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Also see Brora in the Wikipedia Encyclopedia, showing its external links to this website.
A
small fruit and vegetable plot on a part of the land and croft owned
and operated by Keith and Lois Forbes.
It helps to meet the demand in Brora and East Sutherland for fresh, healthy, ethical, locally-produced food.
We live in a setting of natural ecological perfection: placid, calm, renovating to the soul; where - apart from local largely seasonal road traffic - peace and quiet reign, no horrible sound of motor bikes or quads racing across fields.
We began by providing fresh home grown produce for a middle aged couple one of whom is severely disabled by strokes – thus the great emphasis on wholesome nutritious food. Fresh, home-grown produce helps to improve the health and well-being of all, young and old.
The exercise and fresh air gained from manual digging – our form of horticultural therapy - provides further health benefits, as well as being a great stress-buster. We are both directly - and the only people - involved in the growing of the produce. We harvest it on an as-required basis in the growing season. Usually this means the same day a customer comes by wanting some.
We don't store harvested food (except for onions) because we know - and hope our customers know too - that the quality and vitamin content of fruit and vegetables begins to decline as soon as they are harvested, so for maximum quality we offer them freshly picked. We hope you will feel welcome to pop over to see this smallholding and look at what is growing either in the garden or on the polytunnel to interest you to either obtain at the time or suggest we grow for the future, for your benefit and others! Some of our visitors are amazed to see sweet corn, often with two or three babies, growing in our polytunnel!
No food miles are involved as
everything we offer comes from our own garden less than 200 metres away from our
house. We use only natural methods of
pest control. We recycle as much as possible and produce our own compost to which we add well-seasoned
local manure from a farm nearby (we need to know beforehand whether it has been
contaminated by weed killer on the fields and if so we won't use it) and fresh seaweed we collect from local (Brora and
Golspie) beaches.
We don't make a profit. We often grow more produce than we can eat ourselves so we sell the surplus, purely to help defray the cost of tools, supplies, seeds and plants. We too have been shocked by how much prices for all foods and feed and seed have risen. At our farm gate we try whenever possible to charge our local customers no more than prices prevailing at local and regional shops (often bringing in their produce from much further afield). Unlike them our home-produced fruit and vegetables are 100% local, have no food miles, and fresh, often picked or harvested that day. We do our best to make our produce affordable and competitive, we don't believe potatoes should be sold at inflated "organic prices" of £2 a kilo, not even in 2009.
From our own premises directly on Victoria Road in Brora (the main A9 road, directly opposite the entrance to the A9 of Braambury Road) we sell to individuals who stop by after seeing our seasonal sign of what's available today at our "Ashcroft" front gate. (Sorry, we don't deliver).
Lois Forbes in Ashcroft's 14 by 30 polytunnel. Photo by Keith Forbes
Dunluce - new for 2009.
Duke
of
Red
Duke of
Charlotte
– popular salad potato
with yellow skinned waxy tubers –excellent flavour served hot or cold.
British Queen - heritage potato, the mainstay of Scotland and rest of UK in world wars 1 and 2 and still popular.
Kerr's Pink - by special request of some local customers.
King Edward - firm favourite, especially good for roasting
Maris Piper - popular all-rounder.
Golden
Wonder - a late main crop
with russet skin, one of the best varieties for baking, roasting, frying and
microwave cooking.
Many
people don't know that it was not only the Irish who suffered a potato famine. Scottish Highlanders had one too, just as bad, at about the same
time. The potato blight caused a food crisis that resulted in over 1.7 million
Scots leaving their homeland for the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, West
Indies and elsewhere. In the mid-19th century, most crofters in the Scottish
Highlands depended on potatoes as a source of food. It was mostly because during
the Highland Clearances they
had been deprived of access to most of the land they had worked in previous
centuries and were expected to subsist on very small areas of land.
The potato was perhaps the only crop that would provide enough food from them. The land was generally of poor quality in exposed coastal locations that included Brora, Helmsdale, Golspie and Embo. In the Highlands, in 1846, potato crops were blighted by a fungal disease.
Crops failed, and the following winter was especially cold and snowy. During 1847, General Sir Edward Pine Coffin (born 1784, died 1862) arranged for the use of Royal Navy vessels to distribute oatmeal and other supplies. Nonetheless, in Wick, Cromarty and Invergordon, there were protests about the export of grain from local harbours. Troops were used to quell the protests. Crop failures continued into the 1850s, and famine relief programmes became semi-permanent operations.
As our main crops by far are potatoes, we hope you enjoy this wee potato story.
An Ashcroft Market Garden Girl Potato and Boy Potato had eyes for each other. Finally, they got
married, and had a little sweet potato, which they
called 'Yam.' Of course, they wanted the best for Yam. When it was time, they
told her about the facts of life. They warned her about going out and getting
half-baked, so she wouldn't get accidentally get a bad name for
herself like 'Hot Potato,' and end up with a bunch of Tater Tots. Yam said not
to worry, no spud would get her into the sack and make a rotten potato out of
her! But on the other hand she wouldn't stay home and become a couch potato either. She would get plenty of
exercise so as not to be skinny like her shoestring cousins.
