New 'favourite' blog

I have taken to reading a lovely blog called The Cottage Smallholder lately. Its really lovely (mostly, not sure about the guinea pig story!!) Fiona writes really well and it reads like an interesting letter from a friend. I used to just dip in from time to time but lately I have been catching up with the old posts as well. There are all sort of new things i would like to try inspired by The Cottage Smallholders friendly instructions. I can cook, quite well actually, but I have never made salami, didn't even realise bacteria would be required, never cured my own bacon, never even made my own raised pork pies. Well I will be trying pork pies before much longer and am also working on some of the other ideas. I have asked beloved to cobble together something which I can use for smoking meat (and salmon, wouldn't that be good) but he hasn't quite got it right in his head yet but I have faith that he will. Unfortunately I don't have a lovely open fire like Fiona's. I will be trying Fiona's Greek Yogurt recipe at the weekend, just to get me started. She got it from Bean Sprouts, another good blog and so we see something makes its way around the world (UK??) with the blogging community.

We are also planning to make Houmous soon. Years ago we always made our own as you could only buy it in strange smelling (and very far between) delis. We were successful for years but one day made it in too large a quantity and it went off before it cooled. So for a while we bought it from supermarkets. These days you can get it everywhere but when there was a product recall a few months back it disappeared from all the supermarkets, so I guess it is all made in one factory. There is a trend lately to flavour it with coriander, lemon juice, sun dried tomatoes and all sort, which doesn't suit my family at all, so finally we go back to the mincer! (