Sweet memories

If you grew up anywhere other than my home county of Kent you might think that a 'Gypsy Tart' was a rather politically incorrect insult. Obviously I'm far to much of a left-leaning, Guardian-reader type for that- in fact it's a ridiculously sugar loaded bit of nostalgia in the form of a pudding which apparently originated in 'the garden of England'.
I can't remember the exact circumstances that led up to me dredging up the memory - I think it was something to do with custard tarts- but I was determined to introduce my sweet-toothed Northerner of a husband to this pud. There are several recipes on the internet (just be careful to put recipe after 'Gypsy Tart' in the search engine, or I wouldn't like to predict the results!)
The one I used was based on this one, although as I was making a roast dinner at the same time I cheated and used a ready-made pastry case. Apart from that it's really just muscavado sugar and a tin of evaporated milk. The recipe says to hand whisk for 15 minutes so I used my new/old Kenwood Chef until the motor started to smell hot, proabably about 10 minutes. I ended up with far more filling than could fit into the case, which probably saved us a trip to the dentist, because this is a seriously sweet treat.

Old, New and Unfamiliar

The unfamiliar first...This is the view from the saddle of my lovely old bike. Yep, that's right, me, sworn off cycling for life due to the unspeakable horrors of any kind of incline has actually started to ride voluntarily and even (gasp!) enjoy it. Even with hills. Wonders will never cease.

Not only can old dogs learn new tricks, but they can acquire new old treasure. This is another find from the farm (a seemingly endless trove of undiscovered goodies). Like the jam pan and chest of drawers before it, my Father in Law was quite happy for me to have this, which he would term 'kelter' (junk to the non-Lancastrian famers among us) on permanent loan. The only proviso was a share of the cakes I'm going to create with it. There's a reason Kenwood has the good reputation it does, as this old Chef may have been grubby with years of neglect and maybe shows its age in the styling department but switch it on and it still goes- whether whisking, mixing, dough hooking or liquidising. I'm delighted.


New new treasure arrived in the post this week, in the form of this heavenly bundle of Manos Wool Clasica in 'Ganges'. Mindful of my habit of running out of yarn before the end of a project I bought all nine skeins that were in the sale at Meadow Yarn . At the moment it looks like I'll be using it to make a grown up version of Queen Bess but we'll see.

Finally, new and unfamiliar yet somehow old too...M had some chunky coloured pencils among her birthday present and today she had her first try with them. Seeing her being so grown up is new and unfamiliar, yet babies picking up the tools of other family members and copying what they've seen is surely as old as the human race.

