Newsletter w/c 16th April 2012

With Easter arriving, the holiday-let season really gets under way. We have a small cottage on the farm that we rent as a holiday let and we often receive comments on how relaxing and unique the setting is. The Zich family from Germany returned last week, after enjoying an easter break with us last year in glorious weather. This year the weather was the complete opposite, but I think they still had a great time. It was lovely to see them again and also to learn that they have been keeping in touch with what’s going on at Cobbinshaw, through this blog. (Hope to see you next year again if you’re reading this!) if anyone else is interested in our cottage, just send me an e-mail and we’ll get the details to you.

Our schedule returns to normal this week, with the end of the school holidays, so delivery times will revert back to what they usually are. The boys, of course, aren’t too happy about it, but they’ll soon be back in the swing of homework etc.

Lynda and I spent the night in Glasgow last Saturday, as we’d been given the chance to write a review for the magazine, Scottish Field, on one of the hotels in the City Centre. The hotel knew why we were there, so the staff made sure we had everything we needed and looked after us really well. They’ll be getting a very good review. It was a real treat for us too so I hope we get asked to review more holiday accommodation soon. It’ll probably end up being glamping in December or something, so I won’t get my hopes up too high. If we had to go back to re-review the Hotel Indigo I’d be quite happy.

This weekend, Finn’s playing in a concert with Boghall and Bathgate Pipe Band at Bathgate Academy. Gran and Grandpa are coming over to see him play too. He looks great in all his gear and the bands are very good, so it should be a good afternoon.

I’ve decided to make a real effort to fulfill a dream of running the London Marathon and am aiming to enter the 2013 race, which, if my calculations are correct, should take place on my 45^th birthday. My training starts now and I’ll let you know how the build-up goes. Let me know if you’re going to be entering, especially if you’re an old hand at marathon running. I need all the help I can get.

This is a list of the vegetables included in the standard bags this week. Substitutions may occur.

Potato Solanum tuberosum. We’re onto our own new potatoes now. The variety is Valor. They are very easy to prepare when they’re as fresh as this and really only need a wash and a scrub. Potatoes are the only commonly available source of B3 and Iodine. Excellent source of Vitamin C and also Vitamin B6, Potassium and fibre.

Onion Allium cepa. Used in stews, pasta dishes, soups. Source of Vitamins A and C, Iron, Calcium and Potassium .

Carrot Daucus carota Carrots are eaten fresh in salads or cooked in just about any way you like. They are an excellent source of Vitamin A and also contain significant amounts of Vitamins B, C, D, E and K. and Potassium.

Kohl-rabi Brassica oleracea Gongylodes Group (1 head) Excellent source of Vitamin C and a source of potassium. This is my favourite brassica. It is excellent eaten raw, just peel off the outer skin and chop up the inner flesh. To cook, Cut the kohl-rabi into slices or strips and cook for 10 –15 minutes in a very small amount of boiling, lightly salted water adding butter at a rate of 75g to every 500g of kohl-rabi. Serve the kohl-rabi with part og the cooking liquid poured over it or a white sauce.

Swede Brassica napa. (1head). Swedes are one of Scotlands Winter staple veggies. It is completely frost resistant so needs only to harvested as required rather than having to be stored. The only problem is lifting when the ground is frozen I’ve seen us lifting them with pick axes in frosty weather. Cut off the top and bottom of the swede then peel thickly. Cut into cubes or big chunks and boil for 30-40 minutes or alternatively, parboil then set around a roast in the oven for the last 30 minutes of cooking time. Excellent boiled, then mashed with butter and cream.

Garlic Allium sativum (1 head) Good source of vitamin C and A, calcium and iron. Adds heightened flavour to any savoury dish and crushed and sauted in a pan with butter, is an excellent base in which to cook the mushrooms for a simple Garlic Mushrooms.

Chard Chard is great nutritionally. It contains Vitamins A, C, B2 and B6, folic acid, iron, magnesium, potassium, calcium, phytochemicals and protein. Most of you will get one giant leaf, but it will cook into curries and other dishes. To cook it, treat it much the same way as spinach for the leaf and like celery for the stem,although the flavour is quite different Immerse the chard in a large bowl of cold clean water, lift them out and repeat the process with fresh water, two or three times more. Chard has a high water content , so it is sufficient to cook it only with the water adhering to the leaves from the last rinsing. Sprinkle lightly with salt, cover with a lid and cook gently for 7 – 10 minutes until soft. Drain the chard thoroughly, squeezing out as much water as possible with a potato masher.

