Today I made bread. I’m in training with young Phil the baker here at Vallum Bakery, which brings with it the dubious advantage of being up with the lark – and today’s sunrise was spectacular!
We make six varieties of bread and they all have completely different recipes. The sourdough, for instance, has to sit overnight, taking 16 hours or more to develop.
We’ve been playing with the last of the basil, making pesto to ripple through ciabatta, and we’ve discovered that our rosemary is delicious on the sea salt ciabatta. We’re going to play about with the beetroot next.
My favourite vegetable, celeriac, is already cropping in the garden – although we can leave it in the ground like a living larder. I love celeriac – celeriac soup with white truffle oil, roast celeriac, celeriac dauphinois with grainy mustard, remoulade (slaw) and so much more; it’s such a versatile ingredient. We planted twice as much as last year and I think we will plant twice as much again in 2017. The kale is absolutely abundant at the moment. There’s a bit of powdery mildew in one variety, but it’s still cropping like mad and the colours of the different varieties look so beautiful. We used the last of the courgettes with the kale for Sunday lunch in our restaurant.
I think we will make a bigger effort with squashes next year. With the exception of the petit pans, ours failed. We are, however, buying them in and their chestnuty consistency and nutty flavour are so splendid we’ve added them to the menu as a starter roasted with cumin and finished with cheese.
Sad news – we adopted a homing pigeon last week which had lost its way. We named it Pidgey and it recovered well, but today we found a mound of feathers – the identity ring sitting neatly on top. RIP Pidgey… Good news though, Rose the cow is due to calve in December. She is looking great and is so friendly. We will blog about her on the website and anyone interested in seeing the delivery can email me moffittv@gmail.com
And so to plans for our Christmas experience – clove-baked ham, flaming pud and so much more. Exciting!
