I am back to the blog in an earnest attempt to get rid of the insane habit of letting friends and family know how I am by updating my status on Facebook. It is, however, a sad indicator of our times that a blog is tool of choice for this operation.For this week, tasks to accomplish (in no special order of importance) include: recover from OFSTED; organise Florence’s 5th birthday party; bake & ice 2 birthday cakes; sort out Christmas cards and presents; get to the end of term with all jobs done; maintain semblance of normality whilst quietly having collapse of self-esteem from taking on too much.More news soonest, if I don’t hibernate first.
Category Archives: food
Comments on the detail.
Well, there it is, May has all but disappeared and hardly a squeak from me on the blog. And maybe some of us are disappointed at that. Never mind, it’s now half term week which means that I can wax lyrical about the joys of teachers’ holidays, unruly wine, slow food and fine kids (did I get those adjectives muddled? I got distracted by having to hiss through the window at the local tabby cat who has taken to piddling acridly in our alleyway).
In the meantime, I’ve done coursework moderation, faculty improvement planning, student teacher mentoring, and a little light teaching at work. On the home front, we are planning the next great building onslaught and hopefully getting a puppy now that Theo is 3 and verging on being house trained.
The biggest news is that Florence has had the chicken pox. We counted 34 spots at the height of the outbreak. She was very brave, but was a little surprised that we were so pleased she had it until we explained that she would only get it the once! Fingers crossed that Theo is so stoical, although despite being under the weather there are no spots to be seen.
Hoorah for all that. As it has stopped raining for five minutes, my thoughts have turned to my favourite salad – carrot and cashew nut – from “The Best of Lord Krishna’s Cuisine”. Toast a generous handful of whole cashews under the grill while peeling and grating a large carrot. Finely chop half a red pepper. Put all these ingredients in a pretty/utilitarian bowl and sprinkle lightly with salt. In a frying pan, heat one tablespoon of sunflower oil and fry one teaspoon of mustard seeds until they start to darken and pop. Add this to the salad bowl, along with 2 tablespoons of plain yoghurt. Stir it all in gently and serve with your favourite curry.
¡Hola! from Parc Guell
Today we enjoyed the sunshine in Barcelona, and sustenance in the form of pizza (traditional?), tortilla, juice and beer we marched ourselves up the hill to take in the Parc Guell.
There was a sublime time of running around the hall of columns with the kids, listening to Spanish guitar music and watching Theo have his first holiday romance. The sun shone, the tiles sparkled and all was generally magnificent in a holiday kind of way. We marched back down again, back on the bus for more views.
At the beach, Flo and I perfected our wave jumping technique, while Theo practised sand swimming before repairing to a nearby ice-cream parlour for refreshments. After another hop on the Barca tourist bus we headed into the area around the cathedral for a snack, but this part of the adventure was cut short rapidly by Theo falling asleep as we were walking. The little lambs were revived by Rita´s superb tortilla, which I hope to reproduce back at home.
Joyful holiday: zoo and shopping tomorrow.
Step up, step down.
It’s been a nice run of clear days both weather and mood wise. Yesterday was a classic good family day with cooking, husband manfully unblocking a drain and a great visit to the park with some friends in bright sharp sunshine. There was an amazing hiatus after tea when 4 children aged between one and four all played equanimously together, an occasion worth note in most parents’ blogs. Today has been cloudied somewhat by the precipitation of bureaucracy but the kids cheered me up with a new dance routine and a silly song so all is cool. The “step up, step down” of the title refers to Florence needing (being somewhat lanky) to bend down to get under a railing on some steps, and as I exhorted her to take care she began to chant: “step up, step down, duck!” Not many repetitions in, the “duck” was replaced with “quack” and soon Theo joined in, closely followed by me. As our neighbourhood is so entertaining, we have handy cctv cameras in the park and it is gratifying to think that just maybe the sight of two children with Mummy stepping up, stepping down and ducking with a quack and a duck movement amused someone stuck in an office somewhere.
Sadly, I have no photographic evidence of this so you’ll have to take my word for how amusing this was at the time.
