Each year Doddington Place in Kent hosts a wonderful event with stalls featuring local food and craft, plus of course the lovely gardens. Good weather brought the crowds out, so it was much busier that our last visit. Unfortunately it meant a long wait for our cream teas!
Towards the end of the day we were treated to a fascinating falconry display where we appreciated the beauty and skills of the birds and their handlers.
.............
On 1st July, Kent Federation of WI's arranged an event at Lullingstone Castle to celebrate 100 years of WI Nationally. It is a lovely venue, only open on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays usually. There was the castle and the 'World Garden' to see, plus of course displays by the WI.
Each WI had been asked to make a display entitled 'OUR WI" - inside a box frame.
We decided the feature each member's face in a flower, and each member was involved with cutting out the flowers, while others put it together with much glue! As you can see we have inspired women since 1915, - 90 years for Hollingbourne WI- and we shall be having our own celebration in October.
WI's were also asked to make a Scarecrow based on the idea of 100 years of WI - This one was features in Adverts - maker unknown.
Our Scarecrow started life as a plastic garden stake and a few rolls insulating Polythene lagging.
She ended up as a Calendar Girl, naked except for an assortment of fabric flowers.
and her rear was the envy of many a member!
Janice and Val had to erect the Lady the day before the event and found she was not alone, over 80 others dotted the grounds and are to be seen for the next month at the Castle.
...............................
At our WI meeting this month we were lucky enough to have a return visit from Julia Davies. She is a wonderful cook and demonstrator. She gave us ' Easy Summer cooking'. - Humous, Smoked Mackerel Pate, Stuffed Peppers, Butterbean and tomato salad and STRAWBERRY CHEESECAKE.
We all had tasters and the cheesecake was so easy and delicious, the recipe is given below.
STRAWBERRY CHEESECAKE.
150g Digestive biscuits- crushed
75g butter - melted
2 lemons - grated rind and juice
100g caster sugar
350g cram cheese - full fat philadelphia
350 curd cheese - philadelphia light
142ml double cream
strawberries to decorate.
1. Mix the melted butter and digestive biscuits and use to line the base of a serving dish (She used a metal flan ring straight onto the serving dish, with the mix pressed down well, and no problem about getting it out of the tin later. )
2. Gently mix the two cheeses, add the double cream, sugar and juice and rind of the lemon.
3. Whisk slowly until everything is combined, then beat faster until a soft peak stage is reached.
4. Spread over the digestive biscuit base and chill.
5. Top with fruit.
The MAGIC thing was that the cheese mixture held its shape in less than 2 minutes. She ran a clean knife around the inside of the metal ring, and removed the ring. It did not collapse! It tasted delicious! I imagine if it had been left to chill overnight it would have firmed up even more.
Thank you Julia.
