Sunday, February 1, 2015

First day of Spring?

Imbolc or St. Brigid's day is deemed to be the first day of spring in the Celtic calendar, falling halfway between the winter solstice and the spring equinox, like so many Pagan festivals this one has also been adopted by the church although the festival dates back far before Christianity. Many homes will make a St. Brigid's  cross from rushes, said to protect your home from fire and evil.
St. Brigid's cross.
As it is too cold to do much outside I also made my own although we had to hunt for a clump of rushes, by keeping them cut twice yearly we are just about free of them now.
  I must  say it does not feel much like spring at the moment, we have had several falls of snow over the last week. Yesterday was my birthday and normally we would go out for a meal but the thought of having to drive for an hour or more to get to a decent restaurant was not appealing so I settled for fish and chips from our local town. It wasn't bad, in  fact the fish was very good but the chips are not worth talking about. Hopefully this weather won't last too much longer and then we will have our meal out.
When we first moved here there was a great restaurant only two miles away, good food, all Irish, good atmosphere , it even had a decent wine list, it always seemed to be busy. Why it closed is anyone's guess.
From earth to plate, how does your food get there?
I received two books for my birthday, both should be a good read.
'Teaming with Microbes' tells the story of what goes on in the soil, I have only dipped into it so far but it is fascinating.
With the weather being as it is it seemed a good time to redecorate our bedroom, it is one room that we have not done, in fact I doubt it has been done since the previous owners built the extension. We had bought the paint for it some time ago but the garden always takes priority. As it will now have colour, it was just plain white before, I have decided that I will also need to recover the bedhead, the nearest place to get material is an hours drive away, but, we also need butter! Yes, we can buy butter in our little town, normal butter but we only use that for cooking not for eating. There is only one place that we can buy organic butter and that is the dreaded Tesco. Now I hate shopping, I especially hate Tesco, badly stocked with the most unhelpful staff you will ever meet, but they sell English Organic butter. So every three months we  make the trip, normally clearing out their supply of butter. We always manage to combine this trip with other things that we need and are only available from a large town, this coming week's trip will be for the material to cover the bedhead and  gas cylinders which we can get for nearly seven euros less than in our local town, so the trip will be worthwhile.
Once again we are in an egg glut situation, and it's too early and cold to start hatching eggs, normally I would make lemon curd, but we still have two large tubs in the freezer
Patata de Tortilla freshly cooked.
so I made a  'Patata de Tortilla'. Most Spanish cafes serve this as a tapas, each one would have their own special recipe, our favourite one was made by 'Mama', the mother of our favourite local cafĂ© owner,
With sweet peppers.
she always added sweet peppers,  in some cafes it would be peas and in some parsley, but the pepper one was always our favourite. Unlike a normal omelette which takes at most ten minutes to make,  'Patata de Tortilla takes an hour and a half, but it's worth it. Lovely, and freshly cooked as a change from normal potatoes it is also good cold for a picnic.

26 comments:

  1. Happy Imbolc! I have the first daffodil in flower in my garden, but its flipping freezing here tonight. The potata de tortilla looks delicious.

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    1. Thanks Chickpea, now all we need is some spring like weather, all the snowdrops are out now though. The tortilla was great, maybe one for you to make? Just below freezing here now, maybe it will warm up tomorrow although the sun was hot yesterday.

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  2. Mama style Potata de Tortilla looks like a winner!

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    1. Yes it is Matt, just a shame it takes so long to make, it's not one of those things that you can walk away and leave.

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  3. Now that looks mouth watering. The weather here has been surprisingly mild and we are all scratching our heads wondering when the heat wave will return. Some are saying its just late and wait for March.

    I like the idea of using butter for eating but my Men like their's soft but insist on it being refrigerated. Cant have both, i say and so its back to yucky blends of butter and oil. Its not the same i cry! We use to have a lovely pale green butter dish on the table when we were little. What ever did happen to it?

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    1. Give the men their yucky stuff Lynda and keep a days supply of the real thing out for yourself, I bet you will find that they help theirselves to yours! We use two types of butter, the ordinary stuff which is fine for cooking with but on bread does not taste particularly good , and the Organic butter is lovely on bread and tastes as butter should.

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  4. Rushes are a nuisance on the smallholding, Anne. Especially in fields used for hay or silage. We top them, spray them and re-seed. But they always come back or appear somewhere else. I believe the rush seeds can live for up to sixty years.

