(Music) Hello!
So last week I harvested the oats and this week I'm going to thresh them and make some
oat cakes.
They've been in the herb shed drying and there are more in there yet,and I am going to thresh
them in a pillowcase.
(Music) Threshing is a great opportunity - well it gives me the opportunity - to release pent
up anger and stress and frustration; and of course it has the end result of releasing
the grain from the straw.
But to return to Lughnasadh lore, you can understand why people celebrated Lughnasadh
and the grain harvest . The relief they must have felt to have the grain harvested and
stored and food to take them through the winter must have been a wonderful feeling.
Now some of the grain would feed the animals, but you don't want to be giving animals too
much of your grain so this was also the time of year to be selling surplus stock.
So throughout the country there would have been fairs and marts selling cattle and sheep
- and there still is!
And these sales continue until mid November.
Another benefit of selling meant there were fewer activities to have to indulge in outside
during the cold winter months as there were fewer animals to have to look after.
There we go.
And this is all oat straw and this can be used under the chickens, as a straw; or we
can make tea with it to soothe our nerves and nourish the nervous system.
In the old days, people were spread out around the country and there were few towns, and
so the Lughnasadh gatherings gave people the opportunity to come together and it was a
good time to resolve disputes and settle any legal matters and also to arrange marriage
contracts.
And in those older days, it was possible to wed for a year and a day and this trial marriage
gave the couple a chance to be sure about one another - it is a big undertaking isn't
it.
So they could discover if they really were compatible or not and if it turned out that
either of them were not happy with one another either of them could just walk away and that
was the end of it.
There were no hard feelings, no animosity, no big mess and this was because partially
because the woman retained the property that she had brought to the marriage so they both
just walked off with their own goods.
And a divorce was very simple, you just had to say "I divorce you" and that was it.
So, good simple way to resolve things.
And now I am going to winnow this grain and let the wind carry away the chaff.
I'm using a herb drying frame which has a nice tight weave so that I won't lose any
grain.
We have a local heroine, Grainuail, or Grace O'Malley the Pirate Queen and she divorced
her second husband, Richard Burke in the 1600s, well it was in the 1500s, the 16th century,
by just saying "I dismiss you".
So in this recipe I have some wholegrain spelt flour in the bowl, some butter, some salt,
baking powder and a pinch of curry powder.
I will put the recipe down below if you are interested in making your own oat cakes.
If you don't grow your own oats you can probably get oat flour in the local health shop or
from a specialist grocer.
Well, I've had a bit of a set back.
I can't remember the kind of oats I was growing and some were hulled and some were hull-less
so after threshing they are all mixed and I wasn't able to mill them as they were clogging
up the mill and that is not the way to de-hull anyway.
So, what I had to do was, I've taken some ordinary oat flakes and I have ground them
up in the coffee grinder to get my flour.
Unfortunately it's not my own oat flour.
I have - the recipe I will put down below - it is mainly spelt flour, mixed in with
some salt and baking powder and then I'm going to add in the oat flour.
I have some curry powder in here as well for some extra taste and I just thought I would
also add in about 1oz of oats to make this a coarse and rough oat cake.
It is that easy - all I have to do now is add in a tiny drop of milk to help it bind
together.
It will bind well because it is a high butter content.
And the milk is just pulling it all together - it is like a dough but not a wet dough.
You
could if you wanted to, grate in a little bit of cheese for cheesy oat cakes or you
could put in chopped raisins and a little bit of sugar to have a sweet oatcake.
But these are just the plain ordinary ones so that we can do what we like with it.
We could put chutney on or cheese or we could have it plain or just put butter on.
I have my baking trays here.
This is all binding together so I am going to roll it out and put the little biscuits
on to the baking trays...
Last one, - here are the oat cakes, going into the oven at gas 4 or 350F or 180C and
they should be ready in about 20 mins.......Music......So they're done now.
I will put them on a cooling tray then I will give them a try with a little bit of cheese.
Now they have cooled down sufficiently so I'm going to give one a test.
I have some lovely cheese here that my friends Helen and Gav brought for us..so let's put
some cheese on.
Mmmmmm!
Really lovely and crunchy and really tasty and that shortening kind of texture, really
nice, mmmm.
I think we will all enjoy these at our Lughnasadh celebrations.
In future I will make sure that the oats that I grow are hull-less so that I can prepare
them here at home.
The oats I have now will just go to the chickens because we can't use when they still have
the hull on.
If you decide to grow oats ask your seed supplier for hull-less oats because that will be much
better and you would have more opportunity to use the when they are hulled.
So I will just finish my cracker and I wish you all the best until next week.