New Arrivals

Piggie course is full

The course I was talking about in the last post is now full! Anyone else looking to do it drop me an email and I will let you know if we when we are running the next one. Speaking of pigs we are still waiting to get our new pigs which is cutting it fine for Christmas hams!! I reckon we should be ok as long as we get them in the next week or so. I will keep you posted.

I have been doing a nice bit of fishing recently including some night time seatrouting with Ben. Ben caught his first seatrout which he was most excited about. So excited that he shouted the place down. I was sure he had fallen in and that I would see him floating by any minute. I dont have any pictures of the seatrout but instead a nice brown trout I caught on the barrow.

Pigs are on their way

This year's pigs will be arriving shortly and we have been busy preparing for them. As always they live in high style with our patented pallet house! Me and Graham spend the other morning building the house that will soon be the home to three piglets. I will be running courses this year on processing your pig. The idea of the course is to show people how to make their own, sausages, salami, parma ham, bacon etc. The course will be run over one day and is strictly on a first come first served basis. Booking being taken now!!!

Woodcock Salad

I ment to post about this a few months ago when I made it but simply forgot. My pal Tom kindly donated a woodcock to the cause as I was looking for one to tie fishing flies. Never one to look a gift horse in the mouth I made a salad up with it for a posh starter one evening.

The problem with woodcock is twofold. One, they are very hard to shoot (especially for me!!!) and two they are very small and as I cant hit them I therefore need to find ways of making them go a very long way.

Mine is bigger than yours!!!

After coming close a few times I finally managed to catch myself a specimen bass!! I caught this beauty in kerry on razorfish under a bubble float the other week. I am heading down again tomorrow to try and catch her sister!

Homemade Chutney

At this time every year I make up a big batch of chutney for the long winter ahead. I usually let the last few courgettes grow on into marrows for the purpose along with whatever green tomatoes that look like they wont ripen. It's always a bit different each year depending on what is available. It is safe to say though that marrows, green tomatoes, onions, cooking apples (courtesy of my mum's friend!), sugar, spices and my own cider vinegar( a batch of cider went tits up on me last year and the result was 5 gallons of cider vinegar)

You basically chop everything up and lash it into a big saucepan and cook it slowly for 2 or 3 hours making sure not to allow it to burn by stirring every so often. Pot it up then into sterilised jars and it will keep for months. It improves with keeping for a few weeks I reckon.

We eat it for lunch with cheese and all sorts of cold meats and pate/terrines.

Corrib Mayfly Trout

This year as every other we head over to the Corrib to try for a few trout during the mayfly. I posted last year about the ins and outs of the fishing so this year I thought I would talk about the other important factor in a day's fishing on Corrib. The lunch! We Always lunch on one of the islands around 2 or 3 in the afternoon and the lunch always involves steak and mushrooms. A bottle of wine along with plenty of tea from the Kelly Kettle keep the troops watered and a few nice fillet steaks from the butcher in Oughterard finish the job.

I stuck a few pictures of the festivities below.

We also caught trout, this beauty went back but was estimated to be 12 or 13 pounds weight!