I'm baaack!

Think of this as a kind of hold-space.

I've been thinking about this little place, off and on, a lot over the last few months.  It's been a busy old time this year and not always in the right ways.  However, through it all, I'm still cooking.  Most of the time.

I've recently started propointing, which means hunting for more recipes with even more vegetables than normal.  I've been looking to Essbeevee's side project 'Where are my Knees?' in part for ideas.  Turns out there are so many things you can do with butternut squash...

Anyway, I shall return.  Once the exam classes go to do their exams, I have goals.

Pumpernickel

It's been a while since I've posted about a bread loaf.

So here's one.  On Sunday we popped into Wellington Country Farm Shop, a shop just off the A33 between Reading and Basingstoke.  It seems to have expanded since the last time I went there, when I struggled to find anything to buy.  Admittedly, it was pre-breadmaker days and so I wasn't looking for flour then!

I'm pleased to see that they stock a really good variety of Wessex Mill flours.  I've mentioned Wessex Mill before, mostly because of their onion bread mix.  The other farm shop I frequent, on the other side of Reading doesn't offer quite so much choice.  As a result of two farm shop visits recently I may have managed to buy five bags of flour recently.  Oops (or 'a-daisy' in my son's words).

This is the first of these, a pumpernickel mix, containing rye flour, wheat flour, kibbled rye, caraway seeds and latic acid (added to give the bread a slightly sour taste according to Wessex Mill).

The jury is still out for me on this one.  I'm not entirely sure I like the slightly sour taste and caraway seeds are one of those foods that I can never quite decide if I like or not.

It's different anyway.

I've got a few things planned for the next few weeks - a cannelloni recipe I found from another blog, soda bread and Shepherdless pie, so hopefully I'll be back soon!

Easter treat

Today seemed like a good day for making hot cross buns.  

So I did.  They made the small one quite happy.  The crosses weren't quite as defined as I'd expected but some of this was because I had to use a freezer bag for piping the paste on rather than the piping bag suggested.

The recipe came from the free Sainsbury's magazine and made 20 buns.  I used Vege-gel rather than gelatine.  I'd up the cinnamon next time.  Otherwise, they were great.

Ciabatta

Secret Santa at work is a little different for us.  Being English teachers, there is nothing more appealing than a good book.  Those of you that may have known me from my bookcrossing days (or if you have gifted me books in the past) will know that I always have a lot more fiction books to read than I seem to have the time to.  (The pile is currently in the low 80s...meaning that at the current rate of reading, I'll be done by 2017.)

Anyway, luckily, my secret Santa got me Gino D'Acampo's Italian home baking, obviously being aware of my bread making.  I still haven't worked out who that lovely person was but I'm extremely grateful.  It's an amazing book, filled with lots of gorgeous photos of my favourite place in the world.  

I've been toying with the idea of doing some bread making without the bread maker and the beginning of the book seemed like a good place to start.  So, ciabatta.  

Ciabatta is amazingly simple, in some ways, requiring only five ingredients - flour, yeast, oil, water and salt.  I'm a huge fan of Carr's bread flour.  Filippo Berio seems to be the brand that I buy for olive oil, probably partially for aesthetic reasons.  I prefer Dove's Quick Action Yeast but as I use very little dried active yeast, I'm still using the one I bought for sourdough starter.  The recipe calls for fresh yeast but Allinson suggest that this can be used instead.  Allinson's say to use half the quantity of dried active yeast to the required fresh yeast and then go on to tell you how to make up using 15g of yeast.  The recipe calls for 5g of fresh yeast.  The calculations were interesting.  Trying to work out what less than a gram of sugar should look like, also interesting.  (Sugar is not one of the ingredients but has to be used to activate the yeast)

So, step one is to create the starter.  It's a mixture of flour, yeast and water that stays in a non-drafty place overnight and grows.  

On the right, expanded after only an hour or two.

Below, expansion overnight.  

Next step is to add more flour, more yeast, water and salt.  This is where things went a bit wrong.  It looked like some kind of genetic experiment. It was way too sticky and gloopy.  There was need for far more flour. Once it got to the right consistency though - so satisfying to knead.

Eventually, I got to the 'smooth ball' required in the recipe, and left it for it's next bit of rising.

And rise it did....

The dough sort of flopped out of the bowl, again, much like some strange experiment.  Thankfully though, not sticky as before.

Next, to shape the dough into the slipper shape called for.  This involves folding and folding again.

 Then, more rising time.  

Finally, into the oven to cook.

 

 This was a successful bake.  I've got enough bread to last the three of us a month but it's ohsotasty.  It's light and airy and just scrummy.  I'm thinking the additional flour has probably made this all a lot bigger than intended but I can live with that.  I love the little air pockets - something which is lacking with the bread machine.

I'm a convert.  The time taken wasn't so bad all in all and it wasn't that hard.

So, secret Santa, if you're reading, thank you very much.  

Crumpetty Christmas

One of my aims over Christmas was to make my own crumpets.  I felt the need to diversify away from bread and I was intrigued to see how they actually end up with that bubbly texture.

I'm sorry to say that I didn't quite manage that, although I very nearly got there on the last one of the batch.

