So long ago when I was but a young ‘un, I would go to my friend Peter’s house. Acquainted since we were merely 1 week old, Peter and I grew up living in each others houses. He lived on the side of the mountain, which provided us with ample adventure territory. I have mentioned my love of Enid Blyton books. Suffice it to say that I full on believed in fairies and other magical creaturefolk. Peter did not help this matter as he tended to tell me that there were fairies in the trees but I couldn’t see them because I had glasses.
Oh, the glasses. You know what made it worse? They were the free, health board approved glasses. Think… seethrough plastic frames with a brownish pinkish tinge. Think of saucers. Think of magnifying glasses in manner of comic book nerdy characters. I was that kid. Yep. I hated them with a passion. I would think ‘Who needs to see’, and off they’d come. And I would abruptly bump into whatever the hardest, sharpest most cornerful item in the room was. And it would hurt. So I would give up and slam the offending giant magnifying glasses back on and survey the beginnings of a yellowish bluish greenish massive bruise that was forming with vigour.
Well at least I wasn’t that kid with the runny nose.
So I never got to see my beloved fairies. But I was informed that they were sitting there, up in the trees overhead. This concept never scared me, though in retrospect it could have. Grinning fairies sitting in the boughs of tall trees, snickering and casting fairy dust down on me, the clumsy kid with the glasses. Especially the types of ‘faeries’ from the poetry – see Yeats: The Stolen Child. Changlings and echoes of evil faeries all over the place. But then Blyton’s fairies were wispy little happy things. Like Tinkerbell without the attitude.
Well back to the mountain. We would generally spend our days scrambling up and down the place. There used to be a little path-like trail we would climb, beating the extra brambles out of the way with good big stick (torn off one of the fallen trees) if memory serves me. I do believe we’d meet some of the neighbour children every once in a while, and we’d stop for the formalities of the 6 or 7 year olds:
‘Hello there, Lovely day isn’t it?’
‘Well it is indeed, only 2 foot of rain in the last hour, fantastic fantastic’
‘That’s a great stick you have there!’
‘It is surely, got it off the old chestnut up by the cow field’
‘Ah I know the one, I might head up later myself, this auld thing is desperate for the splinters’
‘Do, do, theres plenty left on it. Oh would ya c’mere, did you see teenage mutant hero turtles yesterday?’
‘Ah, I missed it actually, was it a good one?’
‘Oh it was mad altogether, there was a huge big fight, and by golly it was close, but the turtles sealed the deal. It was a close one tho, I had to go out and get a glass of milk after it, my nerves were in tatters’
‘Oh you’ll have that. Well I’ll be off anyway, I hear there are leprechauns above in the cave’
‘I heard that myself alright but I’m headed down to the weeping willow to make sure that it’s not the faraway tree. I’ll see you Monday at school’
‘You will indeed. Good Luck!’
Or something to that effect anyhow. And off we’d go, taking on leprechauns or fairies or wild goats or whatever came our way, and then head back for some of his mammy’s glorious chocolate cake and a bit of telly. Good times I say, good times.
Hi there. Remember me? I’m the one that’s supposed to be writing here regularly? Hi. Here I am.. (*takes a moment to shuffle feet sheepishly).. I’ve been kind of busy, what with drama craziness and stuff.. And I meant to write. I really did. I mean, I do have to sleep… Ok ok I’m sorry. Is that what you wanted to hear?! Fine. I admit it. I was wrong. Now can we get over this please?
Now that we’ve sorted that out, as I’ve said, we’ve been rather busy in my house. 2 harrowing days of Feis again for Hannah. Therefore 2 harrowing days of Feis and Hannah moodiness for me. But it was reasonably successful. I have to say, the girl can bang out poetry like there’s no tomorrow. I mean, she is good at it.. Let me just say how beautiful the poem ‘Broken Moon’ by Carole Satyamurti is. It is phenomenally lyrical. And Banana stood up there and said it with a maturity that surpasses her 16 years. Quite proud of her. Wunnerful, just wunnerful. And on to the duologue- Hannah and Eimear, why twas quite excellent. Lovely chemistry on stage, the two just have this fantastic energy together. They were placed 2nd, the adjudicator seemed to prefer the comedy piece this time round. But couldn’t fault the two!
