Relearning How to Bake

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Grantham Gingerbread

I did my plan last night. Again, not much of one, but it seems to work.

I rose at 6.30, checked emails (there were 2), did comments, found Derrick Knight was  already up and commenting, caught up with blog posts from the last few days and find it is now 8.06. So I checked my emails again – nothing. Checked my comments again and about a dozen had come in.

I’ve finished that now and it’s time to move on with the rest of my day. It is grey, windy and spotting with rain outside. I am inside feeling smug.

The original plan was to write this post later in the day, but if I do it now I can avoid doing something more useful. Sometimes it seems like planning just isn’t for me. I’m slightly distracted because my stomach feels it is time for breakfast  This is a real dilemma. The words “Morton’s Fork” came o mind. The thought of cutlery made my mouth water.

If I make breakfast I risk waking Julia before she is ready to get up. This may make her less than sunny. When woken earlier than she wants, she is more Paddington than Pooh, and tends to stare across the breakfast table. But if I leave it much longer, she will get up, prepare breakfast and make me eat something full of healthy fibre. Healthy fibre is all very well but it doesn’t quite beat a cooked breakfast. Anyway, I will be cooking Mediterranean vegetables tonight, probably as a pasta bake, and that is enough of a high fibre penance.

Gingerbread Men

Talking of which, I have another dilemma. Do I bake cheese, onion and garlic soda bread to go with it, or try my new idea – Stilton and Leek soda bread. Or, lazily, do I chip the pack of frozen garlic bread from its icy tomb and try that.

I’m also considering doing rock buns. I’ve been thinking of them for a while. but I’m not sure if I can substitute oil for butter and the internet is mostly silent on the subject. I don’t really want to do rock buns, I want to do Fat Rascals, but it’s probably better to start simple. Some of the comments make me think that they won’t be successful with oil, so we will have to see. I can’t really do recipes where you do the flour and butter between your fingers and I can’t be bothered to get out the food processor, use it, wash it and put it away. I may just stick to scones and muffins.

Cutting out gingerbread men

Once I was a reasonable baker. It’s hard having to learn it all again.

Cheese, Onion & Garlic Bread – Some Suggestions

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Cheese and spring onion and garlic soda bread – using he green bits

t actually a recipe, more a list of guidelines, suggestions, anecdotes and possibilities relating to the production of an easy way to make bread. It started off as a recipe (from the BBC) but a bit I’ve made it a number of times and have yet to make it the same way twice. However, every variation seems to work. I wouldn’t say it’s foolproof, but so far I haven’t managed to mess it up. However, like sales and poems, you are always judged on the next one, not what you have already done. To be fair, I actually used the recipe as a guideline in the first place as I had no wholemeal flour and no buttermilk. I did have salt and bicarbonate of soda, though I admit I reduced the amount of salt because I always do. Grossly overweight, various health problems, but I always use less salt because it’s a healthy thing to do. It’s like the captain of the Titanic giving a sailor a sticking plaster and telling him to fix the leak.

To start with, you need buttermilk according to the original recipe on the internet. I have also made it by adding lemon juice to milk and by adding yoghurt to milk. In fact, the first time I made this loaf I used milk and lemon juice.

Spring onion and cheese bread using all the onion

To do this, add 1 tablespoon of lemon juice to the milk and leave for ten minutes. That’s four teaspoons or two dessert spoons. I actually used a dessert spoon of lemon juice because I always get mixed up. But it still worked. I’m tempted to say “heaped” spoonfuls and see if anyone actually tries.

You can, according to the internet, also use vinegar to provide the acid, or mix plain yoghurt and milk. The BBC recipe says 50:50 but other suggestions are available.

If you don’t have buttermilk for the soda bread recipe, you can use half-and-half plain yoghurt mixed with milk. You can also use milk that has been soured by stirring in a tablespoon of lemon juice and allowing it to stand for 10 minutes. Some recipes say you will get better results from allowing the milk to get to room temperature However, the chances of me planning that far in advance are small and it worked OK cold.

Bread and margarine – part of my extensive range of serving suggestions

OK – the measurements. Take 12oz plain flour (or All Purpose Flour if you are from USA), half a teaspoon of salt, half a teaspoon of Bicarbonate of Soda, 10oz of buttermilk (or whatever you decide) and mix it.  Do this by adding the dried ingredients and whisking them up with a fork  them make a well in the middle and add 90% of the liquid.

