Sally Vincent’s Diary of Food and Life on a Devon Farm.
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Fig Conserve
My fig tree has suddenly gone into overdrive producing more figs than even I can consume. I found a delicious Fig Conserve hidden away in Jane Grigson’s beloved Fruit Book. Simply cover the halved figs in half their weight of sugar and leave over night. By morning the sugar has drawn the juice from the…
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Christmas cake
Here’s That Wonderful Old Christmas Cake recipe! The following quantity makes a big cake, sufficient for a 9”/ 23cm diameter tin. I usually halve everything and use a 7 ½”/19cm tin. First oil the tin and line sides and base with greaseproof or baking paper. Lightly oil the paper. Weigh out 275gms of plain flour…
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Elderflower Cordial
This year the lemony scent of elderflowers filled the farmyard as never before. Even after I had harvested so many flower heads the bushes looked untouched. I was given this traditional old recipe by a friend who was given it, in turn, by her grandmother years and years ago. My kitchen was filled with bowls…
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Ladies in Waiting
We seem to have tumbled into the New Year; 2007 has arrived with a great whoosh in every way, drama on all sides. As I sit here looking out of my window I’m wondering if the room will be blown clean off the side of the house. Such a storm is raging; trees are bending…
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Christmas is coming…
Christmas is coming….. …..and the goose is getting old! Silence fills the farmyard this year. Donkeys feed quietly. Fat lambs steal their hay.No turkey music, no gentle warbling sound answers me on this cold December morning as I potter about feeding, re-strawing chickens, fetching water, all the while bracing myself against the biting wind and…
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Bleak November
winter arrives Bleak November anesthetises the landscape. Icy rain, falling from a slate grey sky, born sideways on the east wind, stings my face as I walk over the hill with dogs. The sun breaks through for an instant so low now it seems to struggle over the horizon.
