Muffins

Jul. 27th, 2023 11:54 pm
bunn: (Default)
Pp has got into poached eggs, and would like to eat them with (English) muffins. 

Asda had no muffins at all (they had about 7 different kinds of crumpet, and zero muffins), so I bought a bag of spelt flour instead and made these wholemeal spelt muffins instead: https://www.greatbritishchefs.com/recipes/wholemeal-spelt-english-muffins-recipe ;

Have never cooked bread in a frying pan before, but it seemed to work. 

I've only eaten one so far, but it was delicious. Think I should make half quantities though: nine muffins at once is a lot of muffins. 

 

Things

Jul. 14th, 2023 08:02 am
bunn: (Default)
Yesterday, I saw a huge black crow eating a similarly huge dead white gull. It looked very Ominous.

Today I went for a swim and didn't get stung by a jellyfish, though one of the people I was swimming with did.

Pp and I decided we didn't know enough about the history of  countries in Africa, so we're doing a blitz on African history doing a quick Wikipedia read-up/ Youtube whiz through on one country a day.  Yesterday was Ethiopia, today is Sudan. Tomorrow is Eritrea. 

I'm not sure how much of it will stick, but hopefully the odd bit? At a minimum I hope to more accurately be able to point to places on a map! 

Speaking of maps, the Shop on the Borderlands now has sold things to customers in 46 countries.  We've bought a map and some flag pins so we can see where they all are. 

I took Theo for a social walk at the amazingly named Wolf's Castle, where, supposedly, the last wolf in Wales was killed.  It seemed a pleasant spot for a stroll and Theo managed to not shout more than a token amount, even onlead and surrounded by other on-lead dogs (he finds leads hard!  He's so much happier greeting off the lead.) 

Pp has been diagnosed diabetic, which has come as a bit of a shock to him, given his usual diet of white bread cheese sandwiches, chocolate and (nearly) no veg.   But he has risen to the challenge and bought an under-desk cycle, for exercise.  He's eating a lot of boiled eggs now,but I need to work out some more low-carb recipes. 

bunn: (Default)
Saturday was Pp's birthday.  I had promised to make a cake and a meal, which I did, with some success in the most important department (taste) but less success in the visuals.  I intended to make a chocolate tower-cake, but my tower proved structurally unsound, and even the addition of a bamboo skewer did not entirely prevent listing and eventual crackage. 

We watched the Coronation (well, I went out and walked the hounds for part of it, but I got back in time to see the Drumming From a Horse, which was my personal highlight of the event.  That and the mounties, who against stiff competition, I think had the best horses. ) 

The forecast was for rain, but in fact the sun smiled all afternoon.  I mowed a lawn. I had intended to try for No Mow May, again (in which you don't mow till the start of June to allow time for the lawn to flower) but I think the wetter spring and dog pee combination had resulted in grass that was too lush to favor wildflowers.  So I've mowed all but the spots where I have camomile and yarrow growing, and I have done my best to mow around those.  I think I'll have to try to mow once in March next year, that might knock the grass back for long enough to let the wildflowers do their thing. 

I have a bunch of plants in pots that I really must plant out soon.  Still, a few more days won't hurt them. 

The local street party was a fairly laid-back beach party on Sunday (due to the forecast for Saturday being dismal) so we dropped by that briefly to admire the fire and chat with a few people. After that, we went out on the river in the boat, and journeyed upstream on the tide many miles, to the very fringes of Haverfordwest.  There was a fraught moment when we had to change the petrol tank and  couldn't work out why the engine wouldn't re-start afterwards, but it was resolved happily.  We do have an emergency paddle, but it would have been a long paddle home.



I've been oddly exhausted since Sunday and keep finding myself forced to stop and nap: unfortunate, since today I was dealing with a wrangle with the Oldies Club email that involved a teleconference with Google, and the Shop on the Borderlands had 28 orders to pack today, including a huge one to Australia. Still, we got it done, despite the minor niggle that the Royal Mail parcel-picking-up service is terribly glitchy and you never know when you'll have to just haul everything off to the sorting office. At least the sorting office has given us permission to ignore the 'no parking' signs when we come in with a car-load of post to send. We are allowed to park in one of the official van slots, as long as the vans are out delivering at the time. 

bunn: (Default)
New dishwasher arrived and was installed and they took away the old one very efficiently, all masked and with the windows wide open for a healthy draught. This year has been all about the healthy draughts so far, the whole thing of 'keeping the heat in' has rather blown away...

