Ashover Show

We are very fortunate that we have a big village show here every August.  This year they were celebrating 80 years of the event.  Although I had withdrawn Barnaby I decided to go down anyway, just to have a mosey round (okay, I went to eye up the opposition a bit, too!) I got there in time to see the TARRA ex-racehorse class.  There were only four in it.  Perhaps I should have taken Zak instead of Barnaby?!  The cobs were all stunning, and all of them looked a lot bigger than Barnaby. Maybe it's because I was on the ground. There is a height limit for showing cobs of 15.3hh, but some of these looked at least 16hh. No photos I'm afraid as I decided to video it instead to show Mr O when I got home. He couldn't get the day off work, unfortunately (hold that thought!)

But if it's horses you're after, you can't go wrong with these guys:

(or girls, obviously, as they are clearly mare and foal!)

There is usually a good turn-out of shires here, but it was lovely to see them with their babies.

Have a close look at the curly coat on this foal.

Of course, not all horses are huge, look:

This little colt came fourth in the youngstock class. 

 He let me get down and give him a cuddle, which was so sweet.

And then I saw these guys, who were significantly bigger than the colt:

Deer hounds, apparently, and very friendly (but I did have a cake in my bag by then!)

Of course, there is the possibility that you're not interested in the animal side of things,

but there is another side to Ashover Show, that mostly revolves around food.  Let me explain:

Five eggs on a plate, either five the same, or five completely different.

Not got chickens?  What about this, then?

I may have a crack at the lemon curd next year, so watch this space!

And every type of vegetable known to man.

Something for Mr O to aim for, for next year?

There was also a fabulous craft tent but I didn't dare take any photos!

And then the rain came down and I decided to wend my way home,

walking up the steepest of hills

with only blackberries to sustain me.

I did see these chaps, though:

A taste of rural England, at it's very best.

Even though it decided to pour with rain in the afternoon.

(and I got home to find Mr O poorly and asleep on the sofa!)

Why I Know Nothing About Beef, and other stories...

Thankyou for your comments about what to do with my braising steak - it made me hungry just reading your suggestions! In the end Delia did in fact come to the rescue. Her recipe is called Latin American Beef Stew. It is made with the beef, onions, chilli, garlic, chopped tomatoes, red wine, sweetcorn and peppers, and was absolutely gorgeous.
So why didn't I have a clue what to do with this meat? The answer, I think, is that when I was a child, beef was considered to be very expensive, so we wouldn't have had it very often, anyway. And then, I hate to say this, but my mother was a terrible cook (she is sadly no longer with us, so I guess it's okay to spill the beans in this way.) There was many a day when I'd come home from school and find a burnt out saucepan on the garden path. Please don't think I'm kidding. Sometimes she couldn't boil an egg without being distracted and letting the pan boil dry. She couldn't make spaghetti bolognaise. I don't know why. Her mother, and in fact her mother-in-law were both exceptional cooks, so there's no accounting for it. My sister, also, is an amazing cook.
Anyway, back to the beef. I don't really remember having it at home, and if we did, it would have tasted like shoe leather, so in my head, I didn't think I liked it. I know if we eat in a restaurant I usually order fish or chicken. It's only in very recent years I've ordered beef occasionally.
Then we moved here, and Pongo and Missis love to have barbeques in the summer, and Pongo always cooks big bits of beef. I think it may be sirloin, I'm not sure. Every year they buy a whole Aberdeen Angus cow and fill the freezer with it, and this year they asked if we'd like to go in with them. We agreed, and now my freezer is full of beef, and ... it's absolutely, flippin' gorgeous!
But of course, I don't know the significance of each piece of beef and how you're supposed to cook it (technically I can't fry an egg either, but that's another story!)
You used to be able to buy books called, 'The Dairy Book of Home Management' which told you which joints came from which part of the pig, sheep or cow, and how to cook them. Finding a book like that now is practically impossible (and I'm only talking about a book from the 70's or 80's, not exactly Mrs Beeton).
And so, I've turned to my much mocked, 'Delia's How To Cook (Book 2). It's so interesting I can't begin to tell you. She says...
'In most cases forequarter meat (which comes from the front half of the animal) is best for slow cooking because this is the bit that works harder, stretching and pulling the rest along all the time (examples for beef include brisket joint, and braising and stewing beef). Muscle and tissue begin to build up as the animal matures, and this, together with a marbling of fat in-between the meat fibres, seems happily to be tailor-made for slow cooking...'
It's making me hungry just thinking about it! I bet you knew all that already, didn't you? How clueless am I? I'm forty-three for goodness sake, and all this is a mystery to me (and my son-in-law is a butcher!)
So there will be 'adventures in beef' for quite a while, until it's all used up, and then, I think you'll probably find, we'll get some more.
So, what's your favourite bit of beef, and what do you do with it? I'd love to know.
Mrs O.

