February 12th, 2010 Martin
feeling great today, been up since 7.30 when Suzie left for Camarthen Farmers Market smoking fresh onions and rice (they’re a bugger to light LOL), Ive decided to smoke fresh onions to sell on the stall and also Im smoking some rice that I mixed with various herbs and spices for use with currys and chillies etc, the smoker was only half full and it seemed wasteful not using all the space, Ive got to update th website today with the 4 new relish’s and sauces, though a quieter day than we’ve had in ages, just got to label nealy 600 jas and bottles in front of the telly tonight will be the best time for that I reckon. Off to check the smoker now.
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
February 11th, 2010 Martin
been up 30 minutes and the first 2 cauldrens of the day are bubbling away merrily, I was going to have a day off relishing ‘n’ pickling but a about midnight I knocked up a small amount of BBQ sauce using the smoked toms, truly great, had to get more toms this morning to make a load up, smoking the toms first really makes a difference. Suzies over at the new shop with her dad putting up a stud wall and getting it ready for painting this week, we wan to open on March 1st St Davids Day (fingers crossed), I also aim to paint the teepee today , I didnt mention Ive bought a Teepee for the 18th century trappers demonstrations we’re doing , I can also use it as an onsite smoker for the butchering and skinning demos Im doing this year.
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
February 10th, 2010 Martin
Still in the kitchen on my 6 cauldren of Spicy Smoked BBQ sauce, Ive used 40 kilo’s of cherry tomatoes and also managed to smoke them all, 100 eggs and half a sack of onions, tiring as it is, its very satisfying looking at the shelves groaning under the weight of so much stock that Ive managed to knock up in such a short time, I’ll be dreaming about chopping chillies, smoking toms and stiring bubbling pots lol
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
February 10th, 2010 Martin
Today is going to be a relish ‘n’ pickle day, now we’re opening a small shop in pontypridd we have to get the stock ready lol, we’ve developed 5 new chilli relish’s, 5 varieites of smoked pickles including a recipe from the 14th century for mixed pickles, and Im currently smoking the ingredients for the Smoked Cherry Bomb (cherry toms, chillies, onions, garlic all smoked for 6 hours before being chopped n blended), the problem is boiling vinegar and chillies really does get uncomforatble after a while, ah well, must carry on lol
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
February 7th, 2010 Martin
FINISHED !!!!!!1 Ive just filled the last jar of the 650 I bought with Cowleys Killer Ketchup, I smoked all the ingredients first Toms, onions and chillies etc for 6 hours over oak, its worked far better than I had hoped, frantically making stuff for the new stall.
Though I can hear the Xbox 360 calling me for an hour or two shooting nazis in the face lol. Then Im making a vat of Chaucers Medieval Mixed Pickles, we went to watch Sherlock last night its the best movie Ive seen in years, went to Nandos after its been ages since we went out .
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
February 3rd, 2010 Martin
its been a rather good day today, been to look at the new indoor stall, went to the printers to look at the new labels and invented a new Chilli Ketchup for the stall, its lush, I smoked all the ingredients before making the Ketchup and also added scotch bonnets to it for a bit of bite, its going on the stall as
Cowleys Killer Ketchup
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
February 3rd, 2010 Martin
Its been nearly a year since my last post, and what a year, its been fanttastic, the last 8 months have been better than the previous 2 years, the weather was mainly to blame forthe problems but we have changed a few things , we’re doing more indoor shows and also supplying a couple of other traders and also a couple of pubs and today we’ve been to the printers to look at our new labels, once they are done we will be able to approach bigger shops and see what happens from then.
The butchery course last year was a resounding success and we are having work done on the garden to be able to run them at least once a month, we have a facebook page with photo’s, its …..
Martins Meat Meet
We’re also spending some time trading in Europe, we do shows in France, Holland and Belgium and we have had quite a lot of interest from traders in Europe who want to stock our jerky as well, which is nice lol.
We also went to ponty prodd indoor market today as we’re opening a stall there which we will be using as a shop front, Ive dug out my old recipe book and Im making chilli based pickles ‘n’ relishs.
The butchery and jerky making demonstrations we’re doing at the reenactments is also taking off quite well and last year we saved about 2000k by doing the demo’s for free instead of paying a pitch fee
.
Heres to a cracking good year !!
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
February 13th, 2009 Martin
Its been a while since my last post, after a rather nice Christmas and new Year it all went a bit rubbish, after last years appalling weather meant we couldnt put away some cash for our quiet period ( Jan / Feb) so things have been tighter than they ever have before, to the point we were within days of closing the business and giving up, but after a sit down we realised that even though we were skint we were still managing albeit with difficulty.
The main problems were the rising cost of all our ingredients and the power with which to dry them. We’ve streamlined a few things, for example at big shows we will be weighing out the jerky to order which will cut the cost of packing, also far less waste going into land fills from empty packets so a good move all round.
We have also decided to start a new business to run in conjuction with our current one and we have called it A Taste of History, we have built 5 “medieval” trading booths which are canvas and wood but will stand on cobbles as well as grass so they are fully free standing, each one will have a trader in them selling historicaly based food stuffs i.e a stall of only historical sweets, one dried and cured meats etc, and each trader will be able to do a demo on their chosen product, I will be doing smoking displays, skinning/ dressing and drying venison in historical costume that was worn in 1804 on the Lewis and Clark expedition, or cooking a meal the same way and using the same ingredients as Scot of the Antartic ( before they stareved) or making pemmican the same way as the Chippewa Indians used to do.
We will have a list of displays we can do and the aim is to do the demo’s so our pitch fee’s will be greatly reduced, we have booked 3 shows already who have waved the pitch fee in exchange for good displays. We will also be able to rent the stalls out when we aren’t using them.
We are feeling very very upbeat about the coming year , far more than we were last year, as soon as I have pics of the stalls I will be posting em on here, so fingers crossed for a bit of good weather this year
Martin and Suzie
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
January 24th, 2009 Martin
D’OH !!!!!!! after the many hours of sewing we set the tent up, only to find I had sewn the bloody side on sideways instead of upright !!!!!about 30 foot of hand stitched seam though 2 layers of canvas, my fingers are like tea bags now, but I managed to finish it at 3.30 am, its looking good and I’m going to put photos up on here when its finished once and for all, It might be nice if we could sell a couple as they are cracking little tents lol
well off to varnish the wood bits now and waterproof the canvas
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
, just as I was relaxing with a peanut butter sarnie a new range popped into my head home made peanut butter 
, but ones like