Mix with the fork, add more liquid as necessary and then mix a bit more by hand. Don’t use both hands until you have a\ nice ball of dough – remember to keep one clean for opening ovens etc. Talking of which, when you start, you should pre-heat the oven to 200C or 180C Fan. Or about 400F and 360F.

You should end up with a fairly stiff dough ball of dough. Don’t overwork it. Round it off, pat it down and cut a cross in the top. That might help it cook better, or it may be a way of letting the fairies escape. I personally don’t think it helps it cook any better and just makes the slices a strange shape. And I recommend sweeping the kitchen regularly to get rid of fairies. Half the time my crosses look unimpressive, to say the least.

Cook for 30 minutes or thereabouts. When a tap on the bottom sounds like a drum, it probably isn’t cooked, despite what the books say. It should sound more like a snare drum – a bass drum means it isn’ quite cooked.

JUst ordinary soda bread

IF it’s OK, put i on a rack and cool it until you want to eat it. Try leaving it at least ten minutes as it’s better then.

For cheese and onion bread add about three spring onions cut into quarter inch pieces and about 100g of grated cheese. I buy the ready grated cheddar from the shop. For the garlic, I used one nice big, plump clove just a bit smaller than the top of my thumb, chopped very small.

I’m going to try powdered mustard in it at some point, and possibly Stilton. You can buy books on making soda bread. Some cost over £10. It’s only soda bread, how could you write a book about it?

Got

Bread that came from wet dough – the cross healed up

 

Serving suggestions – in a sandwich, with soup, with stew, with Italian food as toast. Warning – the garlic one is best with Italian food and not good with marmalade.

to go to bed now. If I’ve missed anything out let me know.

That Difficult Second Day

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Rolling Flatbreads

I made myself write a list last night. It’s not quite as specific as the first one and checking emails and comments hardly count as victories for my organisational skills as I would do them anyway.

A couple of days ago I was doing a pain audit (sounds technical – it means I was sitting down with a cup of tea mentally listing what was hurting – and was pleased to note that I could only feel one joint in my fingers – index finger, left hand, top joint. There is a proper naming system for fingers, which I did once learn, but I had no use for it. As he treatment worked, I had no need to name my joints. Pain score ranked about 0.5 on the 1-5 pain scale (ie, hardly registered).  Life was good. It would have been better not to feel any joints, but you can’t have everything.

Several other joints were banging away, in knees ankles and feet, but the hands were OK, as were all the others. The shoulders, which have been giving trouble seem to have settled down now.

After making soup, kneading bread (lightly) and banging away on the keyboard I lay awake last nigh and most of my finger joints were making their presence known in low key ways, and several were definitely throbbing. They weren’t painful, but I didn’t see much embroidery in my future.

Wheatsheaf Loaf (with mouse)

Now, sitting at the keyboard, I find I have four knuckles I can feel but three are very faint. Just the top left little finger joint is noticeable and that’s still about half on the pain scale. To be honest, it’s a bit dramatic even calling it pain.

In fact, it doesn’t even rate a full blog post as I have run out of things to say about fingers already.

I’ve ordered yeast and strong bread flour for this week and I’m going to try using the breadmaker for kneading.

In a minute I am going to start getting my February submissions together. One of the things I always note as I start to panic at the end of the month is that it takes longer to collate everything than you think. It like blogging – I can knock a post out quite quickly, but getting photos, adding tabs, and selecting categories (when I do – I( normally go the “uncategorised” route) can take ten minutes at the end. That, of course, might just be me. And, of course, I sometimes totally forget the title.

Ciabatta and olives

After that I will start working down the list. Oliver Cromwell’s head is the subject of my next piece for the Military History Group – he’s military, he’s local and it won’t need much research as it’s one of those subjects I’ve read about several times.

 

Cheese, Onion and Garlic Soda Bread

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The first slices

I have finished the article mentioned in the second post of the day. However, having sat down at the computer without a clear plan, I have rather blown the last few hours. It all started when I checked my emails. Another rejection!

My January submissions have now gathered two acceptances and two rejections .The first one, I admit, was down to me trying to be too clever.  I should have spotted it, but you get caught up in the poem, become word blind and send off something you regret. It’s not the first time. That’s why we need editors.

