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I can’t quite believe that my ‘little’ sister – Izzy - turned eighteen today. Mr Rigg and I spent the weekend in Gloucestershire with my family celebrating her birthday. My mom and I attempted to take her out on Saturday morning to her favourite local cafe for hot chocolate and brownies, but it was closed so I improvised…
Homemade hot chocolate – made by grating a bar of Cadbury’s into hot milk and topping with whipped cream (double cream whipped up) and mini marshmallows. And a slice of Rocky Road from a local deli, customised with mini marshmallows – I used a dab of cream to get them to stay in place.
A quick one today as I’m down with my family in Gloucestershire, but these were another delicious discovery from Glebe Farm Shop outside Congleton - pikelets with raisins.
I remember pikelets as a child, but I’m pretty sure they were supermarket versions which were like flat crumpets. These pikelets were more like a scotch pancake and studded with raisins. We just popped them in the toaster and slathered them with salty butter.
Today I went to Biddulph Grange Garden in North Staffordshire – to write up a piece for the sustainable food newsletter I edit in my volunteer role at the National Trust. I would highly recommend visiting the gardens here if you are in the area or looking for a day out – they are utterly breathtaking. My photos don’t do it justice.
But what I wanted to share was my discovery of Staffordshire oatcakes. They are a bit like a pancake or crepe, and I tried them for lunch in the National Trust tearoom, rolled up with cheese inside and heated until piping hot.
All the cheese was oozing out the ends – delicious. They were really quite tasty, especially with all that melted cheese – I must investigate how else you can use them and what other ingredients you can stuff inside them. I’m assuming most things, but I wonder if there are traditional ways of eating them.
Luckily I was able to buy myself a packet of Staffordshire oatcakes from Glebe Farm Shop in Astbury. I was told they were locally made in Congleton, freezeable, and I can’t wait to try them out at home.
Yes, I really am cooking breakfast for the dog today. Silly Buddy has spent the latter part of the week chewing on a mobile phone charger and a piece of wooden beading that came loose in our kitchen. All of Friday his tummy was making these loud squeaks and gurgles, so off to the vet we went.
He’s now got to spend five days on a diet of white rice and cottage cheese. Hence, I am boiling rice up this morning for the dog. Boil in the bag stylee – I love our pets sometimes. At least they keep life interesting.
Do you ever see a photo of something and just desperately want to eat it then and there? I’ve been trawling through old pictures of food we’ve made and came across this one of a fish finger butty filled with homemade tartar sauce…
Oh how I want to scoff the lot right now. Maybe with a cheeky slice of plastic cheese that’s started to melt from the heat of the fish fingers. Hmmm…
I am very proud of my homegrown tomatoes, even if I did buy them as tiny plants rather than grow them from seed. I decided to pick quite a lot of the red ones before the slugs and rain did too much damage – I was holding out for a couple of green ones to ripen more, but decided this would likely leave me with half munched on tomatoes if I left it much longer.
I’m pretty impressed with this haul of tomatoes, and there are still plenty of greens ones on the plant, so we’ll see what happens with them.
Yesterday’s prize-winning potatoes became yesterday’s dinner. First we popped the first prize-winning, homegrown potatoes onto skewers, rubbed them in olive oil and salt and then baked them until they were beautiful and fluffy inside.
We slathered them with a mixture of cream cheese and spring onions (with a touch of sour cream to loosen it up), and piled sliced salami and grated Parmesan on top. It was all we had left in the fridge but tasted pretty good.
Of the four items we entered at the produce show (pumpkin, 3 potatoes, raspberry jam, and sloe gin) we won two first prizes! One for our jumbo pumpkin…
And the other for our 3 potatoes – which we were really surprised about and very pleased…
Sadly our sloe gin and raspberry jam didn’t get a prize, but I did make them pretty labels…
And the sloe gin was snaffled up by one of our local councillors…
So we’ve had two pumpkins in particular that have been steadily growing in size. I can’t quite believe I planted a variety that grows so big, but hey-ho, it’s all good fun.
Tomorrow we’ve got our local Produce Show so we’re going to enter one of them along with some potatoes, possibly some tomatoes, and a few other bits and pieces.
I came across this incredible story today about two donkeys who delivery groceries in a village in Gloucestershire. It’s apparently been going on since before WWII and has been recently revived. The is project is run by volunteers and supported by donations from the local community.
Anyway, I just think it sounds fab and want to start something similar myself, despite living in a very flat town.
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