Le Couvent Diary

 

 

We're in our fourth day of having our wonderful volunteers here. An unbelievable amount of work has been done and the vineyard looks an absolute picture. Twelve people working together can get a spectacular amount done. I'll leave our guests bloggers to write about that here .

Not only do they work in the vineyards clearing land and creating new areas, steps and pathways, they also prepare breakfast and dinner each day. The couple preparing dinner for the evening have the recipe and ingredients all ready for them, but for some cooking for up to 16 is a challenge. It's always the timing which is difficult when you're cooking in large quantities. That many spuds and onions take an age to peel, and more stuff in the oven takes longer to cook. But they're coping brilliantly with the stress and we've eaten like kings and queens. This evening we have lovely Andrew & Sarah (pictured above) preparing Boeuf Bourguinon. The recipe is available here .

 

Great, the volunteers are coming, so we'll get tons of jobs done in the vineyard. All we have to do is sit back and watch them work right? No, no and no. Volunteer week is the first time in the year when we re-open the house, so during the two weeks prior to the vollies arriving Ali and I have to get everything ready. Here's a rough breakdown of what that means.

Six bedrooms and their bathrooms are cleaned and aired, beds made up and towels, loo rolls and the like all in place. The big kitchen downstairs takes a day to clean. (We don't use it in the winter as we live in our apartment.) Menus, recipes and shopping lists are prepared for a week's worth of breakfasts, lunches and dinners for up to 16 people. The shopping takes two days. Gas bottles for the cooker and heaters are refilled. The boiler-man has been to service our workhorse that provides hot showers and underfloor central heating.

 

 

 

So far four of the seven lunchtime soups which will be served hot in the vineyard have been made and are sitting in a neighbour's freezer as ours are all choc-a-bloc. The tea, coffee and milk are in the vineyard caravan, Olive, ready for morning breaks. Ali has yet to go and buy the wine. 16 people x 7 evenings. So how much is that then?

 

 

 

Then there's the machinery. Queenie the quad's been serviced and her trailer has a new wheel after we melted the old one to extinction; the yellow muncher vineyard mower has had a new skirt and sharpened blade; the two heavy duty strimmers have been sharpened petrol-filled and oiled, eight pairs of loppers have been sharpened and oiled, as have four pairs of secateurs. Two axes have had the same treatment. Hoes have been tested and five new ones bought. The generator has been serviced. The van's been serviced. The ride-on mower has been serviced. Six containers of petrol and two stroke have been filled. Trees have been ordered.

 

 

 

Yesterday I serviced the chainsaw. It had stopped working and only when I took it apart did I realise a bit was missing. Three minutes of searching in the shingle where I'd last used it and I discovered the vital screw. So now that's sorted out. All the tools have been assembled ready to lob in the van, land-rover and trailers  - to be transported to the vineyard. 15 pairs of gardening gloves and extra protective gear are ready in a box.

Now we just have to sort out a bit of evening entertainment to keep the vollies amused, have haircuts (so it doesn't get caught in the chainsaw) and we're ready. Phew. Sometimes it feels as though we've already done the major part before the vollies arrive! Now just keep your fingers crossed that the weather picks up. It's warmed up quite a bit, but we're having rotten rainstorms and we need brilliant sunshine to keep us all happy. It would be great if it shone on our parade.

Our Christmas ham looks and tastes so delicious I thought I'd share my recipe. It's an amalgamation of many other recipes, so I take no credit for it.

 

 

Ingredients
1 x 4.2kg smoked gammon on the bone (ours was from Sainsbury's in Brighton, via the cross-channel ferry and a long drive)
1 large carrot, peeled
1 leek, trimmed
2 sticks celery, cut into four
1 cinnamon stick
1 tsp peppercorns
1 tsp coriander seeds
2 bay leaves
1 litre dry cider

about 40 whole cloves for studding

for the glaze
3 tbsp honey
3 tbsp mustard
100ml dry cider

1. Soak the gammon overnight in cold water and ditch the water the next morning. This gets rid of the excess salt.

2. Place the gammon in a large pan and cover with the all the ingredients in the first list and top up with water. Cover with a lid and simmer for 2 ½ hours, until the meat is tender.