It seems they don't make the kind of dishwasher with a sort of 2/3's door and the controls on the outside any more : modern dishwashers have the controls on the top of the door.  So the old door panel didn't fit.  Of course it didn't. I bought a new one: it was cheap, and I didn't attempt to match colours, it's a dark shiny grey, whereas the rest of the kitchen is cherry wood.  But the dishwasher works and I fitted the new panel and handle yesterday. I don't think it looks too weird.

Had a house viewing on Friday: I assume if they had wanted to buy they would have sent us a message by now.  Hey ho.   We air the house out and clean it, then go out for the morning so the estate agent can let the viewers in, so we never actually see them.

Theo is enjoying Virtual Dog School and is getting quite good at walking to heel.  He and Fankil the Grey Cat are good friends at the moment: they both like to come upstairs together in the mornings to wake us up at breakfast time.  They don't tend to arrive too early, so I don't object.

Made squash soup, walnut bread and apple crumble today.  Mum was supposed to be coming to bubble for lunch, but the roads were icy so she decided not.

Need to decide whether to sign up for Worldbuilding Exchange. I sort of want to finish some of my long WIPs, really, but they all feel a bit draggy at the moment, so it's tempting to sign up to do something new instead.  On the other hand, that sort of attitude isn't going to get the WIPs finished!

I keep thinking that at last I am being Efficient and Getting Stuff Done, and then I find something I have utterly forgotten that seems like the kind of thing I'd normally remember.  Today, it was the live session of Dog School, which I forgot was at 11.  And I am astonishingly behind on comment replies, which usually don't seem like anything at all.   Still, at least the laundry is clean. 
bunn: (Default)
Is not behaving in quite the way the instructions suggested (ie, it rises, but not yet doubling in size) so so far, I have not tried making it into bread.

It does make good crumpets though. 
bunn: (Default)
I missed out on the sourdough starter craze of early 2020 because we had some dried yeast in the cupboard during the Great Bread Shortage, and also the village post office which has its finger firmly on the pulse, almost immediately started selling yeast and bagged flour from the wholefoods supply place around the corner, so we were never really breadless, and I was also busy fighting the garden at that point.

None the less, I think yeast is amazing, and have always vaguely felt like trying capturing some wild yeast.

So on Sunday, I made a flour and water mix and left it on the mantlepiece, and now I have a large enthusiastically- bubbling thing already!  It certainly *smells* very bready.   I am waiting for it to finish eating the second lot of flour I fed it and start to look a bit hungry before I feed again.  I wasn't expecting it to take off so fast, so I didn't mark the jar after the first feeding, as shown here.  I marked it at 10:30 am today instead, since it was clearly growing enthusiastically, but I'm not sure if it has quite doubled in size since yesterday. I shall wait and see what it does next!  I'm hoping it will run out of food and start to shrink, so I know to half it and feed it. 
bunn: (Default)
In my quest for foods that are a bit less carbohydratey, I have been
Coconut flour is not pancakeable. Not even if soaked overnight and combined with eggs and slow-cooked to encourage coagulation. Do not try to make pancakes with it. The results are grim.

Have moved on to buckwheat flour (not a wheat, despite the name, but a relative of the rhubarb.) She makes pretty good pancakes, but not as good as Spelt flour (which IS a kind of wheat, despite the name.)

At present, Spelt is my favorite of the Weird Flours.
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The Milkman seems to have given up on delivering me the nice malty seedy bread I like, though he still brought dull white sliced for Pp.  Perhaps nice malty wholemeal is not considered essential.  I responded by making my own bread, which is white, but much nicer than the white sliced.  It was delicious.  I must get my act together and make some more.



