Back To Reality

I've had to remind myself that it's really only coming up for four weeks since seeing in the new year - ah, the joys of being back to work after the holiday! Still, being back at work hasn't meant I've given up on doing what I was doing over the holiday, it's just a case of fitting thing in around being at the office. There seems to be an inordinate number of people I've known for years who are leaving work before the end of the month, so there is a feeling of 'will the last person to leave remember to turn out the lights......'

It was nice though, having that time over the holidays - just the perfect time of the year for doing things at a leisurely pace - as the year progresses, there will be more demands on my time one way or another.  Thinking about it, I don't often find myself at a loose end, but I do hanker after being somewhere else fairly often.  I've worked full-time since I was sixteen, supplementing periods of low income with part-time jobs on top of the full-time one which involved knitting, teaching cookery, being a carer and an Avon Lady (ding-dong!).  Once I started studying for a degree, I realised full-time and part-time work wasn't practicable, so the part-time work got the elbow out of necessity. After that the study-time was replaced with more running, admin for the running club and so on - a pretty average life really!

So, between work and running, I've still kept up with some baking - I  made a Cherry and Almond Battenberg a week or so ago - a Mary Berry recipe from one of the Great British Bake Off books. I've only made this once before for an event, on which occasion I didn't manage to get a slice, but did sample some of the off-cuts, which were fairly nice.  As my other half swears Battenberg is his favourite cake, I thought I would give it a go again.

I couldn't eat a whole one though.

As I was quite happy with my recent attempt at making crumpets, I did buy more crumpet rings so that I can now do four at a time, so cutting down on the time on the griddle.  I'm a fan of cheese muffins - which seem to have vanished off the shelves in some shops - so I thought cheese crumpets would be a nice substitute, to this end I added 60g of a strong cheddar to Mr Hollywood's recipe, which worked quite well, though I might experiment with just slightly more cheese next time round.

Having had a bit of cold weather fairly recently, I have wanted to eat comforting things, or foods with a bit of heat to them.  One recent tea was a bean casserole with paprika and a splash of port, topped with sweet potato - made up as I went along and guaranteed to sustain an uphill run in the snow.

Not sure I can remember how I made this....

Another dinner was a favourite from Denis Cotter - the honey roasted butternut squash mentioned in a previous post - just substituting broccoli for the cauliflower in the green curry element.  I think I should have another attempt at growing butternut squash as I love eating them. 

I tried out another recipe from Nopi - seems rude not to as it was a Christmas present - a five-spiced tofu and cardamom passata.  The complete recipe includes steamed aubergine, but not having any aubergines in the veg rack last Friday, I thought the tofu and the passata would be fine as they were, served with udon noodles with carrots and sugar snap peas through them.  I know some people loathe tofu with a vengeance, but, stemming from Yotam Ottolenghi's kitchen, it was never going to be tasteless.  It certainly didn't disappoint.

Anyway, in the spirit of growing my own, I made a start towards this year's crop.  I have to admit that I haven't paid the garden as much attention the last couple of years as I should have, but I've got a few ideas of changes I want to make and I needed to sow a few seeds which need a long growing season - several varieties of chillies, peppers, baby aubergine and sweet-peas - all now in the heated propagator and starting to sprout.  I had a good sort through all the seed packets and threw out those that were just a little too old.  I also realised how few flower seeds I have, though I have loads of vegetable seeds, possibly because I've taken advantage of some gardening offers that happened to come with free seeds in the spirit of "growing your own".  Hopefully I will manage to grow something we can eat - while out in the garden I did manage to pull a few carrots sown last year - a nice variety for cooking whole.  I was absolutely amazed that they hadn't being eaten by anything and were completely unblemished. 

So hopefully I will succeed with a few crops this year - just watch this space!

The Retiring Sort......

No, not a hint that I'm seriously considering retirement - I mean, that's for old folk isn't it? - it's just that I've loved the time off since I scooted out of the office on Christmas Eve - I feel I've really been able to relax properly, largely do what I want when I want and haven't had to get up at a silly hour!  I do wake early most of the time, but there's something wonderful about not having to get up for anything in particular, instead, lying in a warm bed listening to the wind and rain battering off the roof.  Ah yes, the one thing that I hoped would be a little different - that the weather would be better!  I was hoping for some crisp, cold, sunny days of previous years, but the wind and rain seem to have being present for a good bit of the holiday. Oh well, can't have everything - I've certainly not even considered it as an excuse not to run, but just to make sure I didn't try to renege from my promise to run every day, I made it the first thing I did every day (after breakfast of course).

So, running aside, I've made more bread - Paul Hollywood's seeded loaf - the toasted seeds smell wonderful when it s baking, but I still reduce the amount of the various seeds in it as I find them impossible to knead fully into the dough. A malted loaf - this didn't rise as much as I would have preferred (a cardinal sin of attempting to kill the yeast - not with kindness, but heat) - but it still tasted good.  I will try that one again. I moved away from Paul Hollywood to go back to Linda Collister - the baker behind a large number of the recipes in the Great British Bake Off books.  I have her "The Bread Book" (a present a number of years ago from my baby brother - another baker) and "Country Breads".  I made a blue cheese and pecan loaf - using up some ends of Lanark Blue and Stilton and a Pain de Ruecht - a sourdough.  I have had a jar of sourdough starter on the go since 31 January last year.  It spends some time in the fridge then, when I want to get it active again, I sit it in the kitchen for a few days, feeding it. Once the actual dough is made for the loaf, it needs a slow rise, generally overnight, so not a bread for the impatient.

Starter

The mixture

Getting there!

The Loaf

 Maybe not a perfect loaf, but not bad either. I also made a couple of loaves of Mantovana - an olive oil bread I have made many times before, which is a favourite of my other half.  Actually the book this comes from "Bread" by Eric Treuille and Ursula Ferrigno is actually his book - bought with great enthusiasm for starting to bake bread when we first moved to the country seventeen years ago. The Pain Ordinaire was made in loaf and roll form a few times, but that was it, no progress beyond that first recipe in the book. No complaints about the book from me though, it has being well used - full of really good recipes. 

I got hold of a good recipe from Ruby Tandoh - salted peanut caramel shortbread - which looked pretty irresistible to me, so I had to give that a whirl. Lovely!  I did contemplate making a black bun, for the first time ever, as the prize at a run on Hogmanay, but decided it was going to be too long a bake, so opted for some biscuits instead (which probably took as long to decorate as the black bun would have taken to bake!)

It wouldn't have been Christmas without me getting a book or two - "Nopi" by Yotam Ottolenghi and Ramael Scully was one of the presents under the tree, so I have tried the courgette and manouri fritters, substituting haloumi for the manouri.  Not bad, but the one I really loved was the spiced chickpea patties with coconut and curry leaf paste - the flavours were pretty spot on - lucky I had a coconut to hand! Sometimes I do buy something fairly at random, then find a recipe to fit. I've every intention of making this one again but, as it takes a while to make, it might be another for holiday time. The dinner yesterday came from "Plenty More" - a cauliflower cake - way better than it sounds - it did actually look like the picture illustrating the recipe - and got the thumbs up from my other half.

Having time on my hands has meant getting a bit crafty - some knitting and sewing. I've knitted some Christmas decorations, intended for fund-raising later this year, and sewn up a couple of cushion covers - small beginnings, but I did say I was determined to get the sewing-machine out far more often. A present of a book of "Mini Christmas Knits" from my friend and fund-raising partner meant trying out a few things to continue in my aim to reduce the mound of remnants of wool I have gathered over many years, knitting many jumpers. One day I may succeed!  Sadly, back to work tomorrow.

A forlorn reindeer....