Warning: high sugar post ahead

'What do you mean, "warning"?', I imagine you asking. 'This blog has been full of nothing but sugar for months now'. Well this time I don't mean only that type of sugar. I made these double choc chip cookies this week to say thank you to some students for doing some research with me. But I deliberately made extras because I wanted a few to take to Eco Sis's yesterday. You see, after 5 years of Very Hard Work, Eco Sis has become a doctor. A genuine stethoscope-wearing, blood-drawing, diagnosing doctor (as opposed to my type, who swans around libraries and insists it's 'not my period' whenever I'm asked a question). She will hereafter be Dr Eco.

Scholarly cookies getting a bit of research in before goingg to meet their eater

And that's where the sugaryness comes in. Dr Eco: I am the proudest sister in the world. Not only have you worked incredibly hard for the last five years, but you've also been sunny and supportive at the same time; you've devoted huge amount of extra time to the things you think are important; and you've always made time for us to play board games, swap sewing tips, cook dinners, and go on outings. Plus you managed to travel around Europe, visit America several times, part-qualify as an American doctor as well - oh, and get married to the nicest Yank I know. Plus you are an excellent diagnostician who manages to cure at the same time. I have never been bothered by that collapsed lung or that rare psychosomatic disorder since you diagnosed me :) I've said it a million times over the last few years, but you and Kiwi Sis are my best friends and I'm going to miss you while you're away for the next few months.


I didn't say all that when I saw her yesterday, but I'd like to think that the cookies said a bit of it in chocolate form. They certainly said something good: both she and The Scientist have put them at the top of the double choc chip cookie tree immediately. And, as a little bonus (whisper it): they're dairy free. Not quite vegan as they still have eggs in them, but I subbed vegan marge for the butter and they were still delicious. Sorry I didn't make that entirely clear when I offered you one (three?), Scientist, but I thought you were probably pretending you hadn't seen the Pure spread box out on the worktop anyway :)

Medically-endorsed double chocolate chip cookies (adapted from my cookie calendar 2009)

1 cup plain flour
1/2 cup cocoa
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
120g butter/marge/vegan marge
1/2 caster sugar
1/2 light brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
170g choc chips of your choice (or a mix of types)

Preheat the oven to 160C. Sift together the flour, cocoa, bicarb, baking powder and salt. Set aside. Beat the butter and sugar until smooth and creamy, and beat in the egg and vanilla. Add the flour mixture and mix until almost blended. Add the choc chips and mix.

Scoop the dough onto a baking sheet [the instructions said 5cm apart but I didn't find they spread too much]. Bake 12-14 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Made about 2 dozen

Some random facts

Holler over at Tinned Tomatoes gave me a Preemio Blogger Award - isn't that lovely! Thank you Holler! I have to tell you seven random things to claim it, so here goes (since I am very low on blog worthy photo reserves after leaving my camera in Israel and having such an elderly phone that it only makes calls)

1. I spent this morning helping The Scientist make the tea for his cricket club, and it was one of the most fun Sunday mornings I've had in ages. He calculated the composition of the sandwiches, and took care of the cheese, egg and ham fillings, and I buttered, Branston-ed and made cakes. Photos will follow soon, I hope (courtesy of Paul, whose phone is much more sophisticated than mine)

2. I associate the word 'random' with my university days - I heard it used more frequently in Fresher's week than ever before, I think.

3. I am sitting on the sofa typing this. I am under the spare duvet as it's a bit chilly and it's more environmentally friendly than turning on the heating, and I am covered in cats. They are very cute, but I discovered today that the reason my vegetable and flower seeds aren't germinating is because Mausel thinks that I have cleared the flower bed in order to make her her own bathroom. So it's a good thing for her that she's so cute.

My little sticky fruit trees in bloom!

4. I just learnt to purl, which means I can knit things other than scarves. I was given my first knitting needles at the age of five by my friend Max, but it's taken me until the age of 32 to be able to do anything useful with them (I have to admit that I don't know where those first needles are now).

5. I secretly fancy David Tennant (though Edward from Twilight comes a close second).

6. I can count to seven in Hebrew and I know the word for underpants. It has yet to be of any use in conversation.

7. I am terrible - absolutely terrible - at remembering jokes. I have messed up so many punchlines that my nickname at university was Dappy Spice, and I believed someone recently when they told me that their crisps had been flash-fried in water. What can I say - he had a trustworthy face?

Seven things

I got given an award by Heather from SLO cooking. Isn't that sweet - thank you, Heather!

