Nip it in the bud

soul cheering sunshine and sprouts

Nip it in the bud — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 02:10:09 +0000

You’d think having nothing to do and nowhere to be would be bliss but waiting for a baby to come, when your body is preserving its energy and sends out ‘can’t be bothered’ vibes to anything more strenuous than getting out of bed, is actually quite dull. And if I mention nights of hardly any sleep … well you can imagine how dull can grow into ‘a bit fed up’.
On Saturday when I begged George to take me to the allotment for some cheering sunshine and fresh air he could hardly say no. With the promise that I wouldn’t do anything more than look as soon as we arrived at the plot my spirits lifted.Our kale was looking finer than ever thanks to the winter chill wiping out all trace of white fly. Our single sprout stalk was looking majestic with lovely cherry sized pickings. And the smaller stalks of sprouting were easily pinched off in favour of the larger, slightly woodier ones. A delightfully unexpected harvest which we enjoyed lightly steamed this evening.My first visit to the allotment in 2012, and my last for now.
The timer is ticking but the bun is still in the oven. Not for much longer I hope …..

Filed under: allotment tales, home life

making an easy peasy bread and butter pudding

Nip it in the bud — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 19:25:08 +0000

What’s not to love about edible gifts? This Christmas we received a Pannetone loaf from our friends Dan and Ruth and very successfully scoffed most of it between the two of us (lovely thick wedges slathered with butter for breakfast or a cheeky afternoon snack) and then forgot about the last quarter once it found it’s way into the cake tin for safe keeping. So when I did happen across it and found it looking a bit dry and forlorn refashioning it as a bread and butter pudding seemed obvious.

It must be a good 15 years or so since I last ate bread and butter pudding and I’ve certainly never made it so I did a little googling to see what other ingredients were needed and compared that with I had available. Alas no double cream, so I simply layered slices of buttered pannetone in a dish, sprinkled with extra raisins and cinnamon, and poured over a mugful of milk with 2 eggs and a table spoon of sugar whisked into it and baked it for half and hour at 180°c.
Simple. Delicious. Lovely cold the next day too.

You’ve probably guessed that with all this baking and time to blog there’s little to report in the bump-to-baby department. At least I’ve been able to replenish stocks of Chocolate dipped Flapjacks and if we can ration ourselves to one a day I’d hope baby appears before the empty bottom of the cake tin does!

Filed under: in the kitchen

making Nigel Slater’s Festive Chocolate Flapjacks

Nip it in the bud — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 19:14:54 +0000

Much as I like to cook I don’t really watch many food programmes. I do like Nigel Slater’s Simple Cooking though and I think it’s because he’s so down to earth and says recipes are just a starting point and changing it to suit your own taste or what’s in your cupboard is just fine. Just as well really as that’s exactly what happened last week when I made Nigel’s Festive Chocolate Flapjacks and had to replace his cranberries, sour cherries, figs, walnuts and ground almonds with what was in the cupboard – dried apricots, dates,goji berries, almonds and dessicated cocounut. See the link above for Nigel’s original recipe - quantities below are my adapted recipe doubled up to make 16 chunky squares.

What you’ll need

100g each brazil nuts and almonds
60g each of dates, dried apricots and goji berries, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds
2 tbsp dessicated cocounut
100g butter
200g caster sugar (I didn’t have any so used granulated)
4 tbsp golden syrup
200g porridge oats
150g rolled oats
200g dark chocolate (I only had a 100g bar, hence dipped ends rather than halves! – delicious using Divine’s Dark Chocolate with ginger and orange)
.
making Chocolate dipped fruit and nut flapjacks
Turn the oven on to 180C/350F/Gas 4.
Roughly chop the nuts and dried fruit then add to a food processor along with the other ingredients and half the pumpkin seeds. Add a spoonful of dessicated coconut and blitz together – but not for long – leaving nice sizable chunks of the nuts and fruit. Tip into a large mixing bowl along with the rest of the whole pumpkin seeds.
In a pan melt the butter with the sugar and golden syrup, trying not to stir it too much and allowing it to melt together gradually.
Once melted mix in the oats and the fruit and nuts and spread the mixture out evenly in an oven tray lined with greaseproof paper then bake for 25 minutes (having doubled up the recipe my chunkier flapjacks took about 10 minutes longer)
When the flapjacks are baked, cut them into rectangles. When cooled and hardened dip them as far as you dare into melted chocolate.
Allow to chill for 20 minutes in the fridge and then serve.
It wasn’t just Nigel’s drool inducing Simple Christmas programme that prompted the flapjack making. My friend Jenny gave me a really thoughtful ‘mum-to-be’ bag of goodies which recommended a flask of hot chocolate and flapjack as fine night feed companions.
Time to make some more then since all 16 have now gone ….

