Our spanish farm Blog 
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Golden treasure! These aren't calzones. A calzone is folded pizza dough that bakes up crispy, and that's not what I was after. I wanted something soft and fluffy, more like a bread bun with pizza hiding inside, that stays soft even after it cools. And the best part? They freeze beautifully. I love having a bag of these pockets in the freezer for an easy, quick dinner on the busy days. The secret is the dough. Milk, an egg and butter turn it into a soft, enriched bread instead

Chicken and corn soup is the one I reach for when I want something light but still cozy. This batch came from my October soup weekend: seven pints of it, with chicken, sweet corn, onion and garlic in a good chicken broth ;) The corn is home-grown, which makes it a little sweeter, and the whole thing is simple enough to make on a weekday. If you're new to canning soup, start with my canning soups for beginners guide. It explains why soup always goes in a pressure canner and wh

The first fire of the fall is my cue to start getting ready for winter ;) We can have chilly evenings even in summer here, but there is a distinct difference when the autumn brings its humid evening chill. I love getting that dry heat from the fireplace. Living up here in the mountains of Catalonia, winter isn't something I want to be caught out by. So once the stove is lit, I start working through my list: firewood, the pantry, the garden, the hens, and a plan for when the p

There's something so comforting about a shelf full of soup when the weather turns. On my last big soup day I canned eight pints of this vegetable beef soup, or beef and veggie soup as it says on my labels ;) It's chunks of tender beef with carrots, onions, tomatoes, peas and green beans in beef and veggie stock. Simple, hearty and ready to heat on a busy night. If you're new to canning soup, start with my canning soups for beginners guide. It explains why soup always goes in

There's nothing like coming in from the cold and knowing a jar of soup is waiting in the pantry. Last weekend I filled my pantry shelf with 15 pints of soup, seven of chicken and corn soup and eight of beef and veggie soup, and I want to share what I've learned so you can do the same. It was a long day in the kitchen, but the whole house smelled like Sunday dinner, and seeing those jars lined up on the shelf afterward made every minute worth it. Soup always goes in a pressure

This is Day 6 of my own pantry challenge. I've enjoyed six days of dinners made from the jars on my shelves. Yesterday, I prepared chicken tikka masala. A Change of Plans I had a change of plans again! The vegetable beef soup got swapped for a delicious pulled pork burger. Tonight's jar features my home-canned BBQ pulled pork, which I canned on March 27, 2026. I followed the tested recipe from my Ball book. Tonight's Dinner I emptied the jar into a pot and heated it through.

This is Day 5 of my own pantry challenge, six days of dinners from the jars on my shelves. Yesterday was butternut squash soup. Today was one of those days I LOVE having a stocked pantry of jars. My normal commute to work is about 2 hours. Lately it's been raining... a lot (you might have seen the news), and today was no exception. The drive home took me about 3.5 hours. I arrived late... and hungry! So I picked a jar off the shelf, took a bag of frozen pre-cooked chicken and

This is Day 4 of my own pantry challenge, six days of dinners from the jars on my shelves. Yesterday was beef vindaloo with white rice. Tonight was supposed to be chicken tikka masala, but when I went to make it, there was no chicken in the house! So the menu got swapped. That's real pantry life ;) Tonight's jar: my home-canned butternut squash cubes, canned on September 20, 2025. Tonight's dinner I opened the jar and tipped the cubes and the liquid from the jar into a pot. T

This is Day 3 of my own pantry challenge, six days of dinners from the jars on my shelves. Yesterday was Swedish meatballs with mashed potatoes, and today we're going somewhere a little spicier ;) Tonight's jar: my home-canned beef vindaloo, canned on August 23, 2025. Tonight's dinner This one was easy. I poured the liquid from the jar into a saucepan, added a tablespoon of cornstarch and whisked it into a smooth, shiny, thicker sauce. Then I added the beef and let it simmer

This is Day 2 of my own pantry challenge, six days of dinners from the jars on my shelves. Yesterday was Spanish lentils with chorizo, and today we're heading to Sweden ;) Tonight's jar: my home-canned Swedish meatballs, canned on November 27, 2025. Tonight's dinner I heated the meatballs and turned the liquid from the jar into a quick gravy. I thickened it with a little corn starch and added a splash of soy sauce and some cream. I served the meatballs and gravy with mashed p

This is Day 1 of my own pantry challenge, six days of dinners from the jars on my shelves. Can what you eat and eat what you can ;) First up: a jar of my home-canned Spanish lentils, canned on September 18. Tonight's dinner I opened the jar, tipped the lentils into a pot and heated them up. That's really all the cooking the lentils needed, because all the work was done back in September ;) You'll find the recipe in my post on canning Spanish-style lentils. While they heated,

