Lincolnshire sausages

I've a superabundance of sage & a sausage stuffer.
So Lincolnshires (or as they are known in our house hippopotamus & duckweed). Its a simple recipe (though you need to tone down the pepper)

1kg pork shoulder
200g breadcrumbs
15g pepper
15g salt
50g fresh sage

That's a lot of fresh sage: look

the next 10 grammes, pretty much obscured the scales to the extent that it wasn't worth photographing them.

The sage, bread, salt & pepper went into the minichop & got blitzed up into a homogeneous mass of "filler". Meanwhile the pork gets chopped into rough cubes & gets fed through the mincer on a medium plate. Mix the whole lot together (get your hands in and get it evenly distributed). I then put the whole lot in the fridge for a couple of hours, even though this isn't an emulsified sausage it's probably a good idea to let the meat rest. Then its out with the stuffer. This time we tried the more orthodox stuff a large ring & then twist technique, which didn't really work out for us so we went back to stuff & twist.

Lincolnshire sausages aren't really a breakfast sausage, you want a banger or a pure pork sausage for that. The over pepperiness of these was a bit of a challenge, but using them in a nice warming sausage casserole seemed to find them a perfect home.

Lavender Lamb

I have a pretty small garden, with not even enough room for the number of roses I'd like to grow, so I appreciate multi-purpose plants, lavender fits this quite nicely. It can be used for more than toiletries though.

First get a leg (or part leg) of lamb, size depends on the number of people you want to feed (800g will feed 3 adults), then get it butterflied. You can do that yourself if you have the knives & the skill, but a decent butcher will do for you as part of buying the meat.

Next you'll need some lavender, you just want the flowers and since they are currently in bloom use fresh ones, you need a handful (if you have to use dried, they are more intense, so halve the amount), a couple of sprigs of rosemary and 4-5 garlic gloves. Grind it together with some pepper & salt and then add a dash of olive oil to bind it. Coat the lamb & leave it for a couple of hours.

You'll want a fairly hot BBQ/Grill. The lamb wants 10-15 minutes a side, I'm using a meat thermometer & its set at 65c which is the bottom end of well done. Normally I'd have lamb rarer than that, but I was cooking for a couple of other people that wanted/needed it well done. Once you time has elapsed or your chosen internal temperature is reached then take the lamb off & let it rest. It will produce a reasonable amount of juices, which can be used for sauce/stock/gravy. Most of the herb crust will have charred, so you can scrape that off, it's job is done now. Slice and serve

The lavender is quite a delicate flavour, which comes as a bit of a shock after the grinding (which can make your kitchen smell like a natural trust gift shop) and really complements the lamb well.

A little gardening

I have a garden, it is quite small. If I had my way, it'd be quite large, part of it would be for the growing of roses, part would be for sitting out (BBQing & the like), and part would be for fruit & veg.

I don't have that though, so I have to creatively squeeze things into the space I do have, this means herbs in pots, strawberries & tomatoes in hanging baskets and a couple of multi-purpose plants around the roses(*).

The multi-purpose plants are currently nasturtiums and lavender. Nasturtiums are quite cool, they grow like blazes, the flowers are both cheerful & edible, and the leaves make a spicy addition to a salad (think rocket/cilantro). The lavender is a shade odder. Of course you can harvest the flowers to use in bath salts, herb sachets, pillows and other asstd smelly/aromatherapy uses, but you can cook with them too.

The first trial was a lavender syrup (simple syrup, 2 sugar, 1 water plus a couple of tsp lavender flowers). This added to a standard gin martini, makes a really relaxing summer drink. An attempt at lavender shortcake followed, andwhilst it was ok wasn't quite right.

The internet provided a recipe for lavender loaf cake, a bit of reading around & jiggling quantities & ingredients, making a lavendar infused honey drizzle (2 tsp honey, 4 tsp water, 3 dashes lavender syrup. Heat till free flowing drizzle of loaf as soon as it comes out of the oven). Its a winner, the cake is moist enough to withstand the loaf form and the flavour of lavender is not overpowering.

Now what to do with the abundance of Sage ?

(*)The roses are non-negotiable.