Tag Archives: Aga

Slow Cooked

The cold has finally set in here at the cottage.  With a couple of radiators refusing to do their job properly, we’ve taken to living in the kitchen again until the plumber can fit us in.  To be honest, I love the warmth of the kitchen and couldn’t live without our Everhot – its glow of soothing, hospitable snugness the perfect antidote to November wind and rain.  Everyone in the countryside needs something to warm bottoms, damp socks and trousers after long muddy walks yelling after a purposefully deaf spaniel who has strayed into the next county.  Time to rustle up some central heating of my own.

The perfect culinary cosiness arrived in the form of a lovely parcel from The Happy Foodie and Ebury Publishing, a new cookbook entitled Slow Cooked.  Written by Miss South, the girlie half of North South Food and presented with fresh and bright photography from her equally talented and foodie brother, Mister North, this is a cookbook determined to reinvent the slow cooker for a new generation of cooks.  A self-taught cook who hails from Belfast but now lives in SW London (Mister North is unsurprisingly living….up North), Miss South has featured in Observer Food Monthly, BBC Radio 4’s The Food Programme and was a winner of the Young British Foodies Fresh Voices in Food Writing Award 2013.

Slow Cooked Flat book

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Episodes in cooking on a camping stove- Part 2

Let there be light - my sparkly new Garden Trading lights.

Let there be light!  My sparkly new French farmhouse style lights from Garden Trading.

 

Episode 2

I left you last week, dear Reader, with a half finished kitchen and a long list of camping stove menus.  Things could only get better from that point on….or so I thought.  However, when darkness fell upon the house (for the second time) as our builders drilled a hole through our electrics, I wondered how I would manage in the glow of camping stove gas and candlelight.  With one wall (new plaster, paint and all) smashed into to find the possible errant screw, the builders prompted left saying that there was nothing they could do until the electrician could come back in 2 days time.  Not ideal.  Being of the non-confrontational sort, I smiled and said with a slightly jumpy giggle “You can’t leave me like this with 2 small children.”  “Well it’s not like we are leaving you with dangerous electrics – the trip switch will just pop loudly if anything else blows”, was the answer.  Reassuring, dear Reader.  In the light (no pun intended, believe me) of our newest drama, I set off to our local farm shop café in search of sustenance, warmth and illumination for the girls.  To be honest, I was determined to find a meal for Primrose and Poppy that wasn’t something along the beans, lentils, chickpeas, chicken, stew or anything cooked on the camping stove front as moaning had reached fever pitch.  We arrived in the hopes of finding a homemade steak and ale pie, only to find that they had stopped serving food ten minutes before we arrived.  Disaster.  With a VERY disgruntled Primrose who reprimanded me for not knowing the opening times of the café off by heart, we returned to cook….yes you guessed it…more chicken.  Chicken, chicken, chicken…..if we eat any more of it, I shall consider taking up residence in the hen house permanently. Continue reading

Plunged into darkness

(Posted after almost 72hrs without heating, hot water, electricity…….welcome to country living!!!)