The second unsuccessful submission was, I thought, quite strong, It had to be because it was going to a journal that habitually rejects me. They seem to have some secret directive on what a haibun should be and they aren’t sharing it with me. This time, it seems, my haiku weren’t up to standard. They were actually much better than most of the ones I write. I had sent them off with high hopes and yet again the broken body of a poem flutters to the ground . . .

However, I have finished the article I wanted to finish and that is now sent.

More of the same . . .

We had a proper lunch today  – home made tomato soup and fresh baked (still warm) soda bread. I pushed the boat out a bit and made cheese, onion and garlic soda bread. It was very good with the soup. And very good after the soup too. That’s why we hardly have any left.

Julia had said yesterday that, by the time I had completed sleeping for most of the day that I had turned pink again. She says I go grey, then white, when I am ill.  It was good to have some energy, even if only lasted long enough to make soup and soda bread.

As a result of four quick answers I already have quite a stock of material to send out again. I will have a look at it in a minute and add some final polish. The one that was rejected on the grounds of complexity will be drastically simplified. Apart from that there’s not much to do.

This isn’t arrogance, it’s just recognition that even if it takes three, four or five attempts I can generally place a poem. The choice of editor has as much to do with it as the choice of words.

Photographs are soda bread. I was careful about keeping the dough a bit drier this time, and cutting the cross deeper.  It looks like ana lien brain exploded in my cooker but it tastes OK. Some of it looks a bit light, but it was a dull day and I needed flash.

The first cut opened up, the second appears to have resealed.

First post of the day is here, and second is here. I must be catching up now.

How Did It Go?

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The tall thing is Julia’s teak candlestick with electric candle inserted. The tall snowman with the badly fitting hat is Julia’s yew snowman. I don’t always know the woods but I recognise teak and the yew started off as a piece of tree with the distinctive bark left on. The three small ones, with non-PC tobacco products are extras that she bought at the fund-raising stall.

This is the second post of the day. It would probably help you to read the first one before starting here, though you will probably guess roughly what I’m talking about as I go through it.

By the time I had taken Julia wood turning and got home, via queues and a Radio 4 interview on the government’s view on Peter Mandelson I had already done the checking of comments an emails, but it seemed like a fair thing to do to check them again, as this was a new start. Nothing much had happened. There was a note from the Numisma6ic Society about the meeting next week, but I’m giving it a miss as it’s still not the right time of year for travel. Does that make me sound old? That, of course, reminded me that I have a talk to prepare. There was also a note from the Peterborough Military History Group – one of my articles has been mentioned in, and linked to, another local military history website.

Two views of a pencil pot she turned for me. I forget the wood. Note the sides are actually flush but the perspective is not easy to control when using a phone. It’s impressive for a morning’s work, parfticulalrly when you consider she only started just before Christmas.

I wrote the prose section for a new Haibun, which was an extra that wasn’t on the list.

So – wasted a bit of time checking emails/blog and wandered a little looking for a decent Mandelson link.

But delivered Julia to wood turning in plenty of time, did my outline for the medallion script. It surprised me how much of it I’d actually done in my head, and is looking quite good, even though it’s just an outline. I don’t think I need to do too much extra to knock it into shape.

It’s now 9.58 so things are going well. I have now written an extra blog post and  have time to write an article and do my list for this after noon, which will be starting with “finish article I started this morning . . .”

Photos are some of Julia’s wood turning, and some she bought for Christmas decorations.

Skittles and ball. Somebody made the ball for her but she made the skittles.  If you are thinking the same thing as me, you are right. However, it appears, as Julia says, that there is no law about what shape skittles should be, or that they should all be the same.

When he visits in May I’m sure the grandson will love them.

Another Day, Another List

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Badge and fob of the Cyclis’s Touring Club – probably 1920s or 1930s.

Before going to bed last night I wrote a list of five things I had to do this morning. Number 1 was read the comments on the blog and Number 2 was to read my emails. The first one was additionally noted (Once) and the second was noted as  (Twice – start and finish). That is intended to streamline my time at the desk by stopping me constantly going backwards and forwards to check emails and comments. I never get anything that needs an instant response so this seems sensible.

