Sausages...

I wonder when we'll tire of eating these?? 

Ty Siriol Honey roasted Pork Spare Ribs on spiced Pumpkin Mash from Marmalade Cookery School

We love working with the fabulous Tatiana of Marmalade Cookery School. 

Here's November's recipe for Ty Siriol Honey roasted Pork Spare Ribs on spiced Pumpkin Mash! 

Ty Siriol Honey roasted Pork Spare Ribs on spiced Pumpkin Mash

Check out the cookery classes available in Swansea with Marmalade Cookery School.

http://www.marmaladecookeryschool.co.uk/cookery-classes/

You can't beat a bacon sarnie on a cold autumn morning!

Brrrr 

It was cold outside at 6.45 this morning! 

But it was worth going out in the cold to see the sunrise. 

Once we had fed the horses, changed their rugs and fed the pigs. It was time for us to have breakfast! 

Bacon Sarnies were top of the list this morning! 

You can't beat a good home cured bit of bacon! 

Rose Hip Syrup

 The best cold remedy EVER.. Rosehip Syrup! 

On my recent quest to eat locally and seasonally, I mentioned previously that I really wanted to make Rosehip Syrup just like my grandmother made for my Dad and my Aunt. 

Above is a picture of my boys (a good few weeks ago) harvesting all the ripe Rose-hips. We found a number of Rosehip bushes in the hedges surrounding our fields. We found out rather quickly too that you need to wear gloves when you harvest the fruit as the Rosehips have little 'hairs' on them that act like itching powder. 

Once we had collected what we hoped was 1 kg in weight, we took them in to the kitchen. 

Here is a copy of the recipe we followed. 

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Ingredients

1kg Rosehips

3 litres of water

500g sugar

Bring to the boil 2 litres of water.

Chop rosehips in food processor until mashed up, then add to boiling water.

Bring water back to the boil, then remove from heat and allow to steep for 20 minutes.

Pour rosehips and liquid into a scalded jelly bag and allow the juice to drip through. Gently squeeze the jelly bag to extract as much liquid as possible. Be careful not to rip the bag.

Add rosehip pulp back to a saucepan containing 1 litre of water and bring back to the boil. Then remove from heat and allow the contents to steep for another 20 minutes before straining through the jelly bag as in Step 3.

Add sugar to the strained rosehip liquid and dissolve, allow to simmer for five minutes, then pour into hot, sterilised bottles.

Store in the fridge and add to hot water with a slice of ginger for a great cold remedy, dilute in cold water for a great kids drink ,or pour over pancakes or waffles..even chocolate cake for a fragrant sauce or topping!

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It was surprisingly quick and easy to make. 

My only problem was, what to do with the pulp? We ended up throwing it away which seems like such a waste. I need to find a purpose for it for next year. 

I've used the syrup as a hot drink, cold drink and even poured it on my porridge so far. 

Around this time of year, I'm always the first to get a cold in our house. This year I'm the only one who hasn't suffered a cold (yet!) and I'm the only one really drinking the Rosehip Syrup... Oh well, more for me. 

http://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/foodanddrink/make-a-pig-of-yourself-with-a-bowl-of-bacon-porridge-8293532.html

12-11-12 

Bacon and Porridge?! 

So, first New York, then London and now... Waungron! 

I really fancy the idea of this! 

http://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/foodanddrink/make-a-pig-of-yourself-with-a-bowl-of-bacon-porridge-8293532.html

It makes perfect sense to me... combining protein with the slow release energy of the oats for breakfast, perfect! 

Guess what's on my breakfast menu in the morning...

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13-11-12 

Well, I did make it for breakfast and this is what is looked like. 

I have to admit I added some sugar to it. 

Someone suggested adding maple syrup, that would have been a good idea. 

It was nice and I would prepare it again, maybe not something for every day though! 

www.tysiriolpork.co.uk

Ding dong, it's Ty Siriol calling!

