Sunny Sunday

Rob's away, but this weekend I've had Bob to keep me company instead.  Yesterday was grey and rainy, but today was the greatest contrast; non-stop glorious sunshine.  

Bob and I walked along the canal, then up onto Coombe Hill, where there were lots of other dogs and their owners to say hello to, and plenty of things for Bob to sniff!

But the best bit of the day was coming home after our 3-hour walk and just enjoying the sunshine.  I pottered round in the garden while Bob chewed his tennis ball.  And then we both went and lay down in a patch of sunlight.  Bliss!

What's in Your Handbag?

I'm considering myself 'tagged' by both Sandy and Lisa who have recently revealed the contents of their handbags to us.  OK, so they call them their 'purses' but for us here in the UK a purse is what you keep your money in (what my trans-Atlantic friends would call a 'wallet'...  although for us in the UK a wallet is what men keep their money in.  Confused yet?).

OK, so here's mine:

I was quite amazed at just how much stuff I lug around every day...  Here are the contents, in brief:

- My diary.  It's a school-issue one which runs from August to August, covering the whole school-year 2009-2010.  We all have identical ones so I always feel the need to customise mine in some way.  This year it's with stickers from The Very Hungry Caterpillar, bought in the Eric Carle Museum of Children's Art in Massachusetts.

- My glasses.  I pretty much only wear them for driving so perhaps should just keep them in the car.  However, I am beginning to need them rather more often so have decided they should live in my handbag instead.

- Keys (many...).  The car key is on the Mr Tickle keyring.  The house and school keys are on the monkey keyring.  I like having easy-to-locate large keyrings.  It saves too much rummaging.

- Purse.  Lovely leather purse from Roots in Canada.  It is quite stuffed full...  but not with cash, mainly receipts, which I'm never sure what to do with.

- Chequebook.   Not sure why I carry this, I use it so rarely nowadays.

- Flip Video Camera.  I've been using this a lot at school recently to film the children when they're doing Drama.  They love to watch themselves 'on TV' afterwards.

- Hairbrush.  Mason Pearson - stupidly expensive, but worth every penny.  This one has been detangling my hair for about 12 years now and is still going strong.

- Pens and pencils.  Hey, I'm a teacher.

- Memory stick.  On great Japanese 'Mameshiba' keyrings that my brother Ben sent from Japan.  My class love them, especially the one that speaks Japanese when you press the button!  I often need the memory stick in school when the computer network fails me...

- Tissues.  I have a cold right now.

- Lip balm.  Never without it.  I have some very cool Vanilla Pepsi lipbalm sent to me by Sarah in Canada.  I also have some lipgloss - I never wear lipstick, so this is as glam as I get!

- Mini deodorant.  For a quick freshen-up after teaching PE!

- Hairband.  For windy days.  Or those weeks when headlice are rampant within the class...

- Moisturising Lotion.  For cold, dry-hands days.  It's Crabtree and Evelyn Jojoba Oil lotion, one of my favourite scents ever.

- Tweezers.  For those eyebrow emergencies!

- Chocolate!  I have forgotten this was here.  I think it was given to me by a child who was handing out birthday treats.  Always worth having about one's person I feel.

The bag itself is a Fossil bag that I bought on the QM2 in the Summer of 2008.  I think it's a pleasing shape, and just the right size.  Though it could do with some leather polish to smarten it up now after nearly 2 years of use.

So, consider yourself tagged too!  I'm obviously quite nosy as this fascinates me.

Memories of Bakewell

We recently returned from a lovely holiday in the Peak District.  I've visited there a couple of times before and always felt the place compared unfavourably with the Lake District, the Yorkshire Dales, South Devon, all our usual holiday destinations - but this trip made me reconsider.  Perhaps it was that we were staying in a particularly pleasant village; perhaps it was the cosy cottage; perhaps it was the weather - that perfect mix of great days for walking and photography, plus a few damp and murky days where the only option was a couple of hours of fresh air and exercise followed by a slump on the sofa in front of the fire with a good book.  Whatever the reason, I found myself liking the Peak District a huge amount, and look forward to a return visit very soon.

