Chocolate Courgette Loaf

No, no baby yet. But plenty of baking!

After confessing to my friend Lesley that we are being overrun by marrows, she brought my attention to a Green & Black’s recipe which can be found in their Chocolate Recipes book. It came as a surprise to me that we could turn those giant watery squashes (or at least 225g of them, anyway) into something completely deliciously rich and chocolatey...

Here's the recipe if you fancy giving it a go... :D

Chocolate Courgette Loaf

Ingredients:

• 175g very dark chocolate
• 225g courgettes
  
• 200g plain flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 110g caster sugar
• 175ml sunflower oil
• 2 medium eggs
• A 2lb loaf tin

1. Preheat oven to 180 deg C / 350 deg F / gas mark 4
2. Brush the tin with a little oil and line the base with greaseproof paper.
3. Melt the chocolate in a bowl. I used the bain marie method.
4. Finely grate the courgettes.
5. Sift the flour, baking powder, bicarb of soda and cinnamon into a large bowl and mix in the sugar and grated courgettes.
   
6. In another bowl, beat together the oil and eggs. Stir the mixture into the dry ingredients. Then stir in the melted chocolate.
7. Pour the mixture into the prepared loaf tin and bake for 55-65 minutes.
8. When the loaf comes out of the oven leave it to cool in the tin for at least 15 mins as it is very fragile when hot, then remove from the tin and allow to cool completely.

Before application of cartoon-style icing:


After application of cartoon-style icing:


Splurge! :D

Rabbit in the Pot

This is a meaty post, so click away if you find meat in any way unappealing!

I'm warning you...


It was Phil's birthday yesterday, and my parents bought him a sight for the air rifle. We seem to have an unspoken policy involving gifts being handmade or "smallholding-centric." Though both kinds are great, the latter kind benefits all of us, so we all get to experience a bit of the excitement.

I didn't know that when you put a sight on a gun, it needs to be calibrated, so Phil did that this evening before going off to find us a rabbit for supper. It didn't take long, and he was soon back with the goods - one fine furry meal!


As he (the hunter) skinned and gutted it, I (the gatherer) went down to the vegetable garden and collected some broad beans and kale, stopping off outside our house for some tasty herbs (bay leaves, parsley and chives). Then I chopped up some chunky potatoes, carrots and parsnip, as well as the beans, kale and beetroot tops for the greens.


And now, at this very moment, I'm sitting at the kitchen table, listening to the sizzle of frying meat and onions, and feeling quite self-contained and excited about our (mostly) homegrown meal. I shall have to add a picture of the finished dish, if I remember (though I'm sure the most important thing on my mind will be tasting it, by then!)...

I was a vegetarian from the time I went to university until about four years ago, when I unexpectedly started fantasizing about roast chicken... I don't eat meat very often, but I remember explaining to someone that I was very careful that the meat I chose to eat was "quality" - ethically raised, from an animal which had enjoyed a free and healthy life. Somehow I described the animal as having to be either organic and free range, or roadkill - wild and free until the last moment. Now I can add "hunted by Phil" on the smallholding, which is as wild as you can get.

EDIT: Here's how the stew turned out: delicious! :D

Ginger Biscuits

It shouldn't be a mammoth task, making a batch of biscuits, but somehow it became one.

Firstly, we don't have an oven. As we are planning to go off-grid in the coming few months (alright, it might take a bit longer!), we are loath to buy an appliance which will only be used for a short time. My parents have a little worktop electric oven/hob, and so I borrowed that. It was very heavy, and my impatience meant that I had to carry it myself, squidged against my bump. I won't be doing that again. How stupid - to risk a baby for a biscuit!

Secondly, the work on the polytunnel (Phil and my folks were down there) came to a point where everyone started losing perspective. The problem was that the instructions had not really talked about how to deal with the armfuls of spare plastic at the ends around the doorways. I mean, it was obvious that it needed to be carefully pleated to account for all the extra material coming over the hoops, but how had other people done it so that it look presentable, instead of crumpled and bunched up? That was the question being asked. As the oven heated up, I went down to the field with my laptop to quickly show some pictures of polytunnels I'd found online. They looked tidy, but when you looked closely you could see that every one of them had chosen a different style of pleating and folding. So as long as we did it nicely, it would be good. It took three of us to get the job done, and at least an hour. Needless to say, the oven was nicely warmed by the time I got back to the house.

