Bread

I have been making a lot of bread recently so thought I would post my fav bread recipe.

You will need:

200g strong wholemeal flower

300g strong white flower

1 pack of dried yeast

0.5 teaspoon of salt

1 teaspoon of butter (salted or unsalted)

300ml of warm/hot water

Mix the dry ingredients together, add about 2oo ml of the water and mix. Put in kitchenaid with dough hook and add water slowly to a dough, add the butter (make sure you still have a bit of water left to add just in case the butter is enough moisture). Keep in kitchenaid mixing for about 5 mins. Then place in oiled bowl, making sure that the dough is covered with oil and then cover with cling film and leave for about 1-2 hours in a warm place. For me 1.5 hours is usually perfect. After that, knead the dough in to the shape you want and place on baking tray, cover with a clean tea towel and rest for another 30mins – then after that shove in the oven about 190c for about 35 mins. To test it is read, knock in on the underside and it should sound hollow.

The hardest part is then waiting for it to cool down! I have some in the oven now and I’ll post a pic if it turns out ok…

Old-fashioned gingernuts

As a few people have asked for my ginger-nut recipe I have posted it online.

You will need:

350g self-raising flour

a pinch of salt

200g golden caster sugar

1 tablespoon ground ginger

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

115g unsalted butter

85g golden syrup

1 large egg, beaten

(also several baking sheets greased)

Sift the flour into a mixing bowl with the salt, sugar, ginger and bicarbonate of soda. Put the butter and golden syrup in a small saucepan and heat very gently, stirring occaisionally, until the butter melts. Remove the pan from the heat, let it cool until just warm, then pour on to the dry ingredients. Add the egg and mix thoroughly.

Roll the dough into around 30 walnut-sized balls. Place the balls well apart on your prepared baking sheets then flatten slightly with your fingers.

Cook in a preheated oven at 170 c (325 f) Gas mark 3 for 15-20 mins or until golden brown (15 mins for soft chewy and longer for crunchy). Remove from oven and transfer carefully to a wire rack to cool.

Sal’s hint – if you cook in two batches you can make both chewy and crunchy biscuits.

Enjoy!!!

Pudding

Made sticky toffee pudding last night when BA and R came round.  It was YUMMY and the most easiest recipe ever to follow!  I prepped everything before they arrived then when the roast came out of the oven mixed it all together in about two mins, then just shoved it in and it did all the work!  Great stuff when you have visitors.

Christmas Cake Success

Fruit soaked in rum

Cake papered “according to Delia”

The yummy mixture pre-tin

Ready to be baked!

The finished product! You are welcome to come and sample Christmas time!

Waiting some more

So I have had my 2nd interview – all I have to do is wait until Monday. It’s between me and one other – but the other candidate can’t interview until Monday! That’s really difficult but at least on Monday I will know if I have a new job or not. I’m hopeful – this change feels right.

I’ve been sorting out my itunes library in the last couple of days. It reminds me of the time when I was 16 and my best friend and I hired a caravan for a week after our GSCEs. We brought all of our cds with us to go away and in order to stop ourselves from listening to the same albums again and again we made a rule that we should listen to every single album with no repeats. It was bloody hard work! I don’t think we got there in the end despite the fact it rained most of the time and we were stuck indoors! I have something like 4000 songs on my itunes and I’ll never listen to all the songs. My flatmate has got a lot of Eva Cassidy who I had never listened to – it’s really quite good.

This weekend I am making my Christmas Cake. Got mum’s recipe and I’m going for it. I like her recipe because it uses rum instead of brandy and I have lots of rum in the flat.

Back from hols

Have had an excellent week!

Sunday night (23rd)

Mike and Janet arrive from Swansea.  Had a couple of swift cocktails at the Caledonian Hilton then rush across to the Dragonfly for a drink with Jill for her birthday.  Mike and Janet then treated us to a meal at the Caledonian Hilton.  Which as good but not particularly memorable (as I can't remember what I had now!)

Monday (24th)

Went to Oloroso (www.oloroso.co.uk) for lunch then R cooked a spectacular and yummy roast beef for Janet.  YUM.

Tuesday (25th)

M's birthday.  We grabbed the train down to London to surprise M and my was he surprised!  He did a double take as we sat down in the seat in front of him at the hotel.  Was definately worth not blogging in the preceding weeks!  We were staying at the Cumberland Hotel in Marble Arch (http://www.guoman.com/guoman/hotels/hotelFinder/viewHotel.do?hotelID=gu-cumberland) which was a pretty cool hotel and good room – reception and bar area – a little naff in its attempt to be "modern" but didn't affect us that much as we weren't really there.

More to be added… 

Easter Weekend 2006

Tonight G & M are coming to dinner for spincach and ricotta lasagne which R is cooking. It is a first for the recipe but M is a vegitarian so it’s worth a try.

Today I went into work and managed to accomplish a full days work in just over four hours solid. I put this down to lack of distractions in the form of people, emails and phone calls. Felt very pleased with myself.

No plans for tomorrow other than Doctor Who

Sunday easter egg hunting with R’s family (hopefully they’ll hide some for me too – although I think it’s normally the kids that play) and dinner.

Monday no plans!

Cooking more food for pals

After mind numbing and stressful day in work, invited D&H to dinner on the spur of the moment. Cooked the below BBC chilli con carne which came out YUM. If I do say so myself. Felt a little sceptical about the coriander and cinnamon being added (hate coriander and thought cinnamon a bit weird). But was all good. Although I feel a bit full now!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/database/chilliconcarne_67875.shtml

R is now cooking rock cakes continuing the cooking theme of the evening

St David’s Day

How very excellent that my first ever post will be today.
R copied Welsh flags onto posters and put them in the *canteen* at work. Then Nee Naw brought me a yellow rose claiming that the daffodils were too manky! Very cool. After work Nee Naw and I made Welsh cakes (for the first time ever for me) very successfully. All in all I think it is pretty much the best St David’s Day I’ve had ever!