Every so often I forget to make bread, and for some reason since we got back from our holiday in September this happens more and more. I think because I got out of the routine, and it stopped being second nature to spend the first part of the morning kneading, resting, proving and baking.
Being out of the habit wouldn't be too bad if I had an emergency batch in the freezer, or a good local bakery. But as it happens we have neither, and many months ago I made some crazy resolution that all the bread in the house - with a few exceptions - would be made by me. It seemed like a good idea at the time, and in the months that followed. Now suddenly finding myself without fresh bread and with a growling stomach I begin to curse my self-righteousness and wish for that sneaky loaf of supermarket stuff stashed in the freezer. I know it won't be anything like as nice, but at least it would be there.
However, it's not and so I must come up with another solution. Often I turn to soda bread as my saviour. I have a great recipe, quick, easy and so versatile that so far everything from figs and oranges, to seeds and nuts have made their way in without mishap.
Thing is, I don't always want soda bread, and then we're in trouble.
Not any more. A few weeks ago I made cheese scones. I had just spoken to my Mum and heard about hers and couldn't resist, especially as we had cheese in the fridge and chutney in the cupboard to try. It went down very well indeed. So this week I decided to branch out again. This time I made a plain scone recipe and added two tablespoons of grain mustard. The result was a scone with a nice texture, and just a hint of mustard. They were a great accompaniment to the cranberry chutney I made at the weekend (I know you're supposed to let it mature, but sometimes we can't wait!) and the strong cheese from the farmer's market.
In fact, I am about to make them again, as once more I failed to make bread yesterday and I know that in a few hours my stomach will be growling. I think the only adjustment I will make this time round is to add more mustard. The subtle flavour from last time was good, and the slight crunch of the grains nice, but I want something with a bit more bite.
So, I'm off to make these....why don't you. I reckon a bit of cham could go with them very well!
Mustard Scones - Makes 8-12 (depending on how thick you roll the dough and how large a cutter you use).
225g self-raising flour
50g butter (I used half salted, half plain and ommittted the salt)
pinch of salt
2 tbsp grain mustard (or more for a stronger flavour)
enough milk to make up into a rollable dough.
Heat the oven to 220C and grease a baking tray. Rub the butter into the flour and add a pinch of salt. Then rub in the mustard. When this is combined start adding milk about a teaspoon at a time until you get a stiff dough. Roll out and cut into rounds. Place on the baking tray and bake for 10 mins, or until lightly golden and springy at the press of a finger.
NB: I adapted this recipe from the Be-Ro Flour recipe book. My Mum used to use this book (more of a pamphlet really, as it's just 86 slim pages) all the time when I was a kid, and I had such fond memories of it (okay, mostly of the chocolate chip cookies in it) that when I went off to university my Mum tracked down a copy for me. Talk about best Mum ever. It's a great go-to book for pretty much any basic recipe that uses flour, and according to my front cover it's in it's 40th edition - and this was a good few years ago now. Believe me, it's worth buying a copy if you see it, if only for the cookie recipe!
Doctors, politicians, nutritionists and all manner of other health "experts" keep harping on about needing to get our "five a day" of fruit and vegetables. Now, being a vegetarian, it's really not that hard to manage this, and quite frankly if you're veggie and you do find it hard you must be doing something very wrong indeed and might want to consider switching sides.
We usually eat a dinner that mainly consists of vegetables, albeit bulked out with some pasta, or bread or cous cous. But, if we might need a top up of veggie goodness, what better way to do it than by eating cake! Pumpkin and carrot cake to be precise.
A few years ago for Halloween my then flat-mate and I were the lucky recipients of quite possibly the largest pumpkin in the world. It was a gift from a friend who worked on the grocery stall on the market where I was tending the bread stand. He had promised that when Halloween came round he would get me a pumpkin, and wow, what a pumpkin it was. I could barely lift it into the van, and walking home I must have been quite a sight. An ickle person with an uber pumpkin. I must have been somewhat akin to a pumpkin on legs that afternoon.
Now, we gutted and carved it and "Gerald" did us proud. His leering face grinning at us for the whole Halloween weekend. Problem was, we then had a huge bowl of pumpkin flesh sitting in the fridge and no idea what to do with it. I was considerably less adventurous in the kitchen in those days, and after an experiment with pumpkin pie - loved by my housemate, hated by me - we ran out of ideas.
So I decided to do what any self-respecting person would do in that situation. I baked it into a cake! You get carrot cake, why not pumpkin. It's orange, and not too strongly flavoured and goes well in pie with spices. Thus was the birth of the pumpkin cake. It went down very well indeed. Light, moist and spiced it was a lovely autumn surprise.
That was three years ago, and for some reason I just didn't get around to making it again. No pumpkins came my way and alas the recipe I used went astry too.