Guilt-free shopping

I'm not exactly what you'd call a shopaholic these days. That's not to say I didn't spend a good proportion of my younger days trolling around the shops, but our location and lifstyle don't really fit with that anymore. Apart from anything else, there aren't usually the funds for it. This has made it even more pleasurable over the last few days to do a bit of guilt-free shopping. Why no guilt? Because I was spending Christmas present book tokens and birthday present money. Hooray!
First, the books. Since we love and get so much use from the River Cottage Family Cookbook we thought we'd add the Everyday Cookbook to our collection, having enjoyed the recent TV series. We've already tried making versions of its digestive biscuits, honey roasted root veg and 'Tupperware Chorizo' all with great success. We've also invested in the River Cottage 'Veg Patch' Handbook, which is lovely for it's textured cover and neat little format alone, but is also inspiring us with all sorts of ideas for what we hope will be our first real venture in 'grow your own' this year. Finally, we've bought a DIY book because with this house there's lots to 'Do' and noone else to 'Do' it for us! As we were using Book Tokens we decided to get all of these from a local independent bookstore. This meant we didn't get any of the money saving offers we might have done from a chain store, but fits with our ethos of trying to support local businesses. Also when there was an issue with a stitching fault in our first copy of 'Veg Patch' it was an easy and pleasant experience getting it replaced.
Next up, I took advantage of only having one tiddler with me this morning to go on a bit of a charity shop trawl. As always I ignored the clothing in favour of homewares and textiles- my favourite charity shop buy is home-embroidered linen tablecloths but alas no joy on that front today. Instead I found this lovely little teapot- cheap, charity shop and using birthday money...perfect, basically! I originally thought it would be destined for the Folksy Shop, but I think I've rather fallen in love with it, so it's probably going to become our regular small teapot. The plainer Brown Betty we've been using can go to the shop when I get around to some more knitting- I think some Union Jack teacosies in time for the upcoming Royal Wedding would make sense, and would be really cute as a smaller version.
Last but by no means least, behold our new dining room 'gubbinet'. Never heard of a gubbinet? Well, it's a cabinet for all the gubbins that end up lying around downstairs- envelopes, sticky tape and other posting stuff, phone chargers, table linens etcetera. As I write, C is (carefully I hope!) drilling some holes in the back of the top bit so that the stereo can be hidden away, rather than overhanging a shelf as it currently does. I think it's probably from the first half of the 20th century, as it has curved edges that look a bit 30's and is pretty solidly made from wood. I don't really mind to be honest, as it suits our dining room really well and fits the space on one side of the chimney breast just perfectly. Found hidden under some boxes and behind a chair at the back of a vintage shop in Ulverston it was pretty cheap to buy with more birthday money. The only hairy bit was getting it home. I'd taken M shopping with me and couldn't put her seat in the front due to the airbag, so we couldn't put the seats down. Of course, when we tried to heft my purchase into the hatchback, it was about 6 inches too long. The only plan we could come up with, apart from coming back another day, was to tie the boot shut with string and for me to drive home 'not too fast'. Eek! There's nothing like a large piece of furniture held into your boot with string to make you notice just how many hills there are to go up to get home! Actually, put me on a bicycle and I'll tell you about every hill, but that's another story. Anyhow, we made it, I love it and our new (old) house has its first custom bought new (old) piece of furniture. Happy days.

Homemade

I know everyone says this, but I don't really 'do' New Year's Resolutions. However, this year, we have decided to try and reduce our reliance on supermarket shopping. It's for a lot of reasons, including environmental and political ones, which I may or may not expand on at another time.
There'll be more on how we're trying to do this later in the week, but basically it's a quiet revolution because most of the measures are things we've done before over the last few years, on and off. So it's a question of trying to do them all at the same time.
Home-baking is obviously already a regular fixture in our house, but nonetheless we'd slipped into buying quite a lot of ready-made stuff recently, including bread, breadsticks (P's snack of choice) and M's weaning baby-mush (known as 'goo' in our house).
This week is the 'start as we mean to go on' week, so therefore I duly made bread and used some leftover pizza dough and a little pesto (not homemade, I admit!) to make some breadsticks. I then cooked up two carrots, an apple and four tinned prunes to make some goo. Carrots take forever to cook, so I went off and built Duplo houses with P....and burned the goo. Believe me, burned carrot, apple and prune does not smell nice. Nor is it easy to remove from pans.
However, if I gave up that easily I might as well just go to Tesco right now, so I had another attempt and made sure I stayed by the stove this time. An initial whizz with the handheld mixer followed by blending in the liquidiser and we finally had a good approximation of one of M's favourite bought 'goo in a pouch' numbers. What's more she ate it. So far so goo(d).

