Baby it's cold outside

This is it, the final photos of 2008. Another year done and dusted. Not a great year but not as disasterous as some i've scraped through.

So to start with are the final mini Christmas cakes, all package up and ready to go into the hamper. The board's were gold coaster i spotted in sainsburys which were just the pefect size and i bought some cellophane from a local florist. When we got down to Nan's i wished i had made a 4th cake for her next door neighbour, who is also caring for a deteriorating husband. And i fear her husband is further along in the progression of the dementia, that the husband of the other friend, for whom i had originally planned the 3rd cake. I shared my frustrations with Nan and Mum, and it was actually Nan who suggested that she give a cake each to her friends and then keep one for herself and grandpa. In the dining room it became clear that they were not desperately in need of more cake, given that Nan had made a large cake of her own and also had cakes, sweets and biscuits that she had gained from raffle prizes at her coffee morning and from the walking group.

I used the remainder of the cellophane to wrap up the loaf of bread that i baked on Boxing day, ready for the hamper the next day.

I experimented slightly with this loaf by adding some seed mix that we had in the cupboard. D was supposedly going to have it on his cereal of a morning but that intention didn't last for long. so when i mixed the dry ingredients, i added a couple of handfuls. It worked out fine and in fact this is how mum prefers the bread now. With us visiting Nan had, of course, got bread out (2 different thicknesses of brown and white 'petit pain' rolls) for lunch and dinner. So before dinner i sliced it for her, re-wrapped in in the cellophane and put it in the freezer.

Please excuse this next photo. I tried to trim off the background because it was far too cluttered and detracted your eyes from the hamper. However it didn't work out as neatly as i had hoped and i soon got fed up with editing it.


The 'healthy' hamper - healthy in the sense that its rather full as opposed to full of health conscious items! The bread is probably the healthiest thing in there along with the cakes, biscuits, wine, beer, sloe gin. There is some cheese and cured ham under there somewhere too.

The garden is still producing goods.

One of the things i love about growing your own, is the variety of shapes and sizes that grow, i love the lack of uniformity.

Since the New Year, it has been rather chilly, certainly for south east england. One day last week the temperature didn't make it about -3 degrees celcius.
It does make for some pretty pictures though.

Thats so long as my finger don't get to cold that i lose all feeling in them and can't operate the camera!

It doesn't seem to worry the birds at all. The Robin has a particularly red breast this winter. I'm sure i heard somewhere that the redder the robin's breast, the colder the winter.
Mr/Mrs Robin hangs around the nuts waiting for the great tits, blue tits, sparrows, starlings, squirrel and other finches to peck away and then cleans up the scraps on the floor below.

Unfortunately the feeders are just a little too far away to get a perfect photo, but my little camera (when on a tripod) can still capture the subject well enough.

These are mum's favourite winter visitors here with a blue tit. The long-tailed tit, who arrive in a little flock to feed. I think we've had a maximum of around 15 at once, and if you see one you can be sure his/her friends aren't far behind. They are a beautiful soft pink colour, and every so scatty. They flit about, on and off the nuts and up into the trees, yet despite this they are quite brave, and have no fears about feeding when i am in the garden, over by the shed for instance.

They don't seem to mind the cold. I guess they have no choice, afterall they need to feed and i don't know of any indoor bird cafes. For me on the other hand - it is too cold, which leads me to staying with indoor activities, such as bread baking!

This is my latest bread experiment, that i saw when browsing online. I had a dilema. Mum wanted bread with seeds whereas i wanted bread without seeds, i'm not keen on bits in my soft, light, unadulterated homemade bread. So after i've mixed the dough, i split it in half, putting one half in a bowl to proove as it is and the other half i add the seeds to and knead/mix them in. The packet of seeds that we have in the cupboard right now is a mix of Sesame, Pumpkin and Sunflower but when that's finished i might see what other mixes Tescos sell.

Once both have prooved in their seperate bowls, i put them in the tin, one in each half and let it proove again. As they proove together, they join in the middle to create one loaf ready for the oven.

A couple of early(ish) morning shots to end with. It was 7.15am sunday morning when i got up and went downstair fo find mum having just put the kettle on. She pointed out the moon, which was still up, out the back of the house.

Then about half hour later when we were back in our beds with a nice warm cuppa she called through the bedroom wall for me to look out of the front of the house.
I know it was a sunrise, but i think the sunset setting on my camera works just the same!

