Campfire cooking off grid & a goat curry recipe

April see's the last of the fire season...

April is over, I have been absent here for some weeks due to visiting family & then having zero motivation to write because I keep thinking what is the point, who wants to read my ramblings about life, does anybody care, should I care what anybody else thinks about me, is it all a vanity affair? Am I ADHD because I can focus on writing, have I lost my beginning of the year mojo. Then Marley's side of the family all came to visit & that took up 2 weeks of time which we did not get too much done, but it was such a lovely visit it was so nice to switch off for a moment & go into vacation mode somehow. Is this a good reason to stop writing though when I enjoy sharing it with you all. Also considering the fact that I may be having a mid 30’s crisis since it was my birthday month & I have turned 33…. some may say that is not yet mid 30’s but somehow the 3 3 number seems to be quite a big one. Friends of mine having babies & getting married, adolescence is gone, young adulthood has also gone, but I have some Peter Pan complex, I don’t want to grow up yet & I suppose I do not have to, but it is weird. I am rambling already….

Anyway, a little update of life on the homestead since the last time I posted. It is full Spring, almost Summer & the temperature is beginning to soar into the 30s. We have been busy strimming the grass as fire prevention, we have been cutting the evil mimosa trees that have entangled & strangled themselves amongst eachother & formed a blockade of dead wood on the border of our land, which needed clearing for years & we have FINALLY done it. We are so stoked on our new electric chainsaw, we spent years cutting wood by hand with branch saws or bow saws, we had pretty muscly shoulders & arms from doing this though I must say. We are having a tractor come to clear the land we cannot do by hand which will take a few hours over the next weekend & then hopefully it is just one more week of strimming until we can relax on the land clearing bit.

We did not expect or understand the level of work maintaining a property this size would actually be. We came here so young, so novice & with really big rose tinted glasses on…. The reality set in that first year though & while we take great pleasure in having the opportunity to take care of this land, to maintain it & to protect it as best we can for the future, it is damn exhausting, there is no hiding from that fact. Homesteading is certainly not taking the easy life route but we do really believe that once the house is built, we have a swimming pool & the necessary amenities in place to just enjoy the gardening & caring for some animals life will be incredibly blessed. Also reminding myself that the journey to this point is also a blessed one, we have escaped the concrete jungle & can live as relatively low key human beings.

I also recently re seasoned all of our cast iron cookware & it reminded me how much we love cooking this way.

Primitive cooking using the Portuguese fanela, cooking as our ancestors have done for generations is something that really drives a deep connection to the earth & to humanity for me. Minus the fact I have some epic spices that I use in my cooking I can imagine eras gone by where people sat in this spot doing the same thing, sharing food & laughter, watching the stars or the sun, even watching that epic mountain that we have as a constant backdrop to our lives.

The panela is a very traditional Portuguese cooking pot, at all the local festas & food events you will find food prepared this way over fire in the cast iron pot that has been seasoned from years of use.

We buy goat meat from a local couple in the village, it is such an under rated meat in my opinion, you rarely hear of goat recipes in the UK unless you are eating Jamaican food. In Portugal they cook with it a lot because most people have their own goats, but they often roast it in the oven. I love Portuguese recipes but this is our favourite way to eat it so I figured I would share it with you.

GOAT CURRY RECIPE

1kg goat meat marinated in curry powder & mustard overnight

500g potatoes

4 bay leaves

500g tin of chopped tomatoes & 1.5 litre stock

3 onions sliced, 1 bulb garlic crushed

3 TBSP all spice berries, 2 TBSP cinnamon, 2 TBSP fresh thyme

1 - fry off onions & garlic

2 - brown the meat

3 - add spices, tomatoes, herbs, bay leaf & stock

4 - let cook for 1 hour ( move the pot so it is not super hot, you don’t want it to be boiling, just simmering gently )

5 - add potatoes & salt & pepper to your taste. Cook for another hour.

6 - voila! enjoy!

Let me know if you decide to give this rustic campfire cooking a go, I would love to hear from you!

Until next time dear friends :D it won’t be so long

Jaymie xo