Pp has painted a rather excellent unwinged dragon miniature, and I entertained myself photographing it in various possible dragon-habitats:



This is actually a picture from yesterday, but depicts the status quo for the week: Rosie wrapped in her blanket enjoying the sunshine. Today, alas, it is colder and once our officially-sanctioned one walk a day was done, Rosie decided to enjoy the sunbeams from the sofa. 

bunn: (Cream Tea)
Yesterday, after canoeing, we stopped to eat at an ‘American themed’  cafe.

It had cactuses and American flags, adverts for Coca Cola and Dr Pepper, posters showing guitars and rockstars*, and chairs covered in fake cow-skin, neon signs in the windows, and signs on the wall advertising Harley-Davidson and Chevrolet and Southern Comfort and random signs on the walls saying ‘Michigan’ ‘Tennessee’ or ‘Wyoming’.


We went in and they told us sadly they had run out of fizzy drinks.  They had plenty of Cornish beer and cider and J20 though, so that was all right.  Also there was HP Sauce on each table, and the bacon was delightfully crispy.   Pp had gammon, egg and chips, waving away the maple syrup that they offered to add to make it somehow more American.   I was braver and had a burger with pulled pork and bacon.

Somehow, it felt like the most British place I have ever been.  If it had been a village pub with morris dancers, it would not have been so British. :-D

*at least 50% of the rockstars were British, however, presumably on the grounds that we can only know that they are rockstars if we recognise them.  I am not complaining, as I could have done with seeing slightly less of Cher's pubic regions while eating.   Presumably this is part of the Experience.
bunn: (Wild Garden)
Today it poured with rain, but the last week has had wonderful autumn sunshine. I always seem to forget to take photos of the garden in autumn, but on Saturday I remembered:   View from under the apple tree (I must trim the top of that hedge...)


Read more... )
bunn: (Skagos)
We spent Easter in Essos, the sister continent of Westeros from the universe of Ice and Fire.  Here we are setting off (perspective is deceptive! the first ship was by far the biggest really! )

Read more... )

I meant to write up what we did, but unfortunately I was, and am, a bit under the weather (I severely disapprove of a bug that not only makes me impossibly sleepy but also makes my asthma unusually severe and wheezy, honestly, I feel like I've abruptly aged about 30 years and put on three stone) so I'm just going to link to LoA's writeup so I can find it later.   In fact, I am so wheezy and achy I haven't even photographed my other drawings of the campaign, although partly due to the wheezing, sleeping, aching etc, those I managed were a bit crap anyway, to be honest.  I quite like this one though: it's us all setting off in our cog, the Lady Anduin, with a cargo of whippets, tin, mead, amber, stockfish, candlesticks, silver grumpkins and furs:

The Lady Anduin. )

As has become traditional, [livejournal.com profile] chainmailmaiden made a sumptuous mass  of awesome foods.  A few of them stayed on the plates long enough to be photographed.  I had to photograph the Baked Alaska super-fast though, before it escaped.   Fortunately, Pp had got me a new (to me) ancient (because all my lenses are from the last century) manual-focus lens for my birthday,  which is well-adapted to the swift photography of escaping food.

Read more... )
bunn: (dog knotwork)
Expensive coffee beans bought online, or from a Special Coffee shop, seem to be sort of dry, sometimes almost a bit dusty-looking, sometimes even a little shrivelled.  But supermarket coffee beans are fat, round and near-black and rather beautifully shiny.  Do they wax or oil them to improve their appearance or storage abilities?  Are fat coffee beans cheaper than little wizened ones?

Why are wheat and oats and barley eaten only when ground or squashed, when other seeds are eaten whole?  Is ground seed less allergenic than whole seed, or is it that 'nut' is shorthand for 'a kind of seed that contains some particular allergenic Thing'?
bunn: (Berries)
Watching Doctor Who yesterday, I learned that Santa considers the tangerine to be his signature gift.

When I was a child, I'm pretty sure that Father Christmas (not Santa) brought a satsuma, not a tangerine.   I love satsumas.  I buy bags and bags of them when they are in season, and eat them until I start feeling really quite orange.  It's surprising, but sort of charming too,  that in an era when you can buy all sorts of fruit out of season all year round, the Season of the Satsuma is so short.

