Apley butcher news

Cooked venison sausages

Beef or lamb kebabs, £2 each

Guard of Honour of lamb

Shropshire venison sausage raw – £9.95 per kg

Cushion of lamb, approx. £20 – feeds 8

Late last week, I caught up with John Callinswood who works with Craig Whitehouse on our Apley butcher counter at Apley Farm Shop. John, joined the Apley butchery this summer, won 2 gold stars in the 2012 Great Taste awards for his steak, mustard & stilton pie.

Coming up soon on Tuesday 29 September is Michaelmas Goose Day.  So on Sunday 27 September, when we’re holding the next Apley Craft Fair, drop in at the Apley butcher for a free taster of his boneless goose breasts.

On Sunday 11 October, Apley is also entering The Great Yorkshire Pork Pie & Sausage competition, which is the leading national pie competition.

In early November, John is entering a selection (we’re keeping it a secret for the time being!) of our Apley sausages in the Great British Sausage Week (2-8 Nov). Judging will be on Sunday 8 November.

Cabbage & honey-glazed carrot sausages

During the Great British Sausage Week, we will be organising a big sausage promotion in Apley Farm Shop. Do send us (to enquiries@apleyfarmshop.co.uk) your ideas & sausage recipes. John will trial the recipes & award a prize for the winner. More details nearer the time. If we don’t yet make a sausage in your favourite flavour, just ask & we’ll see if it’s feasible. Along those lines, John sent Gavin home with some trial sausages which were totally delicious for Saturday’s lunch. He had made them with Apley Walled Garden cabbage & honey-glazed carrots – see photo here.

John has also been preparing for the forthcoming autumn & winter seasons by sourcing the best poultry (chickens, turkey, geese, duck) from Shropshire & its surrounding counties. He’s hoping to buy in some of Richard Botterill’s poultry. Richard is one of the UK’s premier poultry producers who supplies, amongst others, the Ginger Pig restaurants in London. They rear their heritage chickens on the Belvoir (pronounced beaver) Estate in Leicestershire where they walk the geese through the village every day, which must slow down the local traffic !

If you want to offer an impressive Sunday roast, have you tried the “cushions of lamb” (photographed here) they’re preparing, which cost approx. £20 for approx. 2kg & that will feed 8 people. If there isn’t one of the counter, John can prepare one within 10 mins. The “guard of honour” of lamb always makes an equally good impact on the table.

This week, there will be a delivery of British White cattle from Oldington Farm where the Pennington family farm as Apley tenant farmers, just 1 mile from the farm shop. It who will be hung for 3 weeks, so pop back mid October to try some. It’s a rare breed, extra tasty & grass reared only 1 mile from the farm shop on the Apley Estate. We also sell beef from Hereford cattle & Aberdeen Angus cattle as well as Limousin Hereford cross cattle from Apley’s own herds at the Apley Home Farm.