Tasteful Wasp killers.....

Photos above and below of the 3 very tasteful wasp and hornet killers bought by my sister and delivered by my mother.

Having installed them just this morning (one in the fig tree, one on the well and one just outside our front door) I can report and as can be evidenced from the photos all 3 are doing a marvellous job of luring the wasps and hornets in with my very sugary elderflower cordial!

To get in, the wasps and hornets have to fly up through the bottom (and then can’t get out the top which is sealed) and they’re working very well.  Thankfully (apparently) bees can’t fly up like that so the bees are protected which is good as bees are the gardeners friend!

Once my sister and family have arrived, and we’re frolicking outdoors in the sunshine, we shall see how effective they are at keeping the nasty creatures away from us.

Lunch in french!

It’s now 8pm on Friday evening and we’ve just said goodbye to our lunch guests who arrived at noon.  It’s been absolutely fabulous as you can imagine despite meaning we obviously haven’t done anything remotely worthwhile on the renovations today but we have spent many hours practicing our french which is a bonus.

We’re slowly gathering enough information so that we’ll have the family trees in our little hamlet sorted - it’s a little confusing as there is one man who’s on his second marriage with a lady also on hers and of course the history of the first spouse of each is vital if we’re to slot the man next door (the president of the hunting lodge) into the diagram!  There’s also the lovely couple down the road, but we’re told the man is not living with his “femme” (wife) but living with his “copine” (girlfriend) - the ‘femme’ by all accounts need not appear on the diagram at all but the ‘copine’ can!

It’s just brilliant having friends who have been here basically since time began and we’ll always be grateful for the warm welcome we have received and enjoy the friendships that we’re forming.

The main reason for writing about our meal in french is to share the most wonderful and very simple recipe for key lime pie (given to us by our “mushroom” chums who we should perhaps touch base with as we’ve not spoken to them since before we each ate our mushrooms!) - and I can confirm that given real key limes aren’t available in these parts - regular limes work just as well!

KEY LIME PIE

FOR THE CRUST

200g Ginger Nuts/Snaps

50g Butter, melted

Put the biscuits in a food processor until the biscuits are reduced to breadcrumb consistency - add the butter and press the crust into a metal pan with a releasable base.

FOR THE FILLING

1 x 14oz can condensed milk

4 egg yolks

Zest and juice of limes to equal 1/4 to 1/2 cup (max) lime juice - I used zest of 5 small limes but only juice of 3 as they were super juicy and I got just over 1/4 cup - it worked a treat.

Put the condensed milk and egg yolks in a mixer - whisk together then add the lime juice and zest - whisk until incorporated.  Pour on top of the base.

Pop into a preheated oven (190 degrees C / 350 degrees F) for 10-15 minutes until just set.

Serve with either kiwi slices or strawberries

BON APETIT!

Picking mushrooms.....in our fields :)

Yesterday we stopped by to visit some lovely friends who are lending us a tricycle and other kiddie bits and pieces for the imminent visit of my sister, her husband and their 2 lovely daughters.  Our chums had just been wandering in their fields and picked lots of mushrooms and they kindly gave us some which we ate last night sauteed with butter and garlic - they were delicious.

As they were cooking we did call our chums to see if they'd eaten theirs yet and were still alive and kicking - you just never know when you're mushroom picking what you might find and having checked one of the mushroom recognition websites to note the dire warnings posted against eating anything you're unsure of, I also noted the line that stated "there are no old, bold mushroom pickers"!!

Although we haven't checked in with our friends this morning, both Tony and I haven't suffered any ill effects so as we thought, they were simple and yummy field mushrooms.  So, armed with a little boldness, I decided to head out into our fields today to discover that we also have a few field mushrooms and below is a photo of our first crop - sadly only 3 lovely edible ones but many others that were overipe - hopefully they've left spores for others to sprout up in their place!

I also took the opportunity whilst tromping through the fields to count our walnut trees and can confirm that we have 22 in total all full of walnuts still in their green shells but it looks as though we'll have a good crop which is good news as we've almost eaten our way through the ones our neighbours picked for us last year - photo below of some of the lovely walnuts on one of the trees.

Discovering more of God's gifts in the garden!

