Fluffy & Light Fruit Scones

I'm Back!! After a bit of a break from blog land. 

I baked some yummy scones this morning for friends that are visiting later today. My sister loves this recipe and says it makes the best light fluffy scones ever. I'm not so into scones but I do bake them regularly for her.

To make six large scones:

300 g self raising flour

3 tablespoons of sugar

Half cup of raisins soaked in hot tea

pinch of salt

3 eggs

butter/ milk to mix ( use butter if using shop bought milk or just milk if using heavy jersey milk)

Mix the ingredients together until it looks like the above photo. The raisins should be strained first. It should be fairly wet.

Dust the work surface with flour and gently shape the dough without working it too hard.

I used a cup to cut out the scones.

Place the scones onto a flour dusted oven try.

Glaze with milk and sprinkle with sugar.

Place in the oven for 20 mins at 200 degree.

Enjoy with a cup of tea xxx

Homemade butter

I had a litre of heavy cream in the fridge that was at risk of souring before I would manage to use it.

It was the perfect reason to make butter!

According to Weston A. Price, butter made from the cream of grass feed cows grazing on rapidly growing spring grass had what he called ' activator X '. 

It seemed a shame to waste it, so I went about making butter.

I took the cream out of the fridge in the morning, with the intention of making butter in the evening. Cream breaks into butter and buttermilk quicker when it is at room temperature.

I poured the cream into a bowl and used a handheld electric whisk. It only took a few minutes when I heard the noise of the butter coming. It sounds like a wet splash when the cream collapses in and splits.

I emptied the contents of the bowl into a large sieve, sitting over a small bowl to collect the buttermilk and put them back into the fridge. It is easier to wash the butter when it is chilled and has had the night to drain. So I headed to bed!

In the morning, I put the butter into a pot of painfully cold water. I used my hand to press out the buttermilk. I repeatedly replaced the cold water as it became cloudy. When the water remained clear, the butter was ready to be salted and pressed into ramekins. 

This involves mixing in good quality sea salt to taste and them pressing into moulds or containers ready to be used or in this case, stored in the freezer.

This litre of cream produced 400g of butter.

The buttermilk can be used in cooking, it is especially good in brown soda bread or pancakes. 

I really should be making this amount of butter twice a day, but I never have the time! 

And the pigs love the cream ;-)

Apple Chutney

I have been looking for ways to use the large amount of apple I got from my uncles orchard. 

I have made cider, used them in juicing, apple tarts and now chutney!

And I still have loads left, the pigs might get them before I use them all up!

1kg apples

300g onions

150g raisins

300-400 ml vinegar, to taste

300-400g sugar, to taste 

Salt

Mixed spice

Coriander

Add all the ingredients to a pot and allow to gently simmer for 2-4 hrs with the lid off.

Stirring occasionally so it doesn't stick to the bottom. 

Once it has turned a rich dark colour and has reduced down, spoon it hot into clean jam jars and seal the lids. 

Once it cools, the lids should pop down, a sign of a good seal. 

Allow to mature for 2-3 months before use. 

It gives a yummy kick to cheese or cold meat !

Raspberry Jam & Syrup

I was delighted when i was given a kg of frozen raspberries over the weekend. I defrosted them and got around to making jam and syrup today. 

I used an equal amount in weight of sugar to fruit. The sugar I used was half table sugar and half jam sugar for the pectin, as raspberries are low in pectin which helps it set.

I cooked the raspberries and added the table sugar first. When this was done, I strained a litre of syrup and bottled them. I hope to use this syrup to flavour the kombucha tea and water kefir. 

I then added the jam sugar to the pot and brought it back to a gentle simmer. I 

spooned it out into clean jam jars, sealed and labelled. Yummy with yogurt!

Kefir Cream Cheese

I have been making milk kefir for about six weeks now. I decided to experiment with some cheese recipes. This one is for a herb cream cheese. Yummy! 

I was surprised. Removing the whey has removed the sour kefir favour. I honestly love this recipe and it is so easy to make. Truly foolproof!

I started a batch of kefir, of about two litres. I left it for two days instead of the usual one and waited for it to separate into curds and whey. 

When it looked like this, I knew it was ready. 

I strained it first to remove the milk kefir grains. I will use those to start another batch. 

I then placed a cheesecloth over a colander and poured the kefir into it. I left it for 24 hrs.

After 24 hrs it looked like this. 

I got my seasoning ready which consisted of sea salt, garlic and thyme to taste. 

I mixed all the ingredients together until I was satisfied with the favour.

The two litres of kefir produced 0.5 litre worth of cheese and 1.5 litres of whey.

