What's cookin'?

It's funny how some people have to do one job and that's it, but for us, it's pretty much whatever's set for us.

We've got to know quite a number of people over the relatively short period of time we've been here and it's led to us having to do a variety of things.

Take Saturday for instance.

Saturday was the first day for feeding the animals - hence the Bonzo's Jolity Farm (above).

It's not like we haven't fed animals before, I mean, who hasn't? This time however, the animals were about thirty chickens and cockerels, two ponies, five pot-bellied pigs, two doves, a ferret and about a dozen or so rabbits.

They have to be fed daily and while it's not really enough for both of us to do, I just couldn't resist being able to get to know to them. Surprisingly, it's rained every time we've been round there, but it hasn't put a dampener on the fun at all.

I'm sure I'll feel differently if it does it all week however...

Today has marked the beginning of a new line of work - that of cooking.

Saturday morning, Pen was approached by a friend who asked her simply, "Can you cook?"

Pen replied, "Yes," and was then barraged with all sorts of information about cooking for her husband on the farm (there are a lot of farms and farmers round here!) and instantly had to come up with the ingredients for a number of recipes that would do for lunches for said farmer and his assistant.

Pen provided the woman with a list of ingredients and suggestions for the dinners and the desserts and she went away, having asked Pen and I to be at her house for about nine-thirty Monday morning.

So today - Monday - as arranged, we went round to the farm to begin cooking and discovered there was a problem.

Ostensibly, we were there to make several dishes - including desserts - but we were to discover that this French farmer didn't like garlic, peppers, pepper and a whole host of other condiments, herbs, spices and ingredients, all of which made our recipes a little awkward.

On the menu for today was:

• Cottage pie - similar to shepherd's pie, but with minced beef instead of minced lamb
• Bolognese
• Cheesecake
• Apple crumble

Now these are all pretty simple dishes and with a little sleight of hand, the meat for the Bolognese and Cottage Pie could be done together and split. It's not ideal, but it did at a pinch and time wouldn't allow for the full three to four hours of cooking.

However, to my utter horror, many of the ingredients I would have thought standard were not allowed and to Pen's dismay, the woman hadn't bought the biscuits for the cheesecake - any biscuits - on account of the fact that she read the ingredients and decided she didn't like them, but provided no alternatives, of which there are many.

So the Bolgnese didn't have any garlic, paprika, pepper, capsicums (red or green peppers) and the onions had to be really finely chopped or left large enough for him to pick out.

The cheesecake wasn't and the apple crumble had no cinnamon, allspice or anything else in it other than apple.

This was a big test for us, as tried and tested recipes suddenly tasted really bland, but it's what they wanted.

Apparently, the apple crumble was a big success, but we await the verdict on the other recipes...