Country Life

Country Life:

I come from a Farm outside of Wagga Wagga. My boys love to visit Nanny and Pa and work on the farm in the school holidays in fact we all do. This is a snapshot of a day on the farm.

Breakfast is always hearty due to the amount of work that needs to be done and we burn a mighty amount of calories. Our favourite breakfast is bacon, eggs, sautéed mushrooms, thickly cut toast with lashings of butter and homemade jam, washed down with hot tea and the occasional croissant. Yum!

Sautéed Mushrooms

Mushrooms

Garlic

Olive oil

Fresh herbs (such as rosemary, parsley, thyme or whatever you have, I mostly use rosemary and parsley as we always have it on hand)

Lots of ground black pepper and salt to season

Put it all in a hot pan and cook til mushrooms are golden and serve. Great with a steak too.

This is breakfast!

Into the truck and off to work - this is the favourite part of the day for the boys. Rounding up the sheep and putting them in the yards ready for the shearer to do his work. Then off to the shearing sheds to assist our shearer by collecting up all the wool and placing it into the bins for grading. It’s greasy, dirty work, but being boys they love it. It kills my back, working in the shearing sheds and I have had the unfortunate experience of falling into the bin of fresh wool, which left me very smelly and greasy, so I am always happy to escape and prepare the scones for afternoon tea.

Shearing is incredibly hard work. I tried and failed. My husband Chris loves it and cannot believe in his wildest dreams that I come from a farm. I think its those boots with heel's that let me down!

Eddie my youngest tries very hard at pushing up the sheep for Pa to drench. As you can see it is hard work for a little boy, he's having a sit down but not for long if Pa has anything to do with it." Hurry up Eddie no sitting down on the job".

Scones

2 cups of self raising flour (can be made gluten free, I use White Wings gluten free flour)

Pinch salt

60g butter at room temperature

¾ cup milk

Method:

Preheat oven 200C

Sift all dry ingredients together, add butter and rub in with your fingertips.

Add ½ cup of milk and cut into mixture with a knife, add more milk if necessary, knead very lightly for 30 seconds. You can also do this very quickly in a food processor, pulse to crumbs, and then add milk through feed shoot. Remove knead briefly and gently til smooth.

Roll out to 1.5cm thick and using a scone cutter or a glass if you don’t have one, cut and place on a baking tray lined with paper and bake for 10-12 minutes.

Tip, when placing scones on tray place them close together as they help each other rise.

Serve warm with lashings of jam whipped cream and the good old country favourite of piping hot tea.

I love to set the table even for afternoon tea, the shearers love the special treatment.

  

I have a friend who makes her scones with a can of lemonade, do you have a recipe you'd like to share with us? 

I hope you have enjoyed a look at country life.

Jo