I get to display this very pretty image, and have to answer these '7 things'. I have discovered that it's quite to think of as many as 7 things about myself. I must be very consistent (trying to avoid the word 'dull' there!). But here goes:

7 things I did before
1. Did ballet for almost 20 years (wow that seems long!)
2. Had a Guinea Pig Appreciation Club with Dogophile Vegan Nurse when we were at school
3. Told Kiwi Sis and Eco Sis stories about 'When we were in Mummy's tummy' on long car rides (Munchkin Gramps is a paediatrician - it's not as weird as it sounds)
4. Wore an orthodontic brace which had enough hardware to power a small house (Junior Sis has to wear one now; I sympathise)
5. Spent 7 years at university
6. Made the bridesmaids dresses for Kiwi Sis and Scientist Sister's weddings
7. Lived in 10 different houses by the age of 14

7 things I do now:
1. Provide lap services on demand for our cats
2. Bake more than we can possibly eat
3. Spend more time some days immersed in the eighteenth century than the twenty first
4. Blog
5. Sew baby quilts for my friends and family
6. Make random purchases from health food shops and farmers' markets
7. Love my Scientist :)

7 things I want to do:

1. Meet my Munchkinette niece
2. Visit the Norse God in Vancouver
3. Finish my current book project
4. Play my recorder more often
5. Train the cats not to moult on everything or scratch the sofa
6. Keep my little fruit trees alive to bear fruit
7. Try cooking with the pack of kamut I have sitting in the storecupboard

7 things that attract me to the opposite sex:

1-7: Being The Scientist

7 Favorite Foods:
1. Carob raisins and yogurt banana chips
2. Rachel's Organics rhubarb yogurt (but cow's dairy so I haven't had it in ages :( )
3. Mushrooms
4. Banana and vegemite on toast
5. The Scientist's leek and chickpea soup
6. Spelt and barley (and I'm hoping, kamut)
7. Nice fresh grainy bread

7 things I Say Most Often:
1. I think I dropped a needle...
2. Can I make you some dessert?
3. Could you fetch me x - I can't disturb the cat
4. I think you mean 'fewer' not 'less'
5. Aargh, I've run out of sugar/flour/butter/other vital ingredient for baking project
6. Can you explain what just happened in Heroes?
7. Has my hair gone frizzy?

I get to nominate some other people, but it's taken me so long to think of all these 7 things that I'm too exhausted! If you're reading this and fancy giving it a go, consider yourself nominated!

A cheesecake request

When your little sister asks for cheesecake, what can you do? Especially when said little sister has been working hard for exams and has finally finished. Reader, I made cheesecake. The reason we'd been talking about cheesecake is because we had invited the Ecos round for the weekend to celebrate the end of exams, and when writing it in my diary I'd noticed that it was also Shavuot, the Jewish festival which marks the giving of the five books of the Old Testament to the Jews. This was one of the culminating points of their wanderings after fleeing from slavery in Egypt, which is commemorated at Pesach. I wouldn't like to imply that Jewish festivals are all about food; but most Jewish festivals have traditional foods which accompany them, and since I like to cook and bake for my friends and family as a sign of my affection for them, I like to capitalise on these traditions. In this case, it's traditional to eat dairy foods like cheesecake and cheese blintzes, possibly to mark the fact that the Jews were only given their strict dietary rules on not mixing meat and milk in the Old Testament. At any rate, Eco Sis had immediately endorsed the need to share our feelings for each other by eating cheesecake, and most particularly chocolate cheesecake.


What I made in the end was chocolate-swirled mini cheesecakes, using this recipe from a blog called Fresh From the Oven. The original recipe didn't have a biscuity base but I did make one, using ginger biscuits and a bit of melted marge. The cheesecake mix is a fairly standard one, but you take out some of the topping and mix it with cocoa which is then swirled into the middle of the cake. Following another recipe on the same blog, I swirled raspberry jam into two of the mini cakes instead of the cocoa, as The Scientist wasn't entirely convinced about chocolate cheesecake (though guess which one he reached for first!). The jam was a bit hard to swirl and I think that warming it, or at least mixing it up well first might have helped. But the finished product was a nice little treat and got the Eco Sis stamp of approval. Personally I preferred the jam one as I don't like very cocoa-y things, but since the base is the same it's easy to mix and match what you swirl in. I think that the biscuit base is a nice addition and a contrast with the cool creamy cheesiness of the topping, but it would still be a nice dessert without.