3. Remove from the liquid and leave it to cool a bit. Carefully cut the skin off the ham, making sure to leave the fat on. Criss-cross the fat with a sharp knife and put a clove in each square. Preheat the oven to 220C/gas 7.

4. For the glaze, warm the honey, mustard and cider in a pan and boil the mixture carefully until it thickens to a treacle-like consistency. If it isn't thick enough to glaze it will all run off into the bottom of the pan and turn to tar so black you'll never get it off. Place the ham in a roasting tin and spoon the glaze over the ham fat. Bake for 20 minutes. Don't be tempted to bake it any longer or the ham will become dry.

Tip: If the pan is difficult to clean afterwards, put an inch or so of water in it and put it on the cooker. Keep a gentle heat and stir - all the sticky bits will melt off leaving the pan clean.

This ham is so delicious it's worth doing it for a special lunch any time of the year.

Happy Christmas to you and all the ones you love.

Lizzie & Ali xx

A further update for fans of Darling the hen, who's becoming a big-chested beauty. She's getting all the best of the table scraps and provides endless entertainment just outside the kitchen door. Unlike our other bully-hens, she's also still laying, despite freezing temperatures and very short daylight hours.

 

The dogs are loving the underfloor central heating and spend entire days stretched out on the kitchen floor. 

 

The tree still has it's baubles as the cat's way too fat to consider knocking them off.

 

 

 

 

The entertainment season is well underway and this household is getting through industrial quantities of mince pies. The gammon arrived safely from the UK and is currently bubbling away in cider, along with leeks, carrots, peppercorns and celery before I roast it in a honey and cider glaze. I'm hoping it will be as delicious as yesterday's wonderful rib of beef.

 

We have two broody hens at the moment and broody hens don't lay. With nine hens in total that leaves seven potential layers. We have eight guests staying today and boiled eggs are a favourite, so at their laying best the hens are struggling to keep up.

Some guests take matters into their own hands. I came down to prepare breakfast this morning to find two eggs 'bagged'.

 

 

This is a dilemma because I can't bring myself to buy eggs when our hens lay the best in the world- it feels disloyal to the hens and it misses the point. I'll just have to serve boiled eggs on alternate days. Or pray the broody girls see the pointlessness of their nest-squatting given that we don't have a cockerel. Otherwise we have a wait of up to three weeks.

In preparation for the new season I've been making jam.  We get through lots during the summer - just delicious on hot croissants at breakfast. This week I've been making strawberry and mint. I thought I'd invented the recipe until my pal Alex dismissed my imagined imagination with the phrase "Oh, you've copied L'Entrepots in Pezenas - they serve it there"  Actually, I didn't, but I'm relieved to know such a fab restaurant also thought it worth experimenting a bit.

 

 

 Always on the lookout for smart gizmos, my eyes fell upon this little beauty. 

 

 

In case you are on the lookout for one of these 'what on God's good earth can it be' they are on sale at Lidl later this week.

Captions please.

Wow, it seems ages since I last wrote a post. Meanwhile Ali's been to Western Australia to see her family - and I took the opportunity to organise a couple of surprises for her return. We have a friend who says I move the house three inches when Ali's away, but this time I managed 4 metres. Yep, the bridge between the convent and the garden has finally been constructed, some three years after we first thought about it. It is just wonderful to be able to walk from our apartment straight to the garden. We're both thrilled. Huge thanks to the Welder-Beast and Teddy.

 

 

The second surprise has been installed in the vineyard and is a real treat. Whenever we have a bit of time during the closed season Ali and I camp in the mazet (Chateau Malaudos ). But, to be frank, sleeping on a stone slab has quickly lost its appeal. So I've bought an ancient caravan to keep hidden in amongst the olive trees. She's 25 years old - at least - and we've painted her the colour of the surrounding foliage and soil. So now she's called Olive. Best of all she has comfortable beds and a gas cooker. I love having the open fire beside the mazet, but it's a fag to light a big fire when all you need is a quick coffee whilst working on the vines.

