Courgette, garlic and cream cheese soup

I have had a request for the soup recipe so here it is:
If you are going to freeze it leave the cheese out and stir in when reheating. I also made it with some double cream added at the last minute, delicious.


Ingredients
Serves 4
1 kg courgettes - any size and colour
250g potatoes ,peeled or scrubbed
2 cloves garlic, peeled & crushed
1 medium onion, peeled & chopped
30ml olive oil
150g soft cheese
Handful fresh chives, chopped
Handful fresh summer herbs of your choice, chopped
1 ½ mild-flavoured stock made with Bouillon Veg powder

Method
Wash the courgettes and chop them into chunks. Cut the potatoes into cubes (smaller than 1 inch).
Heat the oil gently in a large pan. Add the onion and garlic.
Gently cook for about 5 minutes, to soften.
Add the potatoes. Stir. Cook gently, covered, for about 15 minutes, until about half-cooked.
Add the courgettes and stir. Cook for about 5 to 10 minutes until softened, stirring occasionally.
Add 1 1/2 pints of veg stock - just enough to cover the contents of the pan. Bring to the boil and simmer gently for 10 minutes, or until the potatoes are soft.
Remove from the heat and blitz the soup.
Add the cheese & herbs.
Season to taste with salt & pepper.

Hope that you like it.

This is the Courgette Cake recipe which is wonderful!

225 g plain flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp bicarb of soda
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon
3 beaten eggs
1 tablespoon golden syrup
150 ml sunflower oil
100 gm brown muscavado sugar ( I had none and used that granular brown, worked fine)
225 gm courgette grated
1 tsp vanilla essence
50 gm walnut pieces

Preheat oven to 180C

Sift together flour, BP, Bicarb , salt and cinnamon

Add all other ingredients and mix very well

Transfer to baking tin, I use a round 8" tin you could also use a loaf tin

Bake for 45 mins to 1 hour until skewer comes out clean

Cool in tin 10 mins and then turn out and allow to cool completely

Top with butter icing and bits of walnut.

Voo Doo

This is VooDoo with his rather wonderful tail feathers. He is now out of the nesting box and spending a lot of time on the nearby rowan tree. It is a shame he is a singleton as usually the new babies have a mate to sit with but he is a friendly wee thing and is feeding well so should soon be up in the air with the others.

Speckled Jim never came back thank goodness. Hopefully he headed south to Huntingdon.

I have been harvesting veg like mad as lots of things have come at once yet again, and have made and frozen several pots of courgette, garlic and cream cheese soup which is delicious and I also made a courgette and walnut cake which was exceptionally good. Yesterday I made four jars of beetroot and chilli relish (own beets and own chillies) Today I sowed more fancy Italian lettuce seeds and spring onions. I have had to put a net over the blackcurrant bush and also over the blueberries which are laden. The blackbird seems to have discovered if he alights on the net and bounces up and down he eventually gets to the fruit anyway. I have already had two figs from the Turkey Fig in the greenhouse and it looks like we will have six more to come this year. The Victoria Plum tree by the summer house has four plums on it! I have now decided to have a go at Asparagus so Herb has measured out a plot for the deep hot beds and after his trip to Ireland will be making up some long lasting raised beds. Asparagus is a wonderful perennial vegetable that once planted will give spears after two years for up to twenty years, should see me out!

Sun is shining again, time to water the garden and delouse the hens.

The Saga of Speckled Jim

This is my dove cote arrangement in the garden. The doos are now feeding from the new feed tray as I have stopped putting feed on the well, this has not impressed Harry Potter or Percy Pheasant who have both been sitting on the well at various times awaiting the next free handout.

The saga of Speckled Jim continues. On Friday, as advised by his owner, I released him early in the morning and he promptly flew up, over the house and onto the dove cote for breakfast.

Not South towards Huntington as he should. As I was away for the weekend I let him have his liberty but planned to trap him on Monday and try a release a bit further away. However before I could trap him yesterday afternoon he flew into the dining room window and stunned himself so I was able to pick him up and put him back into the cat box. This afternoon I drove him about five miles away and liberated him him Lidles car park. I watched him for a bit as he wheeled around and flew in the right direction, South, before he turned and flew back overhead where I was and then headed right out of Cupar on the road towards St Andrews! He has not yet reappeared and hopefully will not.

I have replaced two eggs with china eggs to halt the baby factory that we have got going in the dove cote. I felt dreadful doing it as the eggs I removed were warm but as they had only been laid for a couple of days the chicks would not yet be formed. The mum doo has not noticed the swap and is patiently sitting on the impostors.

Doo Count is 17 with 2 eggs, hatching due on Thursday.

