Self Supporters Bacon Potato Cakes.

Continuing with my food making season.  I  thought I would cook an Irish meal today.  Like all slow food it takes time, probably about an hour in total.  Shall we begin?  Right.  Get yourself 4 small or a 1lb of potatoes. Preferably one's you have grown yourself on your allotment/smallholding/kitchen garden.  Peel them.  Mike Harding (great comedian, folk singer/ writer, friend of rambling and Crumpsall's finest) says that God gave us belly buttons so we can peel potatoes when we are in bed.  Well it makes me laugh any way.

Peel the potatoes and boil them and mash them with a really little bit of butter.  Whilst you are waiting for them to boil get yourself 4 rashers of bacon and cut it up into little pieces with scissors.  Don't remove the fat there is no need.  When your potatoes have cooled down add the now cooked bacon and 2 tablespoons of plain flour and mix it all together.  Then make the mixture into little balls on a floured surface and flatten them (gently) on a  metal baking tray.  Pop them in the oven for 20 minutes and finish them off on top the stove.  Or you can fry them for about 5 minutes each side.

Me peeling potatoes.  The pigs and ducks will get the peelings.  The peeler is brilliant.  Not me - the  utensil.

Cutting bacon strips with 'kitchen' scissors.

Mashed Potato mixed with crispy bacon.

The finished product.

They are really cheap to make and very very filling.  If you want you can eat them with some baked beans?  The most essential accompaniment for me is some HP sauce.  Anybody know what 'HP' stands for?  Give you a clue look at the picture on the bottle.

Some More Of My Self Supporters Soup (Beef and Vegetable).

We had another go at making soup and bread the other day. It's quite filling  and this is how you make it:

Coarsely chop what ever veg you want.  We used some organic diced beef (it came in a plastic tray and it didn't state the breed, why?) and diced it a bit more.  Then we browned it in a pan in a little cooking oil.

We added the veg (carrot, swede, potato, cabbage and onion) and a tin of tomato purée.  Then we added a pint and a half of beef (OXO) stock.  Cook until meat and veg is tender to taste.  Add salt and pepper.

We didn't blend it this time because Cumbrian said it's better without.  Serve with home made brown soda bread. All the ingredients came from the smallholding except the flour.

Enjoy your meal.

Sedum 'Autumn Joy' and 3 Butterflies Enjoy Our Smallholding.

Sedum 'Autumn Joy'.

Here's a photograph taken this very morning on our smallholding.  I adore herbaceous perennials and this a picture of Sedum 'Autumn Joy'.  They are great for attracting butterflies.  Sadly the Sedum in all its glory is a finger post to show us winter will soon be.

I have read that there is no known scientific purpose for these beautiful winged insects, apart from pollinating flowers.  It's wonderful to think that our creator made something because its beautiful.  It's also sad to think that your average butterfly only lives for one month at the most.  Just shows we should celebrate every day.  We are just dust in the wind.

Here's a song called: 'Dust in the Wind'.  It's an incredible song by an incredible band: Kansas.  I really would like to see them live one day.

Smallholders Steak Puddings.

Get yourself a pound of steak mince.  Cook in half a pint of water until brown.  Add a tablespoon of gravy or until it's thick.  Leave aside.

Make yourself some Suet paste using 8 ounces of plain flour, half an ounce of baking powder, 4 ounces of beef suet, quarter of a pint of water and a pinch of salt.  add all the dry ingredients together and add the water and mix lightly into a firm paste.

 You will need pudding dishes, ours are made of metal.  Grease and flour the dishes.  Roll out the paste, which should be sufficient to make 4 puddings.  

Fill your dishes with the meat mixture and  cover them with a suet paste topping.

 Wrap in silver foil and steam for about an hour and a half.

 Below is the finished product.  Be careful when you are plating them up.  They are very hot.  Just to prove I lived in England, they are served with chips!

The moral of the story is: If there isn't a chip shop in the countryside, make your own!  Wash it down with some home brewed bitter.  

Self Supporters Carrot, Onion and Coriander Soup

Continuing with my self supporters food season.   That's a picture of the carrot peelings.  A feast for the pigs and ducks? Nothing goes to waste.

 Get yourself 4 large carrots and half a large onion and chop them up very nice.