Best of Luck for 2009 to everyone.

A Kick up the Backside

I finally got a kick up the backside and some motivation to update my part in the blogging world. I was rather suprised to be honest. I knew i had a handful of followers but it seems the numbers are gathering! Juliet left a comment on my previous post asking me what she could do to get my motivation back so she could catch upon my news. Thank you Juliet, i am really touched. Things have picked up slightly but the depression cloud it still hanging around and swamping life. However, i'd kind of expect that during the festive season. It never seems to be a happy time these days, and we always debate what we're going to do.

There was the idea thrown around about going away somewhere to try and escape the festivities, but we came to the conclusion that you can't avoid it - afterall the shops start Christmas in October! Plus it was a case of we can hide at home and watch TV/play board games or pay to stay in a cottage somewhere and watch the TV/play board games. Needless to say we are staying put although you'd never know it was Christmas other than the cards which are stapled to ribbons hanging on one door of the lounge. I'm not sure how tomorrow will progress but we bought some new Trivial Pursuit cards to keep us entertained when the TV gets truely dreadful.

So what have i been up to since my last post, a shocking 20 days ago? Well from my photos it looks like baking bread and not much else! Time to add some photos and then write around them (reminds me what i want to say and formats easier that way too).

So starting with the bread. i've made about 6 loaves so far, today is the 7th and i think i've finally got the flour and water just about right so the bread turns out at a density we all like.

1st - Spelt. I love the flavour of spelt but using a recipe from the Doves flour website created a loaf that was very dense and a little difficult to digest.

2nd - 100% spelt again but this time i used more water. Again lovely flavour but the crumb was still far too dense for us.

3rd - 80:20 wholemeal:white. I think this was 300ml water. Nice loaf, ok crumb but i wasn't sure if it was light enough.

4th: same flour ratio but 400ml too water....hmmm a bit too holey!

This loaf had 350ml - Just right!

So there we are, i'm a baker too now. There's a book i want to get, it's not too expensive but i've seen it cheaper on ebay a couple of times. Only trouble is both times i've meant to log on at the ending time and i've been distracted and forgotten! However i got a book voucher through the post the other day, so i guess i have the funds now.

I was sitting on the sofa the other day when i heard the familiar thud of, as we call it, a bird splat. Fortunately Little Robin didn't fly at the patio doors as the female blackbird did a few weeks ago. It wasn't such a happy ending for her, although i don't think she would have known much about it.

He was a little stunned though and wasn't bothered by me just the other side of the glass. I started to think i might have to go and get him until he warmed up and came round but as i opened the back door he flew away.

As with the past couple of years, for the festive season once again, we have created a hamper for my grandparents with various homemade items included.

Mum had mentioned previously that she fancied some sloe gin, so once i'd finally found a decent crop of sloes, we got some gin and created magic! But we had a few to many sloes it turned out so we made some more. So thats 2 bottles for mum.

And a personalised one for the hamper.

D had a meeting/party to go to where normally everyone takes a little something for their buffet lunch. A great excuse for me to bake!! Especially with my new found interest in yeast

So i got creative with these flavoured rolls. The flavours were slightly adapted however due to what i had in stock.

Sundried Tomato

Green Olive (which were also stuffed with pimentos)
And onion (from the garden) and rehydrated porcini mushrooms.
Mum kept one for her lunch - and so i could get a shot of the inside of the roll, which turned out to be soft and light. As for the rest of them? who knows..... they went with D to his party and they didn't come back, although by the sounds of it they had so much food the host is probably still eating them!

I haven't really done anything in the garden. I'm not go with even remotely cold weather so the only times i've been out there is when i want to harvest something.
There's still parsnips, carrots, red cabbage, white cabbage, chard and a few tiny onions. Mum's requested a red cabbage for tomorrow, so i've left a larger one out there for her.

More items for the hamper now. I picked up this idea on Martin's Money Saving Forums (the link should be in the side menu). Something personal for Nan this time.

So easy (well almost) and yet impressive. I wanted little chocolate rounds so i decided to melt the chocolate in the silicone muffin moulds. Also by melting the squares in the microwave already in the moulds saved the agro of pouring melted chocolate - less waste too. whilst it was still molten i topped them with chopped crystalised ginger.
One thing to bare (is it bear or bare?) in mind though is that different chocolates have different melting points. For the mix i had to heat the white in one half for a little first then put the dark square in the other half and finish them together. You learn from your mistakes.