New Year Soup

Happy New Year! I'm not a fan of the New Year celebrations, but unlike some I really like this time of year. I enjoy the urge to purge and tidy, to return things to normal, fling out unwanted stuff (or rather Ebay, Freecycle or donate in most cases) and generally start as I'd like to go on.
I've decreed that as far as crafts go, the first quarter of this year is going to be all about homemaking, rather than clothes. As a result I have a huge list of projects including curtains, bags, rugs and wall hangings that is likely to last me until about October but will allow me to make use of some exciting Christmas presents which I may show and tell about later in the week.
Inevitably, since no knitter can really cope with empty needles, I have one more clothing project on the go before I kick into an idea for knit/felt cushions. The Pirate Sweater has been fully frogged and restarted, with a new idea for the neckline partly inspired by reading Elizabeth Zimmerman's 'Knitting Without Tears'; a smaller needle size resulting in firmer stitches and a neater looking design on the pocket; larger armholes and a general resolve for it to be even better second time around. There is good chance that my junior fashion critic will still declare his dislike for it and refuse to wear it, but as I'm recording the pattern as I go with a view to publishing it I will not accept it being a wasted effort.
Anyhoo, none of this has anything to do with the soup mentioned in the title. I know I'm not alone in feeling that after the scrumptious excesses of Christmas I really need some simple, nutritious food. This soup has twin inspirations- the Cream of Petit Pois in Nadine Abensur's 'Crank's Fast Food' and a ready made fresh soup we had recently. The latter included spinach and mint as well as peas and was good, but pricey. I was sure I could recreate something like it and did so like this:
GOOD GREEN SOUP
1. Finely chop half an onion and a couple of garlic cloves. Soften in a pan with some veg oil for five minutes or so.
2. Add a pint/500ml of veg stock, with a couple of mugfuls (about 300g?) of frozen peas and about three of those little bricks of frozen spinach.
3. Bring to the boil and cook for about 10 minutes.
4. Add a glug of cream or a dollop of cream cheese or creme fraiche. Tear up a handful of mint leaves and throw them in too.
5. Take pan off heat and blitz with a handheld blender or liquidise.
6. Season to taste and serve with bread.

It doesn't have too many naughty ingredients- you could even leave out the cream- and actually has lots of good ones. Something about the sweetness and velvety texture the peas give the soup make it really satisfying so you don't feel like you're being too frugal and wholesome, even if you're being healthy.

Apple Day 2 and a bit of High Tea

A little more apple cookery today- only one product, but after finely chopping 1.5kg of apples can you blame me?! The product in question is Apple, Cinnamon and Raisin Compote from The Women's Institute Book of Preserves and although it doesn't look terribly tempting, it tastes yummy. Yesterday's Blackberry and Apple jam set fine, by the way.
Little bit more work done on the 'High Tea' collection of teacosies for my Folksy shop- finished one and begun another, but I'm going to keep them more or less under wraps for now. I also took a deep breath today and braved putting one of my teacosy designs up as a free download on Ravelry. The Union Jack cosy was one of the first ones I did for the Folksy shop and was the first one I sold- it led to a couple more on commission and I got very sick of intarsia as a result! It's scary to think that other people will be trying to follow the instructions I wrote, even though its a pretty simple pattern. Last time I looked it had been added as a favourite by quite a few people, with a few also downloading it or adding it to their queue- eep! If you're interested, you can find it here.

Apple Day 1

We asked if we might have a few apples the next time grandparents were visiting from the farm...we got a sackload! Apple processing has therefore been on my to-do list for at least a week and today I got around to some, at least. Blackberry and Apple jam gave me my perennial problem of not seeming to achieve a set (I wonder whether I ought to just shell out on a jam thermometer and do it that way, rather than the cold plate test) but looks yummy and I think it will be an okay consistency in the end. I also par-cooked some apples for future pies/crumbles etc to put in our new spare freezer- this was a bonus find, left behind in the utility room by the previous owner of our house. Why 'Apple Day 1'? Because we still have a half a sackload left, so apple processing remains on the to-do list for another occasion!

Homemaking

There are still many, many boxes to unpack, miles of embossed wallpaper heavily painted in hideous colours to scrape off and that's just to begin the redecorating process, a garden to explore and do...oh goodness, so much to, a washing machine to get working (oh dear!) and of course a baby and a toddler to keep in some form of routine. But, but! The kitchen, while not quite there aesthetically, is unpacked and fully functioning and as far as I'm concerned once I've got a pot of tomato sauce bubbling on the hob it's beginning to look a lot like home.

