Sweet Treats and Robots

Last week, after having had a bit of a cushion making marathon I decided that it had been too long since I had last made a cake. In order to rectify this I whipped up a nice quick lime drizzle cake.

Nice and moist (especially after having been liberally drizzled in the lovely lime syrup) it is quite a nice light summery type of cake.

The recipe I used was:

Pre-heat oven to 180C (Fan 160) – grease and line a rectangular (or in my case grease a square silicone) baking tray

175g self raising flour

175g golden caster sugar

1 teaspoon baking powder

Zest of two limes

2 eggs

6 tablespoons milk

100g soft unsalted butter

Mix together all the ingredients and beat until it is a smooth dropping consistency. Pour into the baking tray and smooth the top. Put in the oven for 30 – 40 minutes until it is golden and firm to the touch.

Mix together a further 100g of caster sugar with the juice from the two limes (and any other zest you can get off them) and drizzle liberally and evenly over the still hot cake. Once cool, cut up and it will keep for a few days in an airtight container, or just put into your facehole immediately.

Now – about those robots…

One of the awesome cushions I made last week using a great design from Kokka. They have a nice blue/grey background and I teamed this one up with a nice dark indigo on the back.

Available in the shop here.

I also had another custom order for a coordinating cushion to go with the owl cushions I sold a while back – this lovely customer had previously bought two cushion covers and had asked for three plain green ones to match – two small darker green and one larger lime green. She decided last week that she wanted one more large lime green one. It is always nice to get repeat custom, it certainly helps with boosting confidence in my abilities!

Although last week was a bit stressful as I ended up blowing a 6th bulb on my sewing machine in the space of just over a month. That last one lasted all of about half an hour after having replaced the 5th one that burnt out, then as I turned the dial to switch from straight stitch to a zig-zag stitch for some serging (without having a posh overlocker machine) – pow – it went. Not burnt out this time, the tiny filament had broken on one side, so was presumably just very fragile and sensitive to vibration. So after a phone call to my Dad, an ex-engineer we’ve concluded that I need to do two things – 1. get a surge protector to use with my machine and 2. try an LED bulb. So just need to find a good reputable seller that isn’t too expensive and get me an LED bulb – he steered me clear of eBay where I have bought my replacement bulbs recently, just because you never know about the quality of electrical type products on there. So fingers crossed that this is the end of me sewing in the dark!

Smokin’….

Last Friday, after a day of domesticity – dusting, hoovering, bathroom cleaning, making more cushion covers… I decided to make a nice salad for dinner. I love a nice salad, it is one of my favourite meals to have. A nice big bowl of mixed leaves, usually with a few other bits and bobs to fill it out a bit to make a main meal.

Sometimes I like to have griddled chicken, or salmon and often like having griddled halloumi cheese for a salty tang but in this one I used torn mozzarella and decided to do some tea smoked duck strips.

I’ve posted about tea smoking before when I did a buffet style dinner party before Christmas, I did some thinly sliced chicken breast back then, but thought about doing the duck while I was doing the online shop earlier in the week. I figured that the thin strips wouldn’t take long to cook using this method and would be a little different.

I got a lovely bag of mixed leaves and fennel tops – Steve’s Leaves salad bags have been on offer via Ocado for a while now so been making the most of them. I tastefully arranged it in a large dish, along with slices of cucumber, radish, tomato and some nice ripe melon and strawberries (I LOVE having strawberries in a salad!)

Then I sorted out my little smokery – got my grill pan and lined it with two layers of foil and put a mixture of dried rice, soft brown sugar and emptied about four Earl Grey teabags into it. I then put the grill tray in with more foil on with a few holes pierced through. I put the grill pan over a ring on my gas hob on a low heat and waited until it started smoking. I coated the duck strips with a little olive oil and when ready put them on the grill tray and covered the whole lot in yet more foil. I had the overhead extractor fan on, every window open but the house still smelled of smoke for about a day!

I left them under for about 7 minutes and they were perfect. A delicate smoky flavour and went really well with the fennel tops in the salad. Lovely on a warm spring evening with a glass of sparkling water with raspberry and lemon cordial and a wedge of lime! Left to coat liberally with the dressing of your choice!