Today we had another wander around the garden and fields to discover we have a prolific pear tree (photo above) that we didn't even know we had - even better, it looks as though they'll be ready for harvesting "toute de suite".

Whilst clearing the land with the tractor in order to make this discovery, Tony ran over an underground hornets nest - after running away once they started swarming out of the nest he'd run over, we went back at twilight to set them on fire and hopefully destroy the nest - the photo above is the burnt patch of ground that revealed a pretty good size nest that is no longer - this is one of the very few times, having been stung twice this year when we actually embrace death and open a bottle of wine to celebrate it!  Especially having discovered that the more you get stung the more likely you are to one day go in to anaphalactic shock - apparently you don't build a resistance to the sting by being stung you simply store more of the poison which may eventually have a much more severe effect on you - hence the celebrations!

As I've already written about the cucumbers, I couldn't resist posting another photo taken just 2 days after the last one, and it looks as though our french neighbours are indeed correct when they estimated 5-8 days before harvesting - the cucumbers are growing rapidly and I only hope my sister and her family like them because it looks like we may end up with about a dozen in succession.

I also couldn't resist posting a photo of our first melon (above) - this is a canteloupe - very popular in these parts and although this is our very first and our biggest so far (still only about the size of a very large pebble!) there are many others not far behind.

I also couldn't resist taking a photo of our quince tree and our bay tree above (I'll never need to buy dried bay leaves again), and below the 2 types of plums we have in the yard also ripening as I type - a beautiful purple one and a very tasty yellow one.

Below is a photo of the largest (and most bizarre looking) tomato harvested from the dozen plants our neighbours gave us - this one weighed in at 480 grams!

As we've slightly overspent our budget on kitchen cabinets, we're reassured that we shall not starve and I shall now have to find an abundance of recipes involving quince, pears, apples (photo of the apples below), plums, courgettes (photo of our first courgettes also below) and cucumbers :)

Learning to Forgive...the hard way!

As everyone is by now aware, Tony purchased a lovely tractor which he’s certainly had fun with but has also put to good use since we’ve been here.

He found the dealers details online when I was away in December of last year in Tanzania with my father.  He had lots of contact with the owner of the business, a Mr. Roger Fagan (reminiscent of the artful dodger - should he have known better?!) and built up quite a rapport.  When a tractor became available that was suitable, Roger got in touch and offered lots of accessories (I’ve learnt that the term “accessories” has a completely different connotation to a man!).  Tony, being constrained by what we actually need to do over here as much as by budget, decided on the most useful accessories and we made payment in full in April of this year on the understanding that the tractor and all the accessories would be waiting for us in France.

Before we arrived in France, the owner of the dealership contacted us to ask if we had lots of space and if so, could he use our courtyard to store some other equipment for a few weeks and of course we agreed.  We arrived in France in mid May, any other equipment that may have been stored ‘chez nous’ was gone and our lovely tractor was waiting for us with all but 1 of the accessories - the missing accessory was the backhoe - one of the most useful pieces of equipment as well as one of the most expensive.

Three months after making payment, we’ve spoken to the man on numerous occasions and been made numerous promises and been told numerous stories - even twice that out of the “goodness of his contrite heart” he’s put the money back into our account on the understanding we’ll give him a cheque when he does make good on a delivery..........and there’s no money in the account and now no answer on the phone.

So.....I’ve actually been praying blessings upon the man - I’ve been praying that he’ll be blessed with a conscience and some integrity and today after calling almost nonstop with no answer, we finally called from a seldom used UK cell phone and, at 8pm we received a call from him - funnily enough he didn’t realise it was us he was calling despite it being the same number we’ve called him from previously and he said he was working his way through 32 missed calls and then went on to explain that he’s paid the money in to our account at noon today (although still no sign when I check online) and if his employee can’t deliver the backhoe in the next couple of days he’ll come himself.

On the face of it it seems fairly positive but we have heard a number of different stories and had promises of a number of different delivery days so we’ll just have to keep praying and hoping and I guess by the end of the week if there’s still no sign we may have to consider something a little more drastic like a trip to the UK!

We will report back once we’re in possession of the backhoe, the money, or perhaps a ticket to the UK.  In the meantime, we'll keep thinking positive thoughts and remember to be thankful for all that we do have!

