Scones - crumbly, warm from the oven.....

We go to Sheeplands (Hare Hatch) to buy veg, chickens, eggs, bread and other such goodies….. and once upon a time we also ventured into the café, but it was a little grim,  a tad expensive and not always a joy.  But, we have a transformation!  And what a change it is…… we have friendly chatty staff, nice seats, a wide choice and by far the best scones I have had in many a year.  So nice we also bought some to bring home.  I like to know where my food comes from, and this food comes from the hands of Ovidiu Tugui (I hope I spelt that correctly), he is the chef at the new Caffe Amore at Sheeplands.  We sought him out and pinned him down to questions (well, ok he wandered over to see if we were ok, and we chatted).  He is from Romania and he and his team have invested a lot in the new venture, he bakes all the soups, lasagne, pasta and, of course, the scones, from scratch.  You can tell.  It is somewhat of an odd thing to find a good café in a garden centre and one that focuses on good friendly service, but I am glad I have found this one anyway.  

From the farm shop we bought lots of lemons (20p per lemon) and have found the best thing is to juice them and pour the juice into ice cube trays.  When frozen we tip the lemon cubes into a plastic freezer box and hey presto, we always have fresh lemon on hand.  

We tried the lamb – not a usual purchase as we don’t eat red meat but we had guests coming that did.  It cooked well, smelt amazing and was eaten with gusto by all so I’m going to put that down as a recommendation

On Sunday we went to the local Farmers Market (Maidenhead), and braved the blizzard conditions to get some (more) veg, and some biscuits from Just Biscuits - amazing biscuits but I may hesistate to buy these again - the lady who makes them really needs to work on her chatting to the public skills! OK so it was cold, but hey if you want people to pay £2.75 for a pack of biscuits it helps if you are uber friendly and listen.  We also bought some chocolate fudge brownies, sold, as we were informed, completely free of horse dna.  Oh how we laughed.