Tea smoked duck salad

The only downside (other than the smell of smoke in the house for a while) was that when clearing up and getting rid of the foil that the smoke residue on the foil stained my fingers yellow. But almost gone now!

 

Aromatic soup!

The other day I decided to use up some carrots and butternut squash we had in the fridge and made a soup. I had some stock in the freezer left over from doing a roast gammon a while back. The stock was very aromatic – it was the water I had boiled my piece of smoked gammon in, along with some star anise, cinnamon stick, chilli flakes and peppercorns. It had a salty, gammony, spicy goodness about it.

I peeled and cubed the vegetables and fried it off in a pan with some butter and some sticks of fresh ginger. I also added some ground ginger, ground cinnamon and white pepper – although to be honest it probably didn’t need the white pepper or the ground ginger as it had a lot of gingery peppery flavour – a little too much for me (but I am a bit of a wimp when it comes to hot flavours.)

I then covered the vegetables with the stock and let come to the boil and simmer for a while until the vegetables were cooked through. Then I blended it all down with a hand blender and added some mascarpone cheese. After a taste test it just needed something a bit sweet to counter the saltiness so I put some maple syrup in – perfect!

To serve it I put a small blob more mascarpone in. I think if I made it again I might perhaps just stick with the fresh ginger and leave out the pepper and ground ginger and maybe more veg or less stock as it was a bit thin, but still tasty!

With the soup that is left I am thinking of combining it with some ground toasted cashew nuts and maybe some toasted spices like cumin and some tomatoes and some fried chunks of paneer for an aromatic curry.

Tractors and Pie!

This week I have been having a bit of a rush on trying to order some more of those awesome green ceramic tractor buttons for a bulk order for some cute tractor badges for a special boy’s birthday party.

I’ve made 10 so far and awaiting a further 10 buttons to arrive in the post for me to make some more.

Looking pretty good!

I also made a rather nice fish pie this week too. My husband doesn’t like fish so it’s something I tend to have if he wants to eat something I’m not mad keen on so we make different things or if I am at home on my own. I had picked up a pack of ‘fish pie mix’ from the supermarket the other day as it was reduced and had put it in the freezer so I got it out to defrost – it is an ok selection of little cuts of salmon, haddock and smoked pollock.

I then made a white sauce using 35g of butter and 60g of plain flour and once they were combined I added 500ml of milk (mine was skimmed – fully skimmed not semi) and stirred until thick (at one point it got a bit gloopy so I gave it a wazz with my handheld blender which really de-glooped it and made it quite nice and light.) I added some ground black pepper, some chopped parsley and the juice and zest of a small lemon and I put some chopped spring onions in aswell as some frozen peas. I lovingly dolloped it on top of the scattered fish bits in my nice dish. While I had been making the sauce I had some diced potato on the boil to make some nice fluffy mash with – and added some chopped leeks that I had sweated off in a bit of butter and mashed it all up nicely and spread on top of the sauce, made some nice fork marks and then finely grated some applewood smoked cheddar on top and baked for about 25 mins until all nice and golden and bubbling. It was rather nice – the lemon helped make the sauce quite light and it was plenty for dinner and for lunch the next day!

Cardamom Banana Bread with Dark Chocolate

Now, most people who know me know that I really don’t like bananas. I dislike raw banana, banana flavoured things and smoothies with banana in (it’s all I can taste!) but weirdly I don’t mind eating banana bread.

I don’t think I have ever actually made it myself before. My Mum used to make a nice banana bread, and usually if we have any bananas going manky then my husband will knock up a loaf. This week my best friend Dom (from Kingdom of Appetency) kindly gave me some devils fruit that was on the turn. A couple of years ago I had been watching a River Cottage spin off – Three Go something or other. One episode had a rather yummy sounding spiced banana cake recipe. As usual with most recipes we’ve tried we’ve tweaked it a bit to suit our tastes etc.

So last night I made a loaf and it turned out rather nice!

Mmmm tasty!

The basic recipe is:

250g of self raising flour

175g light brown soft sugar

100g butter (the original recipe states to use unsalted butter but has a generous pinch of sea salt – we found this to just be a bit too salty so just opted to use salted butter.)