My favourite food-memory of the week was sampling the famous Bakewell Tart - more correctly referred to as a Bakewell Pudding.  These puddings are ubiquitous in the small town of Bakewell, with at least 3 shops claiming to be the 'original' Pudding shop, with their own unique recipes.  Spoilt for choice as we were, we plumped for the first shop that we came to, and I took a photo while Rob eyed-up the tarts..!

These Puddings are a far cry from the fondant and glace-cherry-topped tarts beloved by Mr Kipling.  The story goes that these puddings were accidentally invented by a careless cook who was left instructions to make a jam tart.  However, instead of stirring the eggs and almond paste mixture into the pastry, she spread it on top of the jam. The result was successful enough for it to become a popular dish, as it remains today.

As you can see from this photo, the filling of these Bakewell Puddings is dense and eggy, not cakey and light as one might expect.  It was rich, and so delicious - but we soon discovered that eating too much (ie a third of a tart) in one sitting made you feel decidedly queasy!  The ingredients are simply egg, butter sugar and ground almonds, plus what the bakery claims is a 'secret ingredient'.  I couldn't work out what that ingredient was, but part of the secret to the tarts' success in my mind was the pastry which was simply divine.  It was a flaky puff pastry, but must have been made with lard judging from the film of white fat under the base of the pudding.  (That's a compliment by the way, however unappealing it might sound!)

 

 On our arrival home I determined to try my hand at a Bakewell Pudding.  I used a simple recipe from the classic Dairy Book of British Food, one of our go-to cookbooks for classic recipes.

As I suspected, this Pudding was more like a cakey Bakewell Tart, minus the icing of course.  Although the recipe called for 'red jam', I made my own by gently stewing a little forced rhubarb with the remnants of a bag of frozen mixed berries that I found lurking in the freezer.  The almondy topping rose, the flaked almonds burnished brown by the heat of the oven.  It may not have tasted quite as I wanted it to (I so want to recreate that dense eggy filling!) but it looked great.  And actually it did taste lovely too.

We ate it one night with custard, the following day cold with a cup of tea, and then the next night with creme fraiche and rhubarb compote.

 

Things I've Loved Recently

I haven't blogged much recently, or even cooked.  And what I have cooked has been simple.  Good, warming, comfortable winter food, but not usually photogenic, or anything that's made me race to find my camera.

However, looking through some recent photos I have seen some lovely things which I wanted to share:

In an Antiques shop in Berkhamsted, I found this gorgeous Cake Knife.  I never knew such a utensil existed, but this claims to 'make cake cutting a pleasure'!  I didn't buy it, but sneaked a photo and it makes me smile whenever I look at it.

I don't know why I picked up my camera last week when I was heading to a course in Oxford, but I was glad I had it with me when I was driving home past Thame.  I pulled off the road into a lay-by just to take some shots of this glorious late-afternoon sun, reflected in the flooded meadow.  It looks so idyllic you would never guess that there's a busy dual-carriageway roaring past.  I drove past again a few days later and the floods have gone, so I'm pleased I captured this scene when I did.

We went to St Albans again recently.  We find ourselves going to the 11.15 Eucharist in the Cathedral at least once a month.  We always enjoy a wander around the town too, especially before the service - many shops have yet to open, and the streets are quiet; it's a lovely time.  I had never noticed this door in the clock tower before...  what a great message for us all!

Crispy Kale

On my travels through blog-world I often come across new blogs that inspire and amuse me.  Most are cookery blogs, but inevitably there is some overlap between subjects, and a recent 'acquaintance' of mine ably demonstrates this.  I met Nic through searching for anyone else who may have made Hedgerow Jelly this Autumn, and sure enough, she had.  Nic's blog, Nip it in the Bud, is largely focused on gardening - never mind green fingers, her allotment makes me green with envy! - but she, like me, also has a passion for preserves, as photos of her cupboard packed with jars of jams, jellies, chutneys, etc, show.

