Egg-citing Days Ahead…

| 16th March 2023

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Eggs in our baking

If you follow us on Instagram, you will have seen that we’ve been busy recently baking for The Great Taste Awards. One of our entries this year is *everyone’s favourite* our Apricot Couronne. Now the savvy among you will have noticed that this pops up a couple of times each year under difference guises. Back at Christmas, it was an Apricot Advent Wreath and very soon this delicious treat will be baked again as an Easter Apricot Couronne. We deliberately save it for special occasions, the law of diminishing returns and all that, but as couronne is French for crown – surely it would be more than fitting to celebrate the coronation of King Charles with this fragrant sticky treat.

Not only will local customers be able to buy them from our weekly micro bakery, but there are a couple of opportunities for you to learn how to bake them yourself:

 

Eggs in our pasta

Oh my, didn’t we have fun this week? A delightful group of guests made fresh egg pasta (and a plain white pasta) and, whilst the butternut squash filling was slow roasting with sage, we whipped up a zingy green pesto and started to shape the pasta dough.

With a couple of rolling machines, a spaghetti press and lots of hand tools, between us we made this vast array of *TWELVE* different shapes and styles, in alphabetical order:

Bigoli, Cannelloni, Conchiglie,

Lasagne, Mafalda, Orecchiette,

Pappardelle, Penne, Ravioli,

Rigatoni, Tagliatelle and Tortellini!

Our next Introduction to Pasta course is on Wednesday 12th July.

Eggs in the nest box

Whilst the weather seems to be taking it’s time to warm up, the longer days are resulting in many more eggs from the hens. I used to think this was simply because the longer days allowed them to eat more and therefore have enough input to increase their output. However, the real reason is due to the extra sunlight entering through the eyes and hitting the pituitary gland with a simple message ‘It’ll soon be warm enough for baby chicks, let’s start another fertility cycle…’

We welcome the extra eggs as we’ll need them on our Family Courses in the school holidays:

Eggs in our bee hive!!!

Whaaaaaat????? Well not hen’s eggs, of course, but these busy bees are bringing back pocketfuls of pollen, on their back legs, as the perfect protein-rich food for the newly hatched larvae inside the hive. The larvae hatch out from eggs 3 days after they are laid, in tiny hexagonal cells, by their mum – the queen bee. Whilst the colony is growing slowly at this time of year, there’s not loads of nectar around yet, the bees that are emerging this month will be summer worker bees, making the most of the long days and wearing out after a short six weeks. Their older sisters, who have faithfully cared for their mother, over the last six months, will be handing the baton on to these new bees in the coming weeks…

I wonder which flowers this pollen has come from?

The yellow may be from hazel catkins and the creamy white from rosemary flowers.

Coming up at Hen Corner:
Monday 27th March Hot Cross Buns (virtual)
Wednesday 29th March Introduction To Easter Baking
Wednesday 12th April Full Day Bee Keeping
Family Fun in the Easter Holidays (3rd – 14th April) :
Tuesday 4th April Pasta Together
Saturday 8th April Easter at Hen Corner
Don’t forget – if you’ve been on a course before you can have 20% discount!
Other news:
  • I’m really getting into cheesemaking and spent some time last week making Gouda, Caerphilly and Danish Blue
  • We are working with Cultivate London to run free garden workshops in the Eco Garden at our local church
  • The roof blew off the hive at the allotment in the strong winds on Monday, a huge thanks to Paul who spotted it and secured it back on!
Jobs for the week:
  • Keep planning the promotional events for our book release this summer
  • Make the most of the spring sunshine and get busy in the garden
  • Construct 30-40 new bee hive frames for the annual deep clean & changeover

An ambition for this year is to grow all the vegetables for our award winning piccalilli, are there particular things that you want to grow this year?

Sara

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