Wish list

In preparation for our impending move, we have adopted a "10% out" policy to try and avoid shifting a lot of stuff we don't need to our new home. The idea is that rather than taking on whole rooms with a vague 'we need to get rid of stuff' idea, we look at categories of stuff, e.g. fiction books, clothes, cooking equipment etc. and try to find 10% of each category that we can sell, give away, donate to charity, recycle or otherwise shed from our lives. It's amazing how easily this can be done once you get going, and often we've found ourselves ditching a lot more than 10%.
Obviously, while we're going through this, the idea isn't really to acquire more stuff, however desirable. That said, just wanted to share a couple of bookshelf treasures I very much covet at the moment.
I love Anna Maria Horner's fabrics, although I've yet to find a project to justify getting some (maybe if baby #2 is a girl?). Her new book Handmade Beginnings looks heavenly though, and could be just the thing to tempt me into more sewing adventures to build on my limited experience. Read a really interesting interview with Anna Maria on the Sew Liberated blog.
I saw the author of The Italian Cookery Course on a TV cooking programme recently and my ears pricked up. It seems that this hefty tome is meant to be a step-by-step guide to authentic Italian cooking. I love Italian food, for its flavours and the way recipes tend to use a relatively small number of high quality ingredients. However, beyond tomato sauce, pizza and pesto I don't really have a repetoire of dishes I can make. I bought book of Italian recipes with vouchers earlier this year, but it was a bit of a let down to be honest. This one looks far more promising, and having recently watched Julie and Julia on DVD I'm rather taken with the idea of working my way through the fundamentals of Italian cuisine. And yes, I know this sounds a bit crazy coming from a very pregnant mother of a toddler, but what could be more authentic than filling my kitchen with the scent of basil, tomatoes, garlic etc. with two bambinos running around my feet?!?

Cake!

I'm posting this at the risk of spoiling the surprise, but in the hope that a dodgy internet connection means the intended recipient won't be reading this. It's either a birthday cake or, if there are too many of those about, an Easter cake. Whatever the official designation, it's a big lot of chocolate yumminess!
I used Nigella Lawson's Chocolate Fudge Cake recipe from Nigella Bites. I halved the ingredients as, despite her claims that if dumped you could eat this yourself in one sitting, in my experience, the full monty feeds a lot of people. I also substituted the dark chocolate in the frosting for white chocolate, partly to ring the changes, but mainly to achieve the correct colouring for the sheep. A little extra melted white chocolate for the legs and to stick the sugar flowers on and some dark chocolate for the face completed the effect.

A kind of magic

I know I keep going on about sunshine, but it's just so lovely to see it again! Everything seems so much better with that glorious light pouring in through the window. In fact, it really was better today, right from the off when I woke up to...nothing much in the way of noise. This is in contrast to the usual shrieking. My boy is a generally happy soul but for some reason he seems to wake up and get an instant cob on. The solution I began trialling last night was to leave a little bag of toys and books in his cot after he fell asleep. This morning he woke up, found the bag and contentedly played for about an hour and a half, chattering away to himself until I came in to him to be greeted by smiles and calm. Happy baby, happy mama! My mum has offered to sew a custom made bag to attach to the cot side and later the wall for this purpose- let's hope last night wasn't a one off.
Also this morning he went to his first toddler gymnastics class, which was another success. No surprise really that 45 minutes of charging round a miniature assault course was right up his alley. Lunch was followed by a loooong nap for a satisfied little soldier.
The sun just kept on coming so as my thoughts turned to the evening meal I found I wanted to make something fresh, green and sunshiney. Pesto seemed to tick the boxes, so I used the recipe in Cranks Fast Food to make the gorgeous green goop pictured above. I don't know why I don't make it from scratch more often- the taste and the smell combine to make me dream of summer days eating fresh food outdoors...picnics, barbecues, campfires, beaches- can't be that far off, surely?!?
Being realistic, though, it's still pretty chilly and we've a way to go yet, so back I went to another old favourite cook book- Nigel Slater's Kitchen Diaries. I struggle to get past January...cheese smothered potatoes, bulghar wheat with mint and aubergines and todays double ginger cake are all tried and tested, and there are still a couple of soups I want to try from that chapter and something else I can't recall but remember I spotted today. So many good recipes, this is the book I recommend to anyone who asks, although I can't work out how to stop the sultanas sinking to the bottom of the ginger cake- suggestions anyone?