Newsletter w/c 10th April 2012

We hope your Easter Holiday is going as well as it can in the slightly chilly temperatures we’ve been getting. Finn lost out on a couple of days of mountain-biking at Glentress because of the snow, but apart from that, our two are having a great holiday. We were all at Murrayfield on Saturday, watching Edinburgh beat Toulouse in the Heineken Cup to reach the Semi-Final stages. Killie didn’t repeat their Cup Final heroics against Celtic, though, going down 6-0 at home. This week the boys have rugby camp at Biggar for a couple of days, so that’ll keep them busy. We might have to have a trip to the zoo later in the week too.

The delivery runs are a bit quieter at the moment with quite a few customers away for an Easter break. It might slightly affect when I get to your door. I may be a bit earlier than usual. The van electrics are playing up again and I got stranded for 3 hrs in Edinburgh last Thursday while I waited on breakdown assistance. I still haven’t got to the heart of the problem yet so the same thing may happen this week too. One way or another, I’ll get your bag to you though, don’t worry!

The business is going well at the moment and we’ve had a few new customers at the start of the season. We’ve lost a few who have moved down South in the past couple of weeks though and are keen to make up the gaps, so if you know of anyone who may be interested in our service, please spread the word – we are nowhere near capacity, so the more new customers – the merrier!

This is a list of the vegetables included in the standard bags this week. Substitutions may occur.

Potato Solanum tuberosum. We’re onto our own new potatoes now. The variety is Valor. They are very easy to prepare when they’re as fresh as this and really only need a wash and a scrub. Potatoes are the only commonly available source of B3 and Iodine. Excellent source of Vitamin C and also Vitamin B6, Potassium and fibre.

Onion Allium cepa. Used in stews, pasta dishes, soups. Source of Vitamins A and C, Iron, Calcium and Potassium .

Carrot Daucus carota Carrots are eaten fresh in salads or cooked in just about any way you like. They are an excellent source of Vitamin A and also contain significant amounts of Vitamins B, C, D, E and K. and Potassium.

Parsnip. Pastinaca sativa Good for Vitamin C, folic acid, potassium and fibre. Peel, then cut into chunks for boiling or roasting, also can be grated into soups or kept in chunks for soups or stews. Here’s a recipe for: Curried parsnip couscous. Prepare your parsnips and cut them into batons about 7cm (3inches) long, the thicker sections will need to be quartered. Mix together 1 teaspoon each of sea salt, paprika and ground cumin, a tablespoon each of sunflower oil and honey and a dash of tabasco sauce. Pour this over the parsnips and leave to marinate for 30 minutes. Preheat the oven to 200oC/400oF/Gas 6. Cover the parsnips tightly with foil and bake for 1 hour. Turn them regularly, making sure they are tightly wrapped before returning them to the oven. Sprinkle them with water from time to time to stop sticking. Towards the end of the cooking time prepare some couscous. Serve the couscous with the parsnips, sprinkled with coriander leaves. Have mango chutney on hand, just to finish it off.

Courgette Cucurbita pepo (1 head) Source of Vitamins A and C , calcium, iron and fibre. Prepare by wshing and trimming both ends. Courgettes can be coked whole or in slices, or they can be cut in half lengthways filled with stuffing and baked. Boil courgettes in lightly salted water for 15-20 minutes. Sliced courgettes may be steamed in butter for 10 minutes. Halved courgettes may be parboiled for 5 minutes the finished in the oven, in a well-buttered dish for 25 minutes at 190oC (375oF) Gas Mark 5.

Calabrese Brassica oleracea Italica Group (1 head). Calabrese is and excellent source of Vitamin C and phytochemicals and also contains Vitamins A, B2 and B6, Phosphorus, fibre Iron and calcium. Here’s a recipe for Roast Calabrese with Chilli and Soy Sauce.: Toss 350g of Calabrese, broken into florets, in a tablespoon of olive oil. Cut the stalks into thick batons. Spread them all out on a baking tray and roast in a preheated oven for 10 mins at 200oC/Gas Mark 6 for 10 mins.Add 2 thinly sliced cloves of the garlic, ½ a red chilli, finely chopped and ½ a tablespoon of sesame seeds and mix through. Return to the oven for 5 minutes. Remove the tray from the oven, sprinkle with soy sauce and serve. I haven’t tried this one yet but I hope to this week.

Leek Allium porrum Excellent source of Vitamin C. Particularly used to give soups a lovely creamy texture. As leeks grow they tend to lock soil into their leaf axils, so be sure to rinse them well after slicing them up. A nice idea for cooking leeks is to sweat finely sliced leeks in butter for 5 minutes, pour in a glass of red wine and simmer until reduced. Season and serve as an accompaniment to grilled fish or roast meat.

