Stuffed & rolled Manx lamb breast

We were very kindly given some lovely free meat from one of my friends father who farms and shoots out at Ragley estate near Alcester. We got some beautiful fallon steaks and a breast of Manx lamb. The fallon we just did very simply and cooked it with a butter sauce and was delicious, but the breast of lamb somewhat puzzled me as i had not cooked it or heard of the cut of meat before.
 Traditionally a very cheap but delicious cut of the lamb i decided that stuffing it and then a slow roast would be for the best and got to work knocking up a recipe for the stuffing.
I didn't want to overpower it with too strong a flavour so decided to keep it quite light so here it goes.

Luckily for us the lamb breast had had the small ribs removed from it already by tony but I'm sure you could ask your butcher if he would oblige and with the meat laid out flat like a blanket, i moved next to the flavour station :)

In a pan on a low heat i added

Half a finely diced white onion
Half a leek
A good handful of rosemary,lemon thyme, mint from the garden chopped fine
Tsp of wholegrain mustard
Tsp mint jelly
salt, pepper
drizzle of honey
Half a lemon squeezed at the end

All these cooked down for about 10 minutes,
and then was spread onto the lamb breast.

On top of that i also put a layer of
spinach and a final bit of seasoning again.

I then rolled the breast up and tied it with butchers string and popped it under some foil in the oven at 150 degrees c for 2 1/2 hours checking on it and occasionally basting it with some extra honey towards the end.

It is served with fresh griddled asparagus and some simple mash potato, also a nice minty gravy would go top drawer with this if you have some time for a great sunday dinner.

Hope you enjoy it, a little time consuming but coupled with a nice glass of something cold during the prep time I'm sure it won't seem like too much of a chore :)

Its all here

After managing to catch our breath after our long awaited delivery arrived last Friday evening in the dark (grrrrr) a big truck arrived outside our little victorian terrace house and managed to completely block our street. Ordering 3500 flowers and veg plants in the depths of winter 2011 i must admit i thought the whole lorries contents would be ours and not the one trolley they wheeled off. Some mistake must surely have been made i explained to the driver, nope, everything was there i was assured and the contents of his lorry actually contained 30,000 flower plugs and the very virginal and nervous me was ushered back into the house with my delivery.

 Next morning both Lydia and i were out the house by 8 o clock (an unusual event for a saturday in our house) and up to the patch to see our goodies. Of course they were all there and once we started pricking them out in their own pots i quickly realised what an epic task lay ahead of us.
 We had Surfinia,Begonia and lobelia flowers to plant up in the greenhouses 1 and 2 and Tomato and chili plants in the polytunnel. Unbelievably we managed to not snap one single plant whilst potting up and as we have extremely limited space this year to work in that is no mean feat i tell you!!

                                                 x500 Surfinia

                                  Lydia showing off the merchandise!

          x600 Scarlett Begonia complete with wonky yet stable end table


9 solid Hours it took to plant up all these lovely gorgeous plants each loved and cared for, lyds nearly insisting on kissing each one as she tucked it up in its soil pot but soon got sore lips on plant 43. We now have until mid April until these get planted up into baskets and then are finally ready to reach the destination of houses, restaurants and shops all over Stratford upon avon from the second week of May :)

     A very tired Jon watering in the tomatoes after a 9 hour day planting up

                                   Apache chili's sunning themselves

We even had time to much down on some pak choi for dinner that we planted back in January

Thank goodness nothing seemed to go too wrong on our first ever delivery and 10 weeks lay ahead of us now, caring and tending to our little beauties so they arrive to you in their finest form. I just wish the risk of frost would bugger off,  it soon will I'm sure but we are being extra cautious to avoid any damage. I want to get on with this delicious sunshine I've been waiting for all winter!

We have been busy planting Wild garlic up at the new site for The Soul Patch                                                                                         

                                                                       
We also have some great news that we shall be doing the front and rear flower displays for The Dirty Duck pub ( a kind of cult symbol of Stratford upon avon) and are extremely excited and honoured that sam the landlord has given us this opportunity. We also have No 9 restaurant on our books as well as Grants who are two of the best places to eat in town so things are looking very very good indeed!