Bath Time and a visitor

The hot weather arrived at last in Fife yesterday and we had temperatures as high as 25C. The doves love a bath and yesterday they were queuing up to take a dip and cool off. Needless to say Bully took to hogging the water but eventually they all got a turn and really enjoyed it.

I forgot to say last time that the new doo called Voodoo was fine after the crow attempted to get in and he is now almost ready to leave the nest box. He spends long periods on his own with his mum or dad coming back to feed him regurgitated stuff every few hours. I ringed him this week with a red ring and was fascinated to see that he has a single black feather in the middle of what looks to be a lovely fan tail. He also has feathered feet which only a few of mine have. A very special doo indeed!

Yesterday I trapped a visitor who had arrived to feed with my gang, I was able to trap him under a transparent plant cloche by the string and stick method, and it worked! I looked at his leg rings and discovered he belongs to the Royal pigeon racing association and was able to contact his owner, a chap in Huntingdon. The bird is three years old and quite a champion racer. he was released from Lerwick for the race but the fog and heat put him off so he has stopped off with us for a rest. I am going to liberate him tomorrow after a good days R&R and hopefully he will head back to England again.

Yesterday we cemented in the posts for the two new cotes and this evening will get them up with all due ceremony and a beer in the summer house to celebrate being a Three Cote Family.
I will post a picture next time.

More doocotes, more doos.

Been away for a great weeks sailing and painting on the West Coast and had a brilliant time. We rented a lovely old farmhouse by the Loch for the second year running and were able to enjoy the outside as much as the inside due to the great weather in the second half of the week.

Back at the farm while I was away we had two new doos, DooDoo and DooVet making a total of 17! One more doo on eggs, Ivy I think and that will be the last lot for the summer. I have also acquired two new dovecotes. I it is a fairly long boring story but I bought one on EBay. It arrived but it was the wrong size so the guy who made it said he would sent a replacement. That never arrived but after a month it did plus a free feeding tray. When I asked how he was going to arrange to collect the first smaller dovecote he said to either keep it or bin it as it was not economical to collect it. So I now have two lovely shiny new cotes. Hopefully we will get them erected this week and then when it rains the doos will all have places to hide.

Off to ring the three newest babies later. While it may be sunny in the rest of the UK we are blanketed with a thick haar and look to remain so. You will be laughing on the other side of your faces next week when you cannot sleep because it is too hot, when lightning knocks out all your power and when you have to paint your house white and stay inside for fear of sudden death. I heard a spokesman for NHS 24 state "people WILL die next week" Duh! Do the nanny state Elf and Safety Police not know that many grown adults holiday in exactly such conditions!

Off to put another log on the fire.

Strange goings on?

We have renamed Stillard. He/she is now DULLARD following his attempts to get back into the nest with his mother. On two occasions now we have had to remove him from a different nest hole as his Mum who is on eggs again was getting pretty angry about the while affair, Dullard seems confused as to which nest box is his, he has been out and about with the brighter Wellard but on going back in gets confused and heads for the wrong nest hole. Wellard always makes it back to the right home. They will be flying free any day now but I am concerned about the possible repercussions should the eggs start hatching.

Yesterday we saw a large ugly crow going for the lower ( sanctuary) nest box and after it had gone shooed away by a pretty angry wee doo we saw that one of the latest eggs in the lower nest appeared to have hatched, this will be named Voo Doo, sibling to Doo Doo should it hatch too ( named by the Lucian arm of the family, Doo Doo is the Lucian word for sweetheart). To be honest from what I could see Voo Doo did not appear to be moving and it was very small and I don't know if the crow had managed to crack the egg open or if it was coincidence that the egg had hatched just prior to the attack. All efforts to get a look at the baby today have failed.

Later in the day I spotted the crow back again so took a shot at it but missed . It has not come back though so maybe a pellet whizzing past its head was enough to scare it away.

Doo count possible 15 if little Voo Doo has survived.

Ladies in Laburnum

Despite doves not liking perching in trees ( according to the books) mine love it and not only do they love it but they enjoy pecking at the deadly laburnum flowers too!

This morning Sam and I ringed the latest babies, Wellard and Stillard ( Pink and Blue Rings) who will probably be in the nest for a couple more weeks as they are still being fed and have not yet developed their full adult feathers, still some wispy yellow feather around the neck areas.

The eggs are due to hatch this weekend and thereafter if any more are laid I will replace them with china eggs which arrived this week. The new dove cote should eventually arrive on Tuesday or Wednesday and then we will have enough shelter for all the doves. Dove count still 14 with 2 due this week and 2 more a week or so later.