There's nothing better than breakfast in the middle of a vineyard in the warm sunshine of a March morning. Can you smell the bacon?

 

 

 

 

On Thursday we returned home to Le Couvent, the best B&B in the Languedoc (shameless plug), to find vast bag full of wild asparagus on the doorstep. Our kind neighbours over the road had been out foraging and had left them for us as a thanks for some eggs we'd left on their doorstep. Oooh, they are sooo delicious. We had lots gently steamed with a smoked salmon bake the other evening and I made a couple of Wild Asparagus and Cheddar quiches for the freezer - using our hens' wonderful eggs of course.

 

 

 

 

 

Cooking has been made even more pleasurable this week as the lovely Teddy made me a new chopping board.

 

 

 

 

I'm sure he'd make you one too if you like. Just let me know what size and I'll ask him.

In the evenings we can now hear the Scops Owl doing its impression of a car alarm and I've seen my first Hoopoe of the season. Ali and I both have agricultural tans from pottering about in the vineyard kitchen garden and the temperature hovers around 21 during the day. So Spring has definitely sprung.

This morning I went to feed the hens, one of whom seemed to be missing. I found her crouching under one of the hen-houses, sitting on a disappointing clutch of 24 previously unnoticed eggs. Disappointing? Yes, because if I break and sniff them all I can't possibly get through 2 dozen on my own, and how can I give them away when I don't know which are the freshest?

 

 

I'm going to crack enough to make the dogs an omelette each then ditch the rest. If you have any better ideas you have until the end of today to let me know - after that the eggs are for the chop.

We're now into our second week of volunteers and I thought I'd drop in a quick word between all our guest bloggers. If you'd like to see what they've been doing you'll need to have a look at their diary .

When Ali and I bought the vineyard we've named Chateau Malaudos we thought it was beautiful. Abandoned for at least three years, it looked tired and neglected, but you could see those high cheekbones and exquisite structure nevertheless. However, we had no idea what a sleeping beauty the land really was until our volunteers started work. They've lifted off the dead skin, plucked her eyebrows, removed the blemishes, pulled the hairs from her chin, moisturised and given her some beautiful earrings. She has had a stunning new haircut and, needing no clothes, has revealed the body of a goddess. I think we're all thrilled at the revelation brought about by the volunteers and their fantastic work. Ali and I certainly don't have words enough to express our thanks adequately.

Each day two of our volunteers were responsible for preparing breakfast and dinner. For many this was the first time they had cooked for more than four - we were frequently at least 12 at the table.

 

 

Someone was always responsible for ensuring the dogs didn't get too stressed. 

 

So many excellent meals demanded hefty work to burn off the calories.

 

 

 

And when the volunteers had had enough of one job there were plenty of tools ready to start the next one.

 

 

But it hasn't been all work. On Saturday afternoon we all had a go at archery. It wasn't a wild success in the scoring department, although a couple of us did finally hit the target. Everyone seemed to enjoy the experience nevertheless.

 

 

 

 

Ali and I realised a long held plan when the first week's team painted a quotation from 14th century anchorite Dame Julian of Norwich on the wall of Le Couvent. It reads 'all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well'.

We have just two more working days to go and our list has been well bitten into. Today is a day of rest and our current team has gone off to explore; some to the Mediterranean coast, others to St Guilhem le Desert, and one couple are travelling about chewing over the notion of finding a second home here. Meanwhile Ali and I catch up on e-mails, clean up our neglected apartment and plan her forthcoming trip to see her family in Australia. It's been an extraordinary two weeks.

Despite the wild boar gouging big holes in our vineyard, we haven't killed them, so this recipe uses pork. It's going to sound like a lot of faffing about, but it really is worth it.

I used two rolled loins of pork for 11 people.  We only got through one at lunch, but that was because several of the guests were French (extras showed up). If we'd all been English we'd have scoffed the lot.

