All mouth and no housework

Cats. They make promises and they just don't deliver. Pooky loves nothing better than to relax next to housework, but does he ever darn well do any? Does he heck. And he hasn't done the catfood run for ages either.

But he is just too cute to hold it against him!

Festivals and picnics

Once more unto the festival breach we went, and this time the sun shone and the heat beat down. After our wash-out (though still enjoyable) experience of Henley Festival, we were keen for a taste of a more traditional festival. Eco Sis had done a thorough trawl of possibilities earlier in the summer, and we picked Womad, a festival of world music held near Malmesbury in Wiltshire as our second try. It could hardly have been more different from the Henley Festival (although it did share one band - Show of Hands, the folk duo plus guest singer we'd enjoyed so much). It was much bigger, much hotter, with a lot more bands, and generally a lot less clothing per visitor. Bikini tops and small shorts were the order of the day for the ladies, and bare chests for a lot of the men. We all stayed a lot more clad ourselves, but it was the sort of place where anything went. The whole festival lasted all weekend and there was a nice leisurely atmosphere, no doubt cultivated by the people who were in no particular rush as they had days to soak up the rays and the music. We just went for the Sunday but the chilled feeling rubbed off on us too, and we definitely took things at a nice slow pace.

Picnic: individual drunken-housemate-surviving Eco salad at bottom; pongy Eco cheese to left; roast aubergine dip, right; roast pepper dip, top right

We got there at about 12.30, so we started off with a picnic on the grass in listening distance of the BBC3 tent, in the shade of a tree (The Scientist and I both get grumpy if we're in the sun too much, and I didn't like to inflict that on the Ecos). We brought our posh picnic backpack with us, plus some pittas, an aubergine dip and a red pepper dip, both courtesy of Moosewood Low Fat Favourites. The aubergine one, which is flavoured with sesame oil, soy sauce, star anise seeds and rice vinegar, was a big hit, though the roasted pepper one (with cannellini beans and lemon) needed a bit more flavour [update: the leftovers made a very nice pasta sauce with some softened onion and fennel :)]. The Ecos offered some delightfully pongy cheese (I was so relieved when they got it out as I'd thought the aroma was something odd in our car! Or them, but I hadn't liked to mention that) and some salad, very ingeniously packed in one-person-portions in saved take-away containers that they could bin. There were recycling bins everywhere round the ground, so we could even dispose of them thoughtfully. Their plan had been slightly scuppered when their housemate got home drunk the night before and ate one of the salads, but they had been generous in their portions, so no matter. For dessert I'd made a raspberry and oat slice, based on a tried and trusted Delia recipe for plum and cinnamon oat slice. I'd healthied it up a bit in the past, substituting half of the butter with applesauce, and cutting back on the sugar. I'd actually meant to include some choc chips this time as I had become taken with the combination of raspberries and chocolate when I saw the lush berries at our farmers market this week, but forgot. I was probably too busy eating the extra berries and lost focus. Anyway, this time I subbed raspberries and coconut instead of plums and cinnamon and it was delicious. I halved the recipe and it made one big slice each. Oh, those berries were good. I wish I'd bought more.


The picnic taken care of we meandered into the main part of the park, and spent some time ambling, orienting ourselves, and narrowly missing a lot of music through indecisiveness and distractability. There were several very big tents and several smaller ones, and the acts ranged over practically the whole globe including song, instrumentals and dance. We watched a dance display but didn't dare join in, and a Japanese drumming workshop which looked and sounded amazing. We got ourselves organised to listen to a Chinese singer which was very good, though got a bit much for me after a while, so I went for a wander round the stalls and craft stands. I managed to restrict myself to buying a couple of cards - Eco Bro got the award for most inventive purchase: a mandolin, which he stashed back in the car asap to avoid being asked for a performance (he has yet to learn how to play it, but we await an impromptu virtuoso rendition with Eco Sis on the tin whistle at our next visit).