The ill-fated list – note the dental appointment was 10 minutes too soon for humour

Number 3 is to get the script done for talk I’m giving at the Numismatic Society and Number 4 to write another article for the Facebook page. There has been a temporary glitch and nothing has been posted for a couple of weeks even though I had sent something in. I thought it was because he was busy with something else, and he thought I ‘d  stopped writing. In fact there was an article in his email box which he hadn’t spotted. Normally I would have written to check but I knew he was busy and he’s a volunteer so I didn’t want to start chasing him with questions. When the kids played rugby I was  given a regional prize for my work as a coordinator of volunteers, so I like to show appreciation and a light touch. It used to annoy me immensely when people tried to treat volunteers as employees. Particularly when they were people who quite clearly not fit to employ people. But I digress.

Shopping List – note the reference to Rat is an abbreviation of Ratatouille

Number 5 is to write a blog post, which I just did.

I also have to get Julia to wood turning and pick her up again. It’s now time to eat breakfast so I’d better get that done.

The numbering system could do with some work as I seem to have missed those important bits out, but it’s getting there.

Note that his only occupies the time until lunch. I should have added “Make plans for pm” to the list.

List v2

The first two were photos that cropped up when I searched for “lists”. Why is cyclists easier to find than “list”. I found lists by searching for “list”. It’s a whole new subject . . .

For the second post of the day, and the result of my planning, try here.

One Door Closes and Another Door Opens

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More of a wish list than an actual “How to” selection of gardening books

Last night I slept fitfully and slept in late. Julia went to Stamford with my sister this afternoon and I went back to bed again, waking some time after they got home. Julia claims I spoke to her when she stuck her head round the bedroom drawer but I did not remember.

After the quizzes on TV I started typing and reading and generally frittering my remaining hours away. I have just looked up to check how long I have to do this post before midnight and found that three quarters of an hour have dissolved as I answered comments and checked some photos. It is actually 18 minutes past midnight so I have failed to post on Monday despite all my talk of good intentions.

The editor I was emailing last night has decided not to use the poem, which is fair enough. It’s my job to write things that are publishable and she has plenty to do without me taking her time up. I did suggest an edit that involved removing the first six lines and going with the rest, but this didn’t appear to be acceptable. It’s a shame, as i like being published, but I’m not going to lose sleep over it. As I said in my cheery note thanking her for her decision – after a quick edit it will be part of my February submissions. One door closes etc . . .

Books, books, books . . .

Eight minutes gone, 233 words written. It’s funny how I can write faster when I’m relaxed. Given the time pressure of a deadline I start to choke. This is probably a lesson I could apply to poetry. It always used to seem easier in the early days, when my target was to submit on the first day of the submission window rather than the last.

At the moment, I have enough returned poems to make up two submissions for February already. The target is nine for this month. I have  a few others in mind but they are for a magazine that has never yet taken one of my pieces. Sometimes, particularly when I am listing possible  targets, I list magazines that I regard as “hostile” to make sure I keep testing myself. Other times, particularly when I am feeling lazy, or am at the end of the month, I drop them from the list.

It’s a bit like the verse forms that I don’t do. A number of journals take what they call linked forms, which are haiku or tanka, or both, made into a longer poem. Often they are done by people writing in partnership, though it’s possible for them to be done by a single writer. I keep thinking of expanding my range, but it all takes time and effort and enthusiasm, and I’m not feeling that I have much to spare.

Books by Paul Hollywood

I have 88 submission targets for this year., ten more than last year, but I have to be as good this year as i was last year.  And that’s where the pressure starts . . .

Humans are strange creatures. Even when things are going along nicely I have to add extra layers to the general worries. Quite apart from the normal am I good enough? and when will the bubble burst? worries, I have to add to them by setting targets.

Finally, talking of pressure and deadlines, do you remember me joking about how much time I had before my presentation at the Numismatic Society – 12 months, 11 months, plenty of time to start in the New Year . . .

Well it’s 2 months and 10 days away and I still only have a few vague ideas about what I’m doing. I was planning on writing a rough script today but seem to have slept through it instead. Time, I think, for a sense of urgency to appear, ready for next month’s panic.

Yes, I read a lot of low-brow books…

Cutting it Fine Again

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Ready, set? 250 words here we come. Julia wants me in the kitchen and I want to be in front of the computer so we have compromised. I told her I would go through when I had finished the latest piece of work I am engaged in. As long as I can keep the clatter of keys going I can stay here. If not I will have to go and clean something.

I managed to get . . .

At that point I stopped to look something up and she caught me. I will be back later.