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    1. When are you topping Dave? We always found a twice yearly topping, late spring, April and then again August before they set seed gets rid of them within three years, increasing drainage also helps. Spraying them as you have found does not work, all it's doing is costing you money and lining the pockets of companies like Monsanto, if spraying worked these companies would be out of business. The chemicals are also harmful to soil bacteria and the micro organisms that live in a healthy soil, the are the things that increase the soils fertility, destroy them and then you have to fertilise, more money. We had to hunt for a few rushes yesterday to make the cross and we have only been here 3.5 years, but we have kept the rush cut, the pigs also helped and rooted out a few clumps of which there is no sign of now.

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    2. We top in April and late summer. The rushes are often growing in the silage/hay fields so it's not always possible to cut them before they go to seed. I believe liming sweetens the grass and rushes don't like lime. We have used granulated bag lime in the past.

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    3. My blood pressure has gone up just reading the world dictators name........M......o. Steam coming out of ears here.
      Chemical sprays will leave our grandchildren with nothing!

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    4. I agree 110%, why will people not wake up. You would think that people that use these chemical year after year would have the light bulb moment, like um!, I sprayed this field or I sprayed these weeds last year, and the year before ect, and I still have to spray again and it's costing me money. The only benefit from these poisons are to the companies such as Monsatan and Novatis, laughing all the way to the bank.
      Have you seen The World according to Monsanto? It is now available on Youtube. we haven't seen it yet just about to do so.

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    5. Yes I have, and I think that it is the responsibility of all smallholders and farmers to ensure that they see it and do in depth research before using anything to make their lives richer and/or more convenient.People in general must also share responsibility for what they eat and feed to their children. Cheap, easy, convenient are bywords for our society.
      When I was a child 2/3rds- 3/4 of a families income went on food Now producers and consumers alike are only concerned with hanging on to money. There is no excuse for anyone who participates in destroying our planet and ignoring the ill health of all while so doing. Pleading ignorance is not a get out clause. Those who use these poisons for whatever reason are doing so by choice without a care for the future consequences.
      It makes me weep, but that won't help anyone, we need to stand up for our right to live in a natural healthy way on our incredibly beautiful planet in order to stop the likes of monsanto controlling all food production and life on this earth.

      Sorry, done it again.

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    6. No need to apologise Irene, we have very frequent rants as well. We have just finished watching 'The World according to Monsanto' having read all of Jeffrey Smiths books and having watched all his films and being followers and admirers of Vandana Shiva it merely reinforced our options. As you have probably gathered from my blog we spend very little on food and what we do spend is always organic that we can't produce ourselves. Why people think it's so great to boast about how little they can feed the family on when it is all from super markets and imported from god only knows where really bugs us, do they not think about food quality and just how that food has been produced. We are so glad we are not young anymore as the world can not continue to be exploited the way it is and people can not continue to live the way they do if they want to leave anything worth while for their children and grandchildren.
      And that's my rant over!.

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    7. Thank you.
      The way that you both live is an inspiration to all of us who aspire to a degree of self sufficiency be that great or small. Your knowledge is gained from long experience and I for one will not hesitate in seeking your advice.

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  5. Happy Imbolc. That´s a mighty fine tortilla! (Just a note - it´s actually ¨tortilla de patata¨, I believe) V´s favorite is onion and sweet peppers.

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    1. Sorry about the spelling Cole, that's the automatic spell check, now put to rights! Yes, mine was the pepper and onion one, do you make it often ? I would make it more in the summer for picnics than in the winter, I just happened to have a lot of eggs that day.

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  6. Hello Anne, I hope all is well. I need to inquire about the possibility of starting a broiler chicken farm in Ireland. Thanks

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    1. Thanks for the comment Mohamed, Almost all broiler farms in Ireland are satellite farms tied to the big processers, setting up a broiler farm is very expensive, around 18euro per bird housed, many of these units would have over 5000 birds per house. many of the broiler farmers get so little for their product that they can't afford to pay the heating bills, many have gone out of business. The two biggest companies in Ireland are Moy Park and Western Brand, both have web sites and a contact us address. Hope this might be of help to you.

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    2. Thanks a lot for the info, that's a very expensive. Not much to work on with these big companies.

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  7. Many happy returns, and...............
    Imbolc blessings to you both.

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    1. Many Thanks Irene. It's still cold here, the snow still hasn't cleared from two days ago.

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  8. I always enjoy your informative blog posts and usually learn something new. Thanks.

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  9. Cor...that tortilla looks amazing! Mine never look like that...think I am far too impatient and thats the problem! xx

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  10. We will make one together when you come as well as go mussel gathering!

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