At this time of year there isn't much to be harvested from an allotment, but there are clearly some treats still to be had...  this recipe for Kale Crisps had me dashing out to my "allotment" (cough, Tescos...) so that I could make them myself.

The recipe is simplicity itself:  Simply preheat the oven to 180C, and put 1 tbsp of olive oil, 2 tsp of balsamic vinegar and a pinch of salt into a large bowl.  Mix quickly and then add half a bag of chopped kale (ready washed for the ultra-lazy chef - me - in this case) and stir well until the kale is coated in the dressing.

Then simply spread the glistening kale onto a baking tray - I didn't even bother to line it - and bake for 10-12 minutes.  Nic's recipe says 10, but I left it in a little too long as I didn't hear the timer ring, and no harm had come to it.

I gave it a final sprinkling of Maldon salt before piling it into a bowl and serving immediately.

This snack may not win any prizes for good looks, but - my goodness - what a great taste!  I'm not a huge fan of kale cooked in any other way, often finding it a bit indigestible, but this bowl full of crispy kale was hoovered up by Rob and myself within minutes.  Therein lies a warning actually - be very careful not to inhale when you have any of this close to your mouth, as both Rob and I suffered minor choking fits as a small piece of kale was sucked in and lodged in our throats...  Not an elegant (or pleasant) experience!

However, I would risk this injury just to eat this again - indeed I will probably do so tomorrow night as I still have half a bag of kale in the fridge.  Definitely the best way to eat kale, and surely more healthy than regular crisps.  Perfect!

Noxious Nocino

Remember those green walnuts I collected last year?  I was so excited by them that I started off a batch of pickled walnuts, and also some walnut liqueur - Nocino. 

Well, the moment of truth arrived... and, well, truth is the Nocino is vile!  I have to admit that my suspicions were raised when the previously beautiful jar of bright green nuts began turning first brown, then black.  Within weeks I had to push the jar to the back of the utility room counter because I really didn't want to be looking at it every day.  I was finding the sight of it faintly disturbing.

Here's the 'before' shot - gorgeous:

Aaaaaaaaand 'after':

Bleugh!  Note too the unappealing oily sheen on top of the liquid.  What's that all about?!  I guess the nuts contain natural oils which have leached out into the vodka.  But whatever, it's not looking appetising.

Now there are some things that look gross but taste nice.  Pickled walnuts for example.  These turned black too, but actually taste good - we've enjoyed some with those post-Christmas cold-meats-and-chips kind of meals and they're fine.  A few have needed discarding as the shells had obviously started to form, so they're a little unyielding in parts when you try to eat them (I'm really selling them aren't I!) but honestly, they do taste nice.  But the Nocino... no.

Here it is when poured out of the jar:

Black, oily, scummy - pass the shot glass!

I strained it into a bottle, and there it sits now, looking slightly accusingly at me...  good job I only used cheap vodka.

Even David Lebovitz, a fan of this liqueur, and from whose blog I took the recipe declines to drink this neat, but instead suggests pouring it over vanilla ice-cream as a dessert.  After a tentative sip of the Nocino, we decided that ice-cream might indeed make it more palatable so we tried it earlier this week.  Unfortunately, even the sweetness of vanilla ice-cream couldn't disguise the bitterness of the liqueur.

I think our best hope is to push the bottle to the back of the drinks cabinet and forget about it.  A bit of 'aging' might just improve it - and if not, in a few years' time I'll have no qualms about just pouring it down the sink.

Ah well, you win some, you lose some...

Happy New Year!

So it's goodbye 2009...

And hello 2010!

So far it's been beautiful - sunny and frosty (just the weather for a hearty pie!)

Here's hoping that the new year will be filled with good food and good friends, and plenty of excitements besides.