Ben was delighted to join Chris Mann on BBC radio Cambridgeshire this beautiful January Monday morning!

“What recipe shall I take to show Chris?” Ben thought aloud. And we both chorused “slow cooked Chilli”! Decision made. In our house we love the richness and intense flavour you get from using stewing steak and cooking your Chilli all day. Ben has really hit a winner with this one though, by using sauce shop Sriracha sauce instead of fresh Chilli, and Osso Bucco for the beef. Osso Bucco, or beef shin on the bone, is really gaining in popularity these days. Anything on the bone adds more flavour, especially if you are cooking it low and slow, and especially if it is grass fed, free range, pedigree Dexter beef, matured for 21 days. You’re in for a treat Chris!

Serves 4

Ingredients:

4 Osso Bucco chops

3 cloves Garlic

1 onion

1 shallot

1 sprig rosemary

Sauce shop Sriracha sauce

Sea salt

Pepper

Rapeseed oil

Splash red wine

Large jar passata

1 tin chopped tomatoes

1 tin red haricot beans (we use Hodmedods)

Method:

1. Marinade the beef! Season the beef well. Spread about half a jar of Sriracha sauce over both sides of the beef, along with the rosemary and top with the crushed garlic. Put it all in the fridge overnight.

2. Remove the beef from the marinating pot, and sear on both sides in a pan over a medium to high heat, with rapeseed oil. When nicely browned put into a large casserole dish.

3. In the same pan fry the sliced onion and shallot with any of the marinating sauce that’s left. You may need a splash more oil. Add this to the casserole dish.

4. Add in a splash of red wine to cover the bottom of the dish.

5. Add in the passata, chopped tomatoes and the beans and put in the oven on about 100 degrees all day, or at least 6 hours.

You may need to check periodically and add a little more water if it’s getting too think! This will also work brilliantly in a slow cooker. Don’t forget to remove the bones to serve, and I would devour with brown rice, but it could also be a good accompaniment to a baked sweet potato or creamy masked potato. I’m a little miffed because my house smells lovely yet the food has disappeared off to radio cambridge! Enjoy Ben and Chris!

I love to involve my little ones in cooking. Well it’s more of a love/hate relationship to be honest! I love the result of what they learn from helping to cook, but the process itself can be a little stressful! For this reason they are not allowed in the bakery! So I try to make sure I do a bit of fun baking in our home kitchen with them, to keep them interested with a bit of indulgent cooking that isn’t just them helping to stir the dinner!

The only problem is sugar. It’s so easy for kids to eat tonnes of sugar, and mine are no exception. So if we are baking together I don’t want it to turn into another reason for them to overload on sugar. I want them to be able to tuck into what they have made!

Our quinoa bars are always a favourite, I’ve blogged the recipe for these before. But when looking for something else, a lovely customer in our Facebook recipe exchange group suggested banana & oat cookies. They are no added sugar, or very low sugar depending on what you add to them. So what else can you do on a snowy cold January weekend than give them a go.

The base of the cookies is literally banana and oats and then you can leave them plain or add whatever you fancy. We added meridian peanut butter (made with just peanuts, nothing else!) and a sprinkling of montezuma’s organic dark chocolate chips. I did add a splash of honey too. So they are not ‘no sugar’ but natural sugar.

The results? Both children happy! Daddy was happy to get home and try one. Mummy was happy that there was minimum cleaning up afterwards. And a cookie helped get that done!

So here’s what went into them…

3 small ripe bananas

2 cups of oats (I know, we are English, but it’s so much easier to measure in cups with children)

Half a tbsp honey

1.5-2 tbsp peanut butter

Half a cup of dark chocolate

How we made them delicious…

Mash the bananas. This created MUCH fun and they were more pulverised than mashed. Add the oats and stir in. It should have a quite firm consistency now, if not sprinkle a few more oats in. Mix the peanut butter with the honey in a separate bowl. I do this to loosen the peanut butter up a little so it blends in easier. Mix the peanut butter and honey and the chocolate into the banana and oats. Roll into cookie shapes on a tray topped with baking parchment. We made them into balls, assuming they would cook and go flatter like other cookies do, but they didn’t spread out hardly at all so next time I’d make the batter into flatter disks before baking. They were more like little cakes than cookies as I didn’t flatten them! Cake-ies!

Our mixture made 14. They were quite big, as it was easier for the children to do (and my patience)! We baked them at 180 for about 12 minutes. Everyone enjoyed. I’ve been told they freeze well. I wish I could say I tested this, but you guessed it, they didn’t make it that far. But maybe next time…there will definitely be a next time!