20 cardamom pods (this is the original recipe but we also have some ground cardamom and I used two teaspoons)

100g dark chocolate (either chips or chopped up) (I didn’t quite have 100g but I had 60g of Green & Blacks Dark Chocolate with Lemon which I used instead.)

3 bananas (the original recipe is 2 but I used three in mine)

1 egg – beaten

1 tablespoon demerara sugar for the top

Method:

Preheat oven to 180C (fan assisted)

Sift the flour in with salt (if using) and ground cardamom (if using cardamom pods – split them and take out the seeds and toast lightly before crushing into a powder). Then chop the butter into small pieces and add to the flour and rub in with your fingers until it resembles breadcrumbs. Mix in the light brown sugar and the chocolate pieces. Then mash up the bananas (not too much – keep some texture) and mix in the beaten egg. Make a well in the centre of the flour mixture and then pour in the banana mush and mix in and beat together until all well combined then pour into a lined loaf tin. Smooth the top with a spatula and then sprinkle the demerara on top. Pop into the oven and bake for at least 45 mins – but in reality mine took more like just over 1 hour. Keep testing with a skewer to see if it comes out clean – when it does you know it is ready.

We love it nice and warm from the oven with some butter on. But equally nice cold (also with butter on!)

Chinese New Year

As most of you probably know, yesterday was Chinese New Year – the Year of the Horse. We decided we wanted to join in with some homemade Chinese food.

Homemade Extravaganza (No Horses Included)

We both love crispy duck and pancakes. I have made pancakes before but they somehow had ended up being a bit fragile and weren’t so great, but I thought I would give it another go this year.

So last night we had crispy duck with pancakes and plum sauce, crispy chilli chicken and some vegetable noodles.

I started off with putting the oven onto 170C and while I waited for it to heat up I dried off the skin on my duck crown. Once it was dry I gave it a liberal covering of salt, pepper and Chinese five spice. Once the oven was up to temperature I whacked the duck in. I set my timer for half hour intervals so I could take it out and give it a good baste. Then after two hours I cranked the temperature up to 200C for a final 15 mins to give it some final crisp!

Meanwhile I quartered a dozen plums and popped them in a saucepan with 5 tablespoons of sugar, 2 tablespoons of light soy sauce, half a teaspoon of chilli powder and the same of Chinese five spice. Then a couple of tablespoons of water and got it up to the boil and left it to simmer away for about 45 mins until it was all broken down and looking jammy. Popped it into a little serving dish and left it to cool.

I made my pancake dough with 300g of plain flour (well mine was more like 60g of plain flour and then I ran out so the rest was strong white bread flour) and a tablespoon of sugar and 240ml of boiling water added slowly until it formed a dough. Then turned out onto a floured surface and kneaded until smooth. Then roll it out nice and thin. I used my largest circular cutter to cut out loads of circles until you have an even number. Then get some olive oil and sesame oil mixed together and with a pastry brush give one side of each circle a liberal brushing and then pair two together – oiled sides together – do this for all of them. Then take a joined pair and give them another roll out with the rolling pin until they are nice and thin and larger. I ensured the outsides were well floured and stacked up each rolled pair and covered the stack with clingfilm until I was ready. Once the duck is ready you can then fry the pancakes in a non-stick pan for a minute or so each side and they can then be peeled apart fairly easily ready for rolling up with duck. I thinly sliced some spring onion and cucumber to go with them. Tasty!

Mmmm good to the last quack!

For my crispy chilli chicken I used some chicken thighs – off the bone, skinned and with any fat trimmed. I chopped them into bite sized morsels and seasoned well with salt and pepper. I made a batter out of one egg white and a few teaspoons of cornflour and whisked it up till light and frothy and poured it over the chicken and gave it a good mix to coat. I then deep fried them in some oil until golden and put to one side on some kitchen roll to absorb any extra oil.

In a wok I put some groundnut oil and quickly fried some matchsticks of fresh ginger root, sliced garlic and sliced chilli and then poured about half a bottle of sweet chilli sauce into the pan. I put a decent glug of light soy sauce in and added some pineapple chunks and the juice of half a lime. Once all mixed together and heated through I added the chicken into the pan to stir through and get nice and coated in the sauce. It was finished off with some raw spring onion and some fresh coriander leaf.

