Chicken a la King

The chickens on order are gals not blokes; the royal title 'King' refers to the quality of their new abode; it's a palace.
 All this space for three birds who want an upgrade to the good life, not The Good Life with Tom and Barbara in which programme they would probably get eaten.

We are back in the city and we know it. The boys have vague memories of seeing birds wrung, beheaded, plucked and trussed en masse and I well remember the fabulous flavour. You knew you were eating real meat. However, in this instance we would know we were eating our pets...

Let me talk you through the many features:

• The rooves both  lift off 
• The enclosed coop detatches . It can be positioned on either side of the covered run. 
• The nesting box projects to the front with lift up lid for easy access.  
• There is a perch inside for sleeping comfort.
• A little door on the right enables us to easily reach in and out.
• The intention is that the house can be moved along the jungle strip until it is cleared. After that I suspect it will stay put.

From the back, you can just  see it is in front of the raspberries so they will gain some welcome shelter from the wind.

Moving along, a quick before and after, the site of the new tunnel house. We have the flexi curves, whatever they are called, and three of the four standards are left from the old glasshouse to attach things to. Tomatoes are growing relentlessly so march on, march on. 

One of the shortages with a new garden is soil suitable for planting rootcrops. I've begun with beetroot, carrot and parsnip in a borderline spot.Today the prevailing menace has been caught on camera - Katie cat scratching out seedlings  or napping on top of any newly weeded area. Have to start spiking key areas of the garden.

Do we all have a good recipe for carrot cake? Someone asked me for this one the other day. It  is fool proof, not oily or too sweet and makes two loaves if you want to have it that way.

Carrot Cake

1 C oil
1/3 C water
3 C wholemeal flour
1 t baking soda
1 t cinnamon
4 eggs
2 t baking powder
pinch salt
1 1/2 C brown sugar
2 heaped cups grated carrot

Icing
50 g soft butter
100g cream cheese
rind of 1 lemon
1 1/2 C icing sugar

1. Beat eggs, oil, water together. 
2. Add to remaining ingredients.
3. Bake about 1 hr at 160 C as loaves. Possibly a bit longer as a large cake. 
4. Icing. Beat everything together and spread on cooled cake. Have used chopped dried apricot, peel, and pumpkin seeds on top.