Here's a little confession: a fully stocked pantry looks wonderful, but it's no use at all if you don't actually like what's in it. I've seen so many lists of "what to store for a crisis," and they're full of things nobody really wants to eat. And here's the thing. If you don't enjoy it now, you won't enjoy it in a crisis either. A hard week doesn't magically make a jar of something you dislike taste better ;) So my rule has always been simple: can what you eat, and eat what

There's a moment every year when I step outside with my coffee and just know. Nobody tells you, there's no date on the calendar, but the air is different. This morning was that morning. The valley was full of fog, soft and blue, with only the tops of the pines poking through. The sky turned pink and gold over the hills, and for a few minutes everything was completely still. Even the hens were quiet (for once ;) ). The morning glories don't seem to have gotten the memo yet. Th

If you've ever prepared dried beans for pressure canning, you've probably come across two different methods: soaking them overnight or using the much faster quick-soak method. But is one actually better than the other? Does it affect the texture, the taste, or even the safety of your canned beans? Let's have a closer look. Beans soaking Why do we soak beans before canning? When we're cooking dried beans for dinner, soaking is often simply a way of reducing the cooking time. S

How I pressure can Spanish-style lentils with tomato, peppers, garlic and smoked paprika: soaked, precooked, half-full jars, 75 minutes for pints ;)

Canning meat ;) Spend enough time reading about home preserving and you'll eventually come across something like this: "My grandmother always filled the jars while they were boiling hot, turned them upside down and kept them in the pantry. Nobody ever got sick." Or perhaps: "I've canned tomatoes in the oven for 30 years." And one of my favourites: "The lid sealed, so obviously it worked." These methods aren't unusual. Some have been used for generations, and depending on wher

Home canning can seem complicated when you first start. A part of my pantry Water-bath canning. Pressure canning. Acidity. Headspace. Processing times. Altitude adjustments. Seals. It sounds like a lot. But once you understand why these things matter, home canning becomes much easier to navigate. You don't need to memorize hundreds of rules. You need to understand a handful of basic principles and know where to find a reliable recipe. This guide covers the fundamentals every

If the times comes I have never considered myself a “prepper.” I don't have an underground bunker. I'm not preparing for the collapse of civilisation. And I certainly don't spend my evenings calculating how many tins of beans I need to survive the apocalypse. But I do believe in being prepared. There is a big difference. Living in the countryside has gradually changed the way I think about emergencies. We have power cuts. We get severe storms. We live with the possibility of

There is a moment every year when the vegetable garden starts to change. The tomatoes are still producing. The peppers certainly haven't given up. There are flowers everywhere, and in the middle of the day it can still feel very much like summer here in Catalonia. Cabbage is going in the ground But the light is different. The mornings are cooler. The shadows are getting longer. And suddenly I find myself looking at empty spaces in the vegetable garden and thinking not about t

My not so fantastic sweet corn harvest... There is something almost comical about this photo. This spring, I planted 240 corn plants. Two hundred and forty. In my head, I could already see the harvest. Baskets overflowing with beautiful golden cobs. Corn for summer dinners, corn for the freezer, corn for soups and stews during winter. Perhaps even enough that, by September, I would be wondering what on earth I was going to do with all of it. Well. Here is what I have to show

There is a point every year when I realise that summer is ending. It is rarely a particular date. There is no dramatic change overnight, and here in Spain September can still be very warm. Yesterday we had 34 degrees (93 f) The tomatoes are still hanging on the plants, the dahlias are flowering, and there are still plenty of jobs waiting for me in the garden. Changing of the guards But something changes. This week, I changed my garden slippers for my office shoes. And somehow

Well, this is slightly strange. This is the 100th post on Our Spanish Farm. One hundred. When I started this blog, I don't think I really imagined what post number 100 would look like. I'm not even sure I genuinely believed there would be a post number 100. I certainly didn't have a grand plan. There was no content strategy. No five-year vision. No carefully prepared editorial calendar. Summer garden 2026 I had a garden. I was learning how to grow things. I was learning how t

There are parts of the garden you proudly photograph. And then there are parts you carefully crop out of every pic. My potting station was very firmly in the second category. For quite some time, this corner beside the house had technically been my potting area. I say technically, because in reality it had slowly evolved into something between a storage area, timber yard, plant nursery and general dumping ground. My brand new - Hand made set-up! There was an old table. There

August has arrived, and the preserving season is now in full swing. At this point in summer, preserving is no longer something I plan to do. Making sauce There are vegetables coming into the kitchen almost every day, jars are slowly filling the pantry shelves, the dehydrator is running, and every time I think I have caught up, I walk outside and find something else ready to harvest. And this month, it is all about tomatoes. I'm making tomato sauce, another batch of garden sal