Our nudgie popsicle

From living life as a stray to the life of a homed kitty cat, in the blink of an eye.  

Nudge

My little Nudgicles is my wee cutie pie.  He was born in our barn along with his sister. His mum was feeding them and we were fine with that, but then she died in a trap set by the mayor’s office to cull the wild cats in our street.  So we had 2 new born kittens in our barn.  What were we to do?? Well we fed them, kept them at arms length.  Just until they were able to fend for themselves. I did some study and discovered wild cats rarely fend for themselves properly. Poor wee things.  But these 2 were wild.  Ferril.. They would not let us near them.  There’s no way we could de flee or anything and a visit to the vet would have been fraught with god knows what.  They were starving crazy kittens and we had no clue what to do.  But we named them.  Smudge and Nudge and fed them in our barn where they were born and were sleeping in our woodpile.

But then one day Andy was backing out the car and their game of chasey meant wee smudge was under his tires.  She died.  Wee Nudge was out of his mind.  In fact we thought he’d died or was severely injured because we didn’t see or hear him for 36 hrs after Smudgy’s death.   He didn’t eat, he didn’t meow.   Finally, he popped up.  There he was in the barn, traumatised.  So we fed him but he didn’t play like he had been with Smudgy, he stayed in the barn, only ate when we were looking over him rather than fighting for food with his sister. It was sad.

Very sad.  

Because he meowed and meowed and meowed.  He sniffed and sniffed where she’d died.  Heart breaking actually (and I’m NOT a cat person).

Then one day he changed.  He demanded our attention.  He was the most incredibly affectionate cat.  So we were touching him and playing with him, but he stayed in the barn.  He was happy there sleeping in the woodpile.  One week on there were wild cats in our barn eating his damn food!!  Mangy looking things.  Gross.   and we thought we needed to do something to protect him so we made the huge step of moving wee Nudgy inside.  With the help of Andy, and the NZ fam I moved him in. Big huge step for one that’s never had a pet.  Ever.

That was the day before yesterday.  These are photos from tonight.  He’s settled into life inside rather too easily!!!  Not a peep out of him at night, he just is so so so happy.  Which makes us happy.  

Mexican chicken

We are so into Mexican cooking at the mo.  We have sourced a supplier of really amazing smoked chipotle chillie and are trying to adapt our knowledge of spice to recreate those smoky heady sharp deep but essentially fresh and zingy Mexican flavours.   

Tonight’s was chicken with spice and smoke fresh and very very yum.  In the cave. On a hot summers night.  Very very awesome.

 

Duck breast "Thai style" with foie gras sauce

This is an Indian inspired but Thai style duck marinade.  With a foie gras sauce again Indian inspired. Served with coconut spiced veg. An utter dream to eat.  Not spicy, just incredibly perfect in every single way and I cannot describe it better than utter deliciousness.  Hence me writing down the recipe.  

For 4 serves

2 small or 1 large lemon grass stalk

3 kaffir lime leaves

3 cardommon pods, ground, husks removed

1 desertspoon of fennel seeds, ground

salt

1 heaped tsp miso paste

1 heaped tsp apricot compote

1 tsp Kashmiri chilli paste

A knob of ginger

2 big cloves of garlic

2 tbsp coconut cream

Smash the whole lot toghether in a pestle and morter. 

Smear it on the duck flesh (and skin if it’s a summer duck, but if it’s a winter duck leave the skin to render as usual and smear the whole lot on the flesh side)

The veg:

One courgette cut into large strips or a couple of handfuls of fresh green beans or same amount of finely chopped cabbage or fennel

1-2 tsp black mustard seed

A handful of curry leaf

A knob of ginger

2 cloves of garlic

2 tbsp desiccated coconut 

salt

1 tsp Kashmiri chilli powder

the juice of half a lime or lemon

A touch of turmeric powder

Heat some oil.  Cook the mustard seed off (until they start to cackle) add the  curry leaf, . Add the veg, high heat then the ginger garlic salt and chilli Finally after 2 minutes add the coconut and limon/lime juice and turmeric.  Give it a good stir and it’s ready.  

The sauce:

Foie gras or whatever is on hand (pate, terrine etc) blitzed down.  With water to create a sauce.

The chutney:

Apricot compote with lime juice

To serve:

A portion of veg, a portion of sauce, duck breast and serve extra sauce and chutney on the side.  

With crispy garlic flat bread.  

Petanque

Our beautiful property does my head in with it's glorious beauty!

Wee Kitty cats in our barn, but orphaned. (sad face)

We have little kittens in our barn (as you do).  They were born there and now their mum is no longer around. They are feral cats and we absolutely cannot encourage them but what  we  can do is provide sustenance until they are able to fend for themselves.  Poor wee things.  They are so so so CUTE.  Anyway while they live in our barn they’ll be fed and OK. Warm, fed and safe.   They live in the wood stack.  Very hard to capture on camera because they duck under into the wood hence the wonky photos.  

  

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Dinner in the cave.....

It’s been hot.  HOT.  We have aircon for this summer which is heaven on these very hot days and nights but we prefer not to use it during the day if we can.  We certainly don’t wanna be sitting inside for dinner just because it’s 30 outside but our tolerance for heat is low these days.  So to the cave it is.  

The most incredible spot.  We light the candles, take down our dinner and a corkscrew and eat and drink the good stuff from down there.  We might have to take a trusty cask though because if we continue to eat in the cave we will be drinking our Margeaux far far too often and we can’t afford that!

It’s cool and quite and very very very awesome.  I have left salt and pepper and matches and candles and the basics so all we have to do is bring the food.  There is no damp, it is prisine.  A stunning example of early 18^thcentury foundations.