Filed under: in the kitchen

wordless wednesday

Nip it in the bud — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 07:18:19 +0000

Filed under: away from the plot, wordless wednesday

2011 in pictures

Nip it in the bud — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 14:27:29 +0000

I’ve long been a fan of Julie’s Little Cotton Rabbits blog and this post is inspired by her annual New Year’s reflection on the happiest moments of the last year.
As Julie says ”it’s good to remember the good bits and gloss over the bad”.
So here are my month-by-month smile making memories from 2011.

Jan-Dec 2011:
Weston Super Mare with dear friends, survival and new life, helping hands at the plot, holiday in Fuerteventura, Sufjan Stevens gig in London, our cornflower bed inspired by a visit to Durham, Laura and Tim’s wedding, 20 week scan, finally being able to eat home grown cherry tomatoes, falling in love with our new nephew Zac, the last of a fab harvest, our niece Kim and her love for her yet-to-be-born cousin.

Filed under: home life

goodbye 2011, hello 2012

Nip it in the bud — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 14:32:26 +0000

Happy New Year everyone and a very warm welcome to 2012
I was quite chuffed that I managed to stay awake until midnight yesterday and see in the year in which our little one will be born (due on Friday but no signs of an early escape yet!). 2011 was quite a year by all accounts: forever remembered for times of great sadness and unbelievable joy. Who knows what 2012 has in store… apart from the obvious lack of sleep, pooey nappies and hours spent marvelling at the little miracle we’ve created!

My blogging year for 2011 faltered somewhat when I was deep in the throes of morning/noon/night sickness. So it was interesting to receive an email today from the stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com who’d prepared a personalised report for 2011 for how my blog fared. It seems I’m not the only one addicted to making preserves judging by the most popular searches that lead people to my little corner of the blogosphere. Here’s a sneak preview or you can click here to see the complete report.
It seems timely to say a big thank you to all of you who continue to look out for posts when my blog goes a bit quiet, leave lovely comments and have links to my site from yours. You know who you are (and if you don’t it’s in the report now!)
Happy blogging all in 2012.

(not) making Christmas Pudding Truffles

Nip it in the bud — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 18:43:45 +0000

Christmas is here and we’re very much ready for it. Our ‘hosting’ will be limited to cups of tea this year so we haven’t really had to do much by way of preparing (just as well really since the last week or so has seen a very busy George grappling with a broken boiler and rain thwarted DIY tasks). With only 12 days until the baby is due nesting and afternoon naps have rather taken over for me and plans to make mini-Christmas cakes have been shelved for next year. I really wanted to make Christmas truffles too but alas …. I have the Christmas pudding sitting in the cupboard and there’s sure to be plenty of chocolate flying around over the festive period so maybe I can still aspire to New Year truffles?

I made Cherrapeno’s Christmas Truffles for Christmas 2009 but never did get round to posting about them. Check out her blog for details as it’s a brilliant way to use up left-over Christmas pudding. It’s also great fun rolling cooled chocolate between your fingers and trust me when I say licking your fingers afterwards is the easiest way to clean up!
G decorated our truffles by making holly petals and berries out of icing sugar.
For the snow on top of the truffles you’d do well to follow Cherrapeno’s lead and use icing sugar as the melted white chocolate I used has a less attractive yellow hue.

So all that remains is to wish you all a very happy Christmas and a merry New Year.

Filed under: in the kitchen

making apple jellies

Nip it in the bud — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 17:40:04 +0000

Over the summer I had numerous offers of crab apples but was too sick to go picking or venture into the kitchen. I thought I’d missed my chance to make apple jellies this year but the crab apple trees dotted around the business park where I work are an Autumn variety and as the leaves began to fall from the trees the tiny cherry like apples started to turn from red to orange. I unburdened the branches of 3kg of crab apples at the end of November and finally got round to tackling my haul last week.

