At last, our home grown asparagus is now ready and in the shop – do make the most of this wonderful English vegetable as it does have such a short season.

Chilli Tasting – Saturday  1 June 11am – 4pm

Ben from the Capsicana Chilli Co is with us on Saturday 1 June to share his enthusiasm for all things chilli and tell you how varied and versatile they are in size, colour, shape and especially flavour.  He has a new range of sauces that are handmade in small batches using the finest of chillies.  They include Bhut Jolokia, Burrito and Chipotle which can be used as a table condiment, cooking ingredient, seasoning as well as marinades for meat, fish and veg.    Do join us for a taste – they are not all hot!

With many thanks to Gil of Corney & Barrow and Ben, our cheeseman from Rowcliffe for their informative and fun wine and cheese tasting at the weekend.  If you weren’t able to join us, we do have all the cheeses and the wines in the shop.  We are now also stocking Chateau Septy, the Monbazillac which many of you enjoyed tasting with the Spanish goat’s cheese Monte Enebro and Ossau-Iraty, the French ewe’s milk cheese.  This sweet wine is also available in half bottles.

For those of you who may prefer a port with cheese, we now have Corney & Barrow’s non vintage ruby port.

Finally, we have gorgeous sunshine; it certainly puts a spring in our step and a much needed boost to the growing season.  Nature has an uncanny way of sorting herself out though and we’ll soon have May’s wonderful produce on the shelves.  Our own asparagus has begun to grow and when it gets going it’s unstoppable.  Do keep an eye out for stocks as you really can’t beat the fresh English crop – full of flavour, nutritious, quick and easy to cook and so versatile.  Cook in boiling water for a few minutes and serve with melted butter or a few shavings of parmesan, vinaigrette or hollandaise sauce.  Bake in a quiche or roast, griddle, barbecue or make into soldiers as in our recipe this month – fantastic!

On the Farm

Over the past few months Andrew has been busy buying at auctions around the country building up our herds of cattle – they are now out in the fields enjoying the sunshine too.  We have Stabilisers, a breed which harnesses the best of an Aberdeen Angus and the best of a Hereford, to produce a good beef animal that calves easily and matures early with good fertility.  Our 3 year old bull, Jock is also a Stabliser – he’ll be busy too soon when he’s put to work with the young heifers!  We’ve also got Black Angus and pretty white Charolais, all reputable beef cattle destined for use in the Café and eventually the Shop.

Andrew’s happy with the cattle but the arable crop’s very patchy after the wet, cold, long winter – “it’s going to push cereal prices up again” – he’s muttering “and we need some warm rain!”

The building of our new agricultural shed for storage is coming along well.  Solar panels have been installed on one side of the roof and creating 30 kw of power per hour for use in the shop.  Landscaping around this store will start soon.

In the Shop

Cheese & Wine Tasting – Saturday 11 May

Do hope you’ll be able to join us for this tasting with our two suppliers Rowcliffe and Corney & Barrow.  They’ll have a variety of cheeses and wines and give you an opportunity to try different pairings.

The cheeses will be our selected cheeses of the month and carry a 20% discount for May, look out for the red star in the shop.

Ben, our cheeseman is one of only two suppliers of Monte Enebro, Spain’s greatest goats’ milk cheese which is hand made by Rafael Baez, the legendary artisan cheese maker and his daughter – they only make about 7,000 a year.  This complex cheese is shaped like a log with a rind made of ash and mold which gives it a blue cheese taste.  In the young cheese it has creamy, lemony, citrus flavours and as it ages the texture becomes denser and the flavour more intense.  It is an award-winning cheese that goes well with a number of wines from Chenin blancs, Sauternes and sweeter sherries.

