatoes either boiled or roasted, asparagus, tenderstem or purple sprouting broccoli, peas or french beans - whichever is in season.

Or for real comfort food on a cold, wintery night, you could just dunk a couple of hunks of good bread or toast in this tasty, cheesy, fishy dish and spoon up the rest of the sauce. It's filling.

Days of honesty : why you should always grow honesty in your garden

One of the most valued plants in my garden is honesty.

Foodie Friday: growing and cooking tomatoes, featuring Lindsay Bareham’s "The Big Red Book of Tomatoes"

I sowed my tomato seeds in early March this year, in the days which now seem like another world away.

This year they were Sweet Aperitif from Thompson and Morgan, my favourite little tomato of all time, which I buy every year, and for the first time, a selection of tomato seeds from the Sapore Italiano range from Blumen which I was given at a press day back in 2019..

I was impressed with a 100 per cent germination rate and such vigorous growth from every single plant. 

The San Marzano tomatoes have been so successful this year -  huge tasty tomatoes which I used in gratins and sauces. I'm definitely going to grow more of these next year, and can jars and jars of them to use in winter.

Meanwhile, the scintilla cherry tomatoes were prolific and  I used them in tomato tarts and eaten raw.

Ribelle tomatoes suit soups and are also good thrown on the griddle with a splash of oil to accompany smashed avocado on toast.

I grew the tomatoes in pots on the courtyard in full sun, and also on my allotment in raised beds. All of them did equally as well in both locations. So how have I been cooking them?

My go to book for more recipes, as always at this time of the year, is  "the big red book of tomatoes" by 

Lindsey Bareham. 

This is what I call a recipe book for life. A book to lose yourself in, to sit in a chair to pore over...with around four hundred, yes, four hundred recipes to drool over. There are recipes for every occasion, from tarts, gratins, soups and stews, to salads, ketchups and preserves for winter.

I've had this book for years - it was published back in 1999 by Michael Joseph - but its one I've returned to again and again, especially since  I started growing my own tomatoes. All the recipes which I've tried work...and that's because Lindsey took three years to research , cook and then write the book.

I've still not made borani though...it's a Persian dish involving tomatoes, rice, herbs olives and more, which cuts like a terrine.That is on my list to male shortly but I have made a recipe this autumn which I somehow had missed before. A recipe which was first published in 1806 in a book called "A New System of Domestic Cookery " and which Lindsey has updated.

Here it is - Mrs Rundell's  fresh tomato sauce

It is something which I thought wouldn't work but oh boy, it does, even if the first line reads

 "Put about 900g - 1.4 kg or more of very ripe tomatoes, whole and unskinned and into an earthenware or other oven pot. Add nothing whatsoever. Cover the pot and place in a moderate oven  in a moderate oven (325 degrees F, 170 degrees C or gas mark 3)

Leave for almost an hour."

I did so, but .what about a good glug of olive oil I wondered. I did as I was told though and the tomatoes cooked away merrily in my old lidded pyrex dish.

The recipe goes on

"Press them through a sieve or mouli."

 I did do this the first time, but since then I use my liquidiser as I like to keep the seeds in. 

The recipe continues

"Heat the remaining puree in a thick saucepan, adding for every 450g of tomatoes, a teaspoon each of salt and sugar and optionally, a little ground ginger or cinnamon, dried or fresh basil or marjoram, and crushed garlic if you like.

A tablespoon of port per 450 g of tomatoes has a wonderfully mellowing effect on the sauce. For immediate use, cook the sauce as soon as possible so that it retains its freshness of flavour ad bright colour.

Use immediately or store in the fridge or freezer."

 Now I can't make a tomato sauce without using garlic and I prefer to add basil, but marjoram also works well. I couldn't find any port in the booze cupboard either, but will definitely try some next time.

Mrs Rundell's recipe is a real winner, but so is Lindsey Bareham's book. I believe it's now out of print but I have seen second-hand copies for sale on a certain internet site, and I also think you get can get it on kindle.

This book deserves a reprint though as it really is the book that keeps giving. , in fact I would be lost without my copy.

In the meantime, I'm going to be flicking through this again as I fear I may be having quite a few green tomatoes to deal with during the next few weeks. I don't quite feel up to trying the green tomatoes and zabaglione tart featured on page 333, but i shall be cooking from this bookfor a long time yet.