Delivery Service 

We wondered if we could make our offer even better and thought it would be a good idea to   offer a delivery service. (Also, we're trying to keep those food miles down so it's better for us to  make one journey to various places rather than everyone travelling to us individually.)     

We thought we would start off by offering delivering within a 10 mile radius for a small fee of £2.50 delivering between 6-9pm. 

I think every customer that we delivered to on Friday thought the £2.50 was worth every penny for simply not having to travel out in that awful weather! 

What a wet year!

It's been incredibly wet this year and our fields have really suffered for it.  

We invested a lot of time and effort creating hard standing areas and shell paths for us and for the animals to get them out of the mud and to try and preserve some of the ground. 

 

The horses have come in for the winter and the sheep are still 'on-holidays' with the Ram so the land is having a good, well deserved rest. 

Let's hope we have a better summer in 2013!

Sausages

It's British Sausage Week this week! Ours are Welsh does that count? 

We keep our traditional pork sausages very simple by using just the basic (and best) ingredients! 

Here's what goes in to our sausages... Home reared Pedigree Welsh Pork, rusk, water and seasoning. 

The sausages are then handmade and packed by us. 

www.tysiriolpork.co.uk

Eating Seasonally

How hard would it be to eat seasonally for a year...?

What would the health benefits be?

What would it mean to our local producers? 


These are some of many questions I've been asking myself recently. I'm considering trying to eat and feed my family with only what is fresh or available locally and monitor the benefits. Will it be hard work? what will the benefits be? I stumbled upon a Sophie Dahl book recently and it inspired me seriously consider just that!

We started the process by the children and I gathering blackberries from our smallholding for the past few weeks. We have made pots and pots of blackberry jam and this past weekend we attempted our first 'Blackberry Syrup' which we've been using as an alternative to squash (it was delicious). 

So now I want to try more...

For years we have had Rosehips growning in the the garden and fields and I've never known what to do with them. I'm ashamed to admit I didn't even know they were edible! After speaking with my 80 year old aunt (Aunt Peg) she advised me that I could also make syrup out of the Rosehips and that she and my Father drank the syrup as children when thier parents couldn't buy squash. She also told me that you have to wait until the first frost before you harvest them. Apparently that is when they are at thier best. She's got 50 years more experience than me so I'll take her advice. That's next on the list to try so I'll post how we got on. 
   

The ewes have gone to visit the ram... his name is Roger

A few weeks ago Martyn and I went to visit friends who had bought-in a new Pedigree Lleyn ram. We went with a view to hiring Rogers' "services" for our Lleyn flock of ewes. Our friends are approx 2miles from our small holding, now that is buying local! 

Roger is only 18 months old, so it will be his first season of tupping. Roger will be wearing a harness that incorporates a wax pad, so there will be a visible mark on the ewes if they have been covered.  We'll be visting the ewes regularly to check on them and look for signs of the wax on their fleeces. 

Seashell Paths

Today we're making the most of the fantastic weather and are working on creating some paths and hard standing areas, in preparation for the winter months.

Shells are a great idea to use for this. They are a local 'end of life' product from a local producer. So you're recycling a local product and they sound great when you walk on them!

Ta da!! here's the first load in place. 

It is amazing how much lighter the area is. The shells reflect so much light upwards. 

Gammon, Bacon and maybe air dried ham.

This year seems to be flying by, I can't believe it's August already! It seems like just a few weeks ago that Martyn and I were saying that we'd like to try making some Gammon and possibly an air dried ham or two in the Summer... well, it's summer and time to make them! Our pig comes back from the butcher on Thursday and we'll start to prepare the meat to make, Bacon, Gammon and maybe a small aired dried ham. It'll be at least 6 months before we can try the ham!

Biker Boys

Here are our boys... being boys. We've sent this off to You've Been Framed! The boys love the programme and have said that they would love to send a video in one day. Lets see if they get on the telly :)

Pedigree Welsh Pigs Feeding

These are two of our Pedigree Welsh gilts eating at the ad-lib feeder. By having these feeders the pigs are never without food and can eat whenever they are hungry. This also helps the smaller pigs in the group to get the food they need without being pushed out by the more dominant ones.