And the play went really well again, and won 1st place. As the adjudicator put it ‘This is the closest thing to a professional production I have ever seen in the feis. It is as good as some of the professional productions I have been to.’ She was raving about them. It was fantastic tho. I took many many pictures (photos make Sarah happy), and in every single one, every girl was in character. I shall grace you with some of those photos.
Good innit? Congratulate her and them in the comments section 🙂
Next on the agenda. My sugar thermometer came today! I decided to buy one after failing miserably at caramel/toffee/jam many times. So I bit the bullet and got one from amazon! And naaaaturally I had to test it. So I made toffee.
Now those of you that are familiar with Enid Blyton will accept this occurrence with no hesitation. In fact, you must expect that toffee would come up at some time. And those of you who are not familiar with Enid Blyton- I pity you. I can’t imagine a childhood without Enid Blyton. She covered all the bases. You had your boarding school books with their midnight feasts, your ‘Tales of Follyfoot Farm’ horsey stories, your general fairy books of all types, not to mention Mr Meddle’s muddles! But there was one book that I loved in particular. A magical tale where Moon-face, Silky the fairy, the saucepan man and Dame Washalot, amongst others, transformed my days from the mundane everyday world right into the enchanted magical wonderland that I longed to live in. I am speaking, of course, about ‘The Faraway tree’. I loved those books. How I loved those books. In fact, when my mother tried to get rid of our kid’s books, I flat out refused to let her give those away. You know what- I think I may read them again. Tonight. I shall read them. I particularly loved the story where the kids didn’t get back to the ladder in time and had to have a bit of an adventure to get home again. Good old adventures. Gotta love those adventures. Dammit I’m off topic.
Anywho – toffee. Well Moon-face, bless his orbicular head, he loved toffee. I mean, he really loved the stuff. And ever since Bessie made him some toffee as a gift, I have wanted to make toffee. Plus Richie loves toffee so I figured I owe him one for the whole driving me up and down to Dublin.
Right. Well, I had a basic idea from somewhere that you used about 250g of butter and 200g of sugar. So I whacked them in a pan. And then I thought.. well thats not going to be that really nice creamy butterscotch-like toffee. So I put in about 3 tablespoons of cream. That’s double cream. Gotta love it. Butter, sugar, cream. Where can you go wrong with that combo?! So I lobbed them all in a nice heavy bottomed pan, put it on the heat at about medium and whisked it round til everything melted. Its a lovely canary yellow colour! I then put my blessed now-beloved thermometer in, put the whisk firmly away, and excitedly stared at the red line rising. However this was a rather slow process. So I got bored and started cutting up the mushrooms for my boeuf bourguignon. (Yes I did watch Julie and Julia. Yes I did love it. Yes I did buy the cookbook afterwards) And then I checked the temperature. And it happened to have hit about 287 and was turning a burnt amber. Now I distinctly recall toffee is usually a creamy caramel colour and not a burnt amber colour. And also I had gone by the ‘recommended’ temperature of 270. So I dejectedly took the pan off the cooker, poured the burnt amber mess into my painstakingly perfectly prepared pan. And then stared with a sense of spiralling doom at the massive black patch on the bottom of my saucepan. Toffee 1. Sarah 0. SO I sighed, put some hot water and fairy liquid in, and set it aside to soak. I went back to my boeuf, and put my failed toffee behind me. (Literally. On the table like.)
However, after tasting some delicious boeuf, my confidence sky-rocketed and I thought ‘Righty-oh butter sugar and cream! You’ll not get the better of me this time.’ I measured out my ingredients with vigour. I scrubbed the saucepan til sparkling and ready for round two. And back on the heat it went. I went for low heat this time. I changed nothing else but my level of concentration. I concentrated. Boy did I concentrate. I did not leave that cooker for more than a minute at a time. I watched the red line creeping up through the 250’s. It got to 265. My heart was beating. I gave it a few seconds more. I let it go to 270. Just to see. I didn’t want it to have undercooked toffee. And I read a recipe somewhere to let it go to 280. But I didn’t think 280 was acceptable. So when it hit 270 I excitedly took the pan off the heat and poured it into pan no.2. The one beside the 1st failed batch of toffee. It looked right! Wow!
I purposely distracted myself at this point, because of three little things I’m quite certain of. The first is that I know that 270 degrees is fairly hot. And I also know that toffee is irresistible. And the third thing I know for sure is I have no willpower whatsoever. Especially against delicious toffee.