Nice and spicy! Although more really from the ginger than the chilli!

Then my noodles were nice and simple, thin egg noodles in boiling water for 3 mins. In a wok some groundnut oil, some slices of baby sweetcorn and mange tout and some carrot (I cut mine into little flower shapes with a cookie cutter to look pretty). I put a small sliced clove of garlic and a little bit of fresh ginger in too. Then added the noodles and some toasted sesame seeds and a little light soy sauce and sesame oil and a tiny bit of rice wine vinegar. Again just some raw spring onion popped on the top at the end.

Nice and light and flavourful!

It was all super scrummy. The duck was so very nice, the plum sauce was out of this world and it all was nicer than the takeaway! (Even if I do say so myself!) There was plenty left over for us to have duck pancakes for lunch today!

I went to the library today and picked up a Chinese cookery book to see if I can get some more ideas! Hope you enjoyed Chinese New Year too!

Still not a food blog but here is a blog post about food!

As previously alluded to, we had my best friend Dom and his husband Peter over for some pre-Christmas nibbles and drinks on Friday. We had also invited my lovely friend Chloe but unfortunately in some freak Ikea Circus Tent Pole accident, she had done her back in and couldn’t make it!

I spent the Thursday and most of Friday preparing various different things for it. A lot of them were new to me so I wasn’t entirely confident that a. I wouldn’t totally balls them up and b. that they would taste nice.

I didn’t sadly take photos of everything we made but I did take a few.

I had scoured through various recipe books and looked online for some interesting ideas and things that would be fairly simple to prepare but be a little different. One thing I’d had in my mind for a while was something I had seen on a recent BBC TV series featuring the chef Nigel Slater (who normally I shout at the TV when watching as he can be a little too precious) and a Cotswold farmer Adam Henson (usually seen on Countryfile). The premise of the show was about growing/rearing your own food and generally meant to spread some understanding and kindle some interest in people who may otherwise maybe just get oven ready chicken nuggets and bung them in the oven for dinner night after night. Or the aspiring small holder wanting to raise a few pigs and maybe chickens and perhaps grow some oyster mushrooms on the side. Anyway, I digress. I had seen Nigel make some ‘Sausage Danish’ and having made palmiers for our wedding reception I had some experience of rolling pastry together and it looked rather nice. I had bought a nice little packet of sausage meat from Sainsbury’s which was just the right amount to spread thinly over the (pre-made shop bought) puff pastry sheet. I decided to tweak the recipe just a tiny bit and I toasted the fennel seeds lightly before I put them over the meat. I then also chilled the log of meaty pastry in the fridge for a short while to make it a bit easier to slice. I made mine fairly thick and so took about 20 mins or so in the oven (and I did have the oven at 180C as it is fan assisted.) I have to say they were rather yum and I will definitely make these again!

Sausage Danish or Palmiers

I also made (no photo – sorry!) some lamb koftes.

They were made simply using 250g of lean mince lamb, half a medium onion grated (oh my eyes! They have never watered more in an onion related incident in my life!), two crushed cloves of garlic, a teaspoon and a half of ground cumin and a about a quarter of a teaspoon of cayenne pepper. I also toasted up some pine nuts and added them to the mixture and squished it all together till it was a kind of paste like texture and then took small handfuls and moulded them into little torpedo type shapes around some pre-soaked bamboo skewers and left them to chill until I was ready to cook them on the griddle pan. They took just a few minutes on each side and I put them in the oven to heat through nearer the time.

To go with them I also made a yoghurt and cucumber raita dip. Fresh thick plain yoghurt, a handful of fresh mint leaves chopped, grated cucumber (usually it is good to squeeze out excess moisture but I cut the middles out so they weren’t too sloppy!) and some ground cumin, lemon juice and a little lemon zest and some salt and pepper to season. (Sprinkle some chopped mint on the top too to make it look a bit pretty…)

I had also picked up a bag of chipotle chilli and lime tortilla chips so I made some tomato-less guacamole to go with it. One nice ripe avocado, mashed up with a fork – nice to have a few chunks so don’t mash too much. A squeeze of lime juice and a bit of zest, some hot chilli powder (but not too much), snipped up spring onion and some chopped fresh coriander leaves.