When she went off to Europe on her holidays, Mr. and Mrs. Potato told Yam to watch out for the hard-boiled guys from Ireland,
the greasy guys from France called the French fries and the Aussies who go to
Paris purely to eat more shapely British spuds as pommes dauphinoise. And when she went out
West in the USA to watch out for the Indians so she wouldn't get scalloped. Yam promised she would stay on the straight and narrow
and wouldn't associate with those autocratic Yukon Golds, or the saucy ones from the other side of the tracks who advertise their trade on all the trucks
in the USA that say 'Frito Lay.' After all, she's no tart. Mr. and Mrs. Potato
then sent Yam to the
special, ultra snooty potato University in Rhode Island, USA so that she could
become a hash Brown and when she graduated she could expect to be associated only with
the elite and
in all ways to become a chip off the old block. They warned her that some of her
classmates would be commoners with names including Anya, Charlotte, Dunluce,
Ratte (a French waxy), Mimi, Nadine, Orla, Shetland Black, or old soldiers such as Home Guard,
or film-star folk such as Golden Wonder or Kerr's Pink. She should be especially
careful to have only a platonic relationship with Russet Burbank, a potato used
by McDonald's even if it is a heritage, or Lumpers which sustained the Irish
during the Great Famine, plus some with illusions of grandeur such as Majestic.
She could get more friendly, but not in an intimate way, with aristocrats
including Lady Balfour, but should focus her attentions on the Duke of York, the
brothers of British Queen and of course the most lordly of them all, King
Edward. Her parents wanted Yam to have a long and healthy life, in hope that, in
any future travels she will not contract that dreaded scourge of her species
- tuber-colosis.
Her lineage has made clear she is no half baked vicious-soise! Yam's duty in
life is to produce many litters of healthy and superior seedlings - none of whom will grow into whinging Poms!
But in spite of all they tried to do for her, including reminding her of
where she was born, at Ashcroft, Brora, Victoria Road, Sutherland, Scotland, one
day Yam came home and announced she was going to
marry a BBC TV presenter. A what? Mr. and Mrs. Potato were very upset. They flew
into a rage, threatened that Ashcroft would become a crematorium and she alone
would be responsible for making the bone meal to put into potato bread into
which she too would get tipped inside after being peeled. They would never
regard her as a mere Spudnick. They told Yam there was no way she was
going to marry any BBC or for that matter any other TV
channel presenter. Why not? Because they are just commontaters and she'd get
forked, fried, fricasseed or
mashed......
Variable Highland weather permitting, we produce a diverse range of seasonally available fruits, vegetables and plants. They vary daily in shape, size and availability. They include, on an as available basis:
Aubergine (eggplant)
Beetroot
Blackberries - July to October)
Blackcurrants (this is the first year, normally from June or July)
Broccoli
Brussels Sprouts
Cabbage, green
Cabbage, red
Carrots
Cauliflower
Celeriac
Celery
Cherries
Courgettes - (June to September)
Cucumbers - three varieties, July to September
Endive
French Beans - climbing and dwarf
Garlic
Herbs and salads (basil; carum carvi - caraway; chervil; chives; coriander; lettuce; sweet marjoram; parsley; rocket; thyme)
Kohl Rabi
Lettuce, red/green - July to October
Onions - three varieties.
Parsnips
Peas (picked fresh off the bush that day for our customers)
Peppers (bell) - June to October
Pumpkins
Sweet corn, grown in our polytunnel.
Shallot
Spring onions
Squash
Strawberries (from polytunnel in April, otherwise from June). The strawberry has always been associated with love. Its heart shape and red colour made it a symbol of Venus. It also represents peace, perfection, prosperity, purity and righteousness. It is low in fat, rich in vitamin C, potassium, folic acid, fibre and vitamin B6.
Ashcroft strawberries
Swede – Brora variety
Tomatoes - four varieties (polytunnel grown - June to October)
For recipes on some of these items, see below
Ashcroft peppers we grow from the big windows in our south-facing living room. Photo by the authors
Ashcroft pumpkin, grown in our croft garden. Photo by the authors.
Ashcroft variety of produce, grown in our croft garden. Photo by the authors.
Ashcroft sweet corn, grown in our croft polytunnel. Photo by the authors.
Ashcroft onions, grown in our croft garden. Photo by the authors.
Ashcroft tomatoes, grown in our polytunnel. Photo by the authors.
Looking northwest from our croft. Photo by the authors
About 1 month later in our part of the world.
Members of
East Sutherland Producers organization since its inception in 2006.