Ingredients - for about 8 people

2 kg pork loin, rolled and tied
1 bottle chunky Languedoc red wine (at least)
1 glass armagnac or cognac
1.5 cups olive oil
10 juniper berries
10 peppercorns
2  sprigs fresh thyme
5 cloves
1 bay leaf
4 good pinches salt
6 onions
2 shallots
Flour
Butter

Preheat the oven to 170 degrees.

Squeeze the pork into a non-metallic container small enough to get in your fridge. Pour over enough red wine and armagnac to cover the pork.  Add 1 cup of olive oil, juniper berries, cloves, bay leaf, thyme, peppercorns and salt. Turn the pork. Leave it in the fridge for three days, turning the pork two or three times a day.

At the end of three days it should look like one of these:

 

Take the pork out and dry it with some kitchen towel. Save the marinade. Put half a cup of olive oil and some butter in a roasting pan. Put the pan on the top of your cooker and sear the pork on all sides to seal the meat. Don't burn it.

Remove the pork, pour the fat only from the pan (leaving the bits). Put the onions and shallots in the bottom of the pan then replace the pork on top. Strain the marinade reserving the juice and ditching the rest. Pour a cup of the marinade over the pork and put it in the oven for about an hour and a half. Baste the pork every 30 minutes, using more of the reserved marinade if necessary so the pork is never dry.

Just before the pork is ready put the remaining marinade in a separate saucepan. Boil it until it has reduced by half. Take the pork and onions from the oven and put on a hot dish, covered, to rest while you make the sauce. To the roasting pan chuck in 50 grams-ish of butter and a soup spoon of flour. Mix it well while adding the reduced marinade. Scrape all the delicious bits off the bottom of the pan so they integrate with the sauce. Cook the sauce for about three minutes then strain it into a jug.

We served the pork with braised celery, roast potatoes and sweet potatoes, carrots and spinach. It was succulent, tender and delicious and worth a bit of forward-planning.

 

We're a bit behind with things. Not to be outdone by everyone else in the western world, Ali and I got the rotten colds the second Christmas was over. Dammit. This put paid to serious vine-pruning, gardening, sorting out general chaos - indeed anything that involved standing upright. But we're back, and on splendid form.

Today we have a heap of friends coming to lunch.  We'll be two Swiss, one Catalonian, two French, four English and Ali, who is Irish/Scottish/Malaysian. So, of course, we'll speak French - the first language of just two of us. I'm trying a recipe for sanglier, only I haven't got any wild boar, so I'm substituting pork. I'll let you know how it goes - and the recipe if it works. It uses heaps of red wine in honour of the five wine-makers who'll be eating with us. I'm daring to ask them to taste our new wine from last year's fated harvest. Yesterday our pal Rosemary George, Master of Wine and expert on Languedoc wine , tasted it and, very kindly, didn't choke. She was even rather kind and encouraging about it. Thank you

No doubt you'll have seen that France, like the UK, has been covered in a blanket of snow for days now. We, here in the south, have had more of a thin veil for just one day. The rest of the time it's just been absolutely freeeezing. Despite our colds, we've spent a fair amount of time chainsawing dead peach trees for firewood. When we bought our vineyard we inherited a once-upon-a-time orchard. After three years of complete abandonment many of the trees had withered and died. I've rescued quite a number, but those past it are now filling Le Couvent with the delicious scent of peach-wood.

Our recycling scheme is going well. As fast as new stuff appears on the website someone claims it. Recent good giveaways have a been a brand new skinny Mac keyboard, a swimming pool roller and cover, 22 bottles of white wine, a pair of designer shoes, two pairs of leather trousers, two sunbeds, champagne glasses and lots more. If you're reading this locally do take a look at C'est Gratuit . There are loads of things being given away - free - for nothing. At the moment there are some great Ikea wardrobes and an Ercol dining table up for grabs. Do take a look.

