Three Old Things

We are now, officially, grown ups.

We bought a new (to us anyway - old thing no 1) car yesterday which was very exciting, and slightly alarming.  Now we are truly grown ups, and now as we have taken the first step, it is down hill all the way to babies and mortgages.  Yikes.

We love our new little car however, it is red, and shiny, and we have been...discussing...a name for the past 2 days.  I thought something nice like Annie, or Josie, which are lovely names, but Edward is thinking along the lines of Red Devil, Red Baron etc.  Oh dear.

Exhausted by our exploits, we spent today recovering; Edward read an entire book and I did some sewing.    We started with a particularly delicious breakfast of fruit salad, hot fresh coffee and 'Pain Perdu'.  This is what we might unimaginatively in English call Eggy Bread, or if you really want to make it sound exciting, French Toast.  The French however, have come up with the name Pain Perdu, or 'Lost Bread' which sounds so much more interesting and romantic.  It is also delish and soo spectacularly and ridiculously easy.

Pain Perdu

The amounts are pretty un-exact, sort of slosh and guess, it will always taste nice!

1 egg

a large slosh of milk

half a stale baguette (old thing no 2)

(NB, Eggs from Darcey, one of our lovely bantams)

Beat the egg in a bowl, then stir in enough milk to make it...milky-ish.  Oh dear, not very good instructions.  Maybe about 150/200ml milk.

Slice the baguette into 1.5cm thick slices, and drop four or five into the egg mixture.  Heat a little oil or lard in a frying pan on a moderate heat.

Turn the slices over until they have soaked through, then place in the pan and fry until golden brown, then turn and cook the same on the other side.  Eat hot with your choice of topping.  We always had ours just sprinkled with sugar, but you could also sprinkle with cinnamon or nutmeg and sugar, maple syrup, jam, anything really!

My sewing project was a re-vamp job which I have had on my to-do list for a while.  I rescued from the bin a beautiful jumper (old no 3) which my Mum knitted for my Dad years ago, which had been soo loved (by Daddy and by moths) that it had reached the end of it's wear-able life.  I turned it into a cushion and it now adorns our sofa.  It is such a gorgeous pattern, I love the xoxoxox pattern that runs down the front, as if it is asking to be hugged!

It fastens as the back with vintage buttons.

Visit my website The Little Green Hen to procure your own hand-stitched recycled jumper cushion!

A Reminder

It is still winter.

All thoughts and hopes of Spring inbound were banished yesterday with the arrival of flat grey skies and a breeze like needles.  A few tiny specks of snow flurried experimentally about while I was walking the neighbour's dog, as if the weather was deciding whether or not to bother.  Luckily it decided not, but still kept it jolly freezing none the less.

This is the sort of weather that calls strictly for comfort food, the sort that's hot, tasty, easy to cook and easy to eat.  I decided on lentils, cooked according to a traditional French recipe from my grandmother; a rich, easy and cheap dish involving sausages - always a win.

Saucisses au Lentilles

The amounts are extremely flexible, go with what you have, they need not be followed to the gram.

200g smoked lardons (thick bacon cut into cubes/small chunks)

1 large onion

3 cloves garlic (if in doubt, always shove in more garlic)

2 carrots

6 large handfuls Puy or green Lentils (1 handful = cup a hand, pour in the lentils until the top ones start falling off) (approx 1 handful per person)

Pork stock cube

Bay leaf, large pinch thyme, freshly ground black pepper

Water

Start by frying the bacon until very crisp.

Turn down the heat slightly, add the chopped onion and a splash of water and cover.  Cook until the onion is soft and starting to go brown.  If it looks like it might stick or burn, add a splash more water.

                                 
Add the carrots, chopped into small chunks, and the garlic, finely chopped or mashed, and fry for a few minutes.  Add the lentils and the herbs, cover the lot in water, put a lid on and simmer for 1 1/2 - 2 hours, stirring every now and then, and checking it hasn't boiled dry.

The lentils should be soft but not mushy, and there should be some liquid left (top up during cooking if it gets low).  About half an hour before the end, cook your sausages, any kind will do - bangers, Frankfurters, garlic sausage, chorizo etc all work well.  I had some plain chipolatas that I decided to pep up a bit by removing the skins and adding some chopped Bramley apple, a large pinch thyme and a slosh of red wine that was hanging about.

I then fried them as little patties until browned and cooked all the way through.

Serve the lentils with the sausages, mustard and some good bread.

Today followed the same meteorological patterns as yesterday, although with a slightly stiffer, needle-ier breeze.  Edward had the day off work and we decided to go and amble about in London for the day.  We started at London bridge, with a trip to Borough Market for huge slow roast pork and apple sauce baps, and hot coffee to set us up.

Feeling slightly more evenly matched against the elements we then beetled along the South Bank, feeling quite smug and British, admiring the architecture and general Englishness of it all, but also mostly feeling mostly frozen.

We quickly passed the point of being acutely aware of having ears due to how much they hurt, and arrived at the point of worrying we might not have ears at all, as we couldn't feel them any more.

Photos of faces were swiftly discouraged, the eye being drawn instantly and enthrallingly to our red noses.

    It was, to say the least, fresh.