A is for Avocados, just one of the fruits on our list

B is for Bread; organic, fresh, not to be missed

C is for Customers, for whom we deliver a feast

D is for Doves farm, selling flour and cereal and yeast

E is for Eco friendly, like the cleaning products we sell

F is for Freshly roasted coffee beans, to stop early morning hell

G is for Granola, showing us what local really means

H is for Hodmedods, British grown grains, pulses and beans

I is for Italian; pastas, infusions and oils

J is for Jams & preserves, the enjoyment never spoils

K is for Ketchup, without it measures get drastic

L is for loose vegetables, because why do we need so much plastic?

M is for My Bakery, where I hear ‘more lemon drizzle please?’

N is for Neneview; from whom we source local and yummy goats cheese

O if for Olives, perfectly marinated by Silver & Green

P is for Peanut butter; so tasty pure and clean

Q is for Quickly delivered to your door, packed carefully for no harm

R HAS to be for Radmore, where it all started at our own lovely farm

S is for Snacks; crisps, bars, chocolates and nuts as well

T is for Tigernut, just one of the range of dairy free milks we sell

U is for Unbelievable…we’re about to start stocking fresh fish

V is for Vouchers codes which we send out so that you can spend how you wish

“Code ‘JAN18’ gets you 10% off in January when you shop online”

W is for Why not? Give us a go for you shopping or even an office treat day?

X is for X-tremely easy, choose a time slot and PayPal makes it easy to pay

Y Is for Your feedback, if we don’t hear from you, you will be missed

Z is for Zonked, how I feel after writing this list!

When I was young I’d hear it said, time and time again,

‘Farmers are always complaining’, they’d say, without any hint of refrain,

‘The weathers wrong, no time off, it simply doesn’t pay’,

‘Does anything ever go right for you?’ They’d very often say

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As I grew up, I though it unfair, I loved the life outside,

But sometimes when the times were tough I found it better to hide,

‘Everyone complains about their job’ I’d think, when they had a really tough spell,

‘But if I speak up I’ll get tarred with the brush of moaning farmer hell’!

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So smile on face I’d carry on, everything was great,

Even on those long long days when 2am stopped feeling late!

‘We love the hard work, we live for it, I wouldn’t have it another way’,

When at home the washings mounting up, next to bills we cannot pay!

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Now I’m grown with kids of my own my view begins to alter,

Isn’t it better I tell the truth, and that my love for it still doesn’t falter?!

Through all the stress, and all the hours and the heartbreak along the way,

I wouldn’t ever do anything else, not for one single solitary day!

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Not just to the farmers, this goes out to all of those who try,

To make a living being their very own boss, even when cost is high,

Our heroes that run their own small businesses, through doubt and stress and pain,

Through solitary days, and worry without ever wanting to complain.

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For those whose kitchen table is an office, whose holidays disappear,

For all those kids that hear ‘not now darling, maybe tomorrow, or next year’,

I’d really like you to complain about it more, because it really shows you care,

That through it all, you love what you do MORE, and that’s why…you’re still there!!

From Vicky,

P.S Keep smiling all the individuals and small businesses that keep the rich tapestry of our local economy going! And it doesn’t hurt to speak up about times being tough, and it not always being a bed of roses, it makes us appreciate the job you do more! January is tough but you are tougher!!

A couple of things happened to me today that made me stop and think!

1. I saw that cadburys are launching a white chocolate creme egg and if you find one you win a prize

2. I really craved vegetables

Why did these 2 things make me think, and how are they related? Well when I was younger I loved creme eggs! I could have eaten loads! I’ve enjoyed them less and less as I’ve grown up to the point that I don’t eat them now. And when I saw that picture today I felt actually really adverse to it! As for vegetables, I didn’t really eat them and I definitely didn’t enjoy them as a child. I liked peas, and maybe carrots. And I tolerated other things because I knew I should eat them. Now I genuinely love vegetables, in all colours and varieties. I’ve not been eating my usual diet over Christmas, and today I needed some colour again.

So this got my thinking, well it confirmed something I knew anyway really. If my children don’t like their vegetables and if I get sick of hearing them ask for ANOTHER chocolate coin, they are not necessarily always going to want to eat like this. So I’ll carry on giving them the skills to know how to cook, and setting a good example, and I’m sure one day they will come round to it! So more important than getting my diet back to normal in January, I’m going to get the boys cooking with me again. It’s easy to skip over these things when it’s busy, but I need to remember how important it is! I’m not one for New Years resolutions, but this has to come close!