We had a lovely weekend with the Ecos, and had our usual board game session with them - this time Settlers of Catan and Munchkin (a coincidental title, though of course it made us think of our Munchkin. In role playing a munchkin is someone who has all the doo-hickies you could possibly imagine, though the Kiwi Munchkin got his nickname because he's dinky, not because he has a sword of cuteness or a potion of enchantment or anything (as far as I know)). I have no strategic talent at all for games like this, but to my surprise I even managed to lead for a while in Settlers despite being in the kitchen starting dinner and only running back in to the sitting room when it was my turn or when someone wanted to do some trading. Eco Sis won both games. I'd like to claim we let her since she'd worked so hard for her exams, but the truth is that she got all the strategy genes in our family. That's my excuse anyway - I don't know what happened to The Scientist and Eco Bro (full of cheesecake, perhaps?)

The Ecos didn't come empty handed, by the by. In my first guest-baker spot on this blog, may I present Eco Sis's Blueberry Buckle; a delicious, moist and fruity cake, using a recipe she got from their American housemate.


I haven't got a copy of the recipe so can't reproduce it here, but the cake was lovely, and I love the word buckle because it's similar to truckle. Truckle is a good word because it makes me think of both truckle beds, which are little beds which slide under the big one during the day, like the one that Laura Ingalls Wilder and her sister Mary shared when they lived in the Little House in the Big Woods, and of cheese truckles which I don't particularly eat but which are pleasing to say. Eco Sis also brought home-made challah which looked amazing, but which I have put in the freezer to enjoy properly later as we were all stuffed from the other cooking this weekend!

Swirled mini cheesecakes (from Junior's Cheesecake Cookbook, via Fresh from the Oven blog)
[As usual, I halved the recipe and made 6 mini cheesecakes using a big muffin tin. Below is the full scale recipe]

Two 8-ounce packages Philadelphia Cream Cheese [reduced fat is fine] at room temperature
2/3 cup sugar
2 tablespoons cornstarch [the jam swirled version used 3tbsps, but I used the lesser quantity for a mixture which I divided between chocolate and jam versions with no ill effects]
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
2 extra large eggs [this is U.S. extra-large - UK large]
1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
1.5 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder [for the jam version, omit this and allow about 1 tsp or a little less of jam per cheesecake]
Chocolate curl (optional, for decoration)

Preheat oven to 350F. Line 12 standard muffin cups with silicone, foil, parchment, or paper liners.

Put one package of cream cheese, 1/3 cup of sugar, and the cornstarch in a large bowl. Beat with an electric mixer on low until creamy, about 3 minutes, scraping down the bowl a few times. Blend in the remaining cream cheese and 1/3 cup sugar, then the vanilla. Blend in the eggs, one at a time, beating well after adding each one. Beat in the cream just until it's completely blended. Be careful not to be overmix.

Remove 3/4 cup of the batter and stir in the cocoa. Divide the white batter among the 12 muffin cups. Drop a heaping teaspoon of the chocolate batter in the center of each, pushing each down slightly. Using a small knife or skewer, cut through the batter until dark swirls appear. [for the jam version don't take any of the mixture out but divide it directly among the muffin cups. Then drop a tsp or so of jam into each one and swirl as above]

Place the muffin tin in a large shallow pan and add hot water until it comes about 1 inch up the sides of the tin. Bake the cakes until set and slightly puffy, about 30-45 minutes, depending on how hot your oven is. Remove the cakes from the water bath, transfer the tin to a wire rack, and let cool for 2 hours.*Transfer the cake to a container and chill for at least 4 hours.
*note: instruction from the book: After 2 hours of cooling, cover cake with plastic wrap (do not remove from the tin) and put in the freezer until cold, at least one day. [I didn't do this]

Nursery supper - Milly Molly Mandy potatoes

It has poured with rain most of today - the cat barometer has been fluctuating between damp and soggy ever since we got back - but the weather in Northern Ireland last week was beautiful and we had a lovely holiday. We got back last night and just managed to get to the cattery in time to pick up the kits a day early. They were very pleased to be home and both immediately went out and got us a present which they each laid carefully on the study floor and shouted until we went and looked. Pook was a bit on the grubby side when we dropped him off but he came back not just grubby but smelling as though he'd been billeted with some pigs. He must have given up washing during his holiday as he's back to his only slightly grimy self again already. We hadn't let ourselves go to quite this degree while on holiday, but we had eaten out every night and we fancied something nice and comfortingly simple tonight. I was contemplating the phrase 'nursery supper' just because I like it, and it reminded me of a meal from childhood, so I introduced The Scientist to it: Milly Molly Mandy potatoes.