For the last few weeks, my bread has become more hardcore. I can’t blame the oven (Miele, sleek, unimpeachable), perhaps the yeast has been at fault or my lazy kneading of the dough, or the general cold spell. However, Doves Farm spelt flour has saved the day like a knight on a wholemeal charger. A 2:1 ratio of Doves Farm (DF) to Whissendine (WW) uber-worthy flour has resulted in an almost mainstream loaf. For this recipe I unashamedly mix my measurements, stick with it. Take 1lb Doves Farm wholemeal spelt flour and half a pound of WW wholemeal spelt flour, place in a large bowl. To this, add two teaspoons DF quick yeast, one and a half teaspoons fine sea salt, two tablespoons sunflower oil. Next, roll up your sleeves and those of your assistant, add 500ml hand hot water and mix. Until recently I have been an unreconstructed ‘hands-in-the-dough’ baker, but recently my Grandmother has got me a hand mixer with dough hooks and I can’t resist the lure of a good gadget. Whichever method you favour, combine all the ingredients until you have a consistent dough ball. Blow lots of kisses at the dough, cover and leave for at least an hour in a draught free spot. When you come back, the dough should more or less have doubled in size and look different in consistency. Now, flour your surface (a good granite worktop is best, but this is definitely a luxury) and knead the dough for a couple of minutes before chopping in half. Knock back one lump of dough with traditional kneading motion for about five minutes, adding more flour as necessary. The loaf should feel alive; if it doesn’t, perversely, a good punching can sometimes revive it. At the very least it’s a good outlet for some frustration etc. Knead the second loaf, place both on a lightly greased baking tray, blow kisses at the loaf again, especially if you’ve beaten the crap out of it, and gently cover with a tea towel. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 220C (gas 7 I think) which should take the 30 minutes required for the loaves to prove again. Uncover and put in the oven for 35 mins at which point the loaf should feel hollow when tapped on the bottom. Resist the temptation to eat immediately as the bread actually tastes better after cooling for quarter of an hour. If your kids will eat the crust on this then they probably have hair on their chests already.
New do’s
Half term is here at last, and despite it being only a few weeks since the last school break I really feel in need of this one. We are going away and with lots to do I’m coming down with a cold, just as everyone else has shaken theirs off, consequently the last few days has been fuelled by Lemsip and anaesthetic throat sweets. With a view to the holiday, both Flo and Theo have had haircuts. Theo finds the whole thing rather traumatic, sobbing and wailing most disconsolately throughout. Lyn the hairdresser is mostly unfazed, in much the same way as when she is clipping a stroppy horse. It was this quality in her that made me think she’d be the person to do the kids’ hair, and with this in mind I never asked her to clip Merlin’s (my old horse) winter coat – he would have squashed her against a wall or convenient hard place. Mercifully, Theo didn’t squash Lyn, merely deafening her and he recovered quickly enough to demolish half a packet of chocolate fingers in record time. While he was doing so, Flo had hopped into the chair and was busy regaling Lyn with tales of just how much ice-cream she is going to eat on holiday. So, the pair of them will at least be able to see the marvels of Barca unimpeded by excess hair.
Yesterday demanded solid food with lots of nutrition, and not much effort, hence fish stew with rice and broccoli. The fish stew can either be a great store cupboard staple meal or something rather more extravagant if the situation requires. You need to fry down some red peppers (put these in first) and leeks until starting to brown, I usually do this in the oil from the fish (2 tins of either mackerel, sild, skippers, sardines, tuna or any combination of these) but remember to open the window first. Once the veg are browning, add one or two sticks of chopped celery and the fish, plus one tin of chopped tomatoes rinsed thoroughly with red wine. At this point, finely chop 2 or 3 sundried tomatoes and stir in. This dish really benefits from a decent size bayleaf, a pinch of mixed herbs and a smidge of stock. Once it’s started to boil, grate in one carrot, stir again, put the lid on and simmer gently for about 30 minutes, stirring once again about half way through. Adjust liquid content as necessary towards the end of the cooking time, and re-season if necessary. I find the stew does not need much extra salt, especially if you use the fish oil and/or smoked fish. Serve with basmati rice, steamed broccoli and a smug glow of satisfaction for a well balanced meal that everyone loves. Ice cream and fruit for pudding, anyone?