Preparing for Abundance

Our most fruitful courgette is pictured above and below is the line of courgette plants that have literally quadrupled in size during the last few days of rain - we’re very excited to see the flowers appear and although I have lots of lovely recipes involving the flowers and I’m told that it’s common to have a glut of courgettes, we’re so excited to harvest our first fruit we’re not yet prepared to sacrifice the flowers!  Soon come I’m told once we’ve exhausted the ideas of what to do with an abundance of courgettes that won’t keep.

We’ve also got cucumbers as pictured below and our french neighbours tell us that from this stage, it’s only about 5-8 days before we should be eating them as they do tend to take off fairly quickly so it looks like we shall be in a position to welcome my sister, her husband and their 2 daughters with some fresh produce from the garden.

Mum and Richard left this morning (after Richard took the tractor for a turn in the field - photo above) to spend a few days in the Loire on their way back to the UK and the sun is shining (finally!) so hopefully that will last for the duration of their time in France - it certainly helps us to have the sun shine in between visitors so that we can catch up with the laundry!  We also hope that the sun will bring out the sunflowers - below is a photo of a line of sunflowers I planted from seed - we’ve got about 6 different varieties so it should be lovely once they’re blooming.  In addition I’ve got 50 gladioli that I planted from bulbs given to me by my mum back in May (photo also below) and presumably they now need some sunshine to burst into flower!

One of our neighbours was celebrating her 75th birthday yesterday so we stopped by to wish her “bon anniversaire” and all 4 of us were welcomed with champagne and nibbles which was lovely considering it was only 11 o’clock in the morning!  We’ve also invited them and the other neighbours who gave us the 12 tomato plants to join us for lunch next week so shall have to put our “french heads” back on for that!

Given the cheesecake issues I’d had last week, it was amusing to have some dinner guests bring a cheesecake with them the other night.  It was a really lovely lemon one which we served with strawberries and so of course I asked for the recipe - it’s another easy one and quite delicious - she warns that you shouldn’t be put off when you’re making it by the runny consistency - once you add the lemon, it does tend to thicken it and it sets beautifully - serve with raspberries or strawberries - enjoy!

Easy Lemon Cheesecake

For the Base

10 digestive biscuits, crushed

2 oz butter, melted

1 oz demerara sugar

For the Cheesecake

5 fl oz single cream

1 x 14oz can condensed milk

6 oz  low-fat soft cheese, softened (I would use regular)

grated rind and juice of 3 large lemons (she’s noted 150ml max)

Mix together the biscuits, butter and demerara sugar and turn into a 9inch/23cm flan dish and press evenly over the base - leave to set.

Mix together the cream, condensed milk, soft cheese and lemon rind, then add the lemon juice a little at a time, whisking until the mixture thickens.  Pour the mixture into the flan case and leave to chill in the fridge for 4 hours or overnight.

BON APETIT!

The Sunny....oops I mean the Rainy Dordogne!

Mum and Richard arrived this past Tuesday and it was pouring with rain and bar a few very brief pockets of sunshine (photo of Ma & Richard during one of the "brief pockets"!), it hasn’t stopped since.

We’ve had a lovely time regardless but sadly visions of sitting “poolside” (the plastic blow up one!) with the sun reflecting off a glass of Bergerac rose have not been realised!

We returned to Rocamadour and saw the birds again - I’m slowly getting to understand all that they say in their presentation - one more trip this summer should do it!  Photo of Tony above with one of birds on his head and below next to the poster advertising the monkey forest also to be found in the area - we may have to save that one for another day when we’re not running in and out of the rain!

Interestingly, on the way to Rocamadour, we pass through a town called Martel and despite not being the home of the famous brandy, it is twinned with “Tequila” in Mexico as can be evidenced from the sign below!  There is also a steam train in Martel that’s operational although wasn’t running on the day we happened to pass through which was a shame as Richard is quite a fan.  We did manage to have a look around at the station though and have made a note that it may be worth a return visit at a later date.