Milly Molly Mandy is a character in a series of children's books. She lives with her father and mother, her grandparents and her uncle and aunt in some sort of extended linear family utopia all in one house in a little village. I loved reading these books but the only story I remember is when Little Friend Susan came to stay one evening, and Mother made them lid potatoes - or Milly Molly Mandy potatoes as they became known in our house. They are, very simply, baked potatoes with a lid cut off the top, the filling scraped out and mashed with butter, salt and pepper, and all put back together again with the lid on the top. We made ours a bit more grown up by adding some mustard and cheese, too, and they were *so* satisfying! They were one of those dishes which are greater than the sum of their parts - somehow mashing the potato with cheese and a little marge is nicer than adding exactly the same things to the top. I haven't had MMM potatoes in years but I think they'll be staying on our list of comforting meals.



The only other children's literature-related food memory I have is based on the Mrs Pepperpot books. Mrs Pepperpot was an old lady who was normal in every respect except that occasionally, and with no warning, she would shrink to the size of a - you guessed it - pepperpot. Luckily it never happened while anyone was around, and being an extremely practical lady, she always managed to make the best of things and get all her chores done anyway. I have a very clear memory of sitting at the seemingly enormously high table in our kitchen, pretending that my spaghetti was a plate of skipping ropes for Mrs Pepperpot. Munchkin Granny, bless her, either didn't mind me playing with my food or didn't know, and I'm sure that's why I'm such a literature lover to this day. In any case, we're about to round off our nursery supper with one of the most nursery (albeit not at all home-made) desserts I can think of - Angel Delight. Munchkin Granny used to let us eat this for breakfast occasionally just to get some milk inside us. I dread to think what we were like in restaurants with our pasta-twirling and preference for chocolate pudding. Luckily I have mainly grown out of that and The Scientist is willing to accompany me to eat out nowadays. We didn't eat anything tremendously traditional in Ireland, though we did tour the Bushmill's whiskey distillery, and I both ate and brought back a lot of soda and wheaten bread. Eating potatoes on our first night back seems all the more appropriate to make up for it.

Waterfall in Wicklow National Park

Sunset in Wicklow National Park

Bushmill's whiskey distillery, Co. Antrim

Giant's causeway, Co. Antrim

Why blog?

A few people recently have commented that my blog seems to be all about food. They say it in almost an accusatory way, although I’m not sure quite what they expected. This led me to reflect again on why I write it. I was initially unsure about whether to start a blog, as the idea seemed very self-indulgent and self-publicising. I am naturally averse to being the centre of attention and anything that starts with ‘self-‘ makes me a bit nervous. I like to see my friends in small groups, and feel very uncomfortable about the idea of hosting parties (another reason why we are unlikely ever to get married!). This is despite the fact that I am happy to go out of my way for other people, and know full well that my friends would willingly do the same for me. I had so much fun reading other people’s blogs that I was tempted, but there were so many great ones out there already that really what was the point of starting another? Then Kiwi Bro got a job in New Zealand, and the prospect of he, Kiwi Sis and their Kiwi Munchkin leaving started to become a reality. Suddenly the idea of a blog took on a whole new role, as a way not only for me to keep them in touch with what we were doing, but also for the whole family to leave messages for each other. And that’s really how it started.

Actually writing a blog, however, has been quite a different matter. I realised that I needed to think carefully about who might read it and what I wanted them to know. It’s quite strange that my friends know all my news and random little things I’ve been doing (and eating) without me knowing anything in return. That’s why the comment function is nice, as it’s the only way you know who’s reading. It’s also why so many of these posts are about food and not about our personal day to day lives, which are a) boring to most people and b) too close to our home life to want to divulge. And then it took longer than expected for Kiwi Family to get on the internet (they are now – hooray! Kiwi Sis has read up to the end of February and is having a lie down to recover). So in the meantime, the connection with a world of people I have never met in person has been one of the happiest and most unforeseen benefits of blogging – I never imagined that anyone I didn’t know would be interested in it, and I’m constantly delighted that I’ve met some really lovely people. Those people are also interested in cooking and baking and local produce and making ethical choices, and being both healthy and indulgent in what they eat, and that’s why I write so much about food. I was barely aware of all the foodie events that take place in blogland, and they have prompted me to try all sorts of new dishes and types of cooking. My cookbook collection has expanded even more, and I have a massive computer file of recipes I want to try. That’s been a great boon, and I was thrilled when my friend Julie said she’d tried one of the soup recipes I’d posted about, and when Eco Sis tried making the wonton dumplings. And also, I love writing the posts. I write a lot in my job, and have always enjoyed putting together nice sentences which communicate my ideas effectively. But here I don’t need to worry about statistical significance, weighing up arguments, and substantiating all my points. I can witter, blither and go off on the randomest of tangents without attracting the vitriol or disapprobation of a journal referee (see what I mean??).