The new hens have settled in famously and are fast gaining on the big girls. Anyone who's been to Le Couvent will know that our hens are absolutely enormous, living on a summer diet of croissant, pain au chocolat, pain au raisin and anything else left from breakfast. This time of year sees bags of leftovers hanging on the gates of Le Couvent from our neighbours. From time to time their kindness is rewarded with some fresh, orange yolked eggs. The perfect exchange.

As previous visitors to Le Couvent know, we have wonderful hens. They burble away gently and lay us and our guests delicious eggs. We like to think of them like this:

 

 

 

However, there's a new kid on the block who belongs to our sideways neighbour. A cockerel. Not on our block exactly and we can't hear him that well. But for our good pal and upper neighbour Yvonne he's something of a nightmare. At 5 in the morning he's rather more like this:

 

 

If you only want to eat the eggs what use is a cockerel? Don't give me all that "they're really handsome" rubbish. They're just a pain in the ear, bullies in the hen yard, and should be kept well away from the centre of villages.  Or cooked. With lemon and garlic.

 

Hey, you remember me telling you about the fantastic day we all spent learning to blend wines at Domaine Bourdic ? Well they're doing another one on August 10th - it's a Sunday - and I can't recommend this tooooooo highly. It was truly memorable day and if you have nothing planned you really should consider it.

 

 
If you're one of the eight lucky people booked into Le Couvent that weekend we can make the arrangements on your behalf - just let us know that you'd like to do it.

 

Meanwhile, the sun continues to shine hot and bright here in the Languedoc. The first of our grapes are ripening - a bunch even appeared on the breakfast table this morning. Mmmm, sweet and gorgeous and there are still at least six weeks to go to harvest time. We're going to make some wine from our own vines for the first time this year. In preparation I've bought two 1000 litre wine tanks and only now, as they are being slung onto the transporter, do I realise that they won't fit in through the door, nor windows, of the space I'd intended to put them. How come we live in the only house in Roujan with no wine-making facilities. What were the nuns thinking of?

And for those who've asked, the diet is going very badly. It's now a month of being absolutely rigorous & a fully fledged member of Slimming World's online thingy, yet I have managed to lose a measly four pounds. I'm still optimistic though and am quite sure that I'll miraculously lose five kilos overnight any time soon. Meanwhile Kit the dog is looking svelte as there are no longer stodgy left-overs and Ali makes up calories with wine, ice-cream, chocolate, crisps and biscuits when I've gone to bed. How depressing!

 

If you're free in February 2009 and you fancy a heap of hard work in exchange for free bed and board, we're running two Volunteer Weeks . We haven't done this before, but we have had some wildly successful volunteer weekends and now that we're in danger of using up the goodwill of our friends we're hoping to spread the net a little wider. Our friends tell us they have loved the weekends, so we hope you would too.  If you're interested follow the Volunteer link on the menu at the top of this page, or click here .

Ali's gone shopping thank God. That means I don't have to. Winding the windows down is the nearest we get to air-con in our ancient Freelander. It's around 36 today so inside or by the pool's the only place to be. So our guests decided to cycle around the countryside early this morning - how wise.

I'm on a diet so I spend hours trawling through recipe books for luscious things to cook for supper. Tonight we're on spiced chickpea cakes with red onion and coriander salad. If it's good I'll put it in the recipe book here. The diet's going well thanks to my mentor Rachel . Thanks hon!

The only fly in the ointment at the mo is the spider/bee in the potager that stung /bit me the other day. As a result I have a fat hand that is causing me some consternation as it's now three days later and it's still swollen. At least I have Jan the homeopath on the case & it is a little better today in that I'm not tempted to just cut it off to relieve the itching.

 

 

Since I last talked about the new restaurant up the hill at Vailhan, Le Presbytere , lots of guests and friends have been and all declare the food very good. Ali & I went again the other day too. The co-proprietaire Sylvia is a bit cool so the food and the view have to make up for the lack of dynamism, but they do it brilliantly. The view is unbeatable and the food tastes wonderful and looks like this:

 

 

Tempted? Go on a balmy night and sit out on the terrace.