10 things

• Graham and I celebrated our third wedding anniversary.  We went camping again - and Olivia insisted on doing a photo shoot of us snuggling up on a bench together.  She took close to 400 photos, just by holding the button down on my phone camera and telling us to smile.  There was just one I liked.  We took an anniversary selfie instead, which I am much happier with.  Sorry, Olivia!

 

• The children and I went to Brick Lane, ate pakoras in the sunshine as we wandered around, and came home with a huge bag of bagels for the weekend.

 

• Cam likes his bagels with kippers for breakfast.  I like mine with avocado.

 

• I did my first parkrun in my new running club t-shirt this morning.  Rumours that I chose this club because I find the shade of blue on their shirt particularly pleasing, are entirely false.

• We have a new dishwasher.  It is so quiet, it purrs.
• Olivia sewed herself a top.  This is the first time she has done any dressmaking, and I was so impressed with the results.  She did everything herself, and all I did was explain some unfamiliar terms on the pattern.  The pattern is the Oliver + S Ice Cream Dress/Top, in the age 12 size.  It comes out quite short on her - she is a couple of months shy of turning 12, but is very tall.  She is keen to make another, and add a few centimetres onto the length.

 

• I did some dressmaking too, and made myself a new dress - another Lisette Portfolio dress.  It has a seagull ribbon trim on the hem, which I bought in Whitby, and contrast fabric inside the pockets.  It may be my most favourite dress I've ever made for myself - or it may just be that whatever I've made most recently is my favourite.

 

• I am keen to make more clothes while I am still on my long summer holiday.  Perhaps the Lisette Diplomat Dress, which I have the pattern for, but have not yet made.  Or maybe this Everyday Skirt?
• My sister and her two small girls came for a visit.  The littlest cousin was completely unfazed by the two big teenagers thrusting their cameras at her every time she smiled, did something cute, or moved.

 

• I made 22 raspberry madeleines yesterday afternoon.  There are only five left this afternoon.

    

10 things

The nice thing about getting an exciting new job in ITU, is that nothing really changes:

• I made a new top.  It was meant to be a dress, but I failed to adjust for the fact that I am much taller than most Japanese women.

• I love it though, and have bought more fabric so I can make myself a dress version.

• I discovered that the best place to take a full legth photo of myself without balancing on the arm of a sofa or having to tidy an entire room first, is the changing room at work. 

• Basil is back in the kitchen - I run my hands through it when I stand at the sink.

• I like these tiles at Aldgate station.

• Graham is listening to James Brown and treating us all to funk.

• I have been running - but not enough.  I miss it.

• I baked brioche rolls, and Graham made a tarte au citron. 

• The washing machine couldn't read the label that said the pillow was washable.

• When it's sunny, and I am not at work, I cycle over to the Olympic park with a quilt and sunbathe.    

Cooking colours

Because I am a new and enthusiastic user of Instagram and a blogger of many years, I take an awful lot of photos of random domestic moments; and as I scrolled through my photos last night, I realised that I have a wonderful record of my cooking at this time of year.

Like many people, the arrival of autumn gives me a renewed enthusiasm for cooking.  The cooler weather, a new series of The Great British Bake Off, unexpected seasonal treasures in my Abel and Cole box, and a generally energising back-to-school-and-University air of new timetables and new diaries, all contribute towards this for me.

Chicken and leek pie, with a cheesy breadcrumb topping

Spicy chicken and vegetable soup

Chocolate brownies - these made by Olivia

Potato, bacon and onion hotpot

Making apricot flapjacks

   

The colours in these photos are autumnal too: the orange of my big Le Creuset bistro pan which I cook with at almost every meal, the wholesome browns of freshly baked bread, the yellow of eggs and squashes, the golden crust of a cheesy topping.  I even use orange and brown hundreds-and-thousands on my buns at this time of year.

Cinnamon and apple cake - adapted slightly from a Nigel Slater recipe

Using up the veg in the fridge to make a vegetable curry for supper - the night before my new Abel & Cole box arrives

Fritatta with cavalo nero, onions and chorizo

Autumnal iced buns

We've had the first mince-and-dumplings of the season, and the first slow-cooker stew is planned for later in the week.  I also think a particularly spectacular pie might be in order to celebrate the return of Strictly Come Dancing this weekend.  

As if autumn wasn't already my favourite time of the year, there's all this abundance of good food to share and enjoy too.   Good times indeed.

A giant cheese scone - fresh out of the oven; and two loaves of bread waiting to go in

10 things

• I'm very tired, with dark smudges of sleeplessness under my eyes.
• I went to Kew Gardens today, walked miles and made myself even more tired.  Then I took photos of myself against a wall of orchids.

   

• My desk is a mess, which is very un-Nancy-like.
• I made Graham an apple and almond crumble cake for his birthday today - it is very, very good.
•  My laptop died.  I bought a new laptop as soon as I could because I have essays looming.  I find it scary spending that much money in one go; I'd be rubbish at being really rich.
• All my iTunes playlists somehow got wiped when I moved iTunes over to my new laptop.  What I thought was a disaster has been rather liberating and I am enjoying wasting hours of my time putting together new playlists.
• I've nearly finished my placement at hospital, and once this essay is handed in I go back to University for a few months.  I've loved working on the wards but I am looking forward to getting back to the lecture theatres and seeing all my friends again.  I can also use it as a legitimate excuse to buy new stationery.
• Olivia's very long, dark, thick hair goes up in a bun for ballet twice a week.  I love her hair like this.  How many buns have I made in the last seven years she's been doing ballet?