Festival flags and Big Blue Tent

As well as clothing, craft and music stalls there were loads of food vendors and a lot of veggie options. We fitted in a quick taste survey before Show of Hands came on - the Ecos both went for burritos (Eco Bro's favourite) which were ok, I had a garlic mushroom crepe which was v tasty (cue 'I'm loving my dinner' dance), and The Scientist had a chickeny thing in pitta, and then a banana and chocolate crepe with enough chocolate to induce a sugar coma. Luckily he recovered in time to drive home. Show of Hands were just as good as they were in Henley (though slightly more casually dressed) and I've since ordered two of their CDs as I liked them so much. By that time it was mercifully cooler, and we headed off home at about 8.30. I realise that this post is a bit short on the music we heard but really it was more about soaking up atmosphere and background music than hearing particular bands for us. The choice was amazing, and although I enjoyed good old West Country Show of Hands the most, the Japanese drumming was a good second. I get grumpy when I camp as well so I'm not sure I'd go for the whole thing, but you could possibly bribe me with the vegan canteens!

Show of Hands with guest Miranda Sykes performing

I'm sending my picnic raspberry oaty slices to Susan at Food Blogga as she's hosting this month's Sugar High Friday, which has berries as its theme.


Raspberry oaty slices (adapted from Delia)

Makes 4 large slices or 8 squares

225g raspberries (I used fresh but I'm sure frozen would work - though might need draining)
1 tsp desiccated coconut (or more - you couldn't taste them too strongly in my version)
75g porridge oats
140g plain wholemeal flour
1/2 tsp salt
55g butter/marge
55g unsweetened applesauce
30-55g light brown soft sugar, depending on taste (the lower end isn't too sweet but not in the 'this must be good for me' bracket)

Pre-heat the oven to gas mark 6/400F/200C.

Lightly grease a loaf tin

Place berries in a bowl and toss gently with the coconut.

Mix the flour and oats together with the salt in a mixing bowl, then melt the butter and sugar in a small saucepan over a fairly low heat, stirring from time to time until the butter has melted. Add the melted butter and sugar to the oat mixture, and then add the applesauce. Mix, starting with a wooden spoon but finishing off with your hands so you end up with a lump of dough. Halve the dough and press one half into the cake tin, pressing it down ('like a wall-to-wall carpet', says Delia, but you get the general idea). Next scatter the berries evenly over the surface, then top with the remaining oat mixture, again pressing down firmly.

Bake on the centre shelf of the oven for 25-30 mins, or a bit longer if you like it crispier. Remove from oven and allow to cool for about 10 mins before marking out squares or slices. Serve warm, or allow to cool completely in the tin.

Simon and Garfunkel pasta

When I was little and in bed at night my dad (aka Munchkin Gramps) often used to play music while he did a bit of work at his desk. I would lie in bed waiting to go to sleep and hear the melodic strains of Simon and Garfunkel or Leonard Cohen coming from the sitting room. It was a lovely sound: it meant all was right with the world and everyone was in their proper place. I have a very soft spot for that music even now, and have my own little collection of Simon and Garfunkel songs. One of my favourites is 'Scarborough Fair Canticle':

Are you going to Scarborough Fair?
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme.
Remember me to one who lives there
She once was a true love of mine

The singer sets his love a set of impossible tasks before he will take her back, and she responds in kind. I never really thought about what it meant when I was younger; it was just a wistful and beautiful song of love lost, but it has some of the loveliest lines I've ever heard: the clarion call, the child of the mountains, and then the abrupt call of a soldier to arms.

I already mentioned that a few weeks ago I was given some free samples of sage, rosemary and thyme at a food fair, and of course I couldn't help but think of the song. I decided to try combining them together to see if they could make more than the sum of their parts. I wanted to showcase the herbs themselves, so settled on really simple pasta sauce of blended fresh herbs (I added some parsley from the freezer to complete the quartet) with a little oil, garlic and lemon zest. I added some water from cooking the pasta, and served it with some English asparagus I'd snapped up at a market the same week.