Then suddenly Halloween rolled round again and I got my act together and bought us a little pumpkin. It didn't get carved this year, there just wasn't time. But it did make itself into a cake. I had to top up the amount of pumpkin needed with carrot, but I think this gives an extra dimension to the flavour. We ate it at half time during the match last night and it was really nice. I can't help thinking though that it will be nicer tonight having had a day to rest and the spices to develop.
I've been storing it in the fridge because of the high veggie content. Just take it out a little before serving so it reaches room temperature as it's nicer when not cold. I adapted this recipe from Rachel Allen's one in Bake. Mostly because it was the first one I found that used a loaf tin rather than sandwich tins. I topped it with orange buttercream icing. I would have preferred a less sweet cream cheese icing in hindsight, but didn't have the ingredients.
Pumpkin and carrot cake, with orange buttercream.
200g grated pumpkin
100g grated carrot
100g raisins (I probably would have soaked these in alcohol if I'd though ahead!)
100ml olive oil
175g self-raising flour
175g golden caster sugar
2 eggs
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp fresh grated nutmet
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp mixed spice
Grease and line a 5" by 9" loaf pan (I actually used one that was a bit longer than this and it stil worked fine). Preheat the oven to 150C.
Beat the eggs in a large bowl, then add the oil, sugar, pumpkin, carrot and raisins and mix together. Sift in the dry ingredients and bring the mixture together. Pour into the prepared loaf pan and smooth the surface. Bake on a central rack for 1 to 1 1/2 hours, or until a skewer comes out clean. Leave to cool completely before turning out of the pan.
Orange buttercream icing:
75g unsalted butter, very soft
175g icing sugar
zest of one orange, finely grated
2 tbsp milk
enough juice from the orange to make the icing come together.
mix the butter, zest and milk together, then add the icing sugar and combine. Add enough orange juice to make the icing wet enough to spread easily - though it should still be thick. Ice the cake when completely cool and leave in the fridge to harden the icing slightly before serving.
That was my exclamation when I re-read the recipe for the galette pastry I was about to embark on. I had read that I needed sour cream (and bought yoghurt), I had read that I needed lots of butternut squash (and only had two baby ones), and still I was determined. Then I read the pastry instructions, which included, "Place bowl in the freezer for an hour" and "leave butter in the freezer for an hour." That was the final straw. It was already almost seven, I'd been out all afternoon and I was starving.
When I get hungry, I get grumpy. Boy, do I get grumpy. So what ensued was not pretty. That was stomping, and loud poking about in the kitchen, followed by more stomping. All done while poor N cowered on the sofa quietly suggesting we phone for a curry.
But I was angry now, and I was determined to make a galette. I had onions, I had squash, all I needed was some damn pastry and it would all be fine. So I improvised, and for the first time every made my own pastry using my own recipe. I then rested this in the fridge while I fried the onions, grated cheese and checked on the squash that N had set roasting when he got in.
Then I mixed this all together, placed it on the tray and folded the pastry around it. Voila!
Okay, so it's not the greatest folding job in the world. But I'd like to award myself marks out of ten for at least sticking with the project!
As it happens the pastry turned out to be the nicest thing about the galette. I think the filling really suffered from the amount of onions we crammed in. It would be perfect with more squash and less onions. We added rosemary instead of the usual sage, and a grating of very strong cheddar rather than parmesan. I think the flavour choices were good, if a little oniony!
I will definitely be making this again, although the filling needs some thought. With that in mind I am only going to put the pastry recipe here as I reckon you can fill the pie with whatever you like. Plus I am just so proud that the pastry worked out when I just made it up as I went along!
Galette Pastry.
8oz flour
3oz cold butter, cubed
2 tbsp bio yoghurt
dash of lemon juice
enough cold water to make into a dough - add very gradually, you don't want a sticky mess on your hands.
Place the flour in a large bowl, rub the butter into the flour so you get a breadcrumb like mixture. Then add the yoghurt and lemon and mix together. Finally add enough cold water to make into a dough. It should come together and be slightly elastic. Leave in the fridge until you need to roll it out, or for at least half an hour.
Red and white muffins, festive and apt considering the fact that we polished these off at the Arsenal game last week. I wish I could pretend I'd made them red and white to intentionally match the football strip, but alas that's not the case. The reason was because I had cranberries in the freezer, white chocolate in the cupboard and a hungry boyfriend clamouring for something sweet in his lunch to get him through the ever darkening afternoons.
He really likes the raspberry and white chocolate muffins I make, and I thought that the tartness of the cranberries would match well with the sweetness of the chocolate. Plus they had the added bonus of looking festive, and since N has said it keeps feeling like Christmas, this seemed like the perfect treat.
I took my basic muffin mix and added the berries and chocolate and I was really pleased with how these turned out. Next time I might leave larger chunks of white chocolate, because fresh cranberries are large and it would balance better. Other than that, I think these are a winner.
