Through the Farm Wives Facebook group, I recently connected with Donya Donger and she told me about how Peacock Farm was created.
‘Lying in the heart of the Vale of Belvoir, Peacock Farm in Muston is where our young family live and work.’
‘Carrying on a family tradition that goes back five generations, my husband has always lived on the farm and worked the land. When I left my job to start our family, I quickly started thinking about all the great home-grown delights we could produce. So, I started pressing our rapeseed for oil, which proved great for cooking, as are the infused flavour varieties which we have created.’
‘I have been making homemade blackberry vinegar for years from my Grandmothers recipe when a friend suggested I sell it, 4 years down the line we are producing hundreds of bottles a year and now make raspberry vinegar as well.’
‘I currently have bee hives split between the home farm and the Langar wildflower farm, also in the Vale. Keeping bees is a fantastic hobby and I’ve learned so much – particularly just how important bees are to the environment.’
‘My favourite thing is that my three young children love getting involved. They help feed the chickens, press the seeds and watch me care for the bees.’
‘Each Christmas I offer hampers which not only showcase the best of Peacock Farm but also the finest food and drink from the area in the ‘Best of Belvoir’ hamper, as supporting other small businesses is important to me.’
‘I am so passionate about local produce and try and share my passion and knowledge in any way I can, I often do talks to local schools and we take part in the open farm Sunday.’
‘We supply 20 shops locally and have an honesty shop at the farm where people can come and collect items directly. This really took off during the first lockdown and we now sell other local products in the honesty shop as well.’
‘I love being involved with food and farming because we are making of use of everything around us from start to finish. We grow the rapeseed, the bees pollinate it, we press the rapeseed to make oil and we cook with it. The left-over rapeseed cake we make into briquettes which we burn on our log burner. We then process the honey from the bees.’
‘When the blackberries are in season, we pick them and make vinegars. The kids love being involved and I enjoy that I can work from home in perfect harmony with the arable side of the business.’
Here are a couple of recipes to try:
Toad in the Hole
8 sausages (Lincolnshire obviously!)
225g Plain Flour
4 eggs
250ml milk
British Cold Pressed Rapeseed oil
- Preheat Oven to 200
- Pour enough oil into the bottom of a long shallow dish to cover, arrange sausages and place in the oven for 10mins
- Whisk eggs flour and milk into a batter
- Pour batter over the sausages and bake for a further 35mins
- Serve with gravy and veg of choice
Tip: Left over Yorkshires are great with a bit of blackberry vinegar on!
Chewy Chocolate chunk cookies
2 eggs
295g brown sugar
1tsp vanilla essence
150g plain flour
110g Self Raising flour
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of Soda
125ml Cold pressed rape seed oil
120g Raisins
150g chocolate chips
- Beat the eggs and Sugar and extract for about 1 minute until light in colour
- Stir in sifted dry ingredients and then the rest of the ingredients. Cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour
- Preheat oven to 200°C/180°C fan forced. Grease oven trays.
- Roll heaped teaspoons of mixture into balls; place on trays apart to allow room to grow during cooking. Flatten into 6cm rounds.
- Bake for 10minutes, until lightly browned. Allow cookies to cool on trays before transferring to wire racks.
Store in an air tight container and they will last for 1 week. You can also add raisins or multiple chocolate chips to add more flavour!
https://www.peacockfarm-muston.com/recipes