At the beginning of December mum and i went to Bremen on a day trip to experience a continental festive market. We left home at 6.15am, the flight was scheduled for 7.40am and we evenually arrived in Bremen at about 10.30am.
The journey from Bremen airport to the town centre was so straight forwards, a tram journey lasting 10 minutes. It was certainly chilly, i think the forecast was saying not about 3 degrees celcius...brrrrr!

Mum sampled the gluhwein in the morning and whilst we were having that drink mid morning she was watching what else was being served and decided that the afternoon's drink was going to be eggnog, although when it came to that her verdict was too sweet and perhaps a little too alcohfrolic!

Lunch was soup (cabbage, carrot and smoked sausage broth style for me and goulash for mum) to warm us up. We picked up a decoration, that is now sat on the kitchen window sill...... A hearted shaped "Frohe Weinachten" iced lebkuchen cookie as a novelty item for the hamper. Some speck and salami for grandpa for the hamper. And finally i too a step out of my comfort zone and got a small Bretzel (german pretzel/bread) to keep me going for the journey home. Which again was without any major hitches, so we were home by 9pm. It was nice to be back where is wasn't attempting to snow, that was a bit too cold for me as it was more like sleet than snow.

Now for the final part of the mini cakes for the hamper. Roughly based in this recipe.

Why is it cake mix tastes so yummy? The cakes themselves didn't bad either once cooked!

I had plenty spare so i took one into town with me, complete with a carefully positioned sticker with my contact details (hint hint!!) but i think he was in so much of a hurry to eat the cake, the sticker may have been missed sadly. Perhaps i have to be less subtle next time, if indeed i do try again....

Anyway i placed a round of marzipan and a round of icing on top secured with marmalade and topped with some clementine slices that i dried in the oven and some dried cranberries.

The board are coasters from sainsburys and with a little red ribbon round the middle i think they look quite cute.

So that's one each for the hamper and an extra one for one of their friends who will be having a stressful time alone attempting to cope with her husband and his dementia and alzeihmers over Christmas. One small problem right now is the icing - made the mistake of putting them in a tin overnight - having now learnt that this make them sweat and the moisture from the cake (of which there is a lot! they don't need feeding) is taken up by the icing. So i can't put the cellophane round them right now as it just sticks to the sides.

And finally something i've been wanting to try for a while - Carp. A traditional festive Czech meal, tescos (and waitrose i have since noticed) have been selling them in the run up to the 25th. Rather expensive at £10/kg, but half price off, so £5/kg at tescos (£8.99/kg waitrose) meant this monster cost almost £10, which i gutted then baked whole and we shared it between the 3 of us. Lovely unique flavour and i think the moisted fish i've ever tasted. Worth trying but i can see due the cost why it would be the special one off festive meal!

Seems as well as a baker, i'm a fishmonger too now! Especially with my efforts at Salmon filleting below.

Anyhow, i hope that will keep you going to a bit Juliet! Who knows what the next few weeks holds, i don't really have any plans, but i'm sure it will include more bread in these credit crunch times.

I'm off to meet mum from work now and hopefully find some lunch in a pub somewhere and later i've decided i want to do the crazy Tescos closing time bargin fight. nothing better than a supermarket scuffle!

I haven't vanished - honestly. Things have been a little tough. Hopefully soon i'll find the motivation to do a catch up but in the mean time here's a photo of something i have started doing - baking my own bread!

Even better than that, i actually eat it myself too! Well - it's just too tasty to resist really!

Hastings Seafood Festival and Happy 1st Birthday Blog!

Well, amazingly it's a year since i started this blogger blog which means that my little laptop is a year old too. So here's a nice cheerful post to celebrate with.

It was the Hastings Seafood Festival on the 20/21st September and after attending last year i quite fancied going again. Last year the sun was shining, there was no breeze and the place was buzzing. There were restaurant doing sample dishes, mini portions so to speak. I think my favourite last year was a cuttlefish risotto cooked using the ink.

There was nothing else i fancied on offer in the way of hot food so i wandered along to the fish huts where one of the fishmongers was selling cold fish/shellfish. Last year i finished lunch by having some smoked eel and crevettes (oh and a glass of Pimms!)