What I think of as a satsuma is Citrus Unshiu and although that Wikipedia entry doesn't mention it, I'm sure I've read an article saying that this particular fruit is disproportionately popular here in Britain, where we like the sweetness and the ease of peeling, and have less stern and demanding tastebuds than other nations who apparently are more likely to prefer more subtle and less sugary citruses. So, we give them at Christmas: hence the 'Christmas orange' name.

What I think of (and I *think* generally what greengrocers and supermarkets sell as tangerines, is Citrus Tangerina - a pleasant enough fruit, but not quite so easy to peel, and the skin has a different texture and flavour (I like the skins too!)

[Poll #1993464][Poll #1993464]

Incidentally, I just learned from that Wiki article that a mature satsuma tree is hardy down to -9C.  -9!  It NEVER goes to -9 here.  I wonder how much frost protection they need before they get big....? 
bunn: (Cream Tea)
We cleared out our Stygian porch today.Read more... )

Also, I made ginger, cinnamon and oat cookies. I substituted a lot of things in the recipe I used, and I like the results, so this is my version:
Read more... )
bunn: (No whining)
I stumbled across one of these '18 mug cake' type articles, and thought: Mmmmm.  Cake.  But then I looked at the recipes, and some of them were a bit yuk, or demanded ingredients not easily available in this country etc etc, so I looked for others that might be easier to make.  These are what I ended up with.   I used to have a lot of mug cakes when I was a student whose primary cooking tool was a microwave - but I've forgotten most of the recipes I used to use now.

Lemon mug cake.  This would make more sense if it had a whole lemon in it, or half a lemon.    What gives with these recipes that use odd little quantities of a whole fruit, do people really make lots of mug cakes and serve them to people?  Not sure microwaves are designed for cooking groups of mugs, if you are cooking for volume, why not just make cupcakes in a tray designed for the job?

Raspberry mug cake with coconut flour - I fancy this enough that I may actually buy some coconut flour, although I suspect it of being an overpriced novelty -you never know until you try, right?

Editing to add...

I just made this cake!
 3tbsp of banana (ie, more or less one mashed banana), a whole egg, a tbsp and a half of coconut flour -  turns out that is actually way more than will fit into a normal sized mug, and I note that the photos actually show the cake in a large ramekin rather than a mug.  

I could just have got the mix into a normal mug, but it would have spilled everywhere as it rose.  I used a super-sized mug, which was about half-full when I put it into the microwave, and about full when I took it out.  However the cake did not cook through in 2 minutes, and I think I should have given it another 20 seconds.

I could definitely taste the banana and coconut as well as the raspberry, and the texture was noticeably fibrous, although not unpleasant.   I was a little surprised that the cake was not particularly sweet, despite all that banana, honey and sweet vanilla.

Apple cinnamon mug cake Nice idea, dubious about the requirement for apple sauce, why not just chop apple and use that?

Salted caramel mug cake.   Wins points for common sense for not telling you to use unsalted butter and then add salt like some of the silly recipes, but on the other hand you have to have to make some salted caramel sauce, and I'm fairly sure that could be done more easily in a mug.

 I'm not sure about this Lime Coconut cake : it looks tasty, but it just seems like however many of them you made, you'd end up with either an awkward quantity of coconut milk, or an awkward half-lime.

I guess this is really what a pinterest is supposed to be for but it seems to make more sense to just pile everything in a jumbled heap here. 
bunn: (Berries)
Decided to give this hazelnut syrup recipe a try. It would have made sense to do this in the autumn when I could have picked the hazelnuts, but I didn't get around to it then so I bought a bag of them instead. I adapted the recipe to use:
Read more... )
bunn: (dog knotwork)
It's annoying when you make something once and it was really nice, and then you make it again and didn't quite work so well, due to not remembering quite what you did and all the recipes being in cups, which I find confusing. So I've made this three times now, and I think this is now about right.  I've edited my original post, because the first time I didn't get the quantities right and I liquidised the ingredients in the wrong order.

Pumpkin seeds are much cheaper than pine nuts, and seem to be OK for people with nut allergies too.

Read more... )

Foraging

Aug. 21st, 2013 10:50 pm
bunn: (Berries)
I saw a random tweet from @NFUCountryside, asking about foraging, and which wild foods people collected.  I think this is worth more than a tweet, so here is a post.
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