I managed, as I was about to say, twelve submissions sent. The upper limit was twelve, but that would have involved two attempts at forms I’ve never tried and paying to enter a competition. It was a haiku competition and I have trouble writing haiku so I gave it a miss. As I’ve already entered. It was slightly better than last month, because I was a bit more organised, but it could have been better.

So far I have had two acceptances (both incorporating suggestions from the editors) and one enquiry from an editor asking what it was about. I take it that my attempts to incorporate a bit more complication and sophistication have not been entirely successful in this case.

Of course, once you stop, there is always another job, and a meal, and The Great Pottery Throwdown and the relaunch of Mock the Week and a discussion that needs having . . .

The Throwdown had some good stuff on it but Mock the Week, though still better than many things that get on TV, is not quite as good as it was. This may be down to the show being longer or a couple of the comedians they had on, and a bit of bad language. From watching the out-takes of the original series I’m sure there was plenty of swearing, but they used to edit it out.

As Julia said, if she wants to hear swearing she will just turn over to a programme with politicians on and wait for me to start. She doesn’t need to import and comedian who thinks swearing is wit.

23.57. This is becoming a habit . . .

Winnie’s second article in the Nene Valley Railway Newsletter has just been published.

Hard Work and a Sneak Thief at Work

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It was a big day for wring today. My normal bad organisation triumphed in the end and left me in a last-minute panic. Fortunately I was a bit better organised than usual and managed 12 submissions. It won’t be as bad as this all year – there is, for instance, only one planned submission for march.

The upshot was that I ordered pizza for tea as Julia was feeling under the weather and I didn’t have time to stop. We got a good deal and the food will last for two days. I am having salad delivered tomorrow, so we will have it with salad and baked potatoes.

Tonight, however, we had it with garlic bread and onion rings. A piece of garlic bread was missing. I shrugged it off, thinking I must have missed the portion size being reduced on the menu. Shrinkflation is all around us.

However, when the onion rings did not divide equally I knew something was wrong because I’d checked there were ten of them to satisfy myself about value for money.

Turns out we should have had four garlic bread too, so we are one piece of bread and one onion ring down. It’s not ahuge amount but it’s annoying. It also makes me wonder if someone along the line has had his larcenous, and possibly unhygienic fingers in my food. I doubt we will ever get to the bottom of it, as it’s impossible to actually prove we were short but unless I get at least a decent apology I won’t be going back to them.

Modern life is nothing like it was portrayed by Gerry Anderson and Eagle comic, though I don’t actually remember the Tracey brothers having a pizza delivery on the island, and I’m pretty sure dan Dare and Digby never had garlic bread and onion rings. Ah well!

Sorry about the lack of photos today. Julia took some more but by the time I got round to writing this I had only ten minutes to do it and get credit for posting on consecutive days. So I did most of the text, the title, the tags, the category and the single photo and pressed the Publish buton at a minute to midnight.

My paln worked, by the way, I am currently on a six day streak.

A Few Sobering Thoughts

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I knew it was the end of the month because of the increasing sense of urgency that always comes on at this time. What I hadn’t realised until today was that this also means I have doner nothing about decluttering for over a month. One twelfth of the year has slipped by . It’s not as if I have that many months to waste. Assuming I live into my mid-80s, which is about the family norm, I only have about 200 months to go. I will pause for a moment and think about that.

I paused. I thought. And then a little voice came into my head. Looks like I will be going on a diet tomorrow. And exercising. And taking more notice of the doctor. I might even start taking notice of Julia, though it’s unlikely. The trouble is that if I were a betting man, I wouldn’t be confident about the “mid-80s” part of the prediction.

When we were moving house I found some paperwork I had done when I was working for someone else and  before we had children, detailing what I had to do to retire at 60. Of course, the accuracy of that prediction melted like snow in June as soon as I went into business for myself and we had kids.

Once, though, I was organised and reasonably successful. I wasn’t, however, as happy as I would have liked. I am, despite the unsuccessful life that followed, quite happy and although my lack of material success and career achievement come back to haunt me now and again, I’m reasonably happy with what I’ve done.

And so, with 200 months to go, I’m going to start making the most of it. More plans, more things to do and around 6,000 more blog posts to write. It’s going to be an interesting time.

Photos are some that Julia took at Ferry Meadows. The one of the heron shading the water is particularly interesting – I didn’t know they did that in the UK. I thought it was something they did in sunny places. he second picture shows it with a fish in its beak. Unfortunately, the light ws poor.