Next came some little paneer and herb fritters. For those of you who don’t know, Paneer is an Indian cheese. It is a fairly bland cheese as it is really meant to soak up flavours – a little like tofu really. I usually like it in a curry, like Sag Paneer (Paneer with Spinach) and I have done a version of that where you cube up the paneer, deep fry it for a short time, cook down some ginger, garlic, ground cumin and green chilli and then sweat some spinach leaves on top of that then blend it all together and add some cream and then stir in the paneer (lush). This time the paneer was grated then mixed with spring onion, chopped fresh mint and coriander leaves, seasoned with salt and pepper and ground cumin and then mixed together with a beaten egg. Shaped into walnut sized pieces and then flattened into little round patties and chilled until I was ready to shallow fry them off in some sunflower/vegetable oil. These were nice little morsels and went well with the raita dip too.

Paneer and Herb Fritters

I decided to do some little mini jacket potatoes with everything too. Just got some little spuds, pricked them with a fork, rubbed them with olive oil and a sprinkling of sea salt and then in the oven for an hour at 170C (fan assisted). Then you take out, leave to cool slightly and can cut a cross in the top and squeeze the bottom a bit for them to open up. With them I made a simple cream cheese and chive dip.

Whilst most things were cooking or chilling I marinated some king prawns in some lime juice, lime zest, grated ginger and crushed garlic. They were pre-cooked but I did a little cut down the back of them to help the flavour seep in more and to open up slightly when being cooked. I had threaded three a piece onto some pre-soaked mini bamboo skewers. Throughout the day I spooned over the marinade just to keep them moist. Then when we were ready to eat I simply cooked them for a few minutes on the griddle pan and finished them off with some lime butter in the pan. They had a nice delicate ginger flavour to them and even Dom ate some (he isn’t the biggest prawn fan in the world.)

I then went for something most people have probably not tried at home. I smoked my own chicken (and no – that’s not a euphemism for something.) I had picked up some chicken breast steaks as they were thinner than regular chicken breasts. Using my grill pan I took the wire rack out and lined the base of the pan with foil and then sprinkled over some rice, brown sugar, some Chinese five spice powder, emptied the contents of several tea bags (including earl grey) and mixed together. I put the rack back in and covered that with foil. Then put the pan on the hob and heated it up – when it started to smoke I put the chicken on – a little drizzle of olive oil and then covered the whole thing with yet more foil. I also put the fan on over the hob, opened every window ever and shut the kitchen door and left it to do it’s thing for about 15 mins. I have previously done this sort of thing with duck legs – where I smoke them for about 20 mins, then they get an aromatic spice rub and go in the oven for a while, but I’d not done it with chicken before. I came back into the smoke filled room and took the foil off and there was some very lovely brown smoky looking chicken. I took it all off the heat and left the chicken to rest for a short while before slicing. I then popped it into the fridge for a while and used it to make some little chicken and mango salad bites using mini gem lettuce leaves. Although in hindsight it might have been nicer had the chicken still been warm. But the smoky flavour was nice and not too overpowering.

Tea smoked chicken salad

My lovely husband also made a rather nice tomato, basil and mozzarella salad (Italian’s usually call this Insalata Caprese). I didn’t take a photo but it looked lovely (and tasted lovely too!)

Dessert was mainly a mixture of a few different things, some shop bought Lebkuchen biscuits, shop bought mini mince pies (I even ate one…), and these yummy chocolate covered pretzels done by my husband.

Milk chocolate covered pretzels

Drool… white chocolate covered pretzels

I had also decided to try to make something I had never attempted before. Marshmallows.

I have a bit of a fear of cooking sugar. I am always thinking I am going to not pay attention to the sugar thermometer and get it all horridly wrong and end up with either a gooey mess or some sort of rock solid sugary mass welded to my cookware. However, it turned out OK! I thought about doing something a little different so decided to flavour them with earl grey tea.