Now we have actually got a bit more going on and everything is starting to grow at such a rapid rate we will of course be updating you with everything we have going on and of course details of our shows we are hosting in Stratford upon avon and details about our special local business guests we have on stall there.
See you for now and look forward to getting your summer clothes out, i personally am sick of big winter jackets, bring on the shorts!
much love TSP x

Soul Patch Slow braised short rib of beef

This slowly braised beef short ribs recipe is one of those delicious dishes that will warm you up on these cold nights. 

Cook Time: 4 hours

Ingredients:

• 4 slices bacon, cut in 1/2-inch pieces
• salt and fresh ground black pepper as needed
• 4 pounds beef short ribs
• 1 onion, diced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 tbsp flour
• 1 cup dry sherry wine
• half a pint of beef broth
• 6 springs of thyme

How to make it :)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

In a biggish pan, over medium heat, cook the bacon until the fat has come out and the bacon is cooked. Remove the cooked bacon with a slotted spoon, leaving the fat in the pan. Reserve bacon. Season the beef short ribs generously with salt and fresh ground black pepper. Turn the heat up to medium-high, and brown the short ribs well on all sides. Remove the short ribs, and add the onions. Reduce the heat to medium and fry about 5 minutes, until the onions soften.

Add the garlic and flour, and fry 2 minutes more. Whisk in the sherry wine, turn the heat to high, and bring to a boil, scraping off any browned bits on the bottom of the Dutch oven. Add the beef stock, thyme, beef short ribs, and 1/2 tsp of salt.

When the liquid returns to a simmer, cover tightly, and place in the oven. Braise for 4 hours. Carefully remove the lid and test for doneness - the meat should be fork tender. If done, remove from the oven. Let rest covered for 15 minutes. Then, skim any excess fat from the top. serve with mash potato and snuggle up next to the fire!

Time to see what your made of

The time has come upon us on our little journey to start our first years growing of plants. We cannot believe it has arrived so quickly yet so much has gone on already, but as this goes to press our little plug plants are sat in a grow room getting nice and strong ready for us to take care of them in 21 days time. We have settled on scarlett trailing begonias and a mix of trailing Surfinia for this years baskets. The garlic is coming on a treat since going in in November, we were a little worried as not much seemed to be happening in the way of germination but seeing that little bud of green emerge out of the ground has laid all fears to rest thank goodness, really looking forward to lifting that in the summer and seeing whats been going on under the ground for the past few months and selling it to you guys!
 Some possible good news on some land for us as well as we are currently 'between places' at the moment but are very grateful to be there. We have to have a final visit from the polytunnel company that are building our tunnel to give the land the go ahead but its looking really good.  If thats a go'er then we will be putting the tunnel up in august of this year but growing a whole wonderful summer season of veg on half an acre which will be fantastic. We are also looking forward to our opening show at holy trinity hall with all our local businesses who just happen to be friends, a great injection into the faded arm of our community.
 On the food side of things i have perfected my spearmint and chili natural tea mix and that will also be available from us this year and got bought a cider press by my lovely family so can look forward to making use of the orchard of apples we have at our disposal this year :) I did try some of my september batch of cider a few nights ago.........it was good....very good. Looking forward to 'perfecting' that as well.
 A bit of a brief insight today but come march 5th you will all be inundated with pictures and videos of everything that we have FINALLY got going on.
Looking forward to it
BIG SOUL PATCH LOVE

Roll up, roll up

Well... hello there all! The birds were singing their little hearts out this morning, so with the sun on my face as i did some work it felt rather good realising we have made completely the right decision with our path in life and the course it seems to be taking us. We have had to think ahead with everything this year and have had to have some serious foresight with regards to planting up, vegetable plots,ordering and of course a platform to sell some of our baskets.
 As a unique part of our business, we are offering Stratford's first delivery to the door service and also fitting them for our customers as well, but we wanted to really get in with our community and have a proper Soul Patch event in our hometown.