Post Haste

I'm so sorry, I seem to have gone AWOL without even realising it. I have been a little busy on the domestic front. I hardly know where to start.
The observant among you may have noticed that I issue myself a set of challenges each month, which are displayed on my sidebar. The eagle-eyed may have noticed that I have challenged myself to 'make chutney' for the last three months in a row. This means, obviously that I have failed the challenge repeatedly. Slapped wrist for me.
So now, I am pleased to tell you, that I have finally managed to make some, and it was a doddle.
I decided to make Tangy Onion Chutney, as I absolutely love it and could eat it by the lorry load. The recipe is really easy (on the BBC Good Food website). The hardest part was the torture of peeling and slicing all the onions, and finding that eight onions only makes one jar! That's no good for a hearty girl, such as myself, who could easily eat a jar a week.
So I shed all the tears required to peel and slice the onions. Now I have to confess that I borrowed Missis blending machine, that also chops. I couldn't undertand why the onions looked so peculiar until I emptied the container and realised I'd left the plastic protective covers on the chopping blades and managed to shred them in with the onions - oops!

Second attempt, slice the onions and put them in a pan with sugar, like so:

Stir them up and let them cook in their own juices until really soft. Then add the red wine and the red wine vinegar (100ml of each) and leave to reduce for another 10 minutes, by which time you will have sterilized your jar, and hey presto! a jar of delicious onion chutney awaits you.
I have to say, I didn't cook the first lot for long enough so it has ended up still slightly crunchy, but the second batch is absolutely gorgeous. This was all so easy I was tempted to add some extra ingredients, but I resisted, and the end result was well worth it. Try it with some home made bread and warm brie, and I guarantee your taste buds will be happy for days afterwards.

And now I have to show you this:


Yes, it's my very first blog award. It's from Sue at Dollytub Cottage. Thankyou, Sue, I am absolutely delighted to receive this. I am, as a result, supposed to think of seven things you don't (want to) know about me, but I'll have to take a little time to ponder that, so watch this space. I also have to pass it on to others, which I will do tomorrow, I promise.
That's all I have time for at the moment. My number 2 son is here for a flying visit and as I haven't seen him for months, I am going to make the most of it.
Plenty more where this came from, though.
Mrs O.

If Life Gives You Lemons

I ache all over from my physical exertions yesterday so probably won't ride as I don't think I've got the strength. I finished off the tidying and reorganising today and now the place is spotless, not a whisp of straw out of place. I've put loads of winter rugs away and have done a hay net and feed for each horse so they can come in tonight and eat for an hour. Barnaby made it quite clear yesterday that he isn't getting enough to eat (am I the only person praying for rain??) so we put some hay in the field last night, but I have decided they'd better come in for a teatime feed and stand in for an hour and eat hay, without having to fight over it in the field or watch it blow away. There is more grazing to be had, but not until the haylage is cut which could be very late June, so they'll have to eat the hay for now.
Well I've made the lemon curd and followed a recipe from a Youtube video as I haven't got a recipe for it in any of my cookbooks, even my Farmhouse cookbook.
Basically you whisk up four eggs in a pan, add sugar, butter (yes I used real butter) juice and peel from four lemons and cornflour (although not all recipes require this) and put it on to heat. Then just heat it up and stir constantly like you would a white sauce. Some recipes say to stir in a glass bowl above a pan of boiling water, which I might do next time. Apparently it stops the eggs scrambling by themselves. I just kept whisking and it was fine, but it hasn't gone as thick as shop bought lemon curd, despite the added cornflour and it's a much brighter yellow than I think it should be but this may be because I haven't used any shop bought ingredients, and I have used totally organic eggs. There are no colours or preservatives in it, are there? It almost looks like picalilli or curry sauce. I sterilized my jars with no problems at all and I'm still waiting for it to completely cool before I put the lids on, but have a look anyway:





Needless to say, it isn't Country Fair standard so I'll have to have another go next month. It was quite an experience, though. It has quite a subtle flavour, but I suppose you don't want it to be an overpowering lemon zing. The only disappointment is that it tastes more floury than buttery which is a bit frustrating. I'll just have to keep experimenting until I'm happy with it. I also want to make about four jars at a time, so I can give some as pressies if it's any good. I've realised the sensible thing to do would be to bake some bread and have it on that. Imagine that, warm home baked bread with fresh, home made lemon curd on it.
It was a lovely experience, though, to be standing in my country kitchen (you can tell it's the countryside as the chickens won't shut up!) with the sun pouring in, making lemon curd whilst listening to the radio - bliss.