Thirdly, the recipe asks for golden syrup, but I had none. So I used the equivalent of honey, and when the 'dough' didn't seem to be getting less crumby, I added a couple of tablespoons of water. Not knowing how the dough should feel for this recipe, I wasn't too confident, but must admit that the results are delicious! :)

Fourthly, and finally, the recipe made enough dough to make thirty eight walnut-sized balls and therefore thirty six biscuits (ha ha, just kidding, I ate two before they had a chance to cool!) which somehow meant that the baking tray went into the oven four times. It's a very small oven, and an even smaller tray!

If you'd like to try the recipe, you can find it here. I added a handful of finely chopped crystallised ginger, but next time would add two or three handfuls, and remove the ground ginger altogether. I'm so pleased to not only have the time to make treats like these, but also to have reduced my stress levels so much that I can now easily read a recipe - it may sound stupid, but for a long time I simply couldn't follow them, no matter how simple - now I'm much better!

But then, everybody knows that biscuits make everything better, right? :P

An Unsettled Week

The last week has been an odd mixture of satisfying, energy-filled days, and listless days where it feels like nothing is achieved. The weather has been changeable for a start, which hasn't helped, and our focus has become somewhat fragmented. Or at least, mine has!

On Saturday, Phil and I enjoyed being here on our own (my parents were out for the day) and it felt good to be pottering around on our own little projects. It was "a day off" really, and I was really pleased to finally get around to making these ultra-simple cards (just a bit of cutting and pasting!) which have been sitting around for at least two or three years:


Phil couldn't understand why I would bother, but I think that some of the designs from tea boxes are just too beautiful to throw away. There's something sort of retro about them, like those old enamel advertising signs you see in some tea rooms and pubs.

I made a really tasty, "last minute" cous cous dish for lunch which I recently discovered on the back of a pack of sultanas (!?) and which has quickly become a staple.

Crazy Jack's "Last Minute" Couscous (Serves 4)

1. Using a vegetable stock cube, make 400ml of hot stock and pour over 200g of couscous in a large bowl. Add a knob of butter, cover and leave for 5-7 mins.

2. Meanwhile, chop and dice one tomato, one onion, one carrot, a chunk of cucumber and a red pepper. Mix together in a bowl with a sprinkle of sultanas.

3. Blend the juice of half a lemon with 2 tablespoons of good olive oil and a pinch of salt. Using a fork, stir into the couscous. You could add a crushed garlic clove at the same time.

4. Stir vegetables into the couscous.

5. It's ready but, if you have any fresh herbs - mint, basil, or coriander, chop up a really good handful and mix it in.

I have been using whatever vegetables I can find in the fridge, but olives are particularly good in this recipe. Crazy Jack forgot about them.

After the vegetable garden's recent rabbit invasion we have been especially careful to protect the young plants from nibbling teeth. We have had to be inventive! Here you can see some of our makeshift cloches - it's very Blue Peter, but it seems to do the job - not only do these bottles and the corrugated plastic tunnel protect the seedlings from hungry visitors, but they also create a comfortable microclimate which will help the plants to grow. There's some spinach in the tunnel, and individual lettuces in the bottles.


And finally, Squiggles has been growing exponentially, so the point where my tummy has been filling ready to burst. It feels a little less tight today, so I'm wondering if it was Braxton Hicks contractions I was feeling for the last few days? I keep calling them Brixton Hacks, which is very wrong... This isn't a great picture, and I look like I'm wearing a sack, but it's all I have right now!

Jamaican Crunch Pie

Spent a good part of the day composing a very elaborate letter of complaint to Aviva Insurance regarding horrible mishandling of my car insurance. Stressful and beyond tedious.

So after going into town to get some plumbing bits for the polytunnel's water connection (a small plastic bag half full of plastic pipey bits cost over 70 quid!!!) and a quick stop for some essentials in Somerfield, I made a bloody lovely Jamaican Crunch Pie just like my momma used to make. (A fairly vague recipe can be found here, but I followed a recipe in a rather well-loved and ancient-looking copy of the 'Good Housekeeping Family Library: Family Cookery' book. Thanks mum!)