So, to reflect on the reflection, that’s why I blog. I love meeting new foodie people; I love writing my posts; I love it that I’ve expanded our experience of foods and cuisines, and that it’s involved challenging The Scientist’s cooking boundaries too. And I love it that it has been a family bonding thing – Israel Grandma knows what I’m up to; Eco Sis leaves me messages; Munchkin Granny texts me when she can’t make the message function work, and I got into trouble with Munchkin Gramps when Junior Sis found out through a post that I’d been knocked off my bike. And if Kiwi Sis can summon the stamina to make it through March and April, I’m sure that mailing the munchkin will become more than just a name. I’m sorry if this is a bit long-winded and self-indulgent after all, but here are some more good words to end on. I wanted a better word for ‘overlapping’ today, and could only think of ‘contiguous’ which means ‘next to’. I opened up dictionary.com and was firstly delighted to see that the word of the day was ‘inveigle’, which is up there with ‘egregious’ on my list of words we should all use more. Then I put ‘overlapping’ into the thesaurus function, and was even more tickled when it came back with ‘no results. Do you mean evildoing’? Laughed? I nearly absquatulated. Thank you for bearing with me. Tomorrow I’m making Passover desserts, so normality will be restored.

Verbiage

Johanna from Green Gourmet Giraffe has tagged me for a 'six word memoir', which has caused me some interesting pondering. I do like a good word, but describing yourself in just six of the little critters? Once I'd started thinking of good words I couldn't get them out of my head although they weren't appropriate at all. Breviary, wombat, treacle and jam - I really can't see any way to get them truthfully into my biography, although they are *so* satisfying to say. In the end I had to go down the compound 'Dogophile-Vegan-Nurse' pathway, and here's what I came up with:

1. cat-ophile-veggie-storian
2. tall
3. loyal
4. geographically-challenged
5. curly
6. really-tremendously-enthusiastic!!!

1 and 6 are probably fairly obvious from my blog. 2 and 5 even more so when you meet me; in fact they're family traits more generally. I was reflecting on the vagaries of having curly hair just this week when once again I returned from the hairdresser sporting some sort of unfortunate fluffy lampshade on my head. Sigh. All of us grown up Sisses have curly hair, though Eco Sis is a dinkier version. One of our Israeli uncles sent us a nice family photo of him and his brood recently in height order. It looked like a perfectly normal photo - until you realised that Israeli Uncle is 6 foot 4 and he was only in the middle of the shot! 4. is a more unique defining characteristic - in fact I think that Kiwi Sis got my spatial awareness genes as she always knows where she is whereas I can get lost truly anywhere. I have only once been able to identify which way was north (which The Scientist can somehow do magically almost anywhere) and that was when we were standing on the south coast in Brighton. 3 was a toss-up between loyal and kind, but since as I said in an earlier post, my loyalty to our cats means that I will now cheerfully throw water over any other neighbourhood cat, I went for the former.

On the latter topic, our friend Paul just sent us this link. It's a cat-cam which your moggie wears on its collar, and which takes a photo of wherever it is every two minutes. Can you imagine a more fun thing?! I would love to know where our cats go when they're out and about. I was amused that the cat featured on the site spends some time lurking under cars as that seems to be one of the pook's favourite places (judging by the oil stains he comes back sporting). He evidently found a good one during the rain last week as he came back looking like some sort of badger, with a big black mark all down his back. Actually, an anti-badger, since he's a white cat.

So, thank you for the tag, Johanna - I had a lot of fun thinking up my six words! I'm supposed to be passing it on to six more people, but I haven't been blogging long enough to know that many other bloggers personally. So, I will leave it as an open challenge to anyone reading this - do post a comment to share what you come up with. I asked The Scientist, but he only got as far as Scientist. I suppose they don't use that many words, do they? As inspiration, I will leave you with Munchkin Gramps's favourite Hebrew word, which is 'tachtanim'. It means underpants, so I suspect it won't be featuring in his memoir.