Our kitchen light

Our kitchen light

I sit here, dear Reader, writing this plunged in darkness and with the last of my computer’s feeble battery.  The St Jude storm predicted to be a replica of the Great Storm of 1987 hit our little hamlet hard.  Fancy naming a storm after the patron saint of lost causes?!  Bound to be a corker with a name like that!  I can say quite categorically that it has definitely left us feeling a bit bereft and bewildered!  Although, there was no major damage to houses in the village from the fallen trees, we have no power.  Yes NO ELECTRICITY…….  No heating, hot water or means of cooking.  The great whoosing of wind work the four of us at 04:30am and terrified that overhanging nearby trees would hit the house, we all retreated downstairs to light candles and sit it out.  So when it arrived, daylight was a welcome sight despite the fact that Primrose and Poppy found the whole episode quite thrilling to be honest!  Realising that power might be some time in coming back, Primrose announced that it would be like the ‘old-fashioned days’ and we set to work digging out the candles, thinking of how we would manage without the very thing which we take for granted.  Jerry in his jolly green Lanny giant left for the station, only to find that there would no trains until much later in the day.  Just when I thought that the entire day was going to be a write off, our dear neighbours, the Worthingtons, arrived on the doorstep with flasks of hot water for that most basic of needs…..a morning cup of cha!  I was so excited that I think I made rather a silly of myself, kissing Mrs Worthington with considerable drama and exclaiming that she had saved the day (well I had been up since the wee small hours of the morning)!  Turns out that their oil-fuelled Aga can be used manually whereas our oily boiler only works with the electric timers etc.  Rather natty those Agas!!  Mr Worthington did say that the last power outage lasted for a week……not such great news.  Still, the girls and I ploughed on with our day and Jerry managed to get to the Big Smoke.  Books were read, toys played with, paintings painted and quite a lot of stamping was achieved too.  It was truly wonderful not to have the television on blaring Mr Tumble out from the sitting room but I really did miss my daily dose of Radio 4 if I am honest.

Walking round the village later in the day, we spied the many trees which had come down in the night and I gave a little nod to the old chap upstairs for sparing our little garden and old cottage.  However, I was not impressed with the torrential rain which hit the girls, pup and I as we negotiated fallen branches along the bridleway.  At one point, we had to crawl through a small gap in the leafy debris and gnarly bits of tree trunk in order to carry on to the house.  As I took off the backpack which Poppy was firmly strapped into and squeezed both girls through and then myself, I did think that perhaps I had been a little barmy to try to carry out such an expedition with two small children and a wayward puppy.  Thank goodness, Monty had decided to behave himself and not run away with the lead.  Primrose was fabulously chirpy for once and announced that we were country girls and “This is what country girls have to do!”  I marvelled that our new found country existence had changed our rather risk adverse townie tot into an intrepid explorer.  “How killing!” as a ninety two year old in the village would say!

Our village is abundant with dear souls who have rallied round with flasks of hot water, offers of heating meals on their Agas and who have come to check on those who are at the mercy of the electricity engineers!  Bath time was a hoot in the dark and luckily, we still had enough hot water in the tank for Poppy and Primrose to warm up after a soaking wet walk.  I even managed to convince my little darlings to go to bed at 5:45pm as it was so dark here.  Thankfully, my dear Mamma arrives with a camping stove in the morning and I will no doubt have to take the girls on a long drive to charge up my mobile phone as the battery is on its last legs.  Keeping my fingers crossed that Jerry makes it back from London without too much difficulty too.

Still, sitting here with the log fire on and surrounded by candlelight, it has to be said that there is a kind of romance to being in deepest darkest countryside with nothing but a meagre ration pack of candles, batteries and a good book to while away the hours.  I am not sure I will be saying that in another 24 hours when we still have no power but for now, dear Reader, I am enjoying the beauty of the ‘old-fashioned life’ as Primrose put it earlier.  Better sign off now as looks like I need to find some more candles to keep us going this evening!

blackout

A ‘Hearth’warming tale

This weekend heralded the long awaited trip to Tom and Barbara’s dear little country pile.  Setting off on my 3 hour journey in the car with Primrose and Poppy, I dutifully set the sat nav (Nancy).  I can’t travel without it.  I have no idea of how to read a map (really!) and I find Nancy’s calm robotic voice strangely comforting on long journeys.  All was going well until I came across one small problem…. It appears that people in the countryside do not have proper addresses, there are no proper road names and one must look out for clues in order to get anywhere (past the chevron, look out for the orange ribbon)!  Not far from Barbara’s hilly home, Nancy directed me down a small bumpy lane and then into a very boggy field, promptly adding and with a rather satisfied tone of voice I might add, “You have reached your destination”.  It would seem that I had not reached my destination and was heading in the direction of Wales.  Turning the car round in a very muddy field had its challenges but mission completed, I finally reached the farmhouse before nightfall.  I realised from the moment I exited the car that this would not be a weekend for wearing my little suede pumps and Boden trench.  Strictly wellies and waterproofs only.

