FAMILY WEDDING ON THE FARM
Published 27th June 2018
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The start of June saw us all busy for our first family wedding. Our eldest son Tom married his lovely fiance, Laura and we were all busy preparing one of our cattle sheds as the wedding reception venue. The cows had been turned out to grass, the shed "mucked out" and we had been busy painting the cattle shed walls, hanging up bunting and creating temporary walls out of stacks of straw and commercial potato crates - a proper farm wedding!
Tom and Laura wanted a very special wedding cake - one which reflected them and made with local ingredients so the natural choice just had to be one of Lincolnshire's very best bespoke cake designers - our friend www.catherineshawcakes.co.uk
The image on this month's blog title shows the 4 tier cake (a tier for each season of the farming year) so there's Spring with Laura's Belgian Blue cattle, Summer with Tom's JCB Fastrac tractor and baler with him busy baling straw, Autumn is cultivation time preparing the soil and sowing the seeds for next year's crop and showcases "Grandad's" vintage tractor and trailer (which were used as the "wedding car" for the bride and groom as they leave the church for the "cattle shed") and the bottom tier showed all the cattle indoors again at feeding time.
We couldn't think of a better person to create such a master piece and we can highly recommend her cakes - they are absolutely delicious! and a work of art!
Andrew was busy preparing the sheds for this year's harvest, and getting all the machinery ready for the team and I was busy with bookings at our holiday cottage www.fulbeckgardenscottage.com and delivering out our rapeseed oil. I also popped along to www.maxeysfarmshop.co.uk at Kirklington and treated Andrew and myself to some delicious green and red striped tomatoes and heritage tomatoes along with some of the biggest smoked garlic bulbs I've ever seen and a piece of Somerset Brie - they've some amazing foods there - you must take yourself off for a look. Linger and have lunch and a cold drink in their picnic area outside.
For tea I made this simple tomato salad:
Halve a selection of heritage tomatoes and scatter on a wooden serving platter. Next tear chunks of brie (British) and toss on top of the tomatoes, shred some lettuce and slice some of the cloves of smoked garlic and sprinkle on top of the tomatoes and brie. Next knock up a quick dressing of 3 tablespoons of our Ownsworth's rapeseed oil, a teaspoon of wholegrain mustard and a teaspoon of runny local honey and a dash of lemon juice and pinch of ground black pepper. Drizzle the dressing over the salad and eat with crusty local artisan bread.
Simple and delicious!
Wedding and honeymoon over - it's back to work and today Tom and Andrew have been busy making hay. It's important to make hay when the sun is shining - so sometimes the pressure is on, especially as it looks like harvest might be early this year - well we haven't had much rain recently and it has been rather hot!