There was enough creamy topping to make a little baby one (though I was tempted to just scrape the bowl out and say no more about it), and they're both now chilling in the fridge. We can eat them tomorrow! Horray!

I don't know if the blogging is going to be all about food from now on (pregnancy does funny things to one's appetite!), but for anyone interested, the goats' cheese was absolutely lovely. It was a little less goaty than one might imagine, and quite subtle (so next time I might add some fresh herbs such as chives), but I was well pleased. Even Phil admitted that it was a success.

:)

All about Bread

Day Forty Five.

I used to bake bread on a regular basis. There was something satisfyingly earthy about sinking my hands into a big bowl of wet organic flour, and then wrestling with the bulging lump of springy dough until I felt it had been tamed. Then putting the bowl in the airing cupboard, protected beneath a clean tea-towel, and coming back to find it twice the size it had been only half an hour before. The smell of freshly baked bread. The rich, moist slices, hot and buttered...

I gave up kneading by hand and baking in the oven when we came across a perfectly functional breadmaker in a skip up the road. A quick online search gave us a free, downloadable manual, and that was that. Whenever we neared the end of a loaf, we would throw the fresh ingredients into the machine, and three hours later (accompanied by some frenzied beeping!) the new loaf would emerge - steaming - from within.

Eventually that breadmaker broke, after two or three years of regular use. An internal malfunction meant that it would not recognise any of the pre-set programmes. We took it back to the skip, and started hunting around for a replacement. We were given an unwanted breadmaker, but it only lasted a few months. Then we went back to cheap sliced wholemeal bread from the Co-op. It wasn't all that great.

About a year ago, a friend offered us another breadmaker, and we readily accepted. But when we tried to use it for the first time we found that there was no paddle, so apathy set in and the machine gathered dust in the cellar. A few months ago I managed to order a new paddle on eBay, so we were all set. We just couldn't be bothered. Nothing happened. More dust gathered.


What I'm trying to get round to is the fact that finally, finally! - today I succeeded in summoning the motivation to get the breadmaker going again. I downloaded this new one's manual, and cleaned the inside and outside. I got the yeast going, and just as it was frothing found that our store of organic flour was not only mouldy, but providing bed and breakfast for a small family of maggots. I almost gave up, then decided to go next door to Spar to buy some (non-organic) wholemeal flour. They only had white. Then I gave up.

But luckily our thoughtful tenant decided to bike down to the Tuffin's supermarket and buy some decent flour for me - beautiful organic wholemeal flour, fresher than I've had for a long time. I threw everything into the machine, and now, almost four hours later, I have a lovely (if a bit sunken, having missed the best moment for the yeast), tasty, homemade loaf. Worth every obstacle!

Remembering How to Cook

Day Thirty Four.

I'm not going to lie to you. I think I forgot that I could cook.

Phil's been doing it all recently, and that's absolutely great, but it means that I don't cook much anymore, and then I forget that it's even an option. It's something I've been meaning to do for a while... Maybe I'm just being lazy?

We do have our different tastes, so it would be better if we just took it in turns. Or if we each cooked two nights in a row - something we used to do a couple of years ago which worked out really well, and for much longer than expected. Phil likes complicated meaty, creamy, fried, roasted, fatty, multi-flavoured affairs. I like simple (preferably steamed or stir-fried) vegetables, noodles, and basic stuff you can cook in two pans maximum, maybe with a little chunk of butter or some grated cheese melting over the top. Phil is the better cook, and gets a lot of pleasure out of cooking. But unimaginative as it may sound, I absolutely adore noodles and vegetables with a blob of pesto and some grated cheddar on the top. I could eat it several times a week without growing bored.

This evening I suddenly got it in my head that I should cook up some vegetables. When I went to the fridge I discovered that we didn't have much in the way of variety: one huge cauliflower and some leftover new potatoes, yesterday's peas and a couple of carrots... Hmm... Cauliflower cheese, anyone?