Producers William Pirritt and Lois Forbes, as members of East Sutherland Producers, selling their produce at the Lairg Crofters Show, Saturday, 25th August 2007. Photo by Keith Forbes
We sell our home-grown vegetables in the East Sutherland Producers stall at farmers’ markets in Dornoch and at croft shows.
| Ingredients | Directions |
|
Extra-virgin olive oil (EVOO) for drizzling 0.5 lb smoky bacon, chopped 1 large red onion, thinly sliced 1 head red cabbage (about 1.25 lb), cored and shredded Salt and (ideally freshly ground) pepper 1 12 oz bottle amber beer 1/3 cup honey 1/4 cup chopped flat leaf parsley (two generous handfuls) |
In a Dutch oven or casserole or large deep pan, drizzle EVOO over medium-high heat. Add the bacon and cook until crisp, about 5 minutes; remove with a slotted spoon and set aside. Add the onion to the pan and cook until wilted, 2 to 3 minutes. Add the cabbage, season with salt and pepper and cook, stirring frequently, 7 to 8 minutes. Add the beer and reduce for 2 minutes. Stir in the honey and cook on low heat until dissolved. Simmer for 10 minutes. Stir in the parsley and reserved bacon; season to taste. Will serve eight. |
| Ingredients | Directions |
| 1/4
cup peanut oil 1 medium red onion, sliced 1 cup brown sugar 2 Granny Smith apples, sliced 1/2 cup red wine vinegar 2 cups red wine 2 cups orange juice 1 cinnamon stick 3 teaspoons ginger powder Salt and pepper 4 pounds red cabbage, cut into julienne |
Preheat
oven to 350 degrees F.
Heat a heavy
casserole. Add peanut oil. Sauté red onion until translucent. Sprinkle
in brown sugar and cook for a few minutes until it starts to caramelize.
Add sliced apples and deglaze with the red wine
vinegar. Bring to a boil.
Add red wine and orange juice, cinnamon stick, ginger powder and salt and pepper. Simmer for 5 minutes. Add red cabbage and continue to cook for about 10 minutes on top of the stove. Cover cabbage with foil and cook in 350 degrees F. oven for about 45 minutes. Remove. Taste, and adjust seasoning, if necessary. |
An easy courgette (zucchini) bread, made with courgette (zucchini), cinnamon, and walnuts or pecans or other nuts.
| Ingredients | Directions |
|
Preheat oven
to 350°. In a mixing bowl, combine oil, sugar, eggs, vanilla, baking
soda, cinnamon, salt, baking powder.
With a hand mixer on medium speed, beat until ingredients are blended, or about 30 seconds. Add flour; mix until moistened. Stir in nuts and courgette. Pour batter into a greased and floured loaf pan. Bake for about 65 to 75 minutes, or until loaf tests done. |
Here, the courgettes are used instead of pasta, for a nice, tasty dish. Also uses Ashcroft Brora tomatoes, garlic and herbs.
| Ingredients | Directions |
|
Cook
courgettes until tender, drain and set aside. Fry meat and onions until
meat is brown and onions are tender; drain fat. Add next 8 ingredients
and bring to a boil.
Reduce heat; simmer, uncovered 10 minutes or until reduced to 2 cups. In small bowl slightly beat egg. Add cottage cheese, half of shredded cheese and flour.In (1 1/2-qt.) baking-roasting pan arrange half of the meat mixture. Top with half of the courgettes and all the cottage cheese mixture. Top with remaining meat and courgettes. Bake uncovered at 375 degrees F for 30 minutes. Sprinkle with remaining cheese. Bake 10 minutes longer. Let stand 10 minutes before serving.
|
| Ingredients | Directions |
|
In the bowl of a food processor, combine rice, corn, green pepper, onion, black pepper, lemon juice and chili pepper. Pulse rapidly to produce a coarse mealy texture. Shape vegetable-rice mixture into 4 patties and place in fridge for 2 hours. Put patties on a pre-heated grill and grill for 6-7 minutes or until well-browned. Place patties in the hamburger buns and top with your choice of condiments, such as ketchup. |
| Ingredients | Directions |
Serves 4-8
|
Layer
potatoes, onions, and garlic in baking dish.
Add both cheese in between the layers. Salt and pepper to taste and then pour the cream over all. Bake at 350° for 30-40 minutes. Remove from oven and garnish with green onions. |
| Ingredients | Directions |
Serves 4-8
|
Bake the
potatoes, remove the skin, and cube. Place the butter and onions into a
large pot and cook on low heat until they become soft and transparent.
Do not burn the butter.
Add the milk and cream. Bring to a boil. Next add the chicken base, then the potato cubes, and mix by hand with a paddle until the soup thickens and the lumps are gone. Add water for consistency. Bring to a boil for about 15 minutes. Add salt and pepper. |
Written, administered and web-mastered right here from our home in Sutherland, Scotland, by
Keith A.
Forbes, at keithaforbes@btinternet.com.
© 2009. Revised: June 24, 2009
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