Next month - chutney...

Tieing up Loose Ends

At last the sun is shining and it's beautifully warm. The swallows finally arrived yesterday (they've been at Jolly Farmer's for over two weeks!) I was concerned that they won't be able to get to their normal nesting spot in the barn now that we've put the shutter doors on, but they fly in through a gap in the top, then it's business as usual. It's wonderful to see them back, I always feel as if it's summer when they come.
I stroll to the field twice a day and put suncream on Barnaby and Lindy. They both have very delicate pink noses that burn easily. Barnaby stands still and takes it like a man. Lindy wrinkles his top lip and tries to lick it off. Polo comes over to see what all the fuss is about and asks to have some on as well. I put a splodge on him. He hates to be left out. Zak runs a mile.
I have some catching up to do on the Barnaby front. I went for a lesson at the riding school a couple of weeks ago. I had a different instructor, and I'm going to be honest and say I've never been keen on her. She's quite young and arrogant. There's nothing she hasn't ridden. I went in for the lesson with a sense of trepidation and it was... brilliant! She knew exactly what I wanted to do (jumping) what Barnaby was like, what he needed to do, etc. She put the jumps up straight away. When I have a lesson with 'the other girl' she makes you do flat work for twenty minutes, then puts a fence up. This girl had the fence up instantly, talked to me while I warmed up, and we got on with it. I didn't have time to be nervous.
Barnaby was quite hard work, though, and kept rushing his fences. Bear in mind that he hasn't really jumped since his injury and I've only jumped him a few times before that, because he wasn't my horse then, and you can see, we have a lot of work to do. In the end I was just walking him round, trotting the last two strides and jumping the fence, then going off and calming him down, and going for the fence again. It really made him listen to me and wait for instructions, instead of just charging off. The instructor was brilliant, though, I can't thank her enough.
This was all because I wanted to take him to Wingerworth show and do the showjumping, but he isn't ready. It won't take long, but we have a lot of work to put in. If I go now, I'll probably manage to jump one fence, but anything could happen after that.
I brought him in to ride in the new manege a couple of days after that. When I picked his back left (or near hind) foot up he absolutely yanked it away from me, and then wouldn't put his foot down. I tried not to panic, but after the broken pedal bone saga, you can imagine, we are very protective where his feet are concerned. It turns out he's got a mud fever wound there, which is very sore. Every time he picks his leg up he's breaking the skin again, which must hurt like heck. Anyway, he was lame after this and I couldn't ride him, and the next day he was still quite bad, refusing to move etc, so we got the vet out.
A very nice vet came, said it was mud fever, gave me some antibiotics and charged me one hundred and eleven pounds! Good grief, I'm in the wrong job. She offered me bute. "No," I said, "I have plenty." (No need to make the bill one hundred and forty pounds when I have packs of bute still in the drawer).
So he's had all of last week off, and had antibiotics in his feed twice a day, and once a day this week. He came sound within two days, but he was definitely feeling sorry for himself. When the horses were chasing each other round the field, he just stood there and wouldn't join in. When I brought him in for his feed he walked very slowly and after his tea he stood there and wasn't bothered about going out again. I can't stand seeing him like that. He is such a majestic beast normally. I was so relieved when he got his normal bolshy attitude back. It's worth a little bit of barging just to know he's well.
We trotted him up on Sunday night and he was fine. We've been putting cream on the wound twice a day, just to keep it soft and flexible really. I rode him on Monday in the school and he was beautiful. I've put three trotting poles on one side of the school, and a cross pole (jump fence) on the other side. I did exactly what I'd done in the lesson I had, and schooled him on the flat for quite a while, just to satisfy myself that he was sound, then took him over the trotting poles. They are a set distance apart, and he should trot neatly in between them. The first time he tried to jump all three, and cantered over them, but I steadied him and he was fine after that. Then, when he wasn't really expecting it, I presented him at the fence and he popped it beautifully. I carried on schooling and took him back over the poles, then jumped the fence again, and just kept going. He was very attentive, and really enjoying it, not knowing what was coming next and realising he'd better listen and be ready. In the end I put the fence up to a straight bar and put him over that a few times. He was superb and absolutely flew over it, but came back to me afterwards as well, not just going flying around the arena, which was really good.
I was as high as a kite afterwards because I was totally on my own, and wasn't the least bit nervous, wondering if I should wear a body protector/let Missis know I was jumping etc. I really had to concentrate and think about what we were doing the whole time, but it was wonderful. I do feel if I do this at least once a week, we will be ready to do a little clear round class, and maybe the 55cm class in June. It's all very well watching people show jump at Chatsworth, where the arena is huge and you have ten strides between every fence. At Wingerworth the showjumping ring is very small, and you have maybe two to three strides between each fence, so we will have to be on the ball, or we'll be jumping out of the arena!

