Celeriac - love or hate (or indifferent)?

I grew some celeriac for the first time this year. 

My mum got me some young plants from a plant sale so I stuck them in next to my leeks and they've been growing happily since the spring.

 Just lately I've started to use them and I must say that it's a difficult vegetable to fall in love with. There seems to be a lot of waste from the roots, the slugs have been at them as well, so I've had to cut quite a bit away inside leaving a lot in the sink - although this may be to do with the fact I've just left them in the ground until now and they might have been best lifted and stored somewhere

. To be honest I'm just not a very big fan of celery and that's essentially what they are - the smell puts me off! 

On the other hand when I've been adding them to stews it has given over a really nice flavour and they help to bulk out a stew and add another vegetable to it so it can't be bad for us.

I did buy some seeds to grow my own this coming year but now I'm in two minds. I know space isn't that much of an issue with me, but it is another vegetable to look after all year, although growing a few probably wouldn't hurt.

What's everyone's opinion on celeriac? 

A Cake For Playgroup

I think no cake will ever be judged as much as a cake made by the only man in a mainly female playgroup! 

It was my turn to make the cake this week - luckily I nailed it! 

 I wanted a show stopper to impress and kept thinking of different cakes I could make. Then I decided that simple was best and went for a simple Victoria Sponge Sandwich.

The sponge was made using the normal recipe (8oz of flour, 8oz of sugar and 8oz of butter, four eggs and a teaspoon of baking powder) then I added butter icing and homemade damson jam to the middle and dusted the top with icing sugar. 

A simple cake that everyone likes, sometimes you can't beat a classic. 

Everyone was very complimentary! 

What cake would you have made (I need ideas for when it's my turn again!)?

Sweeping Chimneys & An EcoFan

Before Christmas I took another small step with self reliance and purchased some chimney sweeping brushes. As ours is a steel lined flue I had to buy a special brush and flexible poles for it - not cheap but I figured it would soon work out much more cost effective than hiring someone to sweep it twice a year (A friend had theirs done at a cost of £40 the other week).

 I also went a bit mad and got another carbon monoxide alarm and a Ecofan, the firm I brought it all from also chucked in a chimney cleaning log. 

The Ecofan is a clever bit of kit and I've been hankering after one for a while! The motor is powered from the heat from the fire, no batteries or anything. It was purchased because the heat from our stove just stays in the living room so the plan being that it would circulate it around the house more. We've been using it for a month now and so far it's been brilliant, it runs very quietly, starts as soon as the fire gets warm enough and pushes air around the house a little more. I have it aimed at the living room door to get some heat up the stairs and I'd say you can definitely feel a difference when you're up there.

As for sweeping the chimney, the brushes were designed for that sized lining and you can tell - it was so easy, no way worth a £40 charge for how long it took me! We burn our fire at optimum temperatures for our stove most of the time (between 200 and 300 degrees c) and it showed by how much soot came down the chimney, barely enough to fill a half pint glass, that was after a season of use as well so I was pretty pleased!

Who else sweeps their chimney themselves? How often do you do it?

9 Self Sufficiency Goals For 2015

I used to be a big list writer and it helped keep me focused and organised, but I've slipped out of the habit. I've decided to try and write down some goals and then I'll see how close I get to them!

• Increase my growing area - I've already started on this with the new raised beds but I want to be able to grow a larger variety of things as well as having an area for growing trees and shrubs to sell on a small scale.

• Produce more protein on the homestead - The obvious way is with meat. I keep toying with getting pigs and/or rabbits, I think the girls have got their hearts set on both! I need to finish building pens and get water supplies sorted first. I could also look at growing chickpeas or something similar for a vegatarian option (and they would help with a point below).

• Improve my composting and "loop closing" - Trying to make sure that as little as possible leaves the homestead (unless someone has bought it). I want us to produce less landfill waste, recycle more (cardboard on the garden etc) and get really organised with my compost. I want to be buying a lot less compost in years to come, last year was a great success with my home made plant foods, removing something I used to buy quite often, so hopefully I'll be able to start making an impact with this as well.

• Look at experimenting with growing staples - I'm pretty good at growing fruit and veg but they're not normally the main part of a meal. I grow potatoes but I also want to look at growing a cereal or a grain to see if it can be done on a small scale, ridiculous really as my dad grows hundreds of tons of wheat but it will be an interesting experiment if I get around to it!

• Increase my number of herbs and spices - The easiest way to change a meal is with herbs or spices but I'd like to increase the number I've got here and experiment with some new ones. I'd also like to look at growing something for my indigestion - mint tea isn't enough sometimes and I eat far too many Rennies!

• Improve my food storage - I want to waste less food so having somewhere good to store it is essential. I've got a few ideas on this one, from building a purpose built shed in the garden to improving how we store food in the house, my can rotator door I built last year was a good start on this. I also want to preserve more food and be better at using it in day to day cooking. 

• Seed Saving - This is a big one I think! You can't be very self sufficient if you're having to buy seed each year. I want to try and collect more seed, set biannual plants apart and let some go to flower each year as well. I'd like to learn more about it and learn how to create my own hybrids (with squashes) or keep plants pure. 

• Fire wood - My willow coppice wasn't much of a success last year but I'd like to improve on that in the next year as well as thinning out some trees from our hedge rows and sawing up a few at my dads farm for firewood.

• Baking - I'd like to start baking bread a little more often. I baked lots of soda bread last year but I'd like to start making bread from scratch or maybe starting a sour dough culture to use regularly.

What other goals do you think I should set for myself? 

Have you set any goals in a similar vein for yourself this year?

How Did You Learn To Cook?

I was talking to my mum the other day and she was laughing about how much I'd changed over the years and could never see me in the role I'm in now!

 She said she could remember one day when I stated that cooking was easy. I was in my late teens at the time and hadn't cooked anything greater than beans on toast since being a small boy helping mum bake cakes, so I had no grounds to say it!

"Right that's it, you can both [my brother and I] cook once a week!"

She was determined not to have her sons leave home without being able to cook. So we took it in turns to cook tea, picking a different recipe each time and normally having to have our little sister show us what to do. I moaned like hell, it was the last thing I wanted to do in the evening, but I'm glad she did it! 

Roast wild duck

Homemade tomato soup

Now we're both good cooks, each of us making everything we cook from scratch (my sister has been able to do this since the age of about 9) and we all have a core repertoire of recipes that we can cook from memory. We're also pretty adventurous and share new recipes between the three of us. I don't think any of us would ever consider buying a ready meal.

Now I use these skills every night when I cook tea (or dinner depending where you're from) for my wife and kids and I bake two or three times a week, I really enjoy it as well - once I've decided what to cook! My wife is also a good cook (an essential part of picking a wife I think) and food features pretty highly in our day to day lives, it's one thing we try not to skimp on and one reason we spend so much time trying to grow our own and finding ways to use it.

How did you learn to cook? What's the first recipe that you could cook from memory?