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Little Green Space |
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Little Green Space |
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LITTLE GREEN SPACE Originally published in the Peak Advertiser on 13 November 2008
Our hens have laid over
700 eggs between them since they arrived with us back in February. That
sounds like an awful lot of eggs, but when you factor in eggs for homemade
cakes and quiches, pancakes for breakfast and omelettes - not to mention
the humble boiled egg and soldiers – it’s amazing how many eggs a
family can get through in a week! Not
for the Pot! Many
hens will stop laying eggs altogether at this time of year. They like to
have a bit of a rest as the days shorten and who can blame them? After all
that egg-laying, they deserve a little break. But
our three are still going strong, producing an egg each every morning.
Young hens do tend to be more productive: as they get older the egg-laying
will slow down and eventually stop altogether. This has prompted the
question from friends and family: “what will you do with the hens when
they stop laying?” Well
Rosie, Bramble and Holly are family pets, and are definitely not destined
for the Sunday dinner table. The children’s devastation at the loss of
Snowy back in May – she was a victim of the fox – was enough to
convince us that our chickens were not for eating. Instead,
our plan is to gradually increase the size of our flock by a couple of
birds each year. This way, when the older hens stop laying, we’ll have
some new, younger recruits ready and rearing to go.
Old
Age Hensioners With
this in mind a friend down the road has very kindly given us a hen house
she’s no longer using. When we get our new birds, they will have to be
kept separate from the existing flock, but within view. This will give the
old birds a chance to get used to the new ones, increasing the likelihood
that the new birds will be accepted. The
average hen will live until about five years old. And some birds have been
known to live to the ripe old age of 15! This could mean that at some
point in the future we will have a huge flock of geriatric pet hens, none
of which are laying. But we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. An
apple a day As
well as plentiful eggs this autumn, we have also been blessed with
plentiful apples. Our old apple tree in the garden has always been pretty
productive, but this year it has outdone itself, producing the largest
crop of apples we have had since moving into the house ten years ago. But
what to do with all those apples? Well, there are 26 portions of stewed
apple in the freezer – that’s a crumble a fortnight for the next year
– and jars of apple chutney and apple jam in the cupboard. We
have eaten apple cake, apple pie, apple pancakes – good, that one, as it
deals with the eggs and apples in one go – and apple pastries. Apples
have gone into casseroles, curries and coleslaws. And we have followed a
favourite recipe that has been handed down through the generations, and
kindly passed on to me by my father: “ Apples
have been handed out in bags to friends and family. But still there are
apples galore, piled up in buckets and trugs in the shed. Cider
with Rosie (and Bramble, and Holly) We
did find some inspiration at the recent Apple Day at Scarthin Books in
Cromford. We took along a bucket of apples, and were able to try our hand
at pressing them. First we cut each apple into eight pieces; the pieces
were then fed into a mangle-like contraption which reduced them to a juicy
pulp. The pulp was put into the apple press, the handle turned, and juice
collected in an empty lemonade bottle. The
resulting juice looked quite unlike the clear amber liquid you buy in
cartons from the supermarket. It was cloudy and brown, with a few bits
floating around in it. And it tasted fantastic! Unfortunately
one bucketful of apples does not produce that much juice. The kids were
fighting over who would drink the last sip, and there wasn’t enough to
produce the thing I was most interested in: cider! Having
no apple press of our own, I did a little investigation on the internet
and discovered a recipe for “freezer cider”, the freezer supposedly
doing the work of the apple press and extracting the juice from the fruit.
I pulped the apples in my food processor, a few at a time, then packed the
pulp into freezer bags and squeezed them into the freezer – not easy,
with all those potential crumbles taking up so much space. After
a couple of days the frozen pulp will be put into a fermentation bucket
with some water, sugar and yeast, where some magical process will convert
it, after some weeks, into golden sparkling cider. At least that’s the
plan. If it doesn’t work, I’ll be checking out apple presses on eBay,
and hastily making up a batch of these… Speedy Apple Pastries Makes
10 1 500g pack puff pastry
(for Super Speedy pastries use ready-rolled) 3 small eating apples,
cored, peeled and cut into thin slices Apricot jam 1 egg, beaten Caster sugar and mixed
spice Roll out pastry and cut
in ten 8cm squares. Place on a well-greased baking sheet. With a knife,
mark a 1cm margin inside each square, without cutting through the pastry.
Spread a teaspoon of jam onto each pastry square, keeping inside the
margin. Arrange apple slices on top of the jam. Brush egg over the
pastry edges. Mix together 1 tablespoon caster sugar with 1 teaspoon mixed
spice and sprinkle over the pastries. Bake in the oven at 200°C
for about 10 minutes, until pastries are well-risen and golden brown. Eat
hot from the oven, with custard, or allow to cool and enjoy with your
morning coffee! Penny
at Little Green Space |