A day at Chenies Manor and Gardens , Buckinghamshire

Just over two weeks ago I was on my way to Chenies Manor, a former Tudor Palace in Buckinghamshire. The click-clack, click clack of the windscreen wipers kept up a constant rhythm as the rain fell on a crowded motorway, miles of roadworks and rather cross looking drivers.

As I entered Chenies Manor though, it was as if I was entering a parallel universe. The sun was shining on a house and garden of timeless beauty. I felt like Tom in one of my favourite children’s books, “Tom's Midnight Garden” by Philippa Pearce. Where, set in the 1950s,at the stroke of midnight Tom opens the door of the flat in an old house where he's staying stays and miraculously finds himself in a beautiful garden at the turn of the 20th century. Since then, I've found out that this very garden featured as the garden in the film of the book back in 1999!

What an entrance to Tudor times,

and such ornate brickwork and chimneys

Meanwhile, I was walking through five acres and five centuries of garden history. The sunken garden here is a jewel which draws your eyes immediately and as walked down the right-hand side path, I came across this beautiful statue 

 I sat down on the step to admire its perfect form backed by trees, bushes and arches in vivid shades of green and pretty pink pops of dahlias.

At the other end of the sunken garden, there’s a different view of her with the stunning backdrop of the house itself, which stands imposingly as befits the former seat of The Earls of Bedford,

Let’s talk about the gardens though. 

There are over 2,000 dahlias on show at Chenies Manor and all of them are dug up every autumn before the first real frosts, stored in November, and propagated, then planted out the following spring. Labour intensive yes, but when you see the planting and positioning of the dahlias such as Rebecca’s World, Ambition, Sandra, Labyrinth and Red Labyrinth and cafe au lait rose, it is so well worth it!

The result is stunning, yet with friendly informality.

I had to linger on this pathway, to savour the rather wistful and romantic feel before making my way to the Physic Garden.

Apart from the kitchen garden, this would have been one of the most important parts of the garden in Tudor times. Plants were there to heal, to soothe, herbs to flavour food, and to add scent indoors. These would have all been a necessity in any self-respecting still room, but there's also more sinister plants...plants to poison and perhaps to kill. 

This physic garden hasn't been here since Tudor times though. It was designed back in the 1970s by Elizabeth Macleod Matthews who along with her husband Charles had bought and restored the Manor twenty years earlier and Dennis Tweddell. The original would still have been within the walled garden though.

The more formal topiary and this beautiful, intricate gazebo draw your eye back towards the house and the historic Queen Elizabeth Oak, which Elizabeth  I had reputedly climbed .She was obviously less accident-prone than me- as it was,I  wouldn't have got out of the maze for hours if it hadn't been for other Garden Media Guild members in the maze at the same time.

I did manage to make my way over to the kitchen garden and orchard which lie behind the labyrinth.

There's a very relaxed feel here, espalier pears lining the potager were still bursting with ripe fruit, some were attracting some lazy wasps, and the best of the produce had been harvested.

Asters provided a welcome burst of colour, 

and I couldn't resist a sneaky peek inside the potting shed. There was no one from the house was around in the kitchen garden.or in here....it felt like a gardening equivalent to The Marie Celeste, as if everyone had just decamped.

I admired the old pump standing in the afternoon sun

before making my way to the St Michael's church which stands so close to the Manor House..

 As in the garden, the echoes of the past were all around me and it was near here that I listened to a very interesting talk about the house and those who lived here. My imagination was caught with tales of Anne Sapcote, the heiress who married three times in the tudor period. She became the Countess of Bedford after she married her third husband Sir John Russell. They built Chenies up to be an equal to Hampton Court, but then moved to a new family seat at Woburn Abbey.

By now I was itching to get into the historic house itself, to see where the people I'd heard so much about had lived, and where the current owners Boo and Charles Macleod Matthews now live. Unfortunately, due to covid restrictions this wasn't possible. Hopefully next Spring the house will be open once again.

 I absolutely adored seeing this garden, which even in mid-October had so much to seduce the members of the Garden Media Guild on our visit here.

All too soon, it was time to leave Chenies Manor, to walk out this magical place, get the car and drive back reluctantly to reality and the modern world. As I did so, I made plans to return next spring, The chance of seeing the house being open and with over 10,000 tulips in the garden is a temptation that I will be powerless to resist.

There's still time to visit Chenies Manor before it closes for the winter. It is open for the new two Wednesday and Thursday afternoons in October.Make sure you leave time to stop for tea, coffee and cakes...they are very good.

 For further details go to www.cheniesmanorhouse.co.uk