Speed baking

I've not been at all organised today. We have family tea and the bread isn't going to be ready on time and the cake looks like it will be a bit warm. It's cooling by an open window in the hope that it will be set and edible by tea time. As for the bread, plan B was required. Fortunately I have some sourdough fruit bread in the freezer, very much in the Blue Peter style of "Here's one I prepared earlier". This is undergoing some defrosting on the warm oven. Whatever happens with tea, it certainly smells really nice in here. 

orange raisin flapjack

*Family tea update* The cake should have been lemon raisin flapjack but I didn't have any lemons so it became orange instead. It has a flapjack base which is cooked for 3 mins in the microwave. you leave this to cool while you make the cakey topping from eggs, sugar, raisins, melted butter and orange juice and zest. This is spread over the flapjack base then baked for about 20 mins. It was a bit soft and wobbly when it came out of the oven  but it set when it cooled. And it tasted fab😀. The bread came out nicely, but has been divided up and taken away by the kids so I'm afraid there's no photographic evidence.

Sewing day

Today has been a lovely, relaxing sewing day in the company of nice people making nice things. A glow of niceness is surrounding me. It has also been a productive day as I'm making the most of these sewing Sundays to makes some finishes to things started a long time ago. This time, I'm working on a quilt top that I completed at least 2.5 years ago. It's a scrap quilt who's mission was to use some left over blocks from another quilt, so these form the centre of the quilt. The rest of it is made from a load of half square triangle blocks that I made from piles of scrap 5" squares bought at Nottingham Patchwork Group. This part was an experiment for me in scrap quilting - ie making a load of disparate squares of fabric which just don't go together at all, to look absolutely fantastic and beautifully coordinated. I was really pleased with the result, especially the way that the colours transition around the quilt as I laid it out to colour blend from reds and greens, to blues and then browns, and so on. The only trouble was that when I had finished I just wasn't keen on the centre blocks compared to the outer scrap blocks. The passage of time works wonders though, because now I really like it. I must have just looked at it so much before that I got quilt fatigue. Anyway, today's objective was to layer up the quilt with the backing fabric and the wadding, first cutting the backing fabric and joining it together to fit. I was a bit frugal when I bought the backing fabric and it was only just big enough so hopefully I've got it centred properly. I thought it would take all day to do that, but it only took the morning. It was really nice to be able to do it on tables rather than lots of grovelling around on the floor, which has been my usual modus operandi. After lunch I started the quilting and since I'm quilting it simply I think I should be able to finish it the next time I have a sewing Sunday. Mind you, my next sewing Sunday is a workshop so I will end up with yet another thing to finish - you start some, you finish some :)

The FINAL poncho push

At last it's the end of the poncho story. We have a poncho Ta da! to end all ta da's. I'm not sure I'll ever let myself be talked into making a poncho again, but they are statement items of style and beauty (even though I say this myself) and the quality of the wool really shines out. I really am quite determined that I will use good quality yarn for as many projects as possible (funds not withstanding) because it just makes the most enormous difference to the finished item. And I have two happy daughters, which is never a bad thing to say. I'm only wondering now what the other two children will request for me to make. Please, oh please, not more poncho's.

I have another tick on the things to complete list; this time it's the hat started only last week. Oh the speed I can drum up when there is a bank holiday, a lovely sunny day, a warm spot shaded from the the chilly wind and a complete disinclination to do anything other than sit and crochet in the sun. Such decadent idleness :)

A break in the torrential rain of Easter Monday tempted us out to our most local National Trust house - Hardwick Hall (more glass than wall). It's a lovely hall built in the time of Queen Elizabeth I. We had a stroll around the gardens which are just coming to life with spring flowers. It has beautiful gardens which are not enormous but are cleverly planted. I love the herb garden with it's wavy box hedges.