I stored the cheese and some of the whey in 0.5 litre mason jars. They will hold for a few weeks easily in the fridge. I will be using the whey for fermenting vegetables during the week.

The rest of the whey made wonderful brown bread and Yorkshire puddings.  The brown bread was served with the cheese and it didn't last the evening. A great tasting combo. The rest of the cheese will be served with salads throughout the week.

Greek Yogurt

We eat a lot of yogurt in our house, especially the nice thick Greek yogurt. As it is very expensive to buy and difficult to find Greek yogurt, not Greek style yogurt, I have started making our own.

A batch of freshly cultured yogurt staying warm in the slow cooker using the 'warm' setting.

It is very similar to making regular yogurt but with the added task of straining the yogurt to drain off the whey, producing a rich, thick yogurt and without the tart taste of regular yogurt caused by the whey.

Find the post on making homemade yogurt here.

Once the yogurt is ready, strain it for 4-8 hrs depending on how thick you like your yogurt.

The whey can be used to start off many fermented foods such as sauerkraut or used when baking bread or to feed chickens and pigs.

Once you are happy that it is thick enough, scope into jars and place in the fridge. It should keep for a minimum of a week.

Making Sauerkraut

We have plenty of veg still growing in the garden and I need to be more disciplined about making use of it all.

I am considering reducing the size of our veg garden for next spring, which might mean less work but greater efficiency with the space.

We currently have a great deal of onions in storage that need using. They are strong and I find that I avoid them due to the crying they invoke. 

We have lots of cabbages that need to be used and beetroot and turnip that are coming ready in mass numbers. Little may be more when it come to our veg garden!

It is hard to get around to everything and I hate to see waste, although the pigs enjoy the wheelbarrows coming!

I decided this week to try sauerkraut, to use up some cabbages and in the pursuit of healthy fermented veg to help my family's gut flora.

I got out my bible of health - Sally Fallon's Nourishing Traditions, and looked up the sauerkraut recipe on page 92.

Ingredients:

1 cabbage

1 tbsp caraway seeds

1 tbsp sea salt

4 tbsp whey

I washed the cabbage and shredded it into a bowl. 

I added the salt, whey from yogurt but omitted the caraway seed as I didn't have them.

I used my hand to massage the cabbage mixture together and help release the juices.

I placed an over turned bowl on top and left it in the warm kitchen to start to ferment.

The recipe says to leave it like this for three days and then place in the fridge for use.

Fingers crossed!

Addition:

I later packed the sauerkraut into a kilner jar and topped it up with whey, as I had it spare from straining yogurt to make Greek yogurt. 

Salami Update

It has been eight weeks since we made the salami. At five weeks cured I tasted it and although it had a light salami taste, it was followed by a bitter after taste. I was disappointed!

I had more salami today and it was wonderful. It has cured for eight weeks now. The after taste is completely gone and it tastes like a mild salami that you would buy in a shop only richer and more substantial.

This has encouraged me to try stronger spices when we make another batch.

And the kids love it, they have eaten about half of the cured sausages so far.

I intend to hide a few from them and taste test them at different ages so as to learn for next time the ideal curing time.

Salami Taste Test

Last month a did a post about making salami and last week we decided to taste some.

It has dried out a lot and has become firm with a coating of white mould. Considering we made so many if them, we decided we could afford to lose one by trying it a bit early.

Well, the kids loved it!

It tasted ready and I'm sure they are, due to there narrow size of sausage casing. I would use bigger casing again to make them quicker and mature at different times.

They taste just like the salami in the store but with a strong after taste which I don't like. Again the kids loved them.

I also feel that I didn't use enough favouring (herbs/spices) in the mix, as it tastes fairly plain but good.

I will try them again in two weeks to see if the after taste softens. Hubby loves them.

Roast Ham

We got the four back legs of the pigs back from the butcher last Friday. They were brined for a few weeks and then hung.

I got the butcher to half them. I put the lower leg into the freezer  and I left out the four hams, as seen above, to cook. They weighted 25kgs uncooked weight. That is a lot of ham!

They were too big to fit into anything I had other than a old pot I had for making cheese.

I boiled each ham for four hours each.

Once boiled, I peeled off the rind, be boned and tied the ham.

I cut squares into the fat and added cloves. I used a mix of mustard and brown sugar as a glaze. They went into the oven at a high heat for 25mins. 

Yummy! They tasted amazing!

Later when they cooled, we used a second hand food slicer to slice up the hams.

I divided these into 500g amounts and bagged them for the freezer. 

Now I have lots in the freezer for the kids lunches and for quick meals.

Freezers are such a blessing :-)