Pork Recipe for July

For all you lovely customers coming to collect your Pork on Thursday 12th of July, we'll have another Pork recipe card waiting for you.

This months pork recipe, supplied by www.marmaladecookeryschool.co.uk will be for Piri Piri Belly Pork... YUMMY!

We asked Tatiana (from Marmalade) to design a recipe for use on the BBQ, thinking it would be July... ahem... well, good job it works just as well in the oven too!

New Lleyns added to the flock

A BIG Ty Siriol welcome to... Gladys, Bronwen, Megan & Dilys!! 


These are the latest edition to the Ty Siriol clan. These are 4 Pedigree Lleyn Ewes, these girls are breeding stock and will hopefully be with us for many years to come (so I'm allowed to give them names!) 


We brought the girls home on Monday from Bolgoed Farm, Pontardulais. They settled in to with the others in no time at all. Pat, one of last years lambs with her own lamb at food this year, has really taken to these girls and has taken them under her wing, so to speak. 

I'm going to miss this little guy :(

After experiencing sending lambs off to slaughter for the first time earlier this year and crying endlessly for a month. I decided that it would be a better idea not to get attached to these beautiful little creatures in the future and definitely not to name any animal that was destined for the freezer... 


Well... this picture is a self portrait of Tarquin and I earlier this week. Yes, I know. I'm attached and he has a name... it's not exactly gone to plan. 


Tarquin was the last lamb to be born this year, he arrived 3 weeks after the others had been born so we had assumed his Mum (Pat) wasn't in lamb herself. He was born in an awful storm on a Sunday morning and after getting soaked and been pounded by hail stones, he gave up, laid down and wouldn't feed from his Mum. Pat was desperate for this little guy to feed and survive (and so were we). We brought them both into the stable and we ended up having to milk Pat every two hours and force feed Tarquin for about 24 hours. Pat was awesome and let us do whatever we needed to do. At last, at about 4.30am he decided to feed from his Mum all by himself and thrived from that moment onwards. He's just as big as the others now.


I guess because we were around Tarquin a lot in the first 72 hours of his life, he's very used to us and would still wander up to us in the field. This turned in to him having a scratch on his head and now he runs up to me for a cuddle and a scratch. He's so affectionate and has a huge personality!


BUT... I know he has to go. It's not going to be easy to say 'goodbye' to this little guy :(  

Cuddly Pigs "Roll over"

These are some of our 10 week old Pedigree Welsh pigs that just LOVE cuddles. One in particular loves to roll over so you can tickle her tummy... so CUTE!

Pork Lasagne anyone?

Tonight we are trying Lasagne made with pork mince... It's cooking in the oven as I type and smells delicious! I'll let you know how it turns out.

First fleece from Lleyns

The Lleyn sheep are now shawn and we've got some fantastic fleeces from them. We've washed and dried some... wow they were heavy when they're wet!


A friend gave me some of her black fleeces from her Jacob's last year. We washed them, dried them and stuffed the sofa with them.


We can rest easy now knowing that the girls have been shawn so we keep a close eye on them ready for 'fly strike' season... or maybe not in the current climate!  


Suz :) 

Mean old Mr Fox

Today is a sad day at Ty Siriol. We have lost two beautiful ducks to mean old Mr Fox. He savagely took one of our young Khaki Campbell's and 'Mavis' our 11year old duck that was still laying, even at her age.

Our boys are devastated and so am I. Mavis was one of 6 ducklings that hatched here at Ty Siriol to my first ever duck, Milly 11 years ago. I know it's the season for this to happen, and that Mr Fox has to eat and feed the young cubs but I still... it's very sad.

First ever blog!

Well, there is a first time for everything and here's our first ever blog at Ty Siriol (and my first personal experience of blogging too!) 


I'm really looking forward to writing this blog. I'll be writing about our daily life; the ups the downs of living on a small holding and our progress as a small scale meat producer.