The homemade flour cook book

Photo by David McNew/Getty Images News / Getty Images

Blog posts seem to be a bit like buses; you don't see one for weeks and then there are half a dozen. Well, it's not quite that bad, but I've had a bit of a lull in imagination and inclination due I suspect from a rather hectic time on the barn conversion front than from any other palpable reason. Anyway, I have my baking and making mojo back, in part thanks to a new book 'The Homemade Flour Cookbook' by Erin Alderson of 'Naturally Ella' blog fame. I found a recipe for sweet potato and red lentil gnocchi on the internet which led me to this book and this evening we entertained family for tea and they were unwitting guinea pigs to a new culinary experiment of gnocchi in pesto sauce. The gnocchi are made with baked and mashed sweet potato, egg yolks, seasoning and red lentil flour. I used a mixture of red and green lentils due to a failure on the shopping front, and it made no difference except to the colour of gnocchi which should have been a bright orange colour and instead were speckled with green. The gnocchi were really quick to assemble even though I quadrupled the recipe in order to have plenty of spares to freeze for another day. I cheated with the pesto sauce and used a bought jar of pesto, although making pesto is really easy if you a) have the ingredients and b) have a food processor/blender. I really miss my  herb garden (along with a proper kitchen, most of my kitchen gadgets, a decent oven....the list goes on). Anyway, to cut a warbling story shorter, the gnocchi were very tasty and enjoyed by all. For dessert I announced that we were having 'Floating Islands'  which I made up to sound a lot more impressive than it actually was; it comprised some unsweetened lightly cooked (frozen) mixed berries with a coconut macaroon 'floating' on the top in each dish and liberally swirled with cream. The sweetness of the macaroons nicely counteracted the tartness of the berries, topped with the decadent loveliness of the thick cream. The coconut macaroons were an impromptu bake because when friend leave you home grown eggs you really don't want to waste any of it and I used 4 egg yolks for the gnocchi so a meringue type dessert was essential.  

The weekly family Sunday tea usually provides an impetus to do some baking. I don't always feel like baking and it would be really easy to buy something for tea, especially since we have a Co-op next door. However, the thought of eating (and feeding the family) on bought baked goods full of processed sugar and flour and lots of additives usually galvanises me into action.  This weekend I'm trying a sourdough fruit loaf recipe from Vanessa Kimbell  at Bakerybits. This really is a long slow fermentation as it begins with a starter levain (a small amount of sourdough, flour and water) at lunchtime on the day before you bake it and then continues with the addition of the rest of the ingredients in the evening to make the dough, and is then not baked until the following morning. I can attest to the deliciousness of the fruit loaf, toasted and buttered......mmmmm.

Well that's the 'baking' taken care of, now for some 'making'. A couple of weeks ago I was suffering from extreme poncho fatigue. The poncho was getting bigger and the rows were getting longer. Basically I was bored with it, but it needed to be finished so that I could move on to something else so I had a weeks worth of 'push' to get it done. The final flourish was a fringe for the bottom, for which I had some help. It worked so much better as a two man team, one separating the strands into bunches of 5 and the other crocheting them onto the bottom of the poncho. In no time it was done, and since it was a very late birthday present I despatched it the following day so no photo as yet. The fringe was such a success that I've now had a request to put a fringe onto the first poncho. Will they ever go away? (poncho's, not children). Of course I now have something else under way. I decided to revisit a pattern for a crocheted beret which I'd used one year for the family home made Christmas presents - girls only of course. I need a couple of quick gifts and these beret's usually turn out quite nice. The wool is a lovely Drops yarn called 'Big Delight'. It is 100% wool yet feels really soft.

Yet more holiday

I've had a few days off during the February half term holiday and been able to spend some time just doing stuff; some baking, some chilling, some walking.......and I've had some new binoculars. Admittedly, these are for my birthday, even though it's not my birthday for ages, but well, I needed them now whilst I was on holiday. Anyway, this is how we spent our holiday at home:-

Eating

I've been trying to eat more greens and have been experimenting with adding spinach to, well, almost everything. A very colourful breakfast ensued with green sourdough pancakes (with spinach) and purple smoothies with blackberries, banana, avacado, yoghurt and coconut water. It was quite a substantial breakfast and so needed a walk to work it off. I should probably say that the pancakes did taste much nicer than they looked.

Walking 

A spell of nice weather (and a huge breakfast) meant that we needed to be out and about so we went to Crich for a short but glorious walk. We parked near the purple dot below and set off along The Tors which is a ridge with a great view over Crich and Amber Valley to one side and views over the hills towards Matlock and Crich memorial on the other side. The main objective of the walk was to investigate some building works at Ambergate reservoir (marked 'Resr' on the map). The underground reservoir was built 100 years ago and was in need of rebuilding and extending, although we didn't know all this until we reached it. We skirted around the reservoir,  and up through Bilberry wood, climbing up the steepest bit of hill to get back onto The Tors and into Crich. It wasn't a long walk, but it certainly gave the lungs some exercise.