20 minutes passed.
That’s pretty good now, you have to admit. Then.. I tasted. And… it was gooood! Yay! So now there’s a bowl of toffee sitting on our kitchen counter. It seems to be disappearing every time I walk by. And also, coincidentally of course, my jaws seem to be glued together by some kind of gooey buttery sugary creamy taste of heaven. So those of you that know where I live – Come have toffee.And read Enid Blyton.
Nom. Quick recipe for ye. I posted this over on tastykitchen and have 5 mitts so far, oh yeah! Let me know what you think! May I just say this is good on so many levels. And so SO easy. Creme fraiche can be a bit awkward if you’re calorie-counting, but you can always try the low fat option. Also, when you’re a bit stuck for sauce to put with rice, it’s even good without the chicken. I do love it so. And may I just take a minute to express my appreciation for my rice cooker? It cooks perfect rice. It was cheap (15euro in argos). It’s easy to clean. I love it. So let’s all appreciate my rice cooker. And lets thank Mary for nudging me in the direction of it. All together now: ‘Thank you Mary’
Good good. On to the recipe.
P.S. This always goes down well at dinner parties and such, just don’t let on how easy it was 😀
Ingredients: Serves 4
3-4 free range whole Chicken Breasts (All of my chicken is free range. I don’t encourage the non free range rubbish)
1 tub (8 Oz. Tub) Crème Fraîche
1 can (14.5 Oz. Can) Chopped Tomatoes
2 Tablespoons Sun Dried Tomato Pesto
2 Tablespoons Olive Oil
Instructions
1. Cut the chicken into bite-sized chunks. I like the littler ones.
2. Heat the olive oil over a low heat, add the chicken and cook gently until browned. Don’t overcook the chicken. There’s nothing worse than dry stringy tough rubbery chicken.
3. Mix together your tub of creme fraiche, tin of tomatoes, and delicious yummy pesto in a jug or bowl.
4. Pour over the chicken, bring to a light boil, and then simmer until sauce has thickened (about 15-20 minutes or so). You can pop the old rice on at this stage if you be having it with rice! (Rice cooker appreciation again, thank you!)
5. Add more pesto (and/or seasoning – I use salt sparingly, what with the whole doctorness and all) to taste if you need! I left it at a small amount in ingredients, but I’m a pesto fanatic, so I use lots! (You totally need the protein. And.. tomatoes are good. And suuure theres a fair bit of olive oil but.. I mean it’s unsaturated fat.. You need some. You know all those cells that make you up are made up of fatty membranes right?!)
Serve with rice, a nice crispy baked potato or whatever your heart desires. And most importantly, enjoy.
Okily dokily where to start. Right! I shall put today’s dinner recipe up in a separate post methinks.
So. I made the chocolate cake. Used the same recipe as my chocolate fudge cupcakes. But grease and line 2 7 inch sandwich tins (I actually had to use 8″ and cooked for some less time), preheat your oven to 180. Follow said recipe and divide between 2 tins. Bake for 20-25 minutes until risen and nice and firm to touch. Then cool on a wire tray, make up your icing as per instructions. When cake has been sitting there, staring at you, willing you to eat it, until COOL, then you may spread the icing on. I cut one of the layers in half with a nice sharp knife- more surface for icing, oh yeah 🙂 Ice away as you wish and dig in! It looks like this:
So much cake, so little time.
Yep. That was a success. It tastes even better than it looks.
Next on the agenda- yesterdays dinner. I believe I promised a seafood goujons recipe. Unfortunately I’m not used to this whole taking photos of everything mullarkey, so I’m a bit photo-short. But here we are- Olive Oil Chips (Fries) and Seafood Goujons
You will need:
For Chips
Potatoes. I use Roosters cos I love. Nice floury ones are best. Scrub em and get em nice and clean. The skins stay on, these are rustic baby.
Salt
Pepper
Paprika (If you’re going to follow this blog, you need a big ol’ jar of paprika. I love it)
A little rosemary if you so feel like it
For Goujons
Some nicely cut up strips of your favourite fish, patted dry on kitchen paper.
Plain Flour – about 1 cup or so. Basically throw some out on a plate.
Salt
Pepper
Paprika
1-2 eggs beaten
Breadcrumbs
Okily dokily. Cut your potatoes into loverly chunks. So that they look like this:
Yum. Em. This is where the camera went byebyes.
