ROCKY BIT THE BURGLAR.. I BIT BUB..

It wasn't my finest hour but it certainly was Rocky's, that's for sure! Because having being bitten by Rocky, the burglar bled all over the house and the cops 'got' him the very next day 'cos they entered his blood into the database and lookielookie, there was a match, the blood belonged to a very naughty serial burglar!

I, unfortunately, bit BUB when we first met 'cos I had the thought, very unwisely, of impressing upon him who was 'boss' around here. I know, how stupid can a small, red arsed parrot be? The answer, Dear Readers, is very.

I don't have any exciting news to give you. But one bit is that Connie isn't coming to stay with us, she's having an operation which means that she has to spend time recuperating, not flying across from the USA to come and jaunt about with us for ten days.. sigh.. such a pity.

For not only were we looking forward to seeing her, but that would have FORCED She Who Prefers to Garden to sort out the back room, you notice I don't use the word sittingroom!

That's a good 'joke'! For you can't sit anywhere on anything in that room, except perhaps on one small corner of a trunk, one of three, as everything is piled high on anything that could possibly be called a chair or a sofa!

Whose laughing? Not her, for she's mightily fed up with the chaos in that room and she's just realised, oh lordy, that Autumn is a'coming and that we do have another guest coming, who will be here for sure, in September and that it's time she got her act together and finished sorting it out.

My help or presence is not required and I am banished from perching on that door, sad that, for that door is old, wide and extremely comfortable to sit upon. So I 'lurk' on our bedroom door and utter piteous squeaks in the, unfortunately, vain hope that she'll allow me in there, I say vain as the carpet is off-white, she doesn't like me to sit there at any time if the truth were told, which as you well know, it always should be.

And now it is late.. the Pewsey crew are arriving tomorrow at midday to divest us of masses of stuff which we have collected for their grandchildren.. aka Poppie, Freddie and Charlotte, this is very good news for it will mean she no longer has the excuse about not being able to bring the trunks back into our bedroom. They live under our bed. The bed rests up high on a large sturdy wooden frame, built especially so that there is storage space underneath for trunks and boxes.

So it is bedtime, fear not, I'm actually quite tired and I won't be flying about the room playing the old game of catch-me-if-you-can. There's new yumyum and water in my night-house and I am quite content to go into it, shake my tail and say "Goodnight" to you all.

GeeGee Parrot.
August 11th, 2017.

MAKING LABNEH FROM HOMEMADE YOGURT USING RAW GOAT'S MILK..

There's great activity going on around here in the culinary department.. aka the YumYum HQ. For tasty apples and plums are literally dropping off her trees at the allotment and as we like eating our own fruit in the depths of winter, she bottling and freezing it as fast as she can!

It's a 'cracker' of a year for fruit! Our strawberries have been pretty much a 'waste' of space but as she planted them late in the season, she rather thinks it is her fault, not theirs!

But the apple trees! Wow and wow again! We have five apple trees and four of them, the oldest are creaking and groaning with a huge load of delicious fruit, this is despite her taking off several baby fruits to allow clusters of them to grow to a proper size, luckily, none of them are tip bearers! Two of the trees are carrying three different varieties which is a clever trick if you haven't got acres of room for lots of different trees.

And as for the plum trees! Her favourite plum tree is a yellow gage, she is a Reine Claude d'Ouillin, to give her her full name, which is absolutely covered in these scrumptious fruit from way up high to right down low! They start off green, the colour of jade, then go pale yellow and when they're fully ripened, they are a dark yellow with thin red 'veins' over the top!

The taste is unlike any other plum in the world and you know how mad she is about her Seneca Plums, luckily gages ripen later, so there's no having to chose which one she wants to eat! And it was a punnet of these golden girls which unlocked a Lebanese friend's heart and he made us a large pot (and gave her his recipe on how to make something which we both adore) of Labneh..