Cranberry and white chocolate festive muffins
Makes 12 large muffins
60g unsalted butter, melted
100g raspberries (frozen, not thawed)
300g plain flour
1tbsp baking powder
100g golden caster sugar
pinch mixed spice
2 eggs
250ml milk (i used unsweetened soy milk)
100g white chocolate
1tsp vanilla essence (if the chocolate doesn't have added vanilla)
Preheat the oven to 200C and line or grease however many pans of either size you plan to use.
Combine all the dry ingredients (except the cranberries and chocolate) in a large mixing bowl. Whisk the wet ingredients in a jug until well combined, then add to the dry ingredients, and fold together. DO NOT OVER MIX, lumps make for better muffins. once all the dry ingredients are worked in together, but the batter is still lumpy slowly fold in the berries and chocolate. Spoon the batter into the cases or pans and then bake until golden and risen. Aprox 20mins.
This post has been far too long in coming, and I'd like to send out my apologies, because the subject matter warranted, no, demanded, immediate attention: Salmonberry jam.
As you'll know this year I took part in the Jammin' jelly exchange. I thought that sending my humble jam across the world be be extremely exciting. What I hadn't anticipated because of being so wrapped up in the frantic boiling, bottling and labelling of my package, was just how wonderful it would be to have jam randomly arrive on my doorstep one day.
There I was one morning a couple of weeks ago, sitting in front of the computer attempting to write when the door buzzer went. Lo and behold, the postman holding out a small, square, jam-jar sized package! I was so excited, that I could barely bring myself to photograph the box before ripping it open to reveal the contents. Who knows what this unassuming little box from Alaska would hold. I couldn't have been more surprised and excited when the contents revealed themselves to be a large jar of delicious looking dusky-red salmonberry jam from Angie.
Salmonberries! Not something I'd ever heard of before. I've often through of myself as a berry enthusiast, so how could this berry have passed me by? Turns out it's a berry that looks like a raspberry and is native to the Pacific northwest, ranging from California right up to Alaska (I hope I've got that right!).
I wanted to wait to try the jam, because I thought only a plain wholemeal bread would let the berries truly shine, and give me the full experience of the jam, without any other flavours gettting in the way. The current bread in the cupboard was malted and I didn't want it interfearing with the red goodness I now had sitting proudly in it's jar on the side.
Boy was I glad I waited. The jam is delicious. Not too sweet, with the delicate flavour of the berries perfectly captured, alongside the pleasing crunch of the seeds. As you can tell, I've already dipped into to it on several occasions, but I'm trying really hard not to go mad so I can draw it out as long as possible - after all, it's not everyday that a jar of Alaskan salmonberry jam lands on your doorstep!
So, it only remains to say a HUGE thank you to Angie for sharing this with me, and to Molly for arranging such a great event. I can't wait to have a go again next year, when hopefully I've got more experienece and more interesting ideas. Until then I shall be peeling, chopping, boiling and bottling my way through, and topping up our jam, cham and chutney reserves, whilst slowly savouring my salmonberries.
I can't believe it's November already. Just when I was settling in and enjoying the bright autumnal sunshine of October, the snow arrives, and BANG, we're almost in winter. I don't mind winter, but I'd rather it held off for a bit. At least until I've managed to get a winter coat and some jumpers.November doesn't only mean the final, more blustery and cold month of autumn, it also signals the beginning of NaNoWriMo. A frantic time in which people try and write a 50,000 word novel in thirty days. N is taking part this year, and so to show my part I am unofficially taking part in NaBloPoMo. This is the blog eqivalent, which means you must post every day. Not as hardcore as trying to write a book I don't think, but I thought I'd show willing. Most food bloggers are trying to also bake and cook and put up their recipes etc once a day. I'm afraid I can't manage that, not least because I am already too distracted from my work and need no more excuses to drag me out of the study, but also because I can't afford to be baking that much, our waistlines just couldn't cope!So I will be relying on the post backlog from my October baking, as well as photos and witty anecdotes. Hopefully it'll still keep you amused and interested.
Right now though, I am going to have to dash and rescue our warming pain au chocolate from the oven and frantically prepare for yet another wedding...
I shall leave you with this lovely picture of one of my all time favourite places in London, perhaps even the world: The Natural History Museum.
Not any more. A few weeks ago I made cheese scones. I had just spoken to my Mum and heard about hers and couldn't resist, especially as we had cheese in the fridge and chutney in the cupboard to try. It went down very well indeed. So this week I decided to branch out again. This time I made a plain scone recipe and added two tablespoons of grain mustard. The result was a scone with a nice texture, and just a hint of mustard. They were a great accompaniment to the cranberry chutney I made at the weekend (I know you're supposed to let it mature, but sometimes we can't wait!) and the strong cheese from the farmer's market. 