I'm sorry to say that my tribute to one of my favourite songs did not have me singing. It was a nice idea but the sauce needed to coat the pasta better. I think I was just a bit light-handed with the oil. It might have benefited from becoming more like a traditional pesto with some ground nuts, or even a fresh tomato or two. The herbs and lemon were pleasingly evident, but the texture wasn't what I'd hoped. Nor was the asparagus at its best, as you might perhaps expect for July - rather woody and lacking in crunch. I did have a label for my blog posts called 'complete and utter disasters' (created after the marshmallow incident) but I think I will change it to 'could do better' as this dish could yet reach better heights with a bit more work. For now I think I will stick to Simon and Garfunkel.


Simon and Garfunkel pasta

Blitz up a small handful each of fresh parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme in a mini blender, with some oil (to taste - but don't be as stingy as I was), a finely chopped garlic clove and some lemon zest.

Cook pasta, drain but save a little of the water to add to the sauce.

Steam chopped asparagus.

Toss all the components together and serve with parmesan cheese.

Irish chocolate cake

This is a cake I made for The Scientist to take on his last role-playing trip. I have been SO good about not baking except when there's a reason, and this time it was one of his friend's 30th birthdays so I went all out with sweetie decorations as well!

I fancied making a nice squishy chocolate cake and found a recipe with a twist in a little book of Irish baking I bought when we were on holiday. So what's Irish about it? Well, it has Irish liqueur in the creamy filling. Not very original you may think - well, ha ha, it has something even more Irish in it as well. You'll have to look at the ingredients to find out what, but the headnotes in the recipe says it makes it particularly moist, and the raw mixture, which was the only bit I tasted, was superlative.


I actually had a small disaster while baking the cake as I had forgotten that we were almost out of butter, so The Scientist had to go on an emergency mission to the local shop - and when he got back I discovered I only had one egg as well. Rather than send him out again I subbed some yogurt for the second egg. The gamers reported no yogurty weirdness, but then they didn't spot the surprise extra ingredient either so I doubt their gourmet discernment over appreciation of chocolatelyness. On the whole I think I prefer that (especially given my propensity to run out of ingredients and forget things....)


I had fun with this cake because of the frosting and filling. The Scientist was travelling by train which constrained how much decoration I could do, but I created a guard for the cake out of a larger tin which meant he didn't have to carry too much back with him either. The frosting was really velvety and creamy and set just enough to get it there in a reasonably neat state. I decorated it with kiddie sweets - I was going to do a '30' but The Scientist had a crisis of confidence at the last second that it really was a 30th birthday (it was, but it's probably nicer to distribute the sweets more evenly over the cake anyway). It got a good response from the gamers anyway, though as I say, they eat almost anything - and I have yet to quantify the 'almost'!

Irish chocolate cake from A Little Book of Irish Baking
Cake
175g self-raising flour
1/2 tsp salt
50g dark chocolate
110g butter
175g caster sugar
80g cooked mashed potato [there you go!]
2 eggs. beaten
4 tbsp milk

Filling
110g dark chocolate
125ml double cream
50g icing sugar
3 tbsp Irish cream liqueur

Preheat oven to Gas 5/190C/375F and grease and line two 20cm/8 inch cake tins

Soft flour and salt into a mixing bowl. Melt chocolate. In a separate bowl, cream butter and sugar together until fluffy, then beat in the chocolate and mashed potato. Gradually beat in the eggs, adding a little flour with each addition. Fold in the rest of the flour and stir in the milk. Divide the micture between cake tins and bake for 25-30 mins or until the top is firm but springy to the touch. Remove from the oven and after a few minutes, turn out onto a cooling rack.

While the cakes are cooling, make the filling. Melt the chocolate, stir in the other ingredients and mix well. Use the filling to sandwich the cakes together and coat the top and sides of the cake.