 

• Cam is watching Big Bang Theory, via our Lovefilm subscription - he loves it.  I am getting sucked in, and love it too.
• I made a loaf of raisin bread today.  Just because.  I shall take a couple of buttered slices with me to work tomorrow. 

10 things

• The University is a 7 minute walk from Loop.
• I have been running errands to Loop for my Mum.  She needs some nice projects to knit whiles he recuperates from a second hip replacement operation.  Nice projects need nice yarn.  Loop has verrrrrrry nice yarns.
• Mostly I have been terribly well-behaved and just bought what Mum wanted, but yesterday my resolve crumbled and I bought myself a skein of Malabrigo Worsted in  the Rhodesian colourway - a wonderful burnished orange - to make myself an autumn hat.

• I don't really have time to knit, as I am too busy practising my aseptic technique, writing biology notes and submitting my first essay.
• My first essay in eighteen years.
• That makes me feel even older than saying 'my son is thirteen'.
• Olivia has decorated the chimney breast in the kitchen with A5 sized manga portraits of everyone in the family.  It looks wonderful.

• Some of the likenesses are uncanny - Uncle Richard and Granny are particularly good.

• I am still cooking - almost as much as I did before I started my nursing qualifications.  I am still baking all our bread, and making yogurt, and making midweek suppers and packed lunches.  Olivia's doing most of the baking though, and Graham is cooking on weekends.
• It is not easy to let other people have their turn in the kitchen.  Doing the cooking is what I do best.

Tastes of the moment

Good things to eat at the moment:

• Strangely shaped tomatoes from the garden - finally ripening.

• My brother-in-law's strawberry salad: spinach and rocket leaves tossed with strawberries cut into quarters, cashew nuts roasted with black pepper and maple syrup, and a light vinaigrette. Completely delicious.
• A freshly baked loaf of wholemeal bread.

• Marquess Grey tea, from Waitrose.
• A teenage boy friendly supper - one that has large portions and is full of both meat and carbs.  Tonight it was chicken, bacon and peas, with orzo pasta, a splash of chicken stock and a dollop of creme fraiche.

• The last few squares of a bar of my favourite Green and Blacks chocolate, after dealing with just one too many enormous spiders today.  The best sort of comfort food.

On Mothering Sunday

My mother is wonderful for a great many reasons; one of those reasons is that she completely understands why a bag of really good stoneground wholemeal flour makes an excellent present for me.

Thanks for the lovely flour, and for everything else, Ma!

Nancy xxx

Magic seeds

I bake a great deal of bread; several loaves a week for roughly the last ten years.  But this week I added sunflower seeds to soda bread for the first time, and made a new and startling discovery. 

The children and I got a massive shock when we broke open the just-baked loaf yesterday after school.  We stared at the bread and then at each other.

"What HAPPENED??" asked O, horrified.

"Cool!" shouted C.

Rather than slather butter and jam on to it as we had planned we went rumamging on the internet.  We learnt that if you add sunflower seeds to soda bread, they turn a deep and vivid shade of green because the acid in them reacts with the alkali in the bicarbonate of soda.  The internet also claimed that they were still perfectly safe to eat, so with varying levels of apprehension we slathered butter and jam on, and tucked in anyway.

The internet was right - they are absolutely fine to eat. I was right too, in that sunflower seeds make soda bread even more delicious.  I do find the shade of green (which has turned almost black in the day since I made the loaf) rather unnerving though.  Today I went back to what I know and made a plain wholemeal tin loaf.

Good things in the kitchen

Good things have been happening in our kitchen lately.  Good, sticky, smoky, golden-coloured, slow-cooked, autumnal things. 

I find this time of year inspires me to cook more - my pottering-gently-around-the-kitchen-listening-to-Radio 4 approach to cooking suits stews, bread, roasts and cakes, which are what you want to eat at this time of year.  The children have been getting in on the act too.  C made the cheese and onion tear-and-share loaf you can see above.  We gave him the book from the most recent series of Great British Bake Off for his birthday, and he loves it.  So far we've had brandy snaps, hot chocolate fudge pudding and the bread from him.

All this sort of cooking tastes so good because it is made from a few simple ingredients, cooked slowly and with no stress on the part of the cook.  The smells fill the house with warmth and love.

We ate C's bread with this barbecued bean stew, which is a fantastic recipe for feeding a family very cheaply in a way which still seems luxurious.