Actually it turned out really well. I used three saucepans - three! - one in which to steam the cauliflower and carrots (and to which I later added the cooked potatoes and peas), one for homemade white sauce, and the third to fry up some onions and garlic in butter. Then I threw them all together in a large baking tray, grated loads of cheese over the top, and put it under the grill.

Add a large bowl of salad, and hopefully everybody's happy. Except there's no meat. But there's no lack in the creaminess department, and we all love cheese, right?
:)

The Food of Life

Day Twenty.

Ah! Now we are one fifth of the way through the 100 Days Project! I must admit that despite the one evil comment, I am feeling positive and somewhat changed for the better. I'm feeling a real sense of community with other 100 Days bloggers, and it's a opened up a whole new world for me. I spoke with my old friend Kellee of The Yellow Lamp today, and that was very lovely indeed. This blogging process is bringing us close again after some years of very little contact - she moved away and we've just been soooo busy, ya know? :) She reminded me that only horrible people make horrible comments on blogs. Still, I've left it there in case anyone feels like responding. I don't like to censor things too much, I like a dash of reality, so I'll leave it until its time comes.

Today worked out pretty well. It was market day in Machynlleth, so we collected our pre-ordered organic veg from the Treehouse stall, picked up the pre-ordered free-range chicken and local sausages from Will the butcher's, and bought some nice fresh sea bass from the fish man (there are two fish stalls on the market - one is right outside our house and leaves a rotten fish smell when he goes; the other is down by the Quarry cafe. We bought the fish from the one down by the cafe - partly because we have heard the nasty, racist jokes of the one outside our house). I spent the morning on Amazon, choosing self-sufficiency themed presents for my parents and surfing related gifts for my brother. Phil and I decided that after the huge expense of everything else we would not need presents ourselves. Still, I got a bit carried away and ordered a 'Stitch and Bitch' knitting book for myself and promised to get an Ikea magnetic knife holder for him (it's what he wanted, to be fair, and it might give us an excuse to get ourselves there sometime in the New Year).

Sorted out our room ready for my parents to stay in it, and got the lights and tinsel on the tree. Phil cleaned the pantry and the hall, and all we have left to do tomorrow is last minute floor-cleaning downstairs, and making beds. As soon as we realised that, Phil asked if he 'was allowed' (what?! There's a first time for everything, I suppose?!) to have a glass of wine, and so I suggested that he make up some mulled wine from scratch as he's been boasting that he'll be able to make it without touching the singular sachet in the cupboard. He rose to the challenge (a good chance to see if it'll work when my family arrives!) and I read the ingredients list from the back of the sachet, whilst pointing out cinnamon, cloves and the like in the dark and chaotic cupboard. It turned OK, though maybe he shouldn't have put the garlic (?!) in, but with a few spoons of sugar, I thought it tasted pretty good. :)

And so we relax again, job done :)

Day Six of One Hundred

Day Six.

Well. It's been a long day, but a good one.
I took the cassettes (this is the LAST you'll hear of them!) to the Dog Shop, and didn't stop to look about and be tempted by more crap.

I cleaned the hoover filter and hoovered our bedroom, bathroom and the stairs. This is how horrible it looked before I sorted it out:


I reckon there was enough cat fur to make another entire cat, at least. Nice. I mistook more than one mega hairball for Jekyll. OK, I didn't really. :)

The yukka plants have been looking really ropey, so I stripped off the dead leaves. Phil put them in the woodburner ready to be kindling for our next cosy fire.













I bought a two huge bags full of fresh vegetables from the market, and did something I've been meaning to do for months now - I went outside onto the garden and collected a giant bunch of kale and winter greens, and made a nice big pot of soup. :)

I was so excited I didn't think to take a photo...

At 4:30pm we went up to Bec's to do some more recording... Nearly there now, the album is taking shape, in a lovely low-fi way. It feels so good to be recording it ourselves, so much less stress!

Ooo, before I go, I would like to point you towards some of the '100 Days to Make Me a Better Person' blogs I'm really enjoying at the moment - it feels great to connect with other people who are getting into this project!

The Yellow Lamp, The Heartful Blogger, My Name is Beth.

Signing off. :)