I made up 120ml of tea and let it cool and then added it to 23g of powdered gelatine in a mixer and left it to ‘sponge’ (the gelatine absorbs all the liquid). Meanwhile I heated up 440g of caster sugar and 160ml of golden syrup in a pan with just enough water to cover it. Stirring to ensure it all combined and then left to heat up until it reached at least 130C – at the most 140C (soft crack). Take it off the heat for 1 minute and then start whisking the gelatine mixture (best to do this in a proper mixer like a Kenwood) and then slowly pour the sugar down the side of the mixing bowl (don’t let it touch the whisk or you will regret it with horrid shards of sugar in your mixture.) Keep whisking on a medium speed and you will see the mixture start to thicken up like egg whites. Keep going until it starts to strand across the surface a bit like bubblegum. Then line a tray with greased cling film (make sure it is super greased!) and pour out and use a greased spatula to help. Then cover with some more greased cling film and leave to chill and set for a few hours. When you are ready – use a greased knife to cut it into cubes. Mine was so super sticky it was like wrestling with an angry cat covered in jam. I ended up using wet hands to coax it apart. I had whizzed up some pistachio kernels to a fine grit and mixed with some cornflour and used this to roll my ‘cubes’ into. Then put into an airtight container to store. The ones I tried right after making were still rather gooey but tasty. The next day they had firmed up and were light inside. I did take (a rather bad) photo of them!

Earl Grey Marshmallows with a Pistachio Dust

I also decided to make a little foodie present and got some rather fabulous retro Kelloggs cereal tins to put them in. I made a batch of brazil nut bread – which is like biscotti in a way. I roasted up 60g of brazil nuts until golden, put in a towel and leave for 5 mins and then rub the skins off with the towel. Then whisk up 3 egg whites (and a pinch of salt) and take 90g of caster sugar and add half while whisking and then fold the other half in. Then sift 90g of plain flour together with some cinnamon and grated nutmeg. I also used some ground cardamon. Then fold that into the egg whites and add the nuts. I used some mini loaf tins and the mixture filled three of the loaves.

I then cooked them for about 30 mins at 180C and left them to cool. You then have to wrap them in foil and chill for 24 hours (or you can freeze them until you are ready). Once chilled you then slice them thinly and bake at 150C for about 15 mins each side. They are really good to have with a coffee!

I also decided to make some honeycomb – another first for me. It is a pretty simple recipe – 125g of caster sugar and 25g of light brown soft sugar heated up together with 4 tbsp of golden syrup. Stir together to ensure they are combined and then once the mixture is all bubbling and golden you take it off the heat and chuck in 1 tbsp of bicarbonate of soda and stir it all together quickly and then pour into a lined greased tin (I used my silicone cake tin so didn’t grease and it came out fine.) Then you leave it to harden. I then broke it up into pieces – some bits did just turn to sugary dust but I did get some decent chunks out of it. I then melted some dark chocolate and then dipped the honeycomb partially into the velvety goodness and left them to set.

Mmm presents!

With the other bar of dark chocolate I had, I decided to melt down and add a few drops of cola flavouring. I took some of the smaller crumbs of the honeycomb and put them onto some greaseproof paper on a baking tray along with some pieces of crystallised ginger and poured the chocolate over it and spread it thinly and then sprinkled some more of the ginger and honeycomb on the top and put it in the fridge to set before breaking it up for some lovely chocolate bark to have with coffee. It smells divine!

Scrummy Chocolate Bark

We were also given some lovely lemon snowball shortbreads from Dom who has also cunningly blogged about it on his lovely food blog – Kingdom of Appetency.

I had also spent most of Friday with my hair in bendy rollers – so had rather crazy hair by 7pm.

The wild haired Alex of Wiltshire

All in all the evening went well (as well as could be without Chloe) and helped along by glasses of pink fizz, ginger flavoured beer (a lovely chilled bottle of Blandford Flyer by Badger Ales) and Raspberry Ginger Beer!

I had a lovely thank you card from them and also a stupendous pavlova made by Pete (he is the King of Meringue!)

A rather tasty pavlova with blackberries, raspberries and strawberries with a delicate lemon curd flavoured cream.

The next thing to do now is to head over to Dom & Pete’s tonight for a lovely Christmas Eve meal with them – a nice baked ham. Really looking forward to it! Then of course – Christmas Day! Yay!

Which reminds me – I must get our Poussin out of the freezer for our Christmas Dinner tomorrow!