Anyway, then you want to pop them into a nice big bowl of salted water for about half an hour or so, I normally leave it less but see how it goes.. Now preheat your oven to 200 (C) and get a nice big tray and pour a nice drizzle of olive oil onto it. Whack your tray into the oven. Oh but don’t do this too early. About 5 minutes before you dry off your potatoes.
While they are doing their osmosis thing, prepare 3 bowls for breading the fish. Or 3 ziplock bags. Though I prefer the egg in a bowl. 1. Flour, a pinch of salt, some nice black pepper, and a good sprinkle of paprika. 2. Your beaten eggs. 3. Breadcrumbs. Then you take your nice dry strips of fish and pop them into the bags in that order. 1. Flour mix: Make sure each piece is covered and shake off excess flour. Then 2. Into the egg it goes. Coat it nicely and again, shake off the excess. Then 3. Pop into the breadcrumbs! Simple! Then lay out onto a clean tray and pop into the fridge until ready to cook.
Back to the chips. Dry them off thoroughly- important to do this. When they’re all lovely and dry, grab your preheated tray out of the oven and topple your chips onto it. Season with salt, pepper and paprika. I never put rosemary on at this stage. Toss them around in the oil so they won’t stick! Into the oven they go!
Now. How long this takes depends on how thick you’ve cut the chips. My ones took about 30-40 minutes altogether I believe. Toss em round every 10-15 minutes to get them cooking evenly.
About 10 minutes before you’re done you can add a bit of rosemary (oh and/or finely diced garlic) to give it an extra ooomph! If you so choose. I like them on their own to be honest 🙂 You also need to get the fish cooking about now.
Now the fish. Really you have to fry these. Oven cooking makes ’em soggy. You could grill ’em. But you will lose some breadcrumbs if you grill them. So I fried them. They take maybe 4-5 minutes in 200 (c) oil. Don’t overcook the fish. Never overcook the fish. The fish doesn’t like to be overcooked. Please respect the fishes wishes. Oh hey that rhymes. Excellent. I rhyme now 🙂 Ok, Pat any excess oil on on kitchen paper and voilà. Plate along with some garden peas and you have some lovely fish and chips 🙂
Ok. That may be a little higgledy piggledy. Oh I know. I shall put the fish-related in green and the chips in blue. Hmm. You’ve already read this. So you know.
Em yes. Enjoy my good people, enjoy. Oh excellent. The Godfather Part II is on. Fantastico! I mean- Study time. Really. Byeeeeee.
Oh before I go, I shall be taking photos for the ladies GAA tomorrow, check back then to see how it went 🙂
To make a chocolate cake today… I mean.. Surely making a chocolate cake can never be ‘wrong’. I shall be making the cheesecake later, but it’s to be left to cool in the oven overnight so not going to put it in until 10 or so. And in the meantime there’s a cake I have been itching to make. Actually there’s a good four of them, but I really think I might make a chocolate cake. I mean.. I’ll never manage to perfect this cake if I don’t try it. And the house is empty so I can bake and sing in manner of Disney princess.
How much do you love Enchanted?! Fantastic 🙂
May I just point out that we have neither pigeons (pigeons and I do not get along) nor rats in the vicinity. Actually our house is animal free on the inside. Plenty outside. OH yes, as Jen so kindly pointed out I totally forgot about our shark. By shark I mean our goldfish. Remember the whole naming things problem? We just call him the goldfish. Or the shark. Because he’s rather ginormous. And he’s still alive. Since 1998. We forget about him every so often but he ploughs on through. Or more like ‘swims round in circles’ on through. Mum minds him more than the rest of us do… But he’s there!
Back to my… rambling. Ahem. I’m pretty sure if I sang the bluebirds would.. well they’d probably screech and fly far far away… And deer would cringe and bound away as fast as their spindly legs would take them.. Note to self: If ever attacked by animal such as bear, sing nice and loudly. He’ll surely take off like the fires of hell are after him.
It’s animal introduction time. Sooo if you hadn’t gathered, I do live on a farm. A wee farm. It’s pretty much made of pallets and bailer twine, sigh.We have pictures of gates that swing the same way people have pictures of idols up on their wall (not really but you get the idea).
