June Update
The year is careening past at a fair old lick, isn’t it?
Much of my June has been occupied with a bit of feline business down in South Africa, but work in the garden (and other areas) has still been going on.
In the garden, the strawberry plants our neighbours gave us have been fantastic croppers. Over [...]
Homemade Feta Cheese
This was my first attempt at making feta cheese. I used the recipe from Ricki Carroll’s book and the results perfectly illustrate the frustrations I have with the book.
The end result, while still tasty enough, is nothing like feta. Well, actually it’s a bit like feta, but I think that has more to do with [...]
Brew Day Report 15th June 2009 – Summer Wheat Beer
This beer is a cross between an American Wheat beer and a Belgian Wit. The base beer is a simple wheat beer but I added some orange zest and coriander at the end of the boil (the Belgian influence). I simply pitched a starter of WLP001 that I top-cropped from my last brew.
Grist
2.5kg Maris Otter [...]
Home Cheese Making by Ricki Carroll
Ricki Carroll is seen as something of a hero in the American cheese world. Her book is the lactic equivalent of Charlie Papazian’s Complete Joy of Homebrewing and has launched the careers of numerous cheese makers, professional and amateur.
It’s an easy read and contains recipes for pretty much every well known cheese style – cheddar, [...]
Catch Crops
One of the frustrating things I find with this whole “growing your own” malarkey is that I’m probably one of the most impatient people on earth. The thought that a cauliflower might take six whole months before it bears veg irritates me like nails down a blackboard. The main reason for this is that the [...]
Make A Watering Can From A Milk Carton
We go through milk like ninety in our house and whilst it’s no bother to toss the empties into the recycling I’ve found a couple of other uses for them, for example as a vessel for building up yeast starters when brewing.
However, my current favourite use is as a watering can. It requires a bit [...]
Tap, tap
It would seem that the chickens want to come inside.
Strawberries and birds, or lack thereof.
In the early Spring we were given a half dozen or so strawberry plants by a neighbour. I planted them out in the veg patch not really expecting much in the first year. And I’ve been completely shocked at how well they’ve done! The first few berries are almost completely ripe and will probably be [...]