New Year: New Skills!

We’ve tidied away last year, hopefully, you feel a sense of achievement? Now it’s time to look forward and start to dream of what we hope to weave into the weeks and months ahead.

I’m writing this with a big bowl of oranges in front of me, we are making marmalade tomorrow, and I’ve bought some new seeded malted flour to bake bread with – I bet it will be delicious with butternut squash soup for lunch. We’ve got some exciting things coming up, see below, including our TWO DAY course Making Cheddar, Stilton & Sourdough, our business start up course Become a Bread Angel – Start your own Micro Bakery plus a brand new course that we’ve created because people have asked for it.

January is a great time to start afresh full of enthusiasm, even the sun is getting up a little earlier each morning, bringing opportunities to plan exciting activities and learn some new skills.

I’m still really enjoying my cheese making and decided, after tasting an especially good Shropshire Blue on holiday last year, to search out a recipe to make my own. I knew that the orange colour would come from a few drops of Annatto, a natural food colouring that is also used in Red Leicester, and the blue mould would come from Penicillium Roqueforti (the culture for Roquefort, Stilton, etc.). I already had these ingredients in the fridge, so I ordered in a couple of gallons of organic whole milk and started out trying to master the new techniques. I’m very pleased with the results so far, I need to mature it for 6-8 weeks and am very excited to taste the first slice. I’m constantly amazed at how just a few subtle changes in time, temperature and technique allow us to enjoy such a wide range of cheese…

 

 

A question that I’ve been asked a lot this year has been:

Do you run a course that teaches how to grow fruit and vegetables?

My reply has often been,  ‘Start sowing seeds – you don’t need a course for that’. In hindsight, I guess that may have come across quite rude (I’m sorry if I said this to you…) and I’ve been thinking that over the years, I’ve gained a lot of experience and I’d love to pass that on to anyone who is interested.

Between our home garden, here at Hen Corner, and the allotment down by the river, we harvest around £5,000 worth of food each year, and whilst this is a great saving financially, the rewards also include some good old fashioned outdoor exercise and a priceless confidence that you know where your food is coming from.

So I have put together a brand new course, helping us to start growing our own food!

I’ve drawn from 20 years’ experience,  the GROW chapter of my book Living the Good Life in the City and my recent series in Gardeners’ World Magazine.

Check out Growing The Good Life, the first session is on Tuesday 24th February, which may seem early in the year, but it’s the perfect time to chit potatoes, plant fruit bushes, prune the grapevine, make some compost, plan the water harvesting, oh and ‘sow some seeds’!

I’ve been really excited as I’ve put this course together and I can’t wait to share it with you.

Coming up at Hen Corner:

January

Introduction to Making Marmalade Tuesday 13th

Introduction to Making Cheese Wednesday 28th

February

Introduction to Making Bread Tuesday 3rd

Making New Cheeses Wednesday 11th

Pasta Together (Families) Tuesday 17th

Introduction to Scandinavian Baking Thursday 19th

Growing The Good Life Tuesday 24th

Making Cheddar, Stilton & Sourdough Wed 25th & Thurs 26th (TWO DAY COURSE)

March

Introduction to Making Cheese Wednesday 4th

Become a Bread Angel – Start your own Micro Bakery Wed 11th & Thurs 12th (TWO DAY COURSE)

Family Feathers & Fun Saturday 14th

Introduction to Making Bread Tuesday 17th

Introduction to Making Cheese Wednesday 25th

Introduction to Easter Baking Tuesday 31st

Other news:

• The hens are doing well, their new feathers are keeping them warm
• I can’t believe that the temperature was -3c last week and +12c today, I even saw some of our honey bees flying this afternoon
• Our lemon tree is thriving in the garden room, where it shelters over winter, it loves the extra warmth and rewarded us with a full flourish of blossom throughout December

Jobs for the week:

• Create some winter recipes using homegrown produce for Gardeners’ World Magazine
• Bottle the last of our honey from the summer
• Prepare my entries for this year’s Great Taste Awards

The new year is definitely underway – what are you most looking forward to?

I hope to see you soon,

Sara