The warmth emanating from the kitchen drew me in and there it was, Barbara’s pride and joy: the Aga.  Draped in the washing, it not only proved itself to be a thing of beauty but an essential part of country living.  The sound of the whistling kettle heralded the all important cup of tea, another countryside staple, and an unctious casserole was bubbling away in preparation for supper.  I will admit to a touch of the green eyed monster at this point.  I have always dreamed of an Aga and I feel that no countryside home would be complete without one.  Never mind that it can be temperamental, that it takes a little longer to boil the kettle, that most people who have an Aga also have another electric oven too.  Oh no, what could be more perfect than toasting bread on the Aga top, leaving meat to stew for hours in the low oven and even being able to bring newborn lambs and pigs back to life on the warming plate?  It is THE countryside status symbol and I LOVE it.

The ubiquitous Aga

Waking next morning to the sound of tractors in the nearby fields, I looked out of the farmhouse windows and was rendered speechless.  Unusual, as I sure my dear Reader, you can imagine.  It struck me that the view alone would be enough to render one a hermit, never leaving the house except to forage for food.  Dear old Barbara even has her very own Downton on the doorstep (we could hear the guns on our walk across the fields) and a heavenly orchard at the bottom of the garden.  Turns out the orchard doesn’t really belong to the garden and Primrose was appalled as I gingerly vaulted the gate to ‘scrump’ apples, snagging my cashmere cardi on the barbed wire as I went over.  ‘Scrumping’ is the countryside term for filching apples from someone else’s land.  As I landed on the forbidden side of the fence, I had visions of myself sketched on a Wanted posted (looking rather delightful in tweed) and half expected a farmer to come over the brow of the hill with a shotgun yelling “Gerroff my land”….. I have always enjoyed indulging my rebellious side.

Apples well and truly scrumped, I even managed to bag some delicious rosehips whilst shredding my hands into the bargain.  What one will do for a good foraged hoard!

Safely back on Barbara’s plot, she told of plans for chickens, showing us her homemade coop all ready for the imminent arrival of her feathered friends.  Knowing her, there will even be a donkey just in time for Christmas.  A new puppy is also on the horizon.  Although, Barbara has had her fair share of dogs of late and was babysitting her very own canine ‘criminal’.  One of the most entertaining and seriously comedic moments of the weekend was the sight of dear old Tom running through the orchard after Shropshire’s answer to Fenton had escaped the farmhouse boundary and was heading for the next county!

Butter wouldn’t melt….
Shropshire’s answer to Fenton!

Returning to the business of Margot learning all about the countryside…. You would be proud, dear Reader.  I found myself imagining walks with my liver Spaniel wearing a tweed shooting jacket, pulling on the wellies in my Liberty tea dress to collect eggs from the dear Burfords and even preparing game pies in the Aga for the shoot lunch.  I even caught Jerry eying up Tom’s muddy and robust Land Rover, having a country day dream all of his own.With a roaring fire in the snug, a wee snip of Barbara’s homemade Damson gin glistening ruby red in my hand and visions of myself smothered in the warmth of the Aga living in perfect domestic bliss, I felt that our move to the countryside couldn’t come quicker.  This is what the countryside seems to be all about.  They say that home is where the heart is.  I would disagree: home is where the hearth is.  What could be more perfect than toasting one’s bottom on the trusty Aga after a wet and windy walk?

Reluctantly driving back to London, Jerry and I mulled over our own quest for a slice of countryside heaven.  I longed for Barbara’s Aga (do you think that they make one in green with white spots?) and Jerry coveted Tom’s mechanical green giant.  Exiting the car, I muddied my Boden trench (reminding me of the contrast of our jaunt in the countryside and my mud-free existence in town)and Jerry summed up the countryside in one fell swoop: “Well I suppose one gets used to always being covered in mud and having a dirty car”.  Indeed!  Oh to be by the Aga now……