Naughty Booboo’s and A Pudding

Hello dear readers! Welcome back for another visit to the farm.

Welcome to all the new folks! Pull up a tree stump and feel free to skitchy the sheeps.

The sheep gave us a good run on Tuesday evening. When I got home from work, I let them out of the corral to graze before it got dark. They decided to make a beeline for the neighbor’s fence, pushed their way thru, tore the snot out of their coats, and went out to the highway in front of our respective houses.

We found out after several text messages and a phone call from people tell us they had escaped

Sneeky boogers then hid from us when the boy child and I were looking for them.

They were eventually found and made to go home.

Their naughtiness earned them a corral time out for the remainder of the week. Boy child spent time working on the fence again yesterday, and this morning we are going to change out the torn coats. Then both of us will be working on the fence some more.

Once we were done changing the coats, the boy child said that I left the man gate to the pasture open. I said I didn’t think I had. However, the evidence was contrary to that, and it indeed was open.

I swear it was not ME!!!! I didn’t do IT!!!

Yeah, Miss nosey girl Brandy opened it and let herself out into the yard.

Such naughty children!!!!

The weather has been glorious here. Soft warm days, a bit of rain, cool evenings. The grass is a vibrant shade of green and growing like crazy. I really need to get out to the garden and try to get something into the dirt before much longer. In this part of the world, it does not pay to do much planting before Mother’s Day. So, now’s the time!

I had a wonderful visit from a dear friend this week. She and her husband were in the area on a visit, and she got to come over here for the day. They had moved to the southeast USA a bit over a year ago. Miss Judy is part of our local fiber arts group, and I have been missing her smiling face. Miss Sherri also joined us for the day as we talked, ate steak and coleslaw with English Blue Cheese dressing, and drank wine.

The visit ended too soon!

Coleslaw with English Blue Cheese dressing

3T mayonnaise

3T thick plain yoghurt-I used a Greek style one

1T lemon juice or apple cider vinegar

2oz Stilton or Oxford Blue cheese which is not to be found in my area so I had to opt for a different kind of Blue cheese.

I put all those ingredients into a tall container and used a stick blender to whoop it up. If you prefer it to be a chunkier type of dressing, then don’t add the cheese until you have mixed the other ingredients and then crumble it in.

Add your dressing to:

8oz green cabbage, shredded

8oz red cabbage, shredded

1 medium carrot shredded

2 ribs of celery sliced very thin

1 medium red onion chopped fine

1 tart apple diced or sliced thin

Toss it all together and let the flavors meld in the fridge for 2-3 hours prior to serving. I also tossed on some crumbled blue cheese prior to serving.

And now for the reveal of what I posted on Notes this week! Are you following me on Notes at all? Don’t miss out on that!

A Welsh Bacon, Chicken and Leek Pudding!

I’ll note where I had to substitute ingredients, since so many of these are not easily obtainable in my area

7 oz unsmoked lean rindless bacon, preferable in one piece. I just used regular store bacon

14 oz skinless boneless chicken, preferable thigh meat

2 small or medium leeks, finely chopped

2T finely chopped fresh parsley

1 1/4 C self-rising flour. This is not something I keep in the house, so I made my own.

1/2C shredded suet. No suet here, so I used lard

4 oz chicken or vegetable stock, or water. I used home canned turkey stock

ground black pepper

butter for greasing your pudding basin.

Cut the bacon and chicken into bite sized pieces and mix them with half the parsley, the leeks, and pepper to taste.

Mix the remaining parsley, flour and suet in a bowl and cut with a pastry cutter much as you would for making biscuits. Add enough cold water to make a soft dough. I used 5T to get to that point.

Roll it out on a floured surface to make a 13” circle. Cut one quarter out of that and save it for the lid. BTW I doubled the dough for this, since the one in the picture looked pretty thin.

Butter your pudding basin and put your dough into it, sealing the seam up. Allow the pastry to hang over the top edge.

Add your chicken and bacon filling to your basin, pack it neatly and add in your stock or water. Don’t overfill your bowl.

Roll out and add your lid, sealing the edges well.

Cover with parchment paper and foil with a pleat in the middle so it can rise a bit. Make sure you wrap your foil/parchment tightly around your basin I used a piece of butchers twin and tied it under the lip of the basin

Steam your pudding over boiling water for 3 1/2 hours. Make sure you check your water level occasionally. I put a larger bowl upside down in the pot so that I had enough water without having to keep going back to check.

When done, run a knife around the sides and invert onto a plate.

We had it with rice on the side, using the remaining stock for the cooking liquid. This is my first time making anything like this and I was super happy to have it come out well. It was amazingly tasty. The boy child even said he liked it and would eat it again.

Please forgive my crappy pictures. A food photographer I am not!

COOKING NOTES:

I was unfamiliar with using leeks as this is not a veggie I ever saw growing up. I had to look up which part was the usable bit. The rest of the unused parts went into the compost bin.

To make the pleat for the top, I laid out a sheet of foil with the parchment over it. At about the middle of the two, I made a fold away from me, then a fold 1 1/2” back towards me.

Let me know if you give this a try! I would love to hear your experiences with this!

I hope you have a wonderful and blessed week.

Blessed be!

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Thank you for visiting the farm. I am grateful if you would leave a donation to help me keep it going. Every little bit helps me. Thank you so very much for your blessings.

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