I sat on a bench round the back of the fish huts soaking up the sea air, being watched by some greedy gulls.

This year mum mentioned she would come with me, and then D decided he'd come as well. So we all set off on the Sunday, travel was fine until we hit the part of the A21 where it narrows down to single carriageway, but the Sun was shining and we still made it there by about 12.30pm. The number of stalls and the size of the festival seemed to have almost doubled since last year, with the crafts stalls and produce stalls in a separate area to where the restaurants and catering stall were. The number of people seemed to have grown in proportion with the size of the festival. As by the time we'd walked from the multi-storey carpark, it was lunch time we decided to find some food for lunch first, so wandered around the catering area. The restaurant that did the risotto last year, had sadly sold out of their only squid dish already, so D and i had a beautiful King Scallop each, complete with the coral i'm pleased to say, while mum had a little boat of battered/breadcrumbed whitebait.

After walking round the rest of the stalls to have a quick look, i couldn't see anything i faniced. Not for lack of choice - there was a fish dish of every type; Indian, Japanese, African, French, BBQ, In a bun, on a Kebab skewer, soups..... But for me the plain cold seafood like i had last year was more appealing, so we walked on to the fish hunts where once again they were selling cold and unadulterated seafood. Mum and D decided they didn't really fancy anything there, so walked back to the main market and got a devilled mackeral each. They then came back to meet me on the bench where i sat last year, however it was in the shaddow of the fishhut so i suggested moving into the sun as there was a bit of a breeze which made the shade a bit too cool to be sitting still in, so we wandered down onto the beach which was busier than i thought it would be.

So we settled on the beach and tucked in. I had chosen a small dressed crab and some crevettes. They were selling the crabs on plates with a slice of lemon and piece of bread for £6 which i though was a little too much, so i decided to look inside the fishmongers at their produce counter. Inside they were selling similar dressed crabs wraped in clear film, the smallest for £4.20 which wasn't too much smaller than the ones they were selling on their catering stall, so it made sense to get one from there as i already had a piece of bread and lemon and a plate from buying the crevettes.

However i was feeling under a little pressure to hurry up and finish my lunch towards the end....not from mum or D......but i had someone else watching over my shoulder, just in case i should decide i couldn't finish my food.....

I don't know why but it didn't seem as exciting as last year, maybe last year it was because it was a spur of the moment thing and a lone adventure that i took on my own. It was still a lovely day though, nothing beats seafood in my books for a meal during lovely day out.

Oh i've buggered this up!

appologies for the messy looking blog. i was trying to change the banner and screwed up......am now i'm so p'ed off it might just be best to leave alone, until i have D's HTML skills.

Edit: ok back to the way it was, the banner at least!

Edit2: well the new banner is there as best it will be for now, not sure how to change the width of the frame though!

Saturday 20th September - Mid Essex Model Railway Exhibition

I should have posted this earlier - but better late than never as they say. This weekend i known as exhibition weekend in our hourse, but of course like all major events its never just the day itself where the hard work gets put in. For D in fact the hard work is the rest of the year during the run up to it, it's usually mum and i that get roped in for the hard graft on the day.

Open 10am to 6pm, free car park on site, free bus service from Shenfield railway station. Admission prices: adult £4.50, seniors £3.50, children £2.50.

How To Get There

It's a great day if you have an interest in modelling, not just trains but also things like the scenery and trees etc. Lots of layouts, an outdoor ride that the kids will love, trade stands for things like modeling paints and books etc, not forgetting the tombola and ofcourse refreshments.

I've lost track of how many years i've been going now, but its always well attended and thoroughly enjoyed.

200th Post!! - A Special Day Out

I wanted my 200th post to be about something cheerful, meaningful and special (so I'll catch up with the stories of my tomato troubles later!) and what could be more fitting than a little report on my day out in London with my Nan.

There must be something about when i meet Nan in London that causes bad weather. When i took her to a recording of Ready Steady Cook in January 2007 there were severe gales, so severe that roofs were lifted off and trees blown down in London which of course meant trains very badly delayed back to the south coast. But that wasn't all bad i guess as it meant we had dinner together at Yo Sushi too at Victoria Station while we were waiting for them to start running the trains again. Then when Mum and I met with her and we went to see a musical, i think it was The Sound of Music, earlier this year, it snowed, hailed etc etc and when Nan got back down south she didn't recognise Grandpa's car due the snow that was covering it!!