We have a couple of sheep, 4 horses, 3 cats (at last count) and a dog. And Richie (aka Dad, the mashed potato fairy etc). Oh that reminds me – there used to be this video we had- a tape like- you know, rectangular black looking thing you put in a VCR- remember those days?! Anyway yes, tape- called ‘Farmyard tales’- it was basically bad pictures of farmyard scenes and a voice over telling a story. But every story began the same way: ‘This is appletree farm. This is Mrs. Boot, the farmer. She has two children, called Poppy, and Sam, and a dog called Rusty.’ And then generic english accented man would launch into whatever enthralling adventure happened next. Now I don’t want to excite you too much, but to give you an idea- one was aptly titled ‘Pig gets stuck’. How I loved that video…
Em.. I had a point. Or maybe I actually didn’t, but so goes Sarah’s stream of consciousness. Hang on I wonder if that video is on youtube?! Noo- I shan’t get distracted. I shall dutifully finish my post. Ok. Animal introduction time.
We start with my first little pony: Snowy (she was named before I got her) or her jumping name ‘Cruachan’ (Crew-ah-cawn). I bought her when I was about 11 with my saved up communion/birthday money. She cost me 650 irish pounds including a saddle and bridle (A berny saddle at that boyo). She’s a little 12.3 albino pony with a serious attitude. When she decides its rest time, boy oh boy had you better get off. You can dismount gracefully with some dignity whilst Snowy snorts at you with a look that clearly says ‘Good choice, off with the saddle now and I haven’t got all day’ oooor you can be stubborn and get thrown off. And she may be a small pony but she likes to build up the momentum before she throws you off just to make sure you get the message with a nice bruise to match. But I love her dearly. And she pretends not to want attention but if you go and see the others first she gets fairly annoyed with you and will avoid you for the rest of the time you’re in the stable.
Next to my giant Irish Draft- Nick. Or as my cousin named him during a show ‘Settle-down Richie’ (My dad gets a bit nervous sometimes, for the love of God don’t let him near accident prone people or he’ll end up on a heart machine). He is my pet. He’s like a puppy, totally loveable, always comes over to say hi. He’s just adorable. Hes also huge. It’s a long way down when you’re sitting up there. Hand breakingly far, and I speak from experience. Just to spell it out, I fell off and broke my hand. There. How embarrassing… But I refuse to blame my lovely Nick. It was my fault. I put the wrong martingale on him and he panicked and took a jump waaaaaay too early and that was grand but I bumped him a bit when he landed and he may have bucked a little and off I came. But he’s a dear and he wouldn’t hurt a fly. For example we were washing him for a show one day and we don’t even hold him. He just stands there patiently waiting for you to do your thing. He also likes when you tickle above his eye, he dozes off when you do.
Next we have Hope- Owenmore Hope, named by George, our neighbour and previous owner of Hope. We used to mind his horses for him and I’d help out when he did horse and carriages for weddings and so he turned round when we were minding Hope’s mommy, Princess, and told us that the next foal was ours. Or mine! Yay! Hope is the equivalent of a teenage girl. Moody, attention seeking, pretty, loves getting her hair done, but vicious when she wants to be. And when she does not get her way? My oh my keep back. She’s like Hannah Banana really. But shes so gorgeous. She’s a Hackney, and she lifts her feet right up in the air when she trots round 🙂
Last but not least we have Murphy, a redhead who is our newest addition. He’s Dads really. We’ve had our ups and downs. He likes to chew on whatever item of clothing of mine that he can get. This is often my hat. When I pull away my hat ends up as Murphy’s chew toy. I like my hat. I do not think the chew toy lifestyle suits it. So we have had our arguments, Murphy and I. But I think he just wants more attention.
The cats we have- completely wild altogether. We go through cats like there’s no tomorrow. They’re more hayshed cats than house cats but they always end up disappearing off up the mountain. Maybe the previous cats have a club and recruit them. Fight club style…- Cat Club. That would make a great movie. But I digress. These ones were named by Laura- Penny, Pickles, Paul McCartney. I think. All P’s anywho.