Warming reds

Red has always been a favourite colour of mine, and at the moment its warmth is particularly welcome:

Fresh tomatoes roasted in the oil of a few sundried tomatoes, with some herbs and a little of this for added warmth:

Later this was blitzed with some cream cheese to have over pasta. Simple but good. Simple is not the word that applies to my Snapdragon flip-top mittens- aargh! I've had to redo countless rows to get the cuff pattern correct, but they are looking lovely so far and the Artesano Alpaca is sooo soft.

And of course it's all fuelled with redbush tea! This is my current favourite mug, as it holds just a little bit more than the others...

Orange and Almond Cake

We've got a bit of a thing for oranges in our house at the moment. Maybe it's their gorgeous sunny colour on these dreary days, maybe we need vitamin C to stem the running of noses or maybe we just need the feel-good vibe that comes from releasing that wonderful citrus oil scent. In any case, as well as the marmalade (which did set and has been given a thumbs up all round), P gets quite beside himself at the offer of a clementine- I'm sure would eat them until he burst given the chance, while I sometimes just want to juice them and drink the 'liquid sunshine' and sometimes, like last night, want to cook with them.
This is a 'Holy Eye' recipe in the sense that it was inspired by the baking ingredients I had to hand, but like any cake, the measurements need to be right. My measurements are all in old fashioned ounces because I based them on the sponge recipe I learned as a child, when metric hadn't really taken hold in the kitchen. Following a recent thread on Soulemama I'm going to attempt to give US measures as well, just in case someone from across the pond feels inspired to try it...
ORANGE AND ALMOND CAKE
Ingredients
4 oz (1/2 cup) butter or sunflower spread
4 oz (1/2 cup) soft brown sugar
2 eggs
3 oz (3/8 cups) self raising flour
1 oz (1/8 cup) ground almonds
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 orange
2 oz (1/4 cup) flaked almonds
2 tablespoons any sugar

Method
Preheat oven to 180c
1. Beat the soft brown sugar and butter together until creamy.
2. Whisk the eggs and gradually beat into the sugar and butter mixture.
3. Fold in the self-raising flour, ground almonds, baking powder and the zest of the orange. Keep remainder of the orange for later.
4. Spoon mixture into a greased or lined cake tin, approx 20cm diameter. Smooth top and sprinkle flaked almonds over the top.
5. Bake for around 35 minutes until cake is risen and springy to the touch.
6. While cake is cooling, juice the orange and put the juice along with the 2 tbsp sugar into a pan. Heat slowly, stirring, until sugar has dissolved.
7. Using a sharp knife, pierce cake all over the surface. Carefully pour orange sugar syrup over so that it sinks into the holes. Leave to cool completely.

Sorry for the quality of the picture- there isn't a lot of decent light to be had around here. It's just a shame you can't smell it really- oh my goodness!

Fourth of Advent

Homemade mince pies (and that's homemade from the filling to the pastry, people! If a job's worth doing...) and stuffing with sage, onion, pine-nuts and lemon done and ready for the freezer. Red cabbage is braising in the oven, because, although I had to switch off when St Delia started to give instructions on how to stir (!) she did mention that it freezes well and it's good to have a nice, colourful veg ready to go on the big day. Also, I'd been feeling every time I opened the fridge and that cabbage was looking at me, all its friends from the last organic box gone away...
This preparation for Christmas has been quite enjoyable, although hard work in the tiny kitchen. Tomorrow I'm after another tiny kitchen (of the toy kind) which means tackling a certain huge Swedish furniture outlet on what's predicted to be the maddest shopping day before Christmas. Oh dear.

Second of Advent

As I'm hosting my first at-home Christmas with guests this year(it was just us three last year and before that always with family) I've decided I need to get ahead with as much as I can, not least because we have a teeny-weeny kitchen so the traditional turkey and trimmings job is going to be a challenge. This afternoon then it was radio on, boy playing round my feet (mainly with a carrot which entertained him for at least half an hour) and I filled the kitchen with wonderful seasonal smells: orange and lemon zest, port, cinnamon, cloves, sage and chestnuts among others. I've read somewhere that the smell of oranges is meant to be a pick-me-up and I'm sure it's true. The alchemy of jewel-like cranberries melting into sauce and the luxurious thickening of dried fruit into mince-pie filling when simmered in sugary, boozey syrup does a pretty good job of cheering the heart as well, not to mention the satisfaction of having a seriously well stocked freezer.