On our return home, all previous plans of a light supper and a vigorous Zumba class were rejected by my body, and no amount of visions of menacingly hovering bikinis could entice me to venture back out into the Arctic conditions wearing sports kit.  Cooking anything complicated was also out of the question, and so it is that we find ourselves curled up on the sofa eating lentils, hot buttery baguette, mulled cider and chocolate, and watching a film.  Not quite the way to a bikini body, but luckily I have just been reminded that the summer is an awfully long way off.

A Week Full of Baking

Last week was deliciously full of baking.

Starting on Shrove Tuesday, one of the eatery highlights of our year, Edward and I did it full justice by eating an obscene amount of batter.  Despite pancake day having been and gone due to my slowness at getting the blog going, I will share the recipes with you none the less, as the drop scones are delicious all year round, perfect after a long walk with a cup of tea, or for breakfast.  Actually, I don't know why I'm finding reasons, who needs an excuse to eat pancakes?!

Drop Scones

9oz/225g Self raising flour

1tsp baking powder

1oz/30g caster sugar

1tbsp golden syrup

2 eggs, beaten

275ml milk

Sift together flour, baking powder and sugar.  Add golden syrup, eggs and milk and whisk until batter is fairly thick and smooth ( double cream sort of consistency).  Bear in mind that the batter will thicken a little if you leave it to stand and you might need to add a little more milk.

Heat a frying pan or griddle with a little lard or oil in, until a drop of water spits when dropped on.  Drop tablespoonfuls of the batter in the pan well spaced apart and cook on a moderate heat until bubbles appear on the surface, then turn them over and cook for a few minutes on the other side until golden.

The batter-thickness test is when you spoon the batter into the pan, it should spread to about 0.5cm thick.  If the batter is too thick, the pancakes wont cook well in the centre.

Serve hot or cold with the topping of your choice!  To keep them warm, put the pancakes on some kitchen roll on a plate, cover with another piece of kitchen roll and place in a warm oven.

Too impatient to wait for supper, we started on the pancakes at tea time and nibbled on hot drop scones with lots of melted butter and home made blackcurrant jam.

We were then able to just about wait until supper, whereupon we stuffed them American style, with bacon and maple syrup.

Then to France for some 'Crepes' for pudding, lots, and dripping with lemon juice and sugar.  The recipe is a traditional French one Daddy taught me, sooo uncomplicated and always delicious!

Crepes

3 large tbsp flour

1 egg

milk

optional splash of beer

Place the flour in a large jug or bowl, add the egg and a large splosh of milk.  Start whisking, adding more milk as you incorporate the flour, until you have a single cream consistency.

Don't panic if there are lumps, whisk away like billy-o and they will vanish.  Also then you can feel virtuous as you scoff your pancakes as your arms will ache enough to count as having had a work-out....  Add the splash of beer (optional really, but does make them lovely and light) and leave to stand for about 20 minutes.  Heat a pan with a little lard or oil, until a drop of water crackles when dripped on, and add a little more milk to the batter if it has thickened.

 Cooking the crepes: Take the frying pan in one hand, and while you pour the batter in, move the pan in your hand to spread the batter evenly.  The first pancake is usually a bit of a disaster while the frying pan realises what's going on, then the rest should be easy peasy.  Make sure the pancakes don't get too thick, add milk to the batter if necessary.

     Cook until lightly golden then flip and cook the other side.  They can be kept warm in the same way as the drop scones.  Drizzle with whatever you fancy, my favourite is fresh lemon juice and sugar.

We ate until we had reached pancake saturation, then shoved the batter in the fridge ready for breakfast.  I added sliced banana to the drop scone mix (before cooking) and we ate them hot with Nutella, which is an extremely good way to start the day.

Next baking was Thursday for Valentine's day.  I was teaching in the evening so a romantic dinner was out, so I made a little batch of biscuits to give to my lovely husband.

They lasted about 4 and a half seconds.

Finally we had some friends round for tea Saturday afternoon, and stuffed ourselves silly on a proper afternoon tea spread.  I had planned to make fondant fancies, but got this far:

and got bored.  I was covered in icing, as was most of the kitchen, and it was proving to be far more trouble than it was worth.  The rest of the tea was a success however, and a fab excuse to whip out my tea set.

Now for some exercise I think, off to continue my fight with the garden, wish me luck!

Hurrah for Spring!

Today was the first proper day of sunshine we have had in a long time.  We awoke (admittedly rather late) to glorious dazzling beams and a clear blue sky, and undertones of real, actual Spring in the air.  I finally got the inspiration to do the work in the garden that has been on my list for far too long, and set to attacking the weeds, hacking and slashing with relish.  There is nothing quite as exciting as the tiny bright green tips of bulbs peeping through dark earth (or in our case, dead leaves and brambles) and the tightly wrapped buds of blossom, flashing specks of pink and white against the dark branches.  I can't wait for Spring to arrive in earnest!  For a start, rhubarb will soon feature heavily on our menu; yum.

There are now the beginnings of somewhat tidier garden potential emerging, however as I only started after lunch and then got rather distracted by tea, ginger biscuits and H. E. Bates at 4, there is still much to be done.  As ever, added to the list - "I'll start tomorrow!"