I love the simplicity of making jellies as there’s so little preparation involved. Using apples as a base for a jelly is brilliant because you don’t even have to use the whole fruit. With eating or cooking apples you can use the leftover scraps (cores and peelings, which is where the greatest amount of pectin is found) from apples destined for finer things. In this instance apart from removing the stalks and twigs the crab apples were left whole and once softened I just bashed them with a potato masher to release as much juice from the fruit as possible.

Plain crab apple jelly is a beautiful pink colour but has limited use for me as a vegetarian so I strained off just a couple of jars and added dried mint and balsamic vinegar to the rest of the syrupy liquid.

My Mint Jelly didn’t set as well as previous batches so I’m calling it ‘Apple and Mint Jelly Sauce‘. I may have been a bit heavy handed with the mint but then that’s how I like it! Here’s a picture from last year for how enticing it looks as a thicker set jelly …

If you’d like to experiment with jelly making then I follow Pam Corbin’s guidance in the River Cottage Preserves Handbook. Pam’s general rule of thumb seems to be:

Add 600ml water per 1kg fruit.
Add 450g sugar per 600ml strained fruit liquid.

I’ve been steadily emptying the freezer of fruit to make way for the batches of soup, casserole and bolognese sauce I hope to make in anticipation of baby’s arrival. So the shelves are now restocked with Damson Jam and Raspberry Vinegar as well.

Filed under: in the kitchen

Winners of the Hotel Chocolat Giveaway

Nip it in the bud — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 19:57:11 +0000

Thank you to everyone who left a comment to participate in the chocolate giveaway. Sadly there can be only 3 winners.

The Sleekster Classic Christmas Selection box was won by Joanna.
Catherine will be receiving Alternative Mince Pies and El opted for Mulled Wine Chocolate Cherries.

Filed under: away from the plot

Christmas come early … what a treat

Nip it in the bud — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 06:48:00 +0000

Now before you get too excited, this isn’t an ‘early Christmas baby’ news post!
Feel free to get very excited about the opportunity to win some delicious chocolate goodies for Christmas though. The lovely folk at Hotel Chocolat offered me some samples from their Christmas Gifts collection to review and let me choose 3 stocking fillers rather than one of their usual deluxe items. ’Lucky you‘ I hear you cry but I could be saying ‘Lucky you‘ if you leave a comment on this post because Hotel Chocolat have generously offered to share the chocolate love with 3 of my readers. More about how to take part later… here’s what you could win (as if simply hearing the words ‘chocolate giveaway’ isn’t persuasion enough!)

Mulled Wine Cherries
succulent cherries soaked in fortified wine spiced with cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves, then enrobed in thick dark chocolate and almond chips.

Absolutely delicious and since liquer filled chocolates have always come out as favourites in previous reviews you’ll not want to miss these if you like something a bit boozy. You could even kid yourself it’s a healthy option with their lovely fruity centre!

Alternative mince pies
Small enough to pop in your mouth whole and sigh as the crispy chocolate shell melts away to reveal the silky salted caramel centre. A sweet and salt combo seems almost counter to a fantastic taste experience and yet… salted caramels have also been a previous review fave.

Rendered somewhat speechless after sampling these!

Chocolate Yule log with chilli and almond
A gorgeous new twist to a centuries old tradition created to slice and share at the Christmas table, over coffee or as a dessert. Silky smooth gianduja praline with zesty orange sticks, crunchy almonds and gently warming chilli.

Our friend Jules helped sample the yule log (‘mmm delicious, very Christmassy’).
Her poor nut allergy suffering husband Andy could only look on as we sucked and sighed our way through slice after slice.

Tempted to take part in the giveaway?
Simply leave a comment and include which of the three items reviewed you’d like to receive if your lucky number comes up.
You have until Friday 16th December to leave a comment after which a random number generator will be used to select the 3 lucky winners. If you’re one of them I’ll contact you over the weekend for your address details so the goodies can be posted out in time for Christmas (only open to UK residents I’m afraid).

Oh, and just when you thought it couldn’t get any better the person whose number is drawn first will receive the best selling Classic Christmas Selection Sleekster Box rather than a stocking filler. Christmas come early indeed!

Filed under: away from the plot