Then Corgan. Corgan doggy features and will feature frequently. He’s the prettiest dog known to man, beast or bird. People flock from miles around just to lay their eyes on this wonderful canine. (I may be exaggerating. Just a tad) I miss him terribly when I’m away, and I hear that he’s quite mopey while I’m gone so its mutual. Corgan is quite awkward in that he’s allergic to… well… everything in normal dog food. So every night he gets about 1.5lb of lamb (NOT BEEF) mince cooked up for him, with about 2-3 potatoes. Corgan loves us for this. And we love him so we keep on cooking it for him. But it’s a tough job. Another supercute note on corgan- He eats everything and anything that you leave lying around. But he has a particular fondness for fruit and vegetables. He likes cooking apples,blackberries and carrots. He echoes my disgust for celery though. Horrid stuff.
No pet sheep at the moment. A few that are still ok with me and eat out of my hand etc. We normally have at least one proper pet that comes running to you every time you go in the field. We’ve had ‘Gently’, ‘Frisky’ (after the lamb formula) ‘Lil’ ‘Molly’ ‘Blackface’. Did I mention our amazing naming skills? We once had a cat- a giant ginger cat, called Kitten. I’m pretty sure he’s the one that started Cat Club. It’s like that dog in Terry Pratchett’s book, one of the Vimes-y ones. Big Fido. The poodle. Kitten had to up his street cred. He’s up there plotting revenge as I type. No kidding 😐
Molly was the last sheep we had. She was so cute. At first. We thought she had died and then dad put her in hot water to try and warm her up and we spent most of Hannah’s communion day minding her in the utility. We stomach tubed her and no response. So dad said he’d give her a dose of penicillin just to see so we did that. And I sat down in the utility with her wrapped up in a blanket sitting on my knee, and just rubbing her ears. And we really thought she was gone. But then it was like miracle lamb- maybe it was the whole communion thing or something (Being a future doc I like to think it was the penicillin and good quality of care) but she kinda started moving. So I just made up a quick feed and popped it in a bottle and she kinda drank some. Spluttered a bit so I left it. Tried some more 20 minutes later and she drank some without spluttering. Seriously. She got a bit stronger and started bleating. Dad was amazed! She tried getting up and fell around a bit. 2 hours later she was running around after me. If you don’t believe me I have the whole thing on video! I shall upload it when my computer gets good enough to render my edited video to a new track. But that’s the story of Molly!
Oh and yeah she was really cute. But she did turn headwrecking. Every morning without fail AT 5AM, she would plod down to the back door – through 2 fences and a gate may I add, still don’t know how she did it- and bleat LOUDLY until, bleary eyed and cursing the miracle of lambs coming back from near dead, you managed to bang together a feed, stick it out the door whilst resting your sleepy head on the door jamb, wait til you hear the bottle empty and shut the door on her. And she, quite satisfied, would waddle back up to her cosy hayshed, delighted in the knowledge that we humanfolk were clearly there to serve her every need. Bah. Plus, when visitors came she tended to freak out the ones that came into the field by running at them bleating. She had a stopping problem but if you waited til she was nearly in front of you and stepped aside swiftly she’d stop before she hit a wall or something, bless her little fluffy head. She just got a wee bit excited at the prospect of treats. She also knew where my jacket pocket was and the 90% chance of getting some kind of sheep feed from in there. Did I mention how much my mother loved that particular habit of mine- filling up my farm coat pockets with sheep feed. Especially on laundry day. She loved it.
Heres a reeeeeally old photo of us feeding previous pet lambikins. We do NOT all dress like this in Ireland. It’s just my aunt. And the 80’s. The 80’s happened to my aunt in this picture. We’ve put it behind us now…
Phew. I think that’s quite enough of that for now. You have now been introduced to my animals. I hope you love them like I do 🙂
So it’s Good Friday today which means no meat. My pestolicious chicken plan hath been thwarted. So methinks I shall make Seafood Goujon today. Cod and Salmon perhaps. Or whatever that ‘replacement cod’ fish is – the one with the odd name, Hoki Pokee or such… Mmmmmmmmmmmm.
I could just eat some plain grilled fish… but where’s the fun in that. I shall post recipe later as I’m making it. Gonna go with the good old healthy oven-cooking method. And since it’s all about fish and chips then I believe I might make some homemade chips. Or ‘fries’ if you’re reading from one of them there foreign places.Unless the mashed potato fairy (i.e. Dad) peels some potatoes for me… in which case I may have buttery mashed potatoes. We shall see! Is the tension just killing you??? (Yeah. 3 question marks. It creates a good old dramatic effect there.)
Stay posted for recipe and pictures!