Thyme soda bread

This is another of the breads I made during my herby bread-baking marathon the other weekend. It was the easiest of the lot as it requires no rising - and it's delicious - and it's pretty healthy, especially when you use wholegrain flour and low-fat yogurt. I was astonished when we were in Ireland recently to discover that you can get soda bread flour in the supermarket - it's like an instant mix. I really don't know why you would need a mix when it's so easy, but perhaps I'm missing some critical secret Irish ingredient. I love my version anyway, so I left the packet on the shelf. I use a recipe from Anthony Worrall Thompson's GI Diet and I've made it with all sorts of combinations of milk, yogurt and buttermilk and it always turns out great. I always mean to record what combination I've used so I can work out whether some are moister or creamier or sharper than others, but I never get round to it. Soda bread is one of my favourite breads, so perhaps I'm not able to be that critical! Anyway, I've tried adding sage to a different recipe in the past, so this time I took Anthony's tried and trusted, and just added some chopped fresh thyme. You could use any herb you liked, and dried would work just as well, too. I particularly like this bread with soup but it makes great sandwiches and toast as well. I think that in Ireland it might actually be called wheaten bread because of the flour, but it's a very close cousin of soda bread.

Last time I made the herby version I had forgotten it wasn't plain and had a nice little secret moment of recollection as I brought my sandwich up to my nose. That's because it smells so nice, not because I eat with my nose or anything. Anyway, here's the recipe:



Wholegrain herby soda bread (from Anthony Worrall Thompson's GI Diet)

If you use milk instead of yogurt or buttermilk in this recipe you will only need to use about 350ml [I generally just add the liquid until the dough is the right consistency, so it's easy to adapt according to what mixture you're using]

Makes 1 loaf

500g wholegrain brown flour [I generally use a granary one]
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp bicarb of soda
1 tsp caster sugar
About 425ml skimmed milk, low-fat natural yogurt or buttermilk
A good handful of fresh herbs of your choice

Preheat the oven to 230C/450F/Gas 8

Stir the dry ingredients together in a mixing bowl. Make a well in the centre and pour in 350ml milk or 450ml yogurt or buttermilk

Using one hand in a circular motion, mix in the flour to form a dough which is softish without being too wet or sticky - add more milk or flour if necessary. Turn the dough out on to a floured board. Knead just enough to tidy the dough into a neat ball.

Pat the dough into a round 4cm deep and cut a deep cross on the surface. Bake for 15 mins on a floured baking tray then reduce the heat to 200C/400F/Gas 6 for a further 25-30 mins. To test whether it's cooked, tap the bottom of the bread and if it sounds hollow, it is ready.

A burst of moral indignation

I've become quite proud of my little array of fruits and vegetables growing in pots on our deck. One of my particular joys is a little blueberry plant (that's it in the corner), which is actually producing some fruit. It had a whole cluster of beautiful purple orbs last time I looked which were getting very close to being harvestable. My first home-grown blueberries! I was so excited! Imagine my horror then when I went out into the garden today to find that they had all gone! Some evil amoral thieving so and so had eaten the lot! What snivelling life form would stoop so low? I was bewildered, hurt and outraged. I am thinking of setting up a feline watch, but am worried that our cats aren't very task-oriented. Pooky can focus when the whim takes him, but it's mainly on sleeping. This picture pretty much sums up his laid-back attitude (his other state is extreme alarm, which probably doesn't bode well for his catching any blueberry thieves):


Mausel, on the other hand, is extremely on the ball when occasion arises. These occasions generally involve some poor little critter she has brought in from outside. This is her keeping watch outside the wardrobe, where she had accidentally lost a bird she brought in a week or two ago. She brought it into my study to show me (what a sweetheart) but it got away and flew straight into the open wardrobe. Luckily it got itself jammed between the sliding doors and I was able to release it while Mausel was frantically searching inside the cupboard itself. It flew straight out of the window, thank heaven, but Mausel wasn't to know that, and stayed on watch for hours. I always feel very bad when she does that, but she knows the rule - if she brings it in, it gets taken away (with lots of stroking and praise of course). If only I could harness the predator in her to watch over my blueberry plants I would have my culprit within hours. Sadly she doesn't care for blueberries and wandered off while I was trying to explain the situation to her. I may have to resort to netting.

