Kat lives in Fife and is passionate about seasonality, local produce and home cooking
Our off-grid sourdough bakery, built a year ago, has been a challenge to power. Until now we have been relying on a generator. However, we have spent the last month installing a solar system, which can now power our fridge, lights, our bread slicer, and shortly, also our mixer. Even on days when the sun hasn’t been shining fully, we have been harvesting enough light to power at least half of the power requirements of the bakery.
It seems that nature is in a similar phase too, thirstily soaking up the remaining warmth and energy from the sun and storing it in the plants, fruits, and grains which will get us through the winter ahead.
Thinking ahead to next year, we have made a start on a small kitchen garden outside the bakery. We are aiming to get the infrastructure in place for the next growing season. In our first test bed, we have been able to make use of some of the well-rotted muck from the cow shed to fertilise our beds and, excitingly, this test bed now contains a crop of second early potatoes, which promise to be ready in time for our Christmas plates. It is proving to be an exciting season of preparations ahead.
Songs to cook to: Sunrise by Simply Red – with the days getting shorter I’ve been enjoying the sunrises during morning baking sessions.