We had a lovely dinner party last night with a couple I met via our good chums in the Isle of Man (Ali, Kieran, Finn & Freddy) when they came to see us a few years ago and stayed at a nearby “Gite” - this couple owns and operates the gite that Ali & gang stayed at.  They also introduced me to an english speaking church nearby a few years ago but I’ve decided to check out a more local french evangelical church and shall report back once I’ve been and if I’ve understood anything!  This couple had one of their sons, Gareth, and his wife, Cindy, staying with them so there were 8 of us - sadly my plan to eat comfortably outside was foiled by the rain and so we had to get rather cosy around our 4 seater dining table indoors!  Cindy is from Ecuador and so we enjoyed reminiscing about the month we spent travelling over there in 1998.  Both Gareth and Cindy are involved with “YWAM” (Youth With A Mission).  YWAM is an international volunteer movement of Christians from many backgrounds, cultures and traditions.  Their purpose (per their website) is simply to know God and to make him known.  As you can imagine, having travelled a bit, they had some interesting stories to tell.

Having decided to serve ribs (with pork only from our butcher who told us horror stories about the provenance of some of the pork he’s seen on the shelves elsewhere!), I was thrilled to discover I could feed 8 people for under EUR 6 - 4 lbs of ribs cost EUR 5.41 - “incroyable”!!

Today is Ma & Richard’s last day with us and so far it’s not heating up by any stretch of the imagination but it does appear to be staying dry so we may head further afield for a wander around one of the nearby towns in addition to checking out the new “Grotte” that’s just down the road - some caves about 30 metres underground with lots of stalagtites and stalagmites - photos to follow!

Easy tender rib recipe

4lbs of pork ribs

16oz bbq sauce

1/2 cup of honey

Generous splash of red wine vinegar

1 medium yellow onion sliced

Mix the bbq sauce, honey & vinegar together - layer the ribs and onion in a crock pot - add the sauce and ensure the ribs are well covered in the sauce - cook on low for 7 hours then finish on the bbq - Bon Apetit!

Dessert Disaster

We had a lovely evening last night with the butcher, his wife and their 2 kids - angry birds (“les oiseaux fache”) on the ipad was an excellent ice breaker and kept the kids occupied until we ate so that was a bonus!  My brother-in-law, who will be visiting with my sister and their 2 daughters will be thrilled to learn that they brought with them last night a few pots of "bloc de foie gras de canard", "pate de foie de canard truffe 1%" and "rillettes pur canard".  (I shall do my best to keep them for your visit Mark but you may have to fight Tony for them when you get here!)

Sadly, I didn’t heed my own advice about never making something for the very first time when you have company.  Having made the most phenomenal Mushroom pate with red onion chutney (recipe below) from June’s edition of “Good Food” magazine (a very dear friend in Cayman bought me an annual subscription to the magazine which I love and another lovely friend forwards them to me from Cayman so that I’m not missing out!), I thought I’d try their white chocolate strawberry mousse cake as well.  This was my first mistake especially in light of the fact that my most excellent friend, Ali in the Isle of Man (photos on a previous blog from our visit with her and the family in May), had recently sent me a recipe for a white chocolate cheesecake that she’d made for a dinner party from which she’d had spectacular feedback.  The Good Food version was tasty but just not tasty enough and sadly it didn’t set perfectly despite having made it the day before.  The adults ate it but the kids didn’t and that for me is a good indication - these aren’t particularly fussy kids and their eyes had lit up at the mention of “le dessert” but sadly it didn’t live up to their expectations - so, I shall perhaps try Ali’s far superior dessert for another dinner party we’re having on Friday when some other friends (english this time!) will be coming over and my mum will be staying with us.

On an unrelated note - we have a cat (photo above)!  This is the very same cat that came to us 3 years ago as a baby with his mum.  We got quite close to them and fed them regularly - we think they latched on to us because we’re the only house in the neighbourhood without dogs and they are literally taking their life into their hands by choosing this neighbourhood given our immediate neighbour is president of the hunting lodge and has about 20 hunting dogs!!  Anyway, when we returned to Cayman in October of 2008, we mentioned them to our dear friends, the older couple who live round the corner and they said they’d feed them for us and look out for them which they have done faithfully for the past 3 years even nursing the mum when she got a tumor in her tummy and eventually died which leaves the baby who’s not really a baby anymore but still “sauvage” and we shall let him stay that way - for his own sake he needs to stay a little “sauvage” in these surroundings.  That said, I shall continue to support my friend who leaves a small bowl of food each morning throughout the winter months regardless of the weather (this is quite the undertaking given the walk from her house to ours is down a steep hill which does apparently get icy in the winter).

