Wrickton Hall Dog HolidaysHome from home luxury dog boarding

Tonight will see me hosting my first dinner party in at Wrickton Hall, and after a very busy week at work and a good amount of thinking and preparation in advance, hopefully I can relax and enjoy the company of our friends without spending the night in the kitchen.

Winter Warmer Dinner Party Menu

Starter:            Watercress and Goats Cheese Soup with fresh rolls. (Recipe)

Main:               Beef in Beer with Horseradish dumplings, served with creamy mashed potato and green vegetables. (Recipe)

Desert:             Pecan Pie with Whiskey Cream. (Recipe)

Preparation started earlier in the week, with making the soup and the Pecan pie, and an early morning this morning preparing the Beef in Beer for the slow cooker.

The Burwarton Show will be held  Thursday 7th August  2014 at The Showground,  Cleobury North, Bridgnorth. Shropshire.

The Burwarton Agricultural Show goes back over 110 years and is proud to boast that it is the country’s best one day show. The show will return this year with a wide range of trade stands as well as attractions including:

• Cossack trick riding and wild west performances.
• A static bird display from Hawkeye Falconry UK.
• Craft demonstrations.
• Vintage tractors. engines and machinery.
• Sheep shearing competition.

The Burwarton Show will be a fantastic day out for the family, who will be able to enjoy the entertainment, the food hall, and a wide range of heavy horse, cattle, pigs, goats and horses/ponies. Family tickets cost £32.00 in advance (2 adults + 3 children). Full information and tickets are available at The Burwarton Show website.

Ludlow fun Dog Day 2014

The first Ludlow Dog Day will be held in the grounds of Stokesay Court, near Ludlow, on Sunday 20th July 2014. The dog day will have many attractions to delight the whole family and will have lots of ‘doggy’ stuff throughout the whole day.

This is one fun packed day that you really must write into your doggie diaries.

Attractions at the Ludlow Dog Day include:

• Dog Display team
• Fun Dog Scurry
• Pet dog Rally Obedience
• Dog and Duck

There will also be a wide selection of stalls, demonstrations, children’s activities, tours of Stokesay Court and fun dog classes for everyone to enter with prizes.

Tickets for the Ludlow fun Dog Day are:

Adults: £6.00 in advance (£7.00 on the day)

Children (4-16yrs)/Concessions: £4.00 in advance (£5.00 on the day)

Family Ticket (2 Adult 2 Children): £16.00 in advance (£20.00 on the day)

Free Parking and entry to Stokesay Court Gardens included in the ticket price.

The Ludlow fun dog day is being organised by the Rotary Club of Ludlow to raise funds for good causes. Full information about the day, and opportunities to sponsor or advertise may be found on their website.

Pecan Pie with Whiskey Cream.

Ingredients:

Pecan Pie:

Ready made sweet pastry base (life’s too short!)
2 Eggs, beaten
100g ish of melted butter
200g ish of brown sugar
2 tablespoons of golden syrup
100g of pecan nuts, some whole some crushed.

Ingredients:

Whiskey Cream:

Double Cream
Caster Sugar
Whiskey

Method:

Pecan Pie

Whisk together the melted butter, brown sugar, golden syrup, and eggs. Add the pecan nuts to the mix. Pour the mix into a ready made pastry base. Bake in the oven for about 30 minutes on 150/gas mark 4. The pie is ready when it has set and goes a lovely golden brown colour on top. It can be served either warm or cold, will store in the fridge for a couple of days, and will reheat in a gentle oven.

Whiskey Cream

Whisk together a pot of double cream, with about a dessertspoonful of caster sugar and a generous shot of whiskey, until the cream forms the consistency that you prefer. Serve generously with a slice of Pecan Pie.

Beef in Beer with Horseradish Dumplings.
(Slow Cooker Recipe)

Ingredients:

Beef in Beer:

500g of diced beef
3 Carrots, sliced
1 Onion, sliced
1 clove of Garlic, crushed
2 handfuls of diced mushrooms (or Button Mushrooms left whole)
1 teaspoon of Marmite
1 can of Guinness or other Real Ale.
Gravy Granules

Horseradish Dumplings:

Suet
Flour
Salt
Cream of horseradish sauce

Method:

Beef in Beer:

Place all the ingredients except the gravy granules into the slow cooker, stir them together, put the slow cooker on low, put the lid on and enjoy your day! As you start to make the dumplings, check the beef for the thickness of the sauce, add gravy granules as required.