When the weather gets tough, the tough get cooking

Well, it was a weekending of wonder. First, on Friday a joyful and lovely wedding then braving some wild weather over the weekend, culminating in a probably foolhardy drive back from Windermere, negotiating winding country roads, in the dark and rain, through floods and standing water! This after an abandoned attempt at walking at Tarn Hows (called off due to wind that would have felled a toddler, even in his rainproof suit and wellies) and a too-late attempt to visit Blackwell (we went to the teashop instead and have promised ourselves a proper look soon). Having braved the floods on the way in, we didn't want a completely wasted journey, so we ended up at the Water Mill at Ings, where the micro-brewery beers were responsible for me being named driver!
As peace (of a sort!) descended on our house once again today, the weather had other ideas. As rain lashed against the window panes, we settled in with tea and the radio to catch up on some cooking and tried not to think of how Granny and Grandpa are by now sunning themselves in Barbados (Happy Honeymoon!). I decided to improvise with the contents of the two pumpkins and made a soup flavoured with a red chilli, grated ginger and thyme. If we decide to brave it for a walk tomorrow, I think this will be in the flask.
Also on the stove- butternut squash and red pepper curry with coconut milk and a vegetable stew. We can now just about see into the fridge again, and the freezer is comfortingly stocked up.
As you can see, after all this industry a nap was called for, which gave me the chance to start yet another knitted birthday project. Which reminds me, on Friday I'll be able to show the last one, as the birthday girl will have seen the results of all that cabling.

A few of my favourite things...

Okay, this is turning into a very trying day, with everything from nearly lost expensive shoes to no-show Fed-Ex guys. When it comes to writing here, I can't show what I'm knitting because it's all presents for birthdays yet to come and various other factors have conspired to keep us away from the Great Outdoors these last few days.
It was all getting a bit 'aargh!' so I decided, inspired by this lovely blog entry by Soule Mama amongst other things to make like Maria and think of a few of my favourite things. So in no particular order:
Babies still love to play in boxes
Having wanted a pincushion for ages, mum has now given me this very old one which belonged to my grandmother. I think it was once a velvet tomato. Now it is very soft and saggy but rather lovely, don't you think?
My Jam store. The eagle-eyed among you will notice that the Apple and Date Chutney will be ready to eat in a week or two.
My recipe file. It's getting scruffy but it's full of treasures that may one day be the Holy Eye cookbook. We wouldn't eat as well without it.
All I need now is a mountain to prance about on and all will be well.

An Autumn-ish kind of day

We've been a bit lonely this week as no walkies with our pals (little pal is sick with teethy stuff, poor lamb). It's also been a bit wild in the weather department. Still, today was slightly milder so I was determined we'd get out and about.
Before lunch I filled the house with the heavenly smell of garlic and tomato, making the standby pasta/pizza/whatever sauce that will be a cornerstone of the Holy Eye Cookbook if I ever get around to writing with it. Must be over 15 years since my first boyfriend's mother taught me to make it, and it just gets better.
Then off to Bowness on Windermere and a circular walk by Cockshott Point. Pretty views, with just enough sunshine to dapple the fells before low cloud moved in. A little too commercial and, well, civilised, for my taste (I like my nature a bit more natural), but P got some walking and boat/swan watching in and we bought a new folder of walks from the information point- we've nearly exhausted the South Lakes opportunities in the original book we got!
Back home and I made Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's gorgeous honey and almond cake (a prized clipping from The Guardian that's already gaining the sticky spatter marks which signify a good recipe) before tackling the weird, deeply ridged squash that came in last week's organic box. It was a complete bugger to peel and cube but roasted nicely with chilli seasoning and orange sweet peppers. We had it with goats cheese, bulghar wheat and that warm, nice-to-be-indoors feeling when an autumn night closes in and your family are all together.