Bird Watching

We are not very good at bird watching, in fact binoculars are usually called 'bird scarers' in our house. This does not put us off from watching the birds if we can find any. In our quest to try out the new binoculars, we made a visit to a nearby reservoir at Ogston. Disappointingly, there doesn't seem to be much access to the reservoir unless you are a member of the bird club, so we zoomed up to Carsington reservoir which is a much bigger (blooming huge) reservoir near Wirksworth with a visitor centre and loads of public bird hides.

Ogston Reservoir

Carsington Reservoir

Carsington Reservoir

Baking

A final baking extravaganza for Sunday family tea included a mixed seed sourdough loaf and a marzipan and mincemeat tea loaf. Plus of course, I've been waffling for Britain as described on a previous post.

Holiday in Kent

It seems such a long time ago, but here are few photo's of our holly jollidays in Kent at New Year. We stayed in a lovely Grade II listed Elizabethan dower house which had huge fireplaces which were fantastic with roaring log fires burning. It also had some interesting topiary which included a row of dancing ladies (with big bosoms). We visited the beach at Botany Bay to see the chalk stacks and had a bracing walk along the beach and cliff top. We were near to Canterbury so spent a day wandering the shops after visiting the cathedral. Whilst at the cathedral we had an unexpected (and beautiful) choir recital from a young American choir.

Knowlton Court dancing ladies

Chillenden mill

Botany Bay Chalk Stacks

Broadstairs beach at sunset

Canterbury Cathedral

Canterbury Cathedral

Canterbury Cathedral

Knowlton Court Dower House

One very wet day we went to Margate and visited the shell grotto. This is a small underground passageway covered in ornate shell mosaics. It's origin is unknown and the shells have lost their lustre but it is strangely quite beautiful. We also went to the Turner Contemporary gallery which is on the site where the painter JMW Turner stayed in a guest house. It was of course quite compulsory to have tea and cake.  I created my own contemporary art work from a photo taken of the sea from within the gallery. 

On New Year's day we went to Deal for a walk along the pier and a breath of fresh air. We also visited the Deal Time Ball Tower Museum which was quite fascinating and we all had a New Year's day free mulled wine to warm the cockles (which really did need warming by then).

African quilt

At last I have finished the African style quilt I started almost 2 years ago at a Quiltessential workshop, run by the lovely Ann Maynor. The pattern is very much a freeform log cabin style, so there is absolutely no measuring, which surprisingly can be a bit of a challenge when the emphasis is usually on perfect precision and repeating blocks. You just start with a wonky square or oblong, add wonky strips and just build up the blocks to suit the fabrics. The hardest part was joining the different blocks together as this involved a lot of thinking and moving and squaring up the blocks. For the border I used one of my favourite methods of using up bits of fabric by doing a piano key style. I hate ending up with loads of bits as it all seems such a waste.The quilting was also a bit of a challenge as I used my little sewing machine and only quilted at Sewing Sundays (arranged by Nottingham Patchwork Group).  

Having such funky fabrics meant that I didn't need to do any fancy quilting, it was pretty much stitch in the ditch around all the blocks. I had to try and keep the quilting quite tidy because the quilt backing was a thrifty option of a plain black cotton sheet which had been rejected  for being too small (for my son's bed). The finished quilt is now brightening up our bed in our poky little flat. Here is the quilt turned around so that you can see the blocks on the other end (the bedroom is a bit small to show both sides of the bed). 

Waffling on

Yep, I have a new gadget for the kitchen and as you can probably guess it's a waffle maker. A Belgian waffle maker to be precise. And it's absolutely fab. So far I've made a batch of sourdough spelt waffles which were deliciously crisp on the outside and wonderfully fluffy on the inside, and tasted heavenly with maple syrup slurped all over them. The second batch were oat, cheese and spinach waffles, which apparently were delicious with a poached egg. I managed to miss this culinary delight due to a washing machine crisis at my mum and dads. The next batch were oat waffles with some 'Aroma Veneziana - Orange & Citrus Essential Oil' and oh my goodness, the aroma waffling out of the kitchen was absolutely out of this world. I bought this oil on a whim from Bakery Bits and just hadn't got around to using any, but I think I've found a really good use for it now. This last batch of waffles is pictured above and has been distributed around the family so I'm just going to have to make some more. I have to say, the family love it when I have a new culinary obsession!