Surfina hanging baskets we have for sale this year

Trailing Begonia basket also available

 The local markets seem to have quite a mafia side to them and obviously have their existing sellers but unfortunately seemed very unreceptive to 'the new guys on the block offering something different' which is fair enough, but we were left rather stumped as to how we could get our brand and products out there to the general public. So what do you do when your left out in the cold? Do it anyway and do it by your self of course. We happened across the idea of hiring our local parish community centre which is a real hub for our community, so we decided to hire it for our opening day and get a few other people along who have a similar ethos to us, are independent, local and most importantly...lovely people! :)

 We have the fantastic Transition Stratford, who are realising so many people in Stratford's growing dreams by matching land already available with growers, keen to 'have a go' at growing their own and having a little slice of the good life. They are also picking the fruit that is on the fruit trees in our county that otherwise would have gone to waste and either make it into juice or give it to the community. They are trying to re-map out Stratford's orchards so that future generations can gain the valuable knowledge of the food that is widely and in many cases freely available to everyone. here is their link
http://www.transitionstratford.com/wordpress/

 We also have the lovely Judith from Shakespeare's sister's soaps who grows all that she uses in her amazing soaps and is very keen on keeping her business very local. Here is a small exert from her website and a link to it
http://www.shakespearessisterssoap.com/about.html

Judith decided to realise her passion to make and sell her own scrumptious soaps that smell wonderful, feel luxurious, and are carefully hand-made using local or sustainably sourced ingredients. Both Judith and Amanda made a conscious decision to make soap without any additives, preservatives or artificial scents or colours. Judith's love of gardening allows her to use as many of the flowers and herbs grown in her Stratford-upon-Avon garden as possible to make her soaps. 

Our open day is between 1pm and 5pm on Sunday 13th May at Holy Trinity Parish Hall situated just over the road from Holy trinity Church itself in Old Town. The Soul Patch will be offering Surfinia and Trailing Begonias in beautiful 14 inch hanging baskets, supplied with chains and hanging hooks. If you would prefer we can always take your name and address on the day and deliver it to your door as we know how awkward they can be! We will also have Soul Patch hand made mirrors and art pieces as well as our delicious elderflower cordial and hopefully our new apple press providing fresh apple juice made in front of you :) Here are some of our home made pieces as well as a sneaky preview.

Shell wall hanging

Wall hanging up close

Shell mobile

Mixed media mirror

Seahorse mosaic

Shell themed mirror

Bathroom mirror

Oyster mirror on metal

Vintage vase with fern

'Day at the beach' mirror

 We really hope we can make a name for ourselves in our town as we love where we live and grow, and want to become a real name that is recognised and recommended in our little corner of the world. We really hope to see you there, we will be the ones running round like people possessed, but please come and say hello!
Grow local, Buy local. The Soul Patch

Christmas, the ham and the lash

With another Christmas over, the benefits of great friends that have dissipated to far flung reaches of the planet decend on our small hometown to visit family and friends and we are reunited in the local pubs we all drank in as youngsters. Stories fly around with a garbled drunken recollection of facts and situations we all found ourselves in in our youthful years and i have spent quite a long time pondering this Christmas how the hell we all survived it and came our relatively unscarred! The sad truth is we all move on in one form or another, whether it might not be physically, perhaps just as people. It is something we all go through as we stumble and fall through life's wicked roller coaster but there is something to be said for not seeing friends for sometimes up to 2 years or more and being able to take off where you left all that time ago without even an ounce of awkwardness or struggled silence, then you know, what good friends truly are.

Our fireplace at home this year.

I decided to make both hams this year (earlier recipe on previous blog post) The one on the left is the honey and wholegrain mustard and the one on the right the jamie oliver jerk ham (recipe also on previous blog post)

You can just see Hendrix our dog waiting in anticipation in the background :)

And this was after he got his grubby little paws on some.