Sage focaccia

It’s about time I finally got round to posting about the herby breads I made before I went away last week. As I mentioned, I was given some free sage, rosemary and thyme when we went to the Birmingham Taste Festival last week (yes, I noticed the Simon and Garfunkel song in there too -watch this space). With only a couple of days’ potential cooking time before going away for a week, I went mad baking as many different herby breads as I could. This is actually the last one I made that night: sage focaccia, made for a lunch with The Scientist’s parents the next day.

I'd already made three breads by the time I got to this one and I was somewhat weary, so I tried out an overnight rise in the fridge. It worked really well and had the added advantage that the bread could come straight out of the oven for lunch. That’s got to be worth some daughter-not-in-law points, right? I’m so used to being careful with getting the water you add to the yeast warm enough to activate it that it didn’t seem right that rising could happen at such a low temperature, but I suppose it’s because the yeast has already been activated before it goes in the fridge. Anyway, it worked a treat, and I just let it sit on the counter for a while to return to room temperature the next day before shaping and baking it.

The recipe for this bread was a mixture of two Nigella recipes from How to Be a Domestic Goddess. I based it on her schiacciata with gorgonzola and pine nuts because I liked it that it used some ‘00’ flour which was a bit different from the other breads I’d been mixing, but got inspiration for the focaccia style from her garlic and parsley hearthbreads. Somehow a schiacciata/hearthbread cross became a focaccia in my mind, which I imagine just shows I don't know one flat bread from another :) All it took was a bit of stirring up, an overnight stay in the fridge, and then some pulling and shaping the next day. The other focaccia I’ve made recently was a potato one from the Wednesday Chef (and in fact I made this again with rosemary on the top as part of my bread marathon). I really liked that one but The Scientist found it a bit doughy in the middle and that happened again this time even though I was alert to it. The Nigella version (which doesn’t use potato) was crispy all the way through and I was happy to serve it to guests (even ones who aren’t obliged to like me because I live with their son!). We ate it with spinach and thyme soup and some salad out on the deck. The bread was pleasantly thick without being too chewy and the sage gave it a really nice aroma. I love the feel of fresh sage, with its lovely velvety leaves. It’s almost a shame to cook with it but I suppose the leaves wouldn’t stay velvety for long in the fridge!

The rosemary potato focaccia - for comparison!

Sage focaccia (schiacciata/hearthbread, whatever) adapted from Nigella's How to be a Domestic Goddess

350g strong white flour
150g plain flour, preferably Italian 00
7g/1 sachet instant yeast or 15g fresh
2 tsp salt
300-400 ml warm water
3 tbsp olive oil
handful of sage leaves
Red onion, chopped into thin slivers

Combine the flours, yeast and salt in a bowl. Pour 300ml of the warm water into a measuring jug and stir in the 2 tbsp olive oil. Pour the liquid over the dry ingredients and mix to form a soft but firm dough, adding more water as necessary.

Now start kneading until smooth, supple and 'full of elastic life'. Form into a ball and place in an oiled bowl. Cover with oiled clingfilm and leave to rise for an hour or so until doubled in size - or overnight in the fridge.

If you've let it rise in the fridge, take it out and let it come back to room temperature before shaping. Now sit it in a roasting tin and press to fit, letting it rest for a few minutes if it looks as if it's never going to stretch to all four corners (it will). Cover the dough with a tea towel and preheat the oven to 220C/Gas 7. After 30 mins or so, the dough should be puffy and ready to be topped.

Poke your fingers all over the dough to dimple it and scatter torn sage leaves and onion over the top. Bake ten minutes, then reduce the heat to 190C/Gas 5 and cook for a further 15-25 mins until it's golden brown. Remove from the tin and cut into big slices

Other topping ideas: other fresh herbs, garlic (roasted and smushed, if you like), or mashed up gorgonzola and pine nuts, as Nigella suggests.