Funnily enough, my father having read about our poor baby bunny rabbit tragedy and then having seen the photos on the Bastille day blog of the wine barrel pigs, did point out that as we're still only "pretend farmers" perhaps we should stick with pretend animals for the time being!  I feel quite positive though knowing that although not strictly "my cat", he has been around for the past 3 years and seems to be doing well so perhaps one day we'll get closer to real farming with real animals!

Mushroom Pate with red onion chutney

FOR THE PATE

175g butter

600g mixed mushrooms (any combo - they suggest shitake, chestnut and button), wiped and thinly sliced

1 medium onion, finely chopped

3 garlic cloves, finely chopped

juice of 1 large lemon

pinch of cayenne pepper (I didn’t have cayenne and used paprika which worked fine)

1/2 tsp grated nutmeg

150g ricotta

100g gorgonzola (I used roquefort which was equally delicious)

FOR THE CHUTNEY

3 red onions, thinly sliced

1 red chili, finely chopped

olive or vegetable oil for frying

100g castor sugar

100ml red wine vinegar

6 cornichons, chopped

Melt 50g of the butter in a frying pan and cook the mushrooms, onion and garlic for about 10 mins or until soft.  Squeeze over the lemon juice.  Using a slotted spoon, place half the mushroom mixture into the food processor and whizz on pulse setting until smooth.  Strain off the liquid from the remaining mushrooms.

Combine both mushroom mixtures in a bowl an mix in the cayenne, nutmeg and ricotta.  Crumble in the gorgonzola and mix together.  Season with a little salt and freshly ground black pepper.  Divide the mixture evenly between ramekins or small little kilner jars.

Melt the remaining butter and spoon a layer over the pate to cover completely.  Seal and chill.

For the chutney, fry the onions and chili in 2-3 tbsp of oil for 10 mins or until soft.  Add the sugar and vinegar and bring to the boil.  Bubble away for 10-15 mins or until the onions are very soft and the liquid has reduced.  Season with salt and freshly ground black pepper and then fold in the cornichons.  Allow to cool - serve the pate with the chutney and chunks or rye or sourdough bread or crackers.  (NOTE from the magazine: "As a bit of an experiment I stirred some into a bowl of pappardelle, topped it with some toasted walnuts and it was fab")

BON APETIT!

Happy Bastille Day!

Today, we're both thrilled to be peasant (pretend) farmers and not part of the aristocracy pretend or otherwise!

All across France, there are celebrations and so not wishing to miss out, we started the day with one of the biggest "Vide-Grenier"'s (literally "emtpy attic" better known in the UK as car boot sales and in Cayman as yard sales), at Jumilhac-Le-Grande.  This is a lovely town not far from us with a real Rapunzel style castle.  An enormous amount of people show up every year to listen to the bands (photos above) and buy that thing they didn't know they needed but now can't live without!  There are some good traditional items (you never know who's looking for a thingymajig to fix his whatchamacallit - photo of a potential treasure trove of thingymajigs below) but sadly, there are also piles and piles of rubbish as you can see from the pile of dead barbies also pictured below!

After deciding we had ample thingymajigs to fix all our whatchamacallits (but I did find a lovely shirt for EUR1 that I decided I couldn't live without!) we were heading home when we came upon a very interesting display on the side of the road - someone has obviously got as much time on their hands as we do and has decided that old wine barrels make excellent pigs - I couldn't resist asking Tony to pull over so that I could share the image....

Most of the towns around us are celebrating with music and fireworks - the only problem with it not getting dark until around 10.30 is that the party doesn't really get started until then - thankfully not getting up at 4.45am for our morning walk as was our custom in Cayman we may just make it up that late!! :)

On that note, I shall leave you with a "bon fete"!  We have dinner with the butcher, his wife and their 2 sons on Sunday to prepare for followed by our next lot of guests arriving on Tuesday and more weeds than I first thought to contend with in the veggie patch and although pleased the sun is shining again today - every sunny day we have simply means harder ground which means more work to do in order to remove the weeds...!