 Saute the carrots and onions in a pan with 1 tablespoon of vegetable or olive oil.  Thought she was Popeye's wife?  When they are soft add one and half pints of vegetable stock and a large bunch of chopped Coriander.  I had to get some dried Coriander because the supermarket didn't have none.  Can Sainsbury's come to West Cork please?  Boil it up then remove and let it cool.

Get yourself a blender and blend it until there's no lumpy bits.

 Then bring it back to the boil and serve with some rolls.  The rolls are frozen one's that we bought and placed in the oven for 8 minutes because our loaf wasn't ready.

There you have it.  Self Supporters Carrot, Onion and Coriander soup.  The rolls cost a Euro and the soup cost a Euro and there was enough for 4 people.  I bought the carrots because mine weren't quite ready.  We did buy them from local growers though.  So a delicious meal was was made for two fifty.

Can you do better folks?

Tune in next time for Self Supporters Steak Puddings.  To quote Tony The Tiger:

"They're g-r-e-a-t!"

Please tell me your self supporters recipes.

Day Trip To Derreen Gardens.

Howdy Folks.

It's a miserable and wet Sunday morning here in West Cork.  So I thought I would trawl through my photographs and show you some more of my 'interesting'  photographs.  One of my interests along with self supporting, writing, rock music, watching Manchester United on Sky, reading and real ale is visiting stately houses and exploring their gardens.

The picture above is taken a couple of years ago at Derreen gardens near Lauragh on the Beara Peninsula.  The Gulf Stream currents make it possible for all kinds of weird and exotic plants to grow.  That's a wonderful soft tree fern called:  Dickonsia Antartica.  Interestingly enough people started growing these by accident.

Years ago when people like the Tolpuddle Martyrs where deported to Australia.  The sailors realised that they need needed ballast for the return journey back to Blighty.  So they cut down the tree ferns and filled the ships hold with them for buoyancy.  On return they threw them into the harbour.  Some must of washed up or somebody planted them and incredibly they grew roots.  People started to sell them and plant them in the large gardens.

To quote Michael Caine:

"Not many people know that."

Derreen House in all it's glory.

The beauty of West Cork scenery.

Smallholders Bread and Self Supporters Onion Soup.

It's starting to get chilly now and we are lighting our Stanley Mourne stove in the morning.  It heats 3 radiators, gives us hot water and we cook all our meals on it.  Talking of meals, here's some of our 'brown onion soup' and (no yeast) 'brown bread'.  I have christened it:  Smallholders Bread and Self Supporters (hate 'Self Sufficiency) Soup.

Get yourself some onions, preferably one's that you have grown yourself on your smallholding, allotment or kitchen garden.  Then peel them and chop them.  It might be good idea to put on a gas mask while you are doing this?  They (who ever 'they' are) also recommend you run a cold water tap when peeling them.  If you have been reading this blog recently  and took my 'onion freezing' method trick.  You will have no tears because you will already have (Blue Peter quote) "here's one I made earlier."   If not just peel and them and chop them like the one's below.

Then get some margarine or butter and place it in the 'dancing pan'.  For some reason we have a pan that seem to dance about when we place it on the stove. Perhaps it's happy?

Moving on very quickly.  Add the chopped onions
and cook them until they look really brown.  Then put 3 Oxo cubes in some water and fill your pan and bring to the boil, skim and add any seasoning.




The brown bread is really easy.  Sieve 8 oz of Self Raising flour and add a teaspoon of salt in a bowl.  Then add 8 ounces of wholemeal flour and a tablespoon of sugar.  Then add a tablespoon of cooking oil and add about half to three quarters of a pint of milk.  Knead out your dough on a floured work top.  Make it round, turn it over and place on a floured tray.  Then get a sharp knife and make a deep cross.  This is not to keep the evil spirits away.  It's to make sure the bread cooks all the way through.  Now place it in the centre of your oven (range) at 150 degrees centigrade/300 Fahrenheit /Gas 2 for one and a quarter to one and half hours.  Then it should be ready to scoff.

Not bad Eh?

That's the soup.  You can always add a bit of hot spicy sauce if you think it's a bit bland and boring.  It's not what you want, it's what the body needs.  Onions (Alliums) are fantastic for fighting colds and  even make  you say a good old faux pass in a very posh English accent::

"New shoes, more tea vicar?

See you next week.