Horseradish Dumplings.

Stir together in a bowl the suet, flour, (I use about half and half) and a teaspoon of salt. Stir in the horseradish sauce; I love the flavour of horseradish so would use a very generous teaspoonful. Add cold water very slowly to the mix, a little at a time, stirring it together until the mixture is bound. Divide the mixture into small balls, and place on top of the cooking beef. Put the lid back onto the slow cooker and cook until the dumplings are like white fluffy clouds.

Serve with creamy mashed potato and green vegetables.

Ingredients:

Cooking oil
2 large Potatoes
1 Onion
2-3 pints of Chicken Stock
1 Bag of Watercress
Salt and Pepper
1 small tub of double cream
Goat’s cheese

Method

Peel and cut the potatoes as if you were making mash, peel and chop the onion into large chunks. Heat the oil in a roomy saucepan and gently fry the potato and onion until the onion becomes translucent.

Add the Chicken stock and some salt and pepper to taste to the saucepan, making sure that the potato and onion is generously covered. Bring to the boil and simmer until the potato is soft, about twenty minutes.

Take the saucepan off the heat and stir in the watercress leaving it to wilt into the hot liquid.

Blend the soup until smooth, (I use a hand blender and don’t worry too much if I find the occasional lump of potato in my soup!)

(If making the soup in advance allow to cool and it will keep for a couple of days in the fridge or will freeze, I find empty plastic four pint milk cartons just about the correct size for storing the soup.) When you are ready to serve the soup, reheat it to just about to boil, stir in the pot of cream and check the seasoning.

Serve into warmed soup bowls and scatter some goat’s cheese over the soup.

Serve with warm crusty rolls and butter.

Happy free range chickens!

Keeping chickens is rewarding in so many more ways than just the delicious fresh eggs. They can be quite interesting characters too, and today they have been particularly cheeky, getting the better of me from the minute they were let out of the coop this morning.

Their usual routine is to head straight for the newly filled food troughs to eat their corn and layers pellets, but not this morning! Magic and I had left the gate open at the other end of the yard when we had gone in to say good morning, and as our girls came out of the coop they ran straight for the open gate, much faster than I could get there to close it. Thankfully we haven’t planted anything in the garden yet, and they enjoy eating the grass and scrabbling around for any unsuspecting worms, a real treat. With all six of the girls out in the garden, the chances of getting them penned back in were zero, Magic’s skills at rounding up chickens are as bad as mine; the chickens are completely used to Magic and in the most the girls ignore him; so we duly left them to enjoy the freedom.

But today our garden wasn’t quite enough, the grass obviously looked greener in next doors garden, and this afternoon they were enjoying a taste of that too! Thankfully chickens take themselves to bed as the sun sets, and all six ladies are now present and correct having found their own way back to their coop, and have been shut in for the night.

Four eggs today, which seems to be our average at the moment, as the weather improves we will probably be getting the full six again, or maybe more…

The plan is to get some more chickens. Hannah’s delayed Christmas present is a pair of black chickens, which we will buy in a few weeks time, and Mick is looking at buying a Rhode Island Red cockerel and Light Sussex hen so that we can breed Warrens. We have four Warrens already, our original four chickens, a hybrid chicken that is particularly bred for egg productivity. I wonder if the baby chicks will be as cheeky as the grown-ups!

A few days into the new move now. Life seems to be all mud and boxes. The weather has been challenging, even our dog has refused to go outside at times; our thoughts however go out to people in coastal areas who have faired far worse than just our soggy garden and muddy driveway!
The essentials are now up and running; dishwasher, washing machine, tumble dryer; and Mick is doing an amazing job at warming the house with the log burner.
Magic, our dog, has a very sore eye, which I am bathing frequently thanks to my friend’s advise, we are hoping he regains his bounce very soon; I am blaming the long wet grass and his shortness of leg!!!
The chickens have settled perfectly in the pigsties, a good area for them to have freedom, a bit of grazing and shelter from the almost persistent rain.
Our new additions, Coco and Rory, our two cats, are beginning to show some character. Rory is still very shy, spending his daytimes under the settee, but moving around in the peace of the nighttime; he is always under a different chair by the morning and eating well. Coco however is becoming much braver and curling up on the cushions on the settee in the evenings, he is especially lively when he is hungry!
Tomorrow we are hoping for a few moments of sunshine to take some photos for the website! Watch this space!
Tee x