On the domestic front, I have been saving all my empty jars with the intention of making either:

jam

lemon curd

marmalde

or

chutney.

Having given it some consideration and researched various recipes, I have decided to have a go at lemon curd first, because
a) we love it and will actually eat it and
b) it looks really easy.

So the ingredients will be on my next shopping list. I have no idea how many jars I will end up with, or what I do about sterilizing the jars, so a little more research is needed (and probably consulting The Oracle for her wise advice in these matters). But I want to do it, because I can't help noticing that the more expensive the lemon curd, the nicer it tastes. I've read the ingredients on all the jars I've tried, from Tesco's cheapest to Highfield Farm Shop's version, (more than twice the price) and it seems the more butter or margarine they put in, the better it tastes, so I'm looking forward to making my own and seeing how it compares.
We have had the schedule in the post for this year's Ashover Show and I notice there is an entry for jam, chutney and lemon curd in the preserves section, so you never know...

The Cure-All

Finally, I've found it, the cure for all my ills. It's scientifically proven and medically tested. You don't even need a prescription. What is it, this amazing wonder drug? It's commonly known as ...

a lay in!

yes, I've taken one yesterday and one today, and I feel like a completely different person. Who would have guessed the powerful, healing properties of

sleeeeep

I haven't had a lay-in since the horses came in in November, I've just mucked out, ridden, shopped, cooked, cleaned and ironed ever since, and I think I've been suffering from exhaustion. It's amazing what a bit of sleep can do to restore you physically and mentally, isn't it? That's why the 'I'm selling Max,' scenarios have crept in again. It all got a bit too much. Sorry if I've been a bit down. I knew I had to do something so I asked Missis if she would turn my horses out along with her own, and I would 'appear' when I was ready. What a blessing. This may have to be a regular thing, to get me through the rest of the winter.
It's also about habit and routine, I think. We did so little riding over Christmas because of the snow, that I've just got used to mucking out and going indoors, and I've had to make myself get back into the horsey habit. I have to say, a lack of facilities and having no one to motivate me doesn't help, either.
So I lunged Max on Wednesday, as you know, and rode him yesterday. The reduction in feed really seems to be working, and he was a lot calmer. He had a good look round at things, but didn't do anything dramatic, and worked extremely well in the school, which cheered me up enormously.
I've been busy indoors, too. I've finally finished the little cross stitch bear for Mr O's valentine's card, which looks like this:





The back stitch took ages, but was well worth it. I'll add some wording on the front and inside, but not too much, to detract from the picture. Can't wait to give it to him. I am also well under way with the christening present, but very nervous about the actual sewing part, but maybe I can do it, we'll see.
I set myself a challenge this month, to make a banoffee pie, as I had it in a cafe last year and thought it was gorgous. As I was eating it I thought, 'surely I could make this?' and so set myself a challenge to make one this month. I consulted the oracle (my sister Lorayne, maker of all things nice!) and she said to go on the Nestle website, where a fool-proof recipe awaited me. (What's she trying to say?!)
So I ordered all the ingredients in my weekly shop, and yesterday I set to.
First I had to make a biscuit base like you do for cheese cake, with melted butter stirred in. I have seen recipes where you make a pastry base and bake it blind, but phooey to that.
So here's my base.





You have to put it in the fridge to chill for twenty minutes (while you do some cross stitch or something).
Then you open a tin of Carnation caramel and pour it on. (It was more blob it on, but still). Yes I have also seen recipes where you heat normal condensed milk with brown sugar, but time is of the essence here. Spread the caramel out with a palette knife.
Then whisk up whipped cream, fold in sliced banana and spread that on top of the caramel. (Stop drooling!) Then decorate with sliced banana and a dusting of cocoa powder. Lorayne said she just slices some bananas and puts them on the caramel base, then puts the whipped cream on top, but I've got to tell you, I think this version is much nicer. This is how it looked in the end:




Let's just say we had a fairly big slice each! That's all I'm saying. It was gorgous, though. In fact the rest of it is still in the fridge and I can hear it calling me - caaallling. Back soon.