Newsletter w/c 3rd April 2012

There’s been a bit of a break in the newsletter writing regime lately, apologies for that, I just seem to be a bit out of my normal routine at the moment. The weather is obviously pushing me off my stride. Now that we’re back to snow for the first week of April, quite normal around here, I feel like I’m back to normal. The first wee lambs in the fields around Cobbinshaw, regularly seem to have a snowfall to deal with.

The weather didn’t kid me on enough to start trying to sow veg that I shouldn’t have been. I managed to hold myself back and have contented myself, getting some garden tasks sorted out in the summer temperatures. Lynda and I have invested in a wee trailer recently too, so we spend our Friday afternoons sourcing likely trees to cut up and carry home and process for the boiler. It’s very satisfying to find an old dead tree, cut it up, get it in the boiler and a few hours later, sit in a nice hot bath, heated purely by those logs.

Easter holidays have really kicked-in now, so the delivery runs are a bit shorter due to holidays. I may be a wee bit earlier to your door for the next couple of weeks because of this. Finn was booked on a three day mountain biking course at Glentress, but it’s been cancelled due to the weather, so there’s major disappointment to deal with there. He may get to go on Thursday if the weather allows the course to go ahead.

It’s getting towards the gap time of year for veg, when we’re waiting for the new Scottish crop to grow. Over the next couple of months, we’ll need to buy in a bit more veg from further afield, to keep up a decent variety for you. I’ll keep buying as close to home as I can though. Recently, we’ve been clearing the last of the crops out of the field, so sometimes if the cabbages or Swedes haven’t been as big as we wanted them to be, we’ve put two in the bag just to make sure you had enough of a portion to work with. Please let us know if the amounts of veg you receive is wrong for you quantity-wise, in either direction. We can tailor you’re bag to the correct amounts of veg for you.

This weekend, we’re all going to watch the Edinburgh rugby team play Toulouse. Hopefully there will be a big crowd and we can cheer Edinburgh to victory.

This is a list of the vegetables included in the standard bags this week. Substitutions may occur.

Potato Solanum tuberosum. We’re onto our own new potatoes now. The variety is Valor. They are very easy to prepare when they’re as fresh as this and really only need a wash and a scrub. Potatoes are the only commonly available source of B3 and Iodine. Excellent source of Vitamin C and also Vitamin B6, Potassium and fibre.

Onion Allium cepa. Used in stews, pasta dishes, soups. Source of Vitamins A and C, Iron, Calcium and Potassium .

Carrot Daucus carota Carrots are eaten fresh in salads or cooked in just about any way you like. They are an excellent source of Vitamin A and also contain significant amounts of Vitamins B, C, D, E and K. and Potassium.

Kale Brassica oleracea Acephela Group..(1 bag) Excellent source of Vitamins A and C. Also a source of Calcium and copper. One of cooking is to rinse the kale in cold water, drain well and cut off and discard the tough stems. Cut the leaves into ¼ inch strips. In a well seasoned wok or frying pan, heat a tablespoon of olive oil over a moderatley high heat, add a crushed clove of garlic and cook, stirring for 30 seconds. Add half of the kale and cook, stirring for 1 minute, until they begin to wilt. Add the remaining kale and cook stirring for 6 – 8 minutes until the greens darken slightly and are fairly tender. Season with salt pepper and lemon juice.

Beetroot Beta vulgaris (400g ) Contains Vitamin C folic acid and potassium. Can be cooked in various ways, but don’t peel the beet until you’ve boiled it as this stops it ‘bleeding’. Super Boost Juice – Put on the rubber gloves, spread out a newspaper and peel your beetroot and cut it into chunks. Take 4 apples and quarter and core them. Take 4 carrots and trim and peel them. Take 1cm/1 inch of fresh ginger and peel it. This is easily done by scraping the skin off with the side of a teaspoon. Process all the ingredients through a juicer. Stir and serve immediately, adding ice if desired.

Tomato Lycopersicon esculentum. Tomatoes are a good source of Vitamins A and C, potassium and iron. This is the first of the British organic tomatoes for this year. They are eaten in many different ways, both fresh or cooked.

Celery Apium graveolens (1 head) This biennial veg is high in Vitamin C, folic acid, potassium and fibre. The stalks are generally eaten fresh or used in soups and stews. To cook it, boil it in a little salted boiling water for 15-20 minutes or steam it for 25-30 minutes. Serve in cheese or parsley sauce or smothered in butter.