Putting a shine on for our guests

We love having friends and family come and visit and stay with us on the farm.

We have more space here to spread out than in Sydney- and it is always very relaxed.

In anticipation of V&P visiting next week and P & J later in month we have had a bit of spring clean in summer.

This week one of those jobs that didn't get don't earlier this year was the cleaning of the copper pans.

I found these for a bargain price in the St Remy Provence flea market a few years. What a day!

Cleaning them is easy outdoors in the sunshine.

Pride of place in the kitchen.

The magic of Limoncello

Those who know my husband M know of his passion for wine.  

However in Venice about this time 2 years ago we discovered a taste for Limoncello.

Each night after dinner we circled back to our hotel the Pensione Accademia, through narrow passageways and over bridges revelling in the magic of  Venice at night.

As we got closer to our the hotel we had our fingers crossed that the corner seating area of the courtyard overlooking the water would be empty.

And each night, magically, we sipped an ice cold limoncello in our spot, listening to the swish of the gondoliers going home, smelling the heavy dampness of the waterways and enjoying the flickering lights on the dark water.

Memories of a beautiful city. 

When we got back to the farm M tracked down the exact Limoncello we had in Venice and ordered some from Italy. 

Another case was delivered here last week- although the shipping label indicated that we had received olive oil.  Could it be to avoid import duties? Or was it Limoncello magic?

In Sydney earlier this year we made our own, with lemons from V & P's Bowral garden and a base of vodka.

It is ageing nicely.

We also enjoyed another homemade version after lunch at an Italian restaurant in Haberfield Sydney.

Last Friday night on the farm - we opened a bottle of the Capri Limoncello and enjoyed it under the stars, celebrating S & B's birthdays. 

It was another magical night.

Do we eat meat?

I  had an email after my last post asking if we were vegetarian.

I said that we eat meat but do eat a lot of vegies and salad with meals and many times during the week eat vegetarian. With a bit of bacon added. 

Tonight's meal - grilled (on the Weber)  Berkshire pork chops, from the half pig we had supplied by our farmer friend (almost relation) T.

We had it butchered into all sorts of cuts - even a loin of pork with fat on.  Am  looking forward to the crackling we will get on that, something that is unheard of here - perhaps it is too fatty for the American palate?!

Also loving the fan in the pergola that M built last year (with our friend W) 

Keeps us cool in this warm and some what humid weather.

Summer, and the eating is easy

Mid week, we like to keep our meals on the light side, on both sides of the world.  

Like this Cobb Salad -  an American classic.  

I don't know why we don't do this in Sydney -  the ingredients are readily available, it is easy to prepare, looks and tastes great. 

This version had cherry tomatoes from our garden and fresh local eggs, and the usual additions - lettuce, avocado, bacon and blue cheese.

Tomatoes have featured in each of our meals recently- we have been overgrown with cherry and roma  tomatoes the last couple of weeks and this week finally the big ones came on.

Well timed - as we had seen a recipe for tomato tartin in last weekend's WSJ. 

I regularly cook this upside down pie with apples - and was given a copper pan by M for Christmas years ago - in the hope that he would get it cooked more often. 

The silky and richly decadent apples that have slowly cooked in butter and sugar on top of the stove and then topped with a buttery pastry and baked - is only served when apples, grown on our trees are in season, and when we have guests.  Sorry M- special occasions only!

Seeing the recipe with tomatoes inspired me to pull out the pan and whip it up for dinner last night.

I wouldn't say it was  a quick meal, but it is was quite easy.

Don't these sliced tomatoes look good in the pan -slow roasted romas fill in the gaps.

Layered with slow cooked onion (leftover from weekend pizzas) and goat cheese.

Topped with a sheet of store bought puff pastry and baked for 60 minutes.

 The tartin is inverted onto a plate (so you can't see how puffy and golden brown the pastry was) but you can see how the tomatoes are glistening 

And even though it was supposed to be an AFD - I insisted we have a glass of wine with such a gorgeous dish.

It was fantastic - all the flavours - sweet tomatoes, fennel, thyme and oregano, made for another delicious  meal.

Counting corn kernels

I mentioned a couple of posts ago that our corn had been growing quickly and had reached over twelve feet (close to 4 metres). 

M picked these ears of corn the other day to do a kernel count and was pretty pleased with the yield indications.