Wishing everyone a lovely Christmas!

 

Fireworks in the rain and mulled cider

Tonight my husband and I decided to walk down to the local fireworks display to stand by the roadside to watch them rather than head into the midst of the fairground. We looked a right pair stood there getting rather wet and blown about as the winds were gusting and the heavens opened on us, but miraculously died down just in time for the display to start.

The local display is usually a fairly bog standard affair, we’ve been to it for a few years now, usually taking my stepson along (the first year we took him he spent the entire thing with his hands over his ears and his face buried into the back of his Dad’s head to avoid the whole lot.) He went with his Mum tonight so we just toddled off together.

On the way back we popped to the shop to get a few bits and bobs for sausage baguettes for dinner (I like mine with some smoked chilli jelly and some fresh coriander leaves in.) We also made sure we had some supplies for making mulled cider as by this point the heavens had reopened on us on our way back. So once home, my husband grilled the sausages while I set to on the mulled cider.

I used some bottles of Magners cider but usually I prefer to use a nice big bottle of Thatchers Gold but they don’t stock that in our local little Tesco Express. I already had all the spices in the cupboard so just needed an orange which we duly purchased.

To make the mulled cider – put the cider in a saucepan, put in some orange peel (try not to get much of the white pith as this will give a more bitter taste), add a generous sprinkling of cloves, whole star anise, a cinnamon stick, some slices of ginger root, grated nutmeg and a vanilla pod (split and the seeds scraped out and then put the pod into the pan too.) Use the juice from the orange too and bring to the boil and simmer. I tend to also add some sugar to taste. This time I used some dark brown soft sugar for a deeper flavour. Make sure you take some out with a ladle and strain through a sieve or tea strainer into a glass to taste as you go to make sure you get a taste that you like. Then strain into glasses or mugs and enjoy!

And in case you are wondering – no I am not slowly becoming a food blog!

A slump and some choirboys…

This week I found some reduced raspberries and blueberries in the local supermarket and I had an idea to make one of my favourite autumntime warming puddings – a slump. A slump is a bit like a cobbler, with a fruity compote type base with a scone type topping.

I heated up the punnets of raspberries and blueberries in a saucepan with some caster sugar and water and one star anise and let it come to the boil before transferring it into a small dish to cool. I then set to making the scone topping using self raising flour, baking powder, sugar, melted butter, a little salt and some lime zest and juice. I mixed it to a soft dropping consistency careful not to overwork it and set it aside for a moment. I then got a tub of mascarpone cheese and took half and mixed it with some caster sugar and placed some blobs of it on top of the cooling fruit and topped them off with blobs of the scone mixture. I popped it into an oven at 200 degrees (or 180 for fan assisted) for 25 mins or until the scone topping is a nice golden brown.

It is like having scones with jam and cream but hot and slightly sloppy but lovely! I like to use the remainder of the mascarpone to blob into the hot pudding once divvied out into the bowls.

As for the choirboys – along the same lines of the angels I made recently – here is a cute little set of felt choirboys mid-Christmas Carol…

Ups and downs

Yesterday I was lying in bed when I heard a sound I dread… the boiler making cacophanous banging noises while my husband was in the shower. Next thing I see him dashing out of the bathroom to check on the boiler. Yep the hot water has decided not to want to work.

So I had a brief cold shower before he left for work and had to call for an engineer – one is coming on Monday. So it will be lots of boiling kettles and washing with jugs this weekend. Not for the first time, our boiler is rubbish and we regularly have this problem thanks to the hard water area we live in, ruining all the internal workings of the boiler.

However I did meet up with an ex work colleague for lunch on Friday which was really good. Had a nice meal and a great laugh.

This morning I had to make two more of my cute little bat decorations as they and my hanging pumpkins I made for my challenge a while back are heading off to Washington DC.

