Insert interesting title here

Ok, I admit, I am only posting so as not to break my unprecedented string of daily blogging ;-)

I've been into university today, which accounts for me not having had the time or energy to do anything of note, and all cooking and baking has been postponed until tomorrow.

I picked up a mini paper trimmer at Poundland, and now I have the technology, I may cut some squares of card and have a go at ATCs, as demonstrated by Allotment Lady and Mrs Nesbitt (I'll turn them into links some time).

Hooray, found the camera!

Embarrasingly, it was buried under a pile of junk that had accumulated on the computer desk. My OH had to excavate this morning in order to make space for his printer. One day, when our house is spottless and tidy, I will show some "before and after" photos...

Not done anything exciting to photo today though, as I've mostly been cleaning windows! Previously, I could easily have photographed the windows, but now they're actually transparent ;-p

I've broken my first glass since we had the worktops put in. We had a couple of people telling us that stone worktops were a big mistake, as you can't hardly put anything down without breaking it. I can report that that is untrue, and any un-padded surface would have cause that glass to break, given how I dropped it...

Anyway, here is a photo taken today, of one Coriander seedling. I guess it has two separately germinating bits in one seed.

My attempt at growing veg

It has been my plan for quite some time that, once we knew we would live in the same house for some time, I would attempt to grow some vegetables. I did a practice run last year, by randomly sowing some seeds from Pomodorino tomatoes (which grew fantastically), and getting hold of a few strawberries.

I started the tomatoes off a bit late unfortunately, but it was still worth doing for the experience. So this year, I'm reasonably organised, except for not having any space prepared in the garden!

However, if most things can be started off in pots (and indeed some things left in them permanently), then I've a little longer before that becomes a problem.

So far I have sowed seeds for two types of onion (Ailsa Craig and Brunswick), some Coriander, and Delphiniums.

Ok, so the last ones aren't veg, but my intention is not to turn the whole garden into a veg plot. Geoff Hamilton wrote a lovely book about growing decorative and edible plants in mixed patches, stopping some of the problems cause by growing mono-cultures. Plus it can look prettier than straight rows of isolated veg.

My first few seedlings aren't looking overly healthy, so I bought some fine compost especially for the job, and will see what I can do with that. It looks like March is the month when it all gets hectic - lots of the seeds I have state that as their first month for planting.

Still not found the camera, so here is a picture of last year's tomato seedlings:

"Golden Syrup" Sponge

I've made steamed pudding with golden syrup underneath, but they have never been quite so enjoyable (especially according to my OH) as bought Heinz ones, so after making a rather nice Sticky Toffee Pudding (Nigella Lawson's), I adapted this recipe to try to make something more like the Heinz pudding.

The problem with the steamed pudding is that, during cooking, the golden syrup gets absorbed almost entirely by the cake, whereas the sticky toffee pudding and the Heinz one have a nice sauce underneath them. Mine gained the approval of my OH, so it must be good!

Cake:
100g caster sugar,
175g self-raising flour,
125ml full-fat milk,
1 egg,
50g unsalted butter (melted),

Sauce:
145g Demerara sugar,
20g unsalted butter,
360ml boiling water.

Grease a dish large enough to contain 1.5 litres, and preheat oven to 180°C.

Combine the 100g caster sugar with the flour in a large bowl. Mix the milk, egg, and melted butter separately, and then pour this mixture over the sugar and flour, stirring with a wooden spoon. Scrape this into the prepared dish.

Sprinkle over the Demerara sugar and dot with the butter. Pour over the boiling water and place in the oven. Bake for 40-50 minutes, until the top of the pudding is springy and spongy.

Nice with vanilla ice-cream, cream, custard, or nothing!

Lemon Meringue Pie, Caramel Apple and Blackberry "Granny", and Scones

This is what happens when my OH and I are pretty much stuck in the house for a few days...

For Christmas, my OH gave me a Magimix food processor, which has certainly earned it's keep since then! I've never made pastry myself before, so had a go at the recipe in the processor book.

Here's some vague recipe-type things. I didn't do anything special to the scones, so I shan't bore you with details ;-)

Lemon Meringue Pie

I lined a 10" dish with rich shortcrust pastry, blind baked for 20 mins, and filled it with lemon curd (not the best recipe I've ever used, but it was pretty quick and easy):

2 lemons, squeezed,
2oz butter,
2 eggs,
8oz sugar.