Ossau Iraty is a traditional, unpasteurized semi-soft cheese made from ewes’ milk.  The cheese, which goes back some 2,000 years, unites two regions of the Western Pyrenees in France, the Ossau valley in the Bearn and Iraty in the beech forests of Pays Basque.  Its AOC protection requires it to be made from the milk of only two breeds of ewes, the Manech and Basco-Bearnaise.   It has an ivory paste with a firm, slightly oily texture and tastes nutty and sweet with hints of olive, hazelnut and fig.  Known as the ‘farmer’s dessert because it has rich and smooth finish.  It goes well with fruity and full-bodied red or white wines such as Zinfandel, Tempranillo or Syrah.

Shropshire Blue is made by the Colston Bassett Dairy in the village of the same name on the Nottinghamshire/Leicestershire borders.  This small independent dairy, one of the few remaining small Stilton dairies that exist from the 19th century, uses milk from local herds and hand ladle the curds keeping the cheese light and creamy.  It is a blue veined cheese, made with the same processes as Stilton but the plant extract annatto is added giving the distinctive orange curd.  It is not matured as long as Stilton so has a milder taste.

Coastal Cheddar is a favourite.  Made by Ford Farm Dairy in Dorset, it has a rugged texture with salty sweet flavour and distinctive crunch caused by calcium crystals that form naturally in the cheese once it is mature.  Pinot noirs and sauvignon blancs both pair well with Coastal cheddar.

New products in the shop now include those from The Fresh Olive Company –plump olives, whole or stuffed with a range of fillings, antipasti, cornichons, semi-dried cherry tomatoes – do look out for them in the olive dome, they are authentic and quite delicious – taste just as if you’d brought them fresh from a Mediterranean stall.

In the Café

Inspired by the fresh new flavours of May’s ingredients, Dan and his team are enjoying cooking tasty lighter dishes with options on the daily specials menu including, fillet of lamb wrapped in Serrano ham with sage, fondant potato, broad beans and Romesco sauce, or a bruschetta with smoked hake, watercress, salsa verde and poached quail egg.  Do hope you can join us soon – the chairs and tables are now all out on the terrace to make the most of the sunshine as well.

Beanie has made a full recovery from her operation to repair a torn cruciate ligament – we’re not quite sure how she did it in the first place but delighted she’s now back on her feet and keeping up with Ed.

The Pearces

Asparagus soldiers

1 portion

Ingredients

4 sticks asparagus

4 slices white bread

4 slices parma ham

1 jar pesto

25g grated parmesan

20g butter, melted

Method

Boil a pan of salted water and blanch the asparagus for 2-3 minutes then plunge into cold water, pat dry.

Cut the crusts off the bread and roll out each slice to 1-2 mm thick, spread each piece of bread with pesto, then sprinkle on parmesan, and finally a slice of parma ham.  Then roll the asparagus up in the bread.

Brush all over with melted butter and chill.  Cook for 8-9 minutes at 180⁰C or until golden. Serve with a leaf salad or poached duck egg

We’re really quite excited about our tasting next Saturday as our two suppliers, Rowcliffe and Corney & Barrow, are bringing along some wonderful cheeses and wines for you to taste.  Ben, our cheerful cheeseman is one of only two UK suppliers of Monte Enebro, the Spanish goats’ milk cheese so a great opportunity to taste this amazingly complex cheese – it pairs well with sweet wines.  Ben is also bringing Ossau-Iraty, another wine-friendly cheese as well as Shropshire Blue and Coastal Cheddar.  Corney & Barrow, will have a decent selection of wines for you to try out different pairing combinations.  Should be fun – do hope you can join us.

On a practical note, we are putting up post and rails which we hope will improve the efficiency of the car park, particularly on the busier days.

Beanie, by the way is now back up and running again having had an operation to repair her cruciate ligament, many thanks for your concerns about her.

Our May cheeses of the month are Monte Enebro, Ossau-Iraty, Shropshire Blue and

Coastal Cheddar.

These cheeses carry the 20% discount for the month of May – look out for the red star in the shop.

They will also be available for tasting on Saturday 11 May