Then it was shopping, decided to throw a bit of a buffet lunch tomorrow and invite my sister and her family across so bought an array of items. The main reason for doing this is because just recently my husband had a chat with his ex about their son being perhaps old enough now to make up his own mind about whether he wants to be a vegetarian or not. (He has been raised a veggie as originally my husband was a vegetarian as is his ex.) However he doesn’t really like a lot of vegetarian things and it is sad when he goes to parties and gets sweets in party bags he isn’t allowed to eat etc. We thought that he should be allowed to make up his own mind about food now he is almost six, and that buffet type stuff might be good for him to nibble on and decide whether he likes things or not. He was pretty over the moon when we told him Mummy said it was OK for him to try non-veggie things. “You mean next time I go to a party I can have anything I want?” Sometimes it is the simple things in life! (He said he wants to try a bacon sandwich to see if he likes it!) So will see how that goes down tomorrow.

I have made a trifle for tomorrow a bit of a twist on something my Mum used to make. I lined a bowl with thin slices of chocolate and vanilla swiss roll, then poured some raspberry jelly on top so it soaked into the cake. Then when that had set I poured more raspberry jelly on top. I had a carton of ready made Ambrosia Devon Custard (yum) and melted some milk chocolate and added a small amount of strongly brewed coffee into the melting chocolate and mixed that into the custard. (It tastes divine!) Tomorrow I will be putting some marshmallows on the top. My Mum usually makes it with raspberries and cream on top, but lately I have found that I cannot eat cream – it makes me pretty ill. I have IBS so there are a lot of foods out there on my death list! Plus the kids don’t seem to like raspberries all that much at the moment, too many seeds I think.

My husband has been baking tonight – making a starter dough and making some walnut bread – he’s made it before and it is super nice, especially warm out of the oven with butter on!

I have got a few craft fairs coming up in November, so I decided to try doing a bit of a mock up of my table. A while back I bought a folding trestle table from eBay and some other bits and bobs for display including some ex-shop units which were black and white modular units. Turns out the white one was just far too big for the table and so that is now residing in our airing cupboard playing host to loo rolls and other gubbins! The black one is smaller and can go on the table for displaying some of my larger items.

I also painted my pasta dryer white this week, and it works pretty well for displaying my hanging items.

The table isn’t quite how I want everything to look at the moment, I wouldn’t put everything out, just too much going on. I have also ordered some chalkboards to stand on the table with prices written on to make things a bit clearer. (Although sometimes you could have the prices in massive neon lights and people will still ask you how much things are!) I am thinking of putting all my finger puppets into baskets to keep them together and look a bit better organised. Any comments are welcome for ways to improve!

I will also be putting a frame on top of the black unit with the shop name in to make it clear who I am. Also patently clear that I need to make more larger toys!

Also in two weeks time I will be having my first physio session. I have been waiting for about 12 weeks for the appointment to come through. Initially the appointment was for my left shoulder, but 12 weeks ago (about four days before I was referred for shoulder physio) I fell over in a car park. I have a special gift for being able to do things like that. My foot rolled over in a dip in the tarmac and doof! My left ankle immediately swelled to about three times it’s normal size and I was in agony, couldn’t walk on it at all. Thankfully my husband was with me at the time and dashed to the nearby supermarket for some frozen peas and whisked me home. I kept it iced and elevated but still couldn’t walk on it properly for about a week. The bruising came a third of the way up the outside of my calf, all down both sides and the top of my foot. Two weeks later it was still hugely swollen and I ended up at A&E for an x-ray, no broken bones. But now, 12 weeks on I am still in such a lot of pain and discomfort and cannot walk very far without it swelling up and being incredibly painful. So my GP added to my physio referral for my ankle due to my ligaments having been torn. So will be good to get them both seen to soon and hopefully get back to my normal self!

I have also made a few more things this week but I really need to find my camera battery charger! I live in a little house, there are only so many places it could be, but we have turned the place upside down for it! I can bet that if I was to buy another one that I would then miraculously find the original one. So I will probably use my husband’s camera and take some pics soon!

My husband and I will also be going to Bristol on Monday 21st October to see Fascinating Aida at Colston Hall. Looking forward to that. I was going to go with my Mum but my father isn’t too well at the moment so it is best she stays with him and he takes it easy. For those of you who may not have heard of Fascinating Aida, they are a trio of ladies who do musical comedy – this is probably one of their more famous perfomances – Cheap Flights.

Hopefully next week we’ll have hot water again (although somehow I reckon he wont have the parts and will have to come back!) The photo below just sort of sums up everything!