Father Christmas and Pancakes

Father Christmas is a chook. Yes, I know this may come as a surprise. (In America they call chooks – chickens – whereas in New Zealand a chicken is more likely to be found in the freezer section of the supermarket and is never Father Christmas.  You forgot I was a New Zealander didn’t you – you do not hear my accent on your screen).

But this chook reminds me of Father Christmas – jolly and magnanimous though somewhat stern.

Anyway Father Christmas is a  very big chook with large wide feet, long legs and a huge body.  She likes to be in on the action and  waits for me outside the barn. When she sees me approaching with the heavy buckets of hot water for the milking she ducks in behind me, shoving ahead of the dogs and Geraldine and joins the parade into the milking room where she  sets up camp under the cows feeder in case of spillage. 

She is a most unusual chook is our Father Christmas. Very determined and ridiculously friendly. I am not at all sure where she came from.  There seem to be a lot of chickens about at the moment and not as many eggs as one would expect.

The toad is still there too by the way, he lives in the gap between the walls.

Aunty Anna is such a saucy cow that she has sent Carlo the Tiny quite mad with desire. He was threatening my fences  and going hoarse from calling out to her in a fierce manner, so he and Alex were transported to the West side on Sunday so we could all get some sleep.  She still has two more months before he can have his way with her.

Here is Bobby 2, (the hereford beef cow), with Aunty Anna behind him and Difficult stood in the mud (which is drying thankfully – if only this next round of rain would pass us by).

Today’s recipe:

Alice Berbers (Apple) Pancake from the  Farm House Cookbook by Susan Hermann Loomis. 

Heat oven to 400F

4 large eggs

3/4 cup of milk

3/4 cup of flour

2 tablespoons melted butter. 

Mix the eggs and milk, Whisk in the flour, Whisk in the melted butter.  Sit 10 minutes. 

Pour into hot cast iron skillet.  Reduce to 350F and cook for 15 minutes. 

It will puff right up and become the base for any toppings you desire.  Serve hot. 

I do not have time to write out the apple topping. Just cook little cubes of tasty spiced apple and pop on top (Whitney added dollops of labneh)

This one I will be making often – it was the perfect breakfast.

I have another recipe being prepared for you –  Turkish beef on an eggplant sauce. I will write that one out today.

Good morning. We brought in 227 bales of hay on Monday and have been stacking hay ever since. I have another 120 coming today. We are all quite worn out already. Nick comes back on Thursday and asked us to save him some and we are very happy to oblige once we reduce the latest pile enough to pull the trailer into the West Barn. So we will be stacking at least another hundred today.

I am kitchen Mama today so I need an early start to get the sourdough on its second rise.

I hope you have a lovely day.

celi