Oh and vote before 5/6 to determine what I shall cook tomorrow!
Not that its that great an achievement to walk up a hill.. But it is a steep hill. And it has rewarding views!
And see that pile of rocks? That my dears is a fairy (or faerie) fort. Apparently tis magical. We are not to destroy faery forts for fear of faery wrath. Faery wrath is the worst type, don’t ya know. I shall now give you another picture of the faery fort.
Pretty ain’t it? Its so lovely and jumbly and hawthorny and magical. I won’t hear otherwise.
Also came across this- like a remainder of a little lane up the mountain. Loverly.
I wanted to go up but time constraints today.
Oh here is where I was looking up rather than down.. Also Corgan!
I was riiiight about where the tree meets the crappy telephone wire! Telephone wire totally wrecks my photos. 😦 I forgive it though.. It gives me contact to the outside world..
Back up the mountain- phew!
Nice, where I live, isn’t it.
On that note, I’m off. Must watch some ‘Law and Order SVU’ and think about how I’m not studying. Sigh. I promise I’ll start tomorrow. I shall rise early and do work, and then I shall perhaps do the long walk tomorrow. I love that place. And I shan’t tell you about it yet but leave you to wonder about this ‘long walk’.
So continuing on my bread obsession I thought I’d mix it up a bit and produce some pizza bases. I went with the classic bread recipe but lobbed in some extra olive oil (Olive oil is amazing) so it basically goes as follows
Turn your oven up to the highest it goes. Bring on the heat! Pop in a pizza tray or stone or whatever you intend to cook your pizza on and get it good’n’hot.
Ingredients
450g strong bread flour/Italian 00 flour
1 package (7g) fast acting yeast
1tsp salt
1-2 tbsp sugar
300mls tepid water
Tomato puree
Olive oil and lots of it
Toppings as needed!
Energy. Lots of energy
Lob about 450g flour into a bowl. Add 1tsp salt, 1.5 tbsp sugar, anda package of fast acting yeast. Pop in about 2-3(-4) tbsp of olive oil and rub it in like you would butter- but not too much.
Add about 300 mls of tepid water. You want it nice and warm but not hothothot! Mix it all about roughly and topple it all out on the counter and scrunch it up together.
Now, this is where it gets physical. You want to knead, squash basically throttle the dough for a good ten minutes and you’ll find it changes to a loverly smooth elastic-y beautiful texture. That’s when its proving time! You want to pop it into a nice oiled bowl, cover with a nice clean teatowel or some oiled clingfilm and pop it into a nice warm place for a good hour or so, maaaaybe two- depends on your place. I tend to put it in my oven after its been turned to about 60 for 10 minutes and turned back off so its all lovely and toasty (but not too warm).
Right so off you go and clean up (ahahahaha 😀 I do like my jokes) or sit down and watch some house or arrested development whilst your dough does its thing. When its all lovely and doubled in size, turn it back out to a nice floury surface and knock it about to push the air out of it a bit. I usually divide this into 3-4 chunks and make lotsa bases! You can leave em in the fridge for a day or two in an oiled ziplock bag if you don’t want to make 4 pizzas. So roll/stretch out your dough to your desired thickness – I like really thin pizzas but each to their own!
Get your toppings ready- but don’t add’em yet (unless you have a pizza moving giant fish slice apparatus).
I was lazy so for the tomato sauce I use a spoonful of tomato puree and some olive oil. Yay for laziness. Today I just threw on about half an onion that sliced up, one ball of buffalo mozzerella (drooool…), parmesan (everything I make has parmesan in it. Well 90% at least) and a few little pieces of cheddar for the craic. Ahem.. Did I mention I rather like cheese?!
Right. So your toppings are all nice and ready. You can put on a your spoon of tomato puree or whatever sauce you be using.
Then grab your very hot tray out of your very hot oven and put it on a nice heatproof surface. Pop the pizza onto it (see you gotta move your dough and dough+toppings plus moving without a pizza moving apparatus yolky equals disaster) and add your toppings as you please. Drizzle some beautiful olive oil on it…
And then you want to throw it in the oven (not actually throw, put nicely) and stare at it for 8-10 mins, willing it to cook. Bear in mind that thick crusts are gonna take longer to cook, obbbbviously! So take a peek and see when its all lovely and bubbling and cooked and delicious looking.
So much cake, so little time.
Cake in the country 