I used Simon Rimmer's recipe for crumpets, although the version I have, from the Accidental Vegetarian cookbook is slightly different, as the yeast, sugar and water are put into the flour straight away and the warm milk and bicarb are added before the twenty minutes resting time.



This first photo was taken after the mixture had its hour to rise.  First discovery - my pyrex bowl is not big enough for this monster of a mixture.  This got very big, very quickly.  As I aim to try and do a bit more breadmaking without the breadmaker in the future, I may need to invest in a bigger bowl.

Having destroyed the tea-towel that was over the top of it, I went for cling film for the resting period.  The bowl was perilously close to overflowing again.  Second discovery - there's a good reason why it is suggested that you oil the clingfilm.  Between the tea-towel debacle and the mixture lost this time around, I probably could have made another couple of crumpets.

Finally, after about an hour and a half of waiting for the mixture to get itself together, it comes time to cook.  I bought my crumpet rings from Amazon and I have to say I really like them.  What I like less, however, is discovery three - my cheap frying pan that isn't as flat as it needs to be - hence the leakage at the bottom of the ring on the left.  I may well be finding myself a new one in the sales.  Discovery four about my crumpets was that my frying pan is also not great at nonstick, meaning that I really needed to grease the frying pan a little better than I did.  

This picture is designed to show you two things.  One - that overfilling a crumpet ring, however tempting, is a big mistake.  The crumpet mixture bubbles up and over quite happily.  The one at the back was the one that I was particularly proud of - the aim seems to be to fill the ring about half way and have the crumpets on a very low heat.  Too high and the bottom of the crumpet ends up burning before the mixture has properly cooked through and solidified.  I'm extremely sad to say that when I came to turn that perfect one over, the bottom of the crumpet was stuck to the frying pan.  Boo.  

Another discovery for you.  I must make sure to regrease the insides of the crumpet rings between each batch.  Otherwise, when it's time to remove the rings, half the mixture comes away and the result is decidedly lacking in that crumpet shape.  

 This batch overall was probably my best.  I didn't manage to have any that had those well-known pockets on the top and these probably looked more like muffins.  Thankfully, they tasted pretty good - the little one has scarfed down four of them, with a little bit of peanut butter.  Thirty-six hours later, only two are left over.  

I'm unsure if the effort is worth it - it's been pointed out that I can buy a pack of six crumpets for thirty-seven pence at the supermarket.  In terms of economy, I managed to make fifteen out of this mixture, which I think cost me in the region of thirty-five pence, although I think that I probably should make more like twenty-four.  Although the recipe I've linked to mentions making 20, the recipe in the book says 12.

I'm going to have another go at this soon, maybe the weekend and I'll report back.

Before I go - I feel that I should share pictures of this year's Christmas dinner.

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas.  

Simple midweek dinner - Tomato and Gnocchi bake

This was such an easy little meal to make - I'd highly recommend it!

When trawling for new ideas last week I found this tomato and gnocchi bake.

Ingredients -

 I made a few changes to the original recipe, doubling the mozzarella and adding some baby plum tomatoes that I had spare in the fridge.

Step 1 - sautéing the onion, garlic and pepper.Adding the gnocchi and baby plum tomatoes.

After the cooking time, adding the basil.

Before grilling

After grilling.

Two large adult portions and one toddler-sized portion.  Recommended by both adults and littlies - although I'd recommend cutting the gnocchi in half for small ones as it can be quite difficult to chew.

James Martin Bakery range

I am always on the look for new products whilst wandering the aisles at the supermarket.  Well, I say wander, more like dash quickly before the small one runs out of patience with the shopping thing.  Worse, he's started to try and climb out of the trolley.  Anyway, I digress.  This is what I discovered on my jaunt around Tesco on Monday.  

James Martin is clearly branching out and following in the footsteps of Jamie Oliver and Gordon Ramsey.  Oliver is particularly forging ahead in the supermarkets.  Have you seen just how much he sells these days?  Not only pasta but fish, herbs, meat and cheese.  

This comes in a very unusual package, it looks more like a bag of crisps than a packet of flour.  I couldn't wait to make use of the new mix and so set to it at the first available opportunity.  Today.  I'm sad to say that I'm a tiny bit disappointed.  The crust is nicely chewy and the flour is light.  So why the disappointment?  Well, it just didn't really taste like it had any onion in it.  

In the battle of the onion breads, the winner is definitely Wessex Mill's bread flour.

The James Martin bakery range has two strands - cake mixes and bread mixes.  This breadmaker doesn't really stretch to cakes that often (unless they have a savoury slant) so I won't be investigating those.  I did buy the garlic and rosemary foccacia mix - although I'm fairly happy with the Wright's mix if I want to go for the easy option there.  I'm currently considering having a go at bread without the bread maker.  I'm interested in the soda bread mix.  I'd like to see what the difference is between breadmaker bread and handmade bread.  That's probably a job for the holidays and time though.

I made a veggie chilli with black beans rather than kidney this evening.  It worked.  Veggie chilli is one of my favourite batch meals to make.  I've made enough this evening for two adults and five almost-toddler portions.