It's strained yogurt.. no more.. no less! BUT, to a Lebanese who lived in the Lebanon, or any other self respecting person from the Middle East, it must be made out of ewe or goat's yogurt. Yes, of course, you can make it out of cows milk but it won't taste the same and of course, she knows just where to get her hands on goaty yoghurt.. it's called 'make it yourself at home' out of Debbie's raw Goaty Milk.. from ELLIE'S DAIRY.. even better!

BUT WHATEVER YOU DO.. do not strain your yogurt through kitchen paper towel! It's got bleach in it.. ugh! Anyway.. back to making Labneh.. first make your yogurt!

You will need:
A litre of milk.
1/4 cup of yogurt.
A large glass jar, the big Kilner jars are perfect, it must be rinsed with hot water and dried & it must hold a litre of mlk with ease.. make sure that it fits into your fridge!
A large stainless steel saucepan.
A thermometer.
A stainless steel slotted spoon for stirring.
An oven with a pilot light or a warm place with a thick towel.

OR.. a yogurt maker!

Heat your milk to 180 degrees.
Turn off the heat and allow the temperature to drop to 115 degrees.
Add your 1/4 cup of yogurt and stir it well into the milk.
Pour the mixture into your glass jar.
Place in a warm place for at least 12 - 14 hours.
The longer you leave it, the thicker and stronger the taste will be.
Then refrigerate.

Having made your yogurt, now you make your labneh! Go and buy yourself a Cheesecloth, old fashioned muslin works well. If you're buying muslin, make sure you get a big enough piece! There are two ways of doing this, one is straining the yogurt in the fridge, the other is the old fashioned and in her opinion, the better way, it is quicker and the labneh is slightly 'dryer'.

The old fashioned way first.

You will need:
Your yoghurt, 2 kilos of yogurt generally makes 1kilo of labneh.
Salt.
GOOD olive oil.
The cheesecloth.
A sieve.
A large bowl to catch the whey (liquid).
An elastic band or cord.
A chain with a hook or a long piece of very strong string.
Something from which you can hang the cheesecloth from.. she hangs it from the pot rack which is directly above our stove.

Put the salt into your yogurt to taste.. everyone's tastes are different but it should be tasty not bland!
Put the cheesecloth into the sieve making sure that the corners of the cloth is lying over the edge of the sieve.
Pour the salted yogurt into the cloth lying in the sieve.
Gather up the four corners of the cheesecloth.
Taking opposite sides, make a little knot, this has to be secure, now do the other two corners
Holding them up, twist them together a little bit and just above where the yogurt is sitting, use an elastic band or tie a piece of string, this is to prevent any flies getting into the cheesecloth sack!
Place the drip bowl below where you are going to hang the yogurt.
Hang the cheesecloth sack up.
The whey will start to drip immediately.
The bowl must be large enough to catch and hold the whey but still check it so that it doesn't run / come over the edge.
She let's it hang for at least 24 hours.
When no more whey is dripping, open the cheesecloth and scrape all the labneh into glass jars.
Pack it down so that it is solid with no air pockets.
Smooth over the top and pour in olive oil to act as a sealant / preservative.

The newer way.. in the fridge.

You need all of the above except the elastic band, the chain.

Do exactly as above.
But instead of hanging the cheesecloth up, you place / fold the ends of the cloth over the yogurt.
Put the bowl with the yogurt in the sieve into the fridge,
As the cheesecloth is sifting in the sieve, the whey will take longer for the whey to come out and you must check the fridge frequently to make sure that the sieve isn't sitting in the whey! This method takes at least two days plus a few hours.. now you see why she let's gravity do it quicker for her!

YubbaDubba.. we have it on our boiled eggs in the morning with zataar, it's amazing on vegetables, as a spread, on meat.. straight out of the jar on a spoon! Who said that? Fancy telling everyone our strange habits.. whatever next?

I'm off.. for I know she's going to stew apples and I want those stalks..

GeeGee Parrot.
August 6th, 2017.