A heartfelt thanks to all of you reading this – also for the comments, keep them coming and get blogging yourselves. I am nearly able to post a photo, but have to master the technical wizardry of getting the pics small enough on the apple mac thing so that you can see the whole image at once instead of just the top left corner. Chris is going to give me a tutorial if I can’t work it out.
Snow, glorious snow.
Flo, Theo and Soo-Poo the snowmanWell, what a day. A rather grey start improved inordinately by the white stuff coming out of the sky. We crunched and creaked and skated our way to Flo’s school with both kids looking at their own pawprints and shoving snow in my pockets. All fairly calm especially as I managed not to bark hysterically at Flo and Theo with a lot of help from Chris, who is unbelievably calm about things like lost gloves, stray schoolbags and errant toddlers. He even has a knack of winkling out of Florence what happened at school the previous day to make her have a tizz about going in this morning. The trio of girls in Flo’s class have a sort of semi-systematic on-off friendship, and then there are the boys to consider too.
Anyhow, after school, the whole family skipped and hopped and kicked their way to the park to build a snowman (carrot nose, milk bottle top eyes, no hat) called Soo-Poo, throw snowballs and make snow angels. Even the passing binmen found it amusing.
Today for tea we had everyone’s favourite, rice and dhal. I had my favourite Creamed Spiced Spinach from The Best of Lord Krisha’s Cuisine, Theo tried it but Flo is mostly averse to such greenery, except lettuce. For the dhal, I love the pressure cooker. Rinse a cup of red lentils, put them in the pressure cooker with plenty of water, chopped fresh ginger root, one or two whole chillies, a pinch of turmeric, a bay leaf and a knob of butter. Put on the lid, heat and bring up to pressure, allow to cook for 10 minutes, take off the heat and let the pressure decrease without hindrance. When this is done, remove the lid, stir vigourously and ascertain if you need to reduce the mixture or moisten it somewhat. Add salt to taste. Meanwhile, fry some cumin seeds in a dollop of sunflower oil until lightly brown and put into the dhal – it should smell great and give off a resounding sizzle as it hits the dhal. The sizzle doesn’t help the taste necessarily but sounds like something exciting is happening. I did mean to put some fresh coriander in this but it is still languishing leafily in the salad drawer of the fridge – no one has complained so I am keeping schtum.
Before tea, we trekked back to the park through the slush to see how Soo-Poo the snowman was fairing. All seemed good, carrot still in place but now eyes, mouth etc of coal, a snow hat and a decidedly greater girth. Metamorphosis? Nope, Soo-Poo had been reduced to a grubby pile after a good kicking (we are not such a classy neighbourhood). Fortunately, Flo and Theo didn’t notice this at all and bought wholeheartedly into the idea that some one else had added to their previous efforts: today I don’t wish to show them the wreck of their creation.
Picture of kids with Soo-Poo the snowman to follow.
Sweet Somethings
For the last two days, Florence has decided not to hide behind the sofa when I arrive to collect her from the childminder. To be honest, often I can’t blame her as Serena, the childminder, is magnificent and usually rather more cool, calm and collected than I am at 6pm. Anyway, to be greeted by excited shrieks of “Mummy, Mummy” was pretty much just what I needed. Theo on the other hand is usually pleased to see me – not fallen off the parental pedestal there yet, but he’s not yet 3 and generally tells me “You my friend Mummy” when I turn up.
We have ventured for some white spelt flour which means experimentation in cake form – our usual flour being much too worthy for sweet baking. Mercifully Mary Berry’s best victoria sponge recipe needed minimal adaptation and the fairy cakes turned out light on the inside and golden brown and crispy on the outside. Spelt flour is preferable if you suffer some wheat intolerance.
So… take one bun or muffin tin and grease each cup thoroughly. Cut 175g unsalted butter into cubes and soften in the microwave for 10 secs. Then weigh out and sift 175g Doves Farm white spelt flour, add 175g castor sugar (mine has been sitting with a vanilla pod in it for a fortnight), one and a half teaspoons of baking powder and 3 decent size eggs (organic, free range if you have a heart). Mix the whole caboodle and get all involved to put in a handful of sultanas – cake baking is equal opportunities in our household. Spoon into the bun tin, while preventing too much mixture getting into the children, level off and bake in a preheated oven at 180C for 25 to 30 minutes or until golden, firm and separating slightly from the edges of the tin. Remember to blow lots of kisses at the cakes before they go into the oven.
red scarf day
I’ve been wearing too much black and pink lately. Today the red scarf came out and perked me up nicely – or is that the St John’s Wort kicking in? Nonetheless it’s been a sort of ruthlessly efficient day in a pleasant kind of way.