Barbecued bean stew

• 4 rashers smoked streaky bacon, snipped into pieces
• 1 onion, sliced into half moons
• 3 fat cloves of garlic, finely sliced
• 1 stick of celery, chopped
• 1 tin of chopped tomatoes, plus 1 tin of water
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 heaped tablespoon treacle or dark brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons cider or wine vinegar
• 1 tablespoon tomato ketchup
• 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tin of mixed beans in water

Slowly, gently, fry the onion, garlic, celery and bacon in a large casserole dish.  There is no need to add oil, as the bacon will provide enough fat.  Stir absently while listening to the radio.  When the veg is softenend, but not coloured, add all the rest of the ingredients apart from the beans.  Stir, put a lid on the pan and leave to bubble very gently on a low heat for about 30 minutes while you go off and do something more interesting.  Tip in the tin of beans - no need to drain or rinse first - if you've bought them in water it's all good stuff.  Simmer slowly for another 10 minutes with the lid off.

Serve with bread to mop up all the delicious, smoky, barbecue sauce.

 

 

I made these beans in my favourite orange shallow casserole dish from Le Creuset.  This is mostly because I like how the orange dish looks with the orange-brown barbecued beans.  But the beans would also work well if you made them in a slow cooker.

I am new to the world of slow cookers.  I have my friend Nina to thank for my introduction to this way of cooking because the other week she tweeted about coming home from work to a chicken and cider casserole cooked in her slow cooker and said it was 'as if somebody else had cooked dinner'.  That short sentence meant I just had to look into this more closely - how often have you come in at the end of the day and wished that for once someone else had cooked dinner?  A very beguiling idea indeed!

I bought this model - a whopper with 6 litres capacity.  The shallow amount you can see in the photo above was in fact a chorizo and sweet potato stew which fed five hungry people generously last night.

I am not a great fan of gadgets as I don't have much space in the kitchen, so anything I get is considered carefully and has to be used regularly to earn its place.  But Nina was right, this slow cooker is a great addition to my kitchen. 

I wondered how it would be different to sticking a casserole dish in a low oven for a few hours, which I've been doing for years. The big difference is that the slow cooker is safe to leave on overnight or when I go out, which makes it much more useful than an oven at a low temperature.  It also uses far less electricity than an oven, so is more economical.

Spices and herbs have a more intense flavour cooked this way, so I ease back a little on those but otherwise just stick to my usual stew and casserole recipes.  The only thing that has to be pre-cooked is mince, which clumps together if not fried in a pan first.  Other than that I don't pre-cook anything, just chuck it all in and switch it on.  This means it is simple enough to do first thing in the morning, before I even lay the table for breakfast.

Last weekend I roasted a whole chicken in it.  I made a bed of vegetables: celery sticks, carrots, a quartered onion, six cloves of garlic, a handful of peppercorns and a bay leaf.  I sat the chicken on top, poured in a glass of dry cider and 200ml of vegetable bouillon, and left it on for seven hours.  I came back home to find a beautifully bronzed chicken and half a litre of the most amazingly intense flavoured stock I have ever made.  The chicken and stock were used to make four separate and incredibly delicious meals during the week.

Tomorrow I have plans for a rabbit ragu.  C and I watched Jamie's Great Britain last week and this recipe had both of us shouting excitedly at the tele.  It looked so good, and we all like eating rabbit in this house.  Normally a rabbit from the local butcher costs about £7, but the only one he had left today was an absolute whopper which cost me £14, and will probably make enough bolognese sauce to feed us all until Christmas.  The rabbit and all the other ingredients will go into the slow cooker and we shall see what happens.  I predict great things.

10 things

• I am very excited to be going camping this weekend.  Old, dear friends, sunshine, good food, celebratory drinks and all the children running wild in the woods.  It will be an excellent weekend.
• Another old, dear friend has started a blog.  Since she moved up north I very rarely get to see her, so I love that I can keep up with what she's been doing and cooking more easily now.  Check out the malteser cupcakes and her Mum's wonderful bread pudding (which I made last weekend and went down a storm with the whole family).
• I am late to the party, but listening to Adele's 21 album at the moment.  It is fantastic.
• I find that I very rarely get sentimental about the passing of a stage in the children's development.  I am always ready for the next stage.  No more crawling?  I just loved that they were walking.  Sad to pack away the cot? No - just loving how sweet they looked in the big bed.  And so suddenly I find I'm excited about C starting High School and the soon-to-be teenage years.  Bring it on.
• In this spirit I made him some new curtains - bye bye to the curtains printed with baby giraffes that I made when I was pregnant with him, and hello to bright, funky, green, abstract curtains.

• G is cycling 180km to Cambridge and back today - the same distance that he will have to do in his Ironman race this summer.  I still find it hard to get my head around the distances involved.  In the actual race he'll already have done a long swim, and when he gets off his bike he'll then run a marathon for the last leg.
• I am still a couple of years off 40, but I suddenly find myself seeing the point of gardening for the very first time.  This feels like some kind of middle-aged enlightenment.  When I turn 40 will I want to get myself one of those kneeler pads?
• I'm baking a great deal of soda bread.  Mainly because it's so quick and easy. Weigh ingredients, stir, plonk on baking sheet, bake.  All done in 50 minutes.

• I've also been making these onion bread rolls, which are delicious - especially with a couple of rashers of bacon and  a squirt of ketchup inside for breakfast.
• How did it get to be June already?