So...........with December out of the way and into January the 3rd it was the first day back at work and my body clock not wanting me to miss my alarm this morning very kindly awoke me at 5am. With it being not the best day outside thoughts turned to what i could be doing inside and as we got our delivery of pots for the surfinias and begonia plugs to go into just before Christmas i thought it would be a good job to do indoors, setting them out and seeing if they all actually fit in the greenhouses/polytunnel! Well the good news is....they do! Quite exciting having a glimpse of how many plants are going to be set out, as there is only so much you can muster with your imagination. The pak choi and chioggia beetroot are coming on a storm in the polytunnel and our arts and crafts department i.e. myself and lydia are busy beavering away making lots of nice things to sell come May. So my only real problem is, May can just not come soon enough. We have also been putting out messages on platforms such as Facebook to try and acquire a more permanent home for The Soul Patch as we yet again become homeless in June but we have had some initial ideas from some lovely people so lets hope something stems out from that. Anyway below is a piccy of greenhouse 1 and below the polytunnel to show how we are getting along with it all. A very Happy New Year to you all and may it be prosperous for all x

Christmas is coming and I'm getting fat!

                                               
Yes yes, it is here again folks the unmentionable 'C' word that descends on us good people once a year. The shops have gone mad along with the people inside them,we are discussing weird and wonderful presents we know that person is definitely going to love....but top of the list is but of course what are we going to eat and drink!
 Rather by my bad memory than my forethought i stumbled across our homemade cider in the cellar that has now brewed for 3 months as recommended by the recipe and am very interested to see what effects it has. My dad often tells me a story of his own homemade cherry wine being thrust into any guest at the bbq of 1984. Suffice to say no one can remember a single thing from that day and there are only pictures of adults riding toy tractors and cars on the lawn. We wait with bated breath :)
 We have been very fortunate to be given the use of some land for the next few months until june to grow our garlic, pak choi and beets and of course our surfinia and begonia plants ready for next May. Our hanging basket and pots order came the other day and suddenly it all became very real as a great big arctic lorry pulled up outside our little cottage with pallet after pallet of the baskets. At that moment i was glad we only ordered 300 and not the 1700 originally planned!
 So back to Christmas, i have been salivating over all the delicious food that is available to us this year and we are opting for the non traditional christmas meal of beef and a ham. Every year i make a ham and its always the first thing to go as ganits decent on the Toney household all keen for a nibble. So much so now i have started making smaller hams for friends christmas presents to preserve our own :) I watched jamie Olivers Christmas special from last year the other day and saw his delicious looking jerk ham, covered in scotch bonnets and rum and glazed with marmalade (find it here http://www.jamieoliver.com/magazine/recipes-view.php?title=jamie-s-jerk-ham ). Quite unconventional but still quite delicious but i still say you can't go wrong with honey and mustard on a ham for the table. Heres how we at The Soul Patch makes ours

Honey and Mustard Ham

*Get your ham from a butcher, you will get a lot more for your money and a lot more for your leftovers and he will advise you on boiling times for it
*Boil your Ham in a good sized pot for the recommended time with relation to its weight with the fat on, making sure the ham is completely covered and is not left to boil dry.
*Add peppercorns and a bay leaf in the water whilst it is boiling to infuse into the ham
*After the desired amount of time remove from the water and take off the fat with a sharp knife, this should be very easy now.
*Slit the top of the ham in a criss cross way all over just cutting through the thin layer of fat left and not in to the ham itself

The glaze
*Your ham is now essentially cooked and needs to cool for about an hour so the glaze sits on it nicely
*Mix up in a bowl...
*4 table spoons of wholegrain mustard
*1 table spoon of mustard powder
*4 table spoons of onion marmalade
*6 table spoons of good quality honey
*pinch of salt
*plenty of freshly ground black pepper

This should form a good paste and stick to the ham well. make sure you cover all of the top of the ham and include the sides, you can do this with a brush or the back of a spoon.
 *Put on a roasting tray in a preheated oven @150 degrees C for 20 minutes basting the ham with its own glaze every five minutes or so.
*After the 20 mins is up remove and leave on its tray on the side to cool or eat it hot straight away. If you leave it to cool pop it in the fridge after about 2 hours and the glaze will turn into an amazing sticky delicious treat.

Enjoy however you like my favourite way is at about midnight after the pub closes and a tasty slice is there waiting to be carved off with a nice hunk of bread.
Happy Christmas from all of us at The Soul Patch and we will see you in the New Year with our weight watchers subscription form :(