Dinner was couscous with tomato chick pea sauce and steamed broccoli. For the tomato sauce, fry red pepper, onion and celery in olive oil until starting to brown. Add tinned tomatoes (good ones), a good splash of red wine, a dollop of sundried tomato paste, bayleaf and herbs. A dessert spoon of balsamic vinegar and a few drops of tabasco sauce helps too, although sometimes I use harissa. Grate in a carrot and simmer for 30 mins with the lid on and reduce over a higher heat for 10 mins. Add in the chick peas 5 minutes before serving and season to taste.
If making this sauce for pasta, I put in half a teaspoon of brown sugar and leave out the chick peas. Putting it in the blender makes for a smoother final result and stops the kids complaining about random transitory vegetable dislikes.
The wearing of red also coincides with a sudden discontent with my entire wardrobe, but sadly I can’t see a financial opportunity for spicing that up in the imminent future.
Posted in food
A new tail.
I now have a new tail. Florence is getting over her cold, and spent a happy half hour sticky-taping looroll to my belt hook to create my deluxe bicoloured bespoke tail. This was not practical for visiting the shop however and had to be surreptitiously stuck into a pocket before heading for the outside world, although I don’t know why I worried as I look like a wreck at the moment. Theo is covering most of his toys and clothes with snot. Even he tires of eating his bogies, which is saying something for a nearly-3-year old.
Today, the new issue of Horse and Hound magazine arrived. In my new state as non-equestrian I’m considering cancelling the subscription and make do with online updates. This is a hard step to take but may mean that I can buy something more useful (more loo-roll and stickytape?).
Today required more hearty food: butternut squash and kidney bean casserole served with mildly spicy potato wedges. For the stew, fry red onions and red peppers til lightly browned, peel and chop the butternut squash, some carrots, parsnips, celery (the only hint of green), sundried tomatoes and place in a casserole dish. Drain a tin of kidney beans and rinse, add to the dish along with a tin of chopped tomatoes and the fried onion and pepper. Season to taste (thyme, bayleaf, garlic, salt, black pepper) and increase the moisture content with a metric splash of red wine. Sometimes it is good to add half a teaspoon of harissa paste, but today I opted for Tabasco and Worcester sauce along with the stock. Cook with a lid on, in a preheated oven at 200C/ gas mark 6 for an hour at least.
The casserole can sit at the bottom of the oven while the potato wedges, soused in groundnut oil and sprinkled with salt, pepper, coriander powder, paprika and a smidge of ground cumin cook for about 40 mins.
back to the cooker
After a few days battling with illness (mine, the family’s) and heading south to plant my feet on London’s terra firma, it seems like a while since any food proper has been prepared in my kitchen.
Today, we need restorative soup so I head for the pressure cooker with red onion, celery, parsnips, carrots, lentils, olive oil, coriander powder and garam masala. The onions are fried until browned gently, then add the spices and continue to fry for a couple of minutes. The vegetables and lentils (peeled and rinsed where necessary) go in together all covered in water. My favourite part comes next: put on the pressure cooker lid and after 10 minutes some magical alchemical transformation has come about. The steamy intensity brings about the tenderest result which only needs a hint of stock powder (Marigold!), seasoning and a whiz in the jug blender to produce a velvety smooth soup. Triumph!
This soup is best served with homemade spelt flour bread but there are only so many things a woman can do in one day.
This smoothness serves in direct contrast to the rest of the day which was poignant and irritating by turns. I had to go and say goodbye to my share in a horse, Finn, which was sad. Had a good but brief conversation with my riding instructor, meaning I can still go and ride when resources allow. Discovered that Finn (handsome, thuggish) had wrecked my German leather bridle. These disappointments are swiftly forgotten when seeing and hearing my poorly kids, and acting as human remote control is not necessarily the balm I require!