He doesn't count each kernel on the ear, the easy way to do it is to count the number of rows (always an even number - in this case 16) and the number of kernels in any row (from bottom to top - in this case an average of 38) giving 608 kernel per ear.

With a 30,000 plant population in our corn field the easy method is to divide 608 by three to get a yield estimate- in this case 203 bushels per acre.

Got it?

2013 Corn

Even a novice like me can see that it is better than last years crop.

2012  Corn- disaster

 On Saturday a car load of 7 farmers from NE Iowa driving through western Illinois, stopped at our farm for lunch and to view our corn on their way to join the Pro Farmer crop tour.

They commented that our corn had the highest yield check they had seen so far.

Farmers on tour

All this talk of corn is telling me I must make roasted sweetcorn risotto this week!

It was a wild night

Hunting is a popular sport in our farm area - not just for sport but to provide food for the table.  

I like quail and pheasant, but I really love duck. We cook it a lot in Sydney - the farm raised variety that is.  The dark meat and strong flavour of wild duck can be a bit of a turn off for me, but we were keen to try some techniques that remove the blood and calm down the wild flavour.

(Vegetarians may wish to stop reading now).

Our neighbours and farmers, the B's provided the mallard duck and pheasant for the feast and joined us for dinner. 

We planned to cook these in the WFO (wood fired oven)

Research on line suggested brining the meat before grilling or roasting, or alternatively braising  in a slow oven without brining.  We decided to try the two versions.

For the braise, we cut up 2 pheasants, put them in our le Creuset oven dish 

Added the juice of two oranges, some white wine, 2 star anise, 2 bay leaves and half a large onion diced and put it in a low oven indoors to cook for six hours.

We put the two pheasant and the other ducks into the brine - water, salt and brown sugar, and soaked for several hours, before rinsing and patting dry.

M reported that a lot of blood came out!

We wrapped the pheasant in bacon, and rubbed oil and salt and pepper into the ducks.

These were then roasted on a rack in the WFO, breast side up.

The meat of the pheasant was white and moist, the duck had great flavour. 

The braised duck melted in the mouth and the juices were delicious.

We had made plenty of side dishes - just in case!

Green beans, braised with bacon and onion, red cabbage and apple

BB's broccoli salad -with nuts and dried fruit

And a huge platter of potatoes roasted in duck fat.

Even though it is still summer here and this was more like a Fall/Autumn meal - it was a mild enough night to sit outside and the enjoy this delicious meal with our neighbours.

This was our version of  Duck Dynasty.

A return to Farmlife

Have been back on the farm for 4 nights already and it feels like I have never left.

Except the corn is now 12 feet high

This was the 5th June

This morning 

The Qantas flight from Sydney to Dallas is fantastic - 14 1/2 hours (that's 2 meals,  4 movies and a 5 hour sleep) followed by a short hop to St Louis .

All up including clearing customs and re-boarding in DFW - 18 and a bit hours!

M met me at the airport with some PDA (it has been 7 weeks) and then an hours drive to the farm in time for dinner- champagne with crab cakes and salad. 

I love a good crab cake - but can be disappointed if there is not enough crab, or they are too mushy, too dry or have no flavour.

These from Whole Foods were full of shiny slivers of crab, fresh flavoured and nicely crumbed. 

Our welcome home champagne tradition continues.

Saturday is now a bit of a blur- catching up on what has been happening around here with the renovations (a future post), bbq ribs from our local restaurant eaten on our porch and an early night.

Up early on Sunday for the Keyesport Triathalon- held the same day as Sydney's City to Surf which has 85,000 people walking or running 14kms from Hyde Park in Sydney's CBD to Bondi Beach.

We walked to the lake to cheer on the 75 competitors in the Keyesport Tri - which has a sprint and Olympic event.

 The organisers were very relaxed

Swimmers in the distance before diving into the lake

  I was inspired by this woman - one of the first  people out of the water and she is smiling.

You can see me M and I  (in shadow)

At this point there was not another bike rider in sight - but  according to our local newspaper two cyclists collided near here - both were transported  by ambulance to the local hospital for treatment.  

What are the odds?

There could not be two such different events in my farmlife citylife.

I have run the City Surf before and back in the day I also did a couple of triathlons as well as a very revealing biathalon in Sydney Harbour.

I think I still have a Sprint triathlon in me (1/4 mile swim, 13 mile bike ride and a 3.1 mile run) and there is definitely no Heartbreak Hill in this part of Southern Illinois.

Should l give it a go next year?