Whisk eggs a little, then heat gently in a Bain Marie, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens. I found that some little lumps off egg formed, which I had to sieve out, but possibly this wouldn't have happened if I had followed my instincts and melted the butter first! I may try this again some time, as it was by far the least messy method I've used.

This was then topped with a meringue: Whites of 3 eggs whisked until stiff, and 3oz sugar added. I baked this all at 140° for 40 mins. All very successful!

Caramel Apple & Blackberry Granny

This is my attempt at a rip-off of a dessert we found at a local pub-restaurant.

Line a dish with rich shortcrust pastry, and blind bake for 15 mins. Thinly slice cooking apple into this, throw in some blackberries, sprinkle with lemon juice, then top with crumble mix. I've no idea what the best recipe for this is, I'm still experimenting, so I won't bother going into details here...

Bake this at 170° for 30 minutes or so, and in the mean time, gently heat a little condensed milk, butter, milk, and a sprinkle of dark muscovado sugar together in a pan, stirring like crazy! I can't give specific measurements, as I just threw it together... This should make a caramel sauce, which you can pour over the top of the crumble.

Very nice with cream, though I think vanilla ice-cream would probably go pretty well :-)

Must blog more often!

Fortunately, I didn't make a "New Year's Resolution" to blog every day, else I would have failed miserably already. My OH and I did resolve to finish the house this year, and I am attempting to grow various veg. I believe I also said I would get my health sorted out, and get back into my uni work, but that is all pretty long-term stuff, so I can't really report on progress with that easily!

My feeble excuse regarding the irregularity of my posts are that we've misplaced the camera, and I do like to include a picture every time. Still, I have a fair few older things, so could just show them.

Anyway, the house is slowly coming together, though we have done virtually nothing since just before Christmas, as all the pressure of making it good enough for visitors is now gone. My veg growing is coming along ok, I have a few onion and corriander seedlings, and given that that is all I have sown so far, that is not too bad! I have a small issue with prepared space in the garden, which is that there is none! Ah well, my theory is that I can't fail to learn something from this, even if it is only regarding the care of the seedlings...

I was managing to get into uni once a week (as I had planned for the next couple of months), until this week, when I unfortunately have flu. I'd consider that to be a good enough excuse though...

Made a lemon meringue pie yesterday, include the pastry (which I have always cheated with previously), as it was the only thing my OH (also stricken by flu) wanted to eat. Today I may be making something with a bit more of the pastry, most probably involving Rhubarb. Hooray for the Rhubarb Triangle, which is almost on my doorstep :-)

Here is an image mercilessly stolen from the website of a local producer of Rhubarb (it is harvested by candlelight!):

I've been "tagged"

Mrs Nesbitt has sent me instructions to write 6 weird things about me, so here they are:

1. I used to have perfect pitch (note the rather sad case of that being in the past, though if I were to start playing music again, maybe it would return? I will find out once our house is finished, and my piano comes to live with us).

2. I am not really left handed. Or right handed. I have a theory that I am neither, which would probably explain why I can't catch ;-) However, not only am I ambidextrous, I am also apparently "cross-lateral", which means that where usually your right hand side would be controlled by the left side of your brain (and vice-versa), mine is the other way round. That has yet to be confirmed medically, e.g. by brain scan ;-p

3. I am evidently a weird shape, so it is very rare that I find trousers & bras that fit. I hated shopping to start with, this is not something I need! As a result, I mostly wear combats and men's t-shirts. This has the side effect of not many people knowing what shape I am...

4. Despite not actually wearing makeup (except for when others make me, such as my wedding day), I am quite particular about having nice looked-after nails. This is probably the girliest thing about me!

5. I love living in a building site. It is so nice to have areas of your house you are allowed to be destructive to, if you are in such a mood, or areas you can be creative with. This feeling is unfortunately not shared by my OH, so this is now a guilty pleasure :-(

6. I used to work out the square roots of numbers whilst washing my hair. To be fair to me, it did take me about 3/4 hour until I had it chopped off short, figured out how to manage it like that, then learned to cope with it better as it grew back. Oh, I probably should have put that my hair is about 3'6", apparently that is quite weird.

Well, that was surprisingly difficult really.

Hmm, don't really know of any blogs that have not just had this already, so my tags are indefinitely pending...

Incidentally, this is my favourite photo of me from our wedding: (my hair grew quite a bit since then)