So of course we almost weren't surprised by the forecast that started appearing at the beginning of the week. By the time i got on at the end of the Central Line the rain had started.

However one on the tube i knew that i wouldn't be seeing daylight for a while, as when i got to Victoria it was straight into the National Rail area and from there we went back down onto the tube and didn't resurface until we reached London Bridge. First stop? Borough Market!!

(I had a little play in photo shop!)

I spotted some yellow and purple carrots, which were £3.20 per kilo. I'd actually brought some of mine for Nan to take home with her - but seeing that price made me wonder how much I've saved by growing my own, perhaps i should do what grandpa used to do and weight every single carrot i get out of the garden to get a total weight (he used to do it with tomatoes and count his cucumbers apparently!).
A few other wonderful sights included some Indian Fresh Water Prawns, although no doubt it's a bit like crayfish - all you get is a little meat out then tail!

And a huge Puffball which had been cut in half and into more chunks.

We reached the market just after 12 so although it had just opened it was quite busy as the first wave of office workers on lunch breaks had descended to get their lunch. But we wondered around for about 45 minutes before heading out in the rain and across the road to Slug and Lettuce for lunch. After a noisy (again due to lunch break office workers i think) lunch of a tomato and mozzarella salad each we headed back to finish looking around the market. I also too Nan into Neal's Yard Dairy. She loved seeing all the cheeses and found some Strathdon Blue that she thought Grandpa would like (wow, it was strong!) and half a small round of Childwickbury which i took home half of and she took the other half (a quarter of a round each basically).

From there we headed to Covent Garden, as that's also the nearest tube to where the restaurant is. I was also hoping that the string quartet that often busk down in the lower section outside The Crusting Pipe. We had a wander around the market then headed downstairs for a drink. when we got there i passed a girl going in the opposite direction with a cello case on her back - bad sign! We got a table outside anyway and it gave us a chance to chat and for me to show her some photos and tell her about the Countess of Warwick show etc.

By the time we'd finished our drinks there was still an hour to go before the table was booked for at Belgo and i knew it would only take us 10 minutes max to get there. So as it wasn't raining i suggested just taking a wander up round Covent Garden, showing her the other branch or Neal's Yard Dairy and the colourful Neal's Yard itself. Before i realised it we were at Shaftsbury Avenue and when i looked down the road i could see the lanterns of the entrance to China Town. So we walked on down and took a stroll through there, stopping at Loon Fung, one of the biggest shops there where i spotted a Thai Mango, something i hadn't tried (which tasted completely different to a normal, more common Mango and wasn't to my taste!) and as we were walking through to pay, Nan spotted some pig's hearts. I think that's kind of a generational thing and meal but she said she'd stuff them with a sage stuffing for dinner on the next night. Each to their own - offal is certainly not my thing!

By this time it was about time to start heading to the restaurant and we were only about 10 minutes early in the end. To my amusement and Nan's too i think, we were taken downstairs in the lift! I didn't even know they had a lift!! I told Nan what i was planning to orderand she said that sounded nice so we ordered to portions of Mussels Provencale, requesting bread instead of chips.

I think alot of the way a meal taste has to do with the atmosphere, the company you're in as well as the cooking of the food and the produce used. The mussels tasted even better than they norally do there, they were large, plump and cooked to perfection, in a lovely tomato, onion and garlic sauce, with a touch of paprika or something slightly spicy, which although was stronger than normal did not detract from the dish at all.

After a bit (ok, a lot) more talking it was time to head back to Victoria to put Nan on a train home. We were going to be pushed to get the 8.06pm but thought we'd try (her train goes every half hour) anyway - she was the last person on and the doors literally closed behind her! But she made it and i felt happy knowing she wouldn't be home too late, and grandpa wouldn't be too late in collecting her from the station. From the message she left on the home phone, she got back at about 9.30pm, by which time i had reached Epping and was walking the 10 minute walk up the hill, back to the car in the steady rain. But driving home the rain was torrential! I was comtemplating just pulling over until it eased off, however its a good job i didn't otherwise i could have been stopped there for a long time! After a long day i made it home at 10pm and despite the weather i wouldn't have changed anything about it at all, and it made me realise i've go to get over my intimidation of my grandfather and see them more often.