It's been ‘a lot’…

MANY things have happened. Some happened at once, others in brief intervals between one thing and another, and things keep happening still.

Things happening is good and bad. When the thing happens where I have had too much sugar to focus on working or blogging all in a vain and stupid attempt to stay awake in order that I may work or blog, that is a bad thing happening. When the thing happens when you get food poisoning so bad you are down for three days that too is a bad thing. Eating out when you know you should be cooking your own food, tends to be a bad thing.

When the thing happens where you wake up after three days of being down and in bed with cramps and sore muscles and you wake up and flow into yourself again, scrub off all the sleep and read then you have turned a bad thing into a good thing. When you eat raw food for a week because you feel toxic and lousy, this is also a good thing.

When you stay awake until 2am to finish a company website’s copy and update contents, knowing that you’ll be sleeping late tomorrow and enjoying the camaraderie of a team of people, all in exhausted good cheer and high energy working together like cogs then you have turned a bad thing into a good thing, minus the midnight snacking involving chocolate – but then the jury is out on whether this is good or bad.

When you spend a week or two, perhaps more, in turmoil about whether you should move an old gelding close to the city so you may do horse things in your four days of work things, only to have him stabled three minutes from work with your friend’s horse – this is a good thing. I now have a city horse, he is happy as anything. He thrives on the traffic, the people and the fuss. I think this is good for him too.

When you purchase 16 1.5-meters-high round bales of good grass, that can only be loaded four at a time as opposed to the usual eight – and have it delivered to the farm where a herd of previously neglected, abused, or thrown away animals stand waiting happy, content and fed then you have done a good thing.

When you forget about dessert and remember a few lonely tins of apples, some puff pastry, cinnamon and brown sugar in your pantry, you have the makings of a very good thing indeed.

When your dog looks at you anxiously, waiting for the moment when you cover her with a blanket so that she may sleep during the long winter night, then you have turned bad cold weather into a good warm thing.

Sometimes it helps to group things into two very simple categories. Sometimes it helps to be less cerebral and more impulsive and to try and see all the good you manage to achieve, despite the bad things happening.

This is my living in spite of very long hours of tedious work, food poisoning, tough decisions, bad planning, winter in a summer body and the ever-constant struggle for good grass.

Last-minute pie, anyone?

Love always wins...

LOVE always wins, because love is patience and patience always wins. Patience, incidentally, is the cornerstone of my oxtail stew…well patience, wine and Bisto ;)

I don’t know if one can buy Bisto in the US and Canada, but it is an ancient cheat to help thicken and brown stews.  I say ancient, but the all-knowing Wikipedia says it has been around since 1908 [citation needed].

My old cheat 'Ahhh!' indeed.

To cook my oxtail stew I stubbornly refuse to use a pressure cooker – not because of any logical reason though, it is just one of those things that I inherently mistrust, like alcohol-free beer. What you really need for the perfect stew is a lot of patience.

It also helps having:

Red Wine – Cabernet Sauvignon, if possible – avoid sweet wine.

Six good quality beers

3-4 lovely carrots

1kg of oxtail

1 and a half large brown onions

Herbs to taste – I like oregano, rosemary and thyme

Two tins of whole peeled tomatoes

A good stock – I use Bisto

Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

*optional: a teaspoon of garlic, which you fry off with the onions at the very beginning.

Open a bottle of good chilled beer and start drinking it. We grow our own onions, which are so strong that they could potentially be weaponised. For 1kg of fresh oxtail I use one and a half of these diabolical brown onions. Big ones, if we have. I finely chop these and brown them in a large pot with about two healthy glugs of olive oil. I season the meat well with salt and black pepper before adding it to the onions. Brown the meat thoroughly. When the meat is properly browned I add two tins of whole peeled tomatoes and herbs. We also grow our own herbs and I like adding oregano, rosemary and thyme - I am quite liberal with my herbs.  I then stir the lot and let that simmer for about ten minutes before adding about one big glass of red wine, whereupon I close the lid of the pot and let it simmer. At this point I usually like opening a second good beer, and making a start of drinking that. In a lovely old beer mug I mix the stock (Bisto, if you can find it). Two to three heaped tablespoons of stock powder to about 500ml of boiling water. Mix that well and add it to the pot.  Let the whole lot simmer on a lower heat stirring occasionally, to decrease cooking time marginally and to tenderise the meat well, keep the lid closed as much as possible.

If you want veggies in the stew, lovely sweet carrots work well. Cut the carrots into discs, not too thin, and add them about two hours into the process. We also, occasionally, add button mushrooms whole. Open your third beer and start drinking that.

The entire process takes about four hours of cooking, or until the meat is well soft. Oxtail stew is well soft when you can nudge the meat of the bone with no effort.  One can supplement the liquid in the pot with more stock or simply water. Make sure that the rest of your beers remain chilled and, in the company of friends, take a swig occasionally while keeping an eye on your pot.

I shamelessly pilfered this off the internet, my stew is a lot darker and therefore less pretty :)