The Most Delicious Rice Pudding Ever

First things first, don't skip this post if you think you don't like rice pudding.  This is like nothing else you have ever tasted; this is no bland, pulpy, lumpy rice pudding like you got at school, nor is it the over-sweetened, gloopy, filled-with-an-enormous-list-of-alarming-ingredients stuff you might get from a tin.  This is not only absolutely delicious, but also dairy free, gluten free, rubbish free, positively good for you, completely and totally delicious, and ridiculously easy to make.  Healthy comfort food? - just the thing to tuck into on a cold damp evening after a long day at work.

4oz/100g pudding/risotto rice

160ml coconut cream

800ml coconut milk

2oz/50g creamed coconut

Put the rice in a sieve and rinse under the tap.

Place in a pan with the other ingredients and bring to the boil.

(It looks fatty but don't panic, the fat in coconut is much better for you than other fats!)

Simmer for 20-25 minutes until the rice is tender and the whole lot is thick and creamy.

    Sweeten to taste with sugar or honey.  Serve with jam, stewed fruit (blackberries go very well at this time of year!) or dried or fresh tropical fruit.

I can't make the recipe any more complicated!

I was going to take tempting and delicious photos of it smothered in various tasty toppings and being spooned about in dollops of mouthwatering creaminess....but it was just too delicious and I was completely distracted by it and then suddenly it was gone!  Oops.

Autumn Cleaning

As we are moving house in two weeks' time (yikes!) we have started to knuckle down to the list of pre-moving jobs.  One of the jobs was to sort the garden out, which we did with great success this weekend.

The weather was generous enough to stay dry and mild, perfect for gardening but not sunny enough that anyone had their washing out to prevent us having a bonfire.  There was just a hint of that lovely Autumn smell in the air of damp earth and wood smoke, mushrooms and dry leaves.

  I rather sneakily managed to get my parents to come up and offer their rather high quality skills...needless to say, it wouldn't look half as good if we had done it by ourselves!

I should have taken some 'before' pictures too but I wasn't organised enough, and actually it's just as well because you would have seen the state of the garden before we started, which was verging on embarrassing.  We are now feeling very smug and tidy-garden-ish...better start looking at some packing I suppose....

Duvet Storage Solutions

After being attacked once again by an explosion of spare duvets on opening a cupboard the other day, I decided it was time for drastic action.  Spare duvets are very useful, but can be rather tricksy sorts of things.  I have been through the usual storage methods; bin bags, vacuum bags, careful rolling and tying with ribbon, rage-fuelled stuffing and slamming of cupboard doors....all quite frankly useless.  So I made these:

They are extremely nice and I like them a lot.  They are basically a big bag made from some gorgeous fabric remnants, with a tube stitched into the middle stuffed with lavender and a drawstring top.  Fabulously simple and totally the perfect system - all the duvets now stay in the cupboard when I open the door and are easy to find, get out and put away.

They also smell deliciously of lavender and there is nothing quite so nice as sliding into a crisp, freshly made, lavender scented bed.

Afternoon Tea

We had a little gathering at our house on Sunday in aid of starting the sad business of bidding farewell to our friends and setting off for pastures new.  We had a fab afternoon sitting about munching cakes and tiny triangle sandwiches and scones piled high with jam and cream, drinking elderflower pressee and tea and chatting hard.  It was the perfect antidote to this prematurely grim weather, I can't recommend it enough!

Crumble Cake

In season fruit?  Cake?  Crumble?  ALL TOGETHER??  This is an extremely good 'best-of-two-worlds' sort of cake and just the thing to accompany a nice cup of tea on a dreary afternoon.

For the cake:

6oz/150g self raising flour

2oz/50g caster sugar

1 egg

1.5fl oz/40ml milk

4oz/100g butter

few drops of vanilla essence

Fruit

2tsp soft brown sugar

For the crumble:

1oz/25g oats

1oz/25g plain flour

1oz/25g butter

0.5oz/15g soft brown sugar

If you have a loose bottomed tin (about 6" diameter), grease and dust with flour, or if using a normal tin, grease and line with baking parchment.

Pre heat oven to 180C/gas mark 4.  Melt butter, then remove from heat and stir in milk.

Once cool, whisk in the egg and vanilla essence.  In a bowl mix together flour and sugar and beat in wet ingredients.

Pour into the prepared tin and smooth over.

Top with a single layer of fruit (1 apple and a couple of handfuls of frozen blackberries in my case, but you could use anything) and sprinkle over the brown sugar.

In a bowl mix together the flour and oats and rub in the butter to make a breadcrumb consistency.

Add the sugar and stir until well incorporated.

Sprinkle this over the fruit layer and bung in the oven for 30-35 mins, until a skewer inserted in to the centre comes out clean.  Leave to cool for 10 mins before removing from the tin.

Eat warm or cold, for tea, pudding, breakfast, elevenses, midnight snack....

New Dress!

We went to a wedding last weekend, and despite having strated this dress about 6 months ago, I was of course frantically sewing the hem the night before and panic-matching accessories.  Anyway, I finished it on time, and trimmed a hat to match, glory be!  It fits perfectly and is comfortable and the right length and lovely lovely lovely and I totally love it!  Definitely my current favourite.

Here are some not very good pictures of the dress...we were just too busy having a jolly time to mess about with concentrating on photos!

The pattern I used was a slightly dodgy 80s shift dress pattern I found at the bottom of my mum's pattern collection, which I retraced and altered to fit (and be less 80s-y).  I also added the scallop neckline and a bit of extra width to the skirt for ease of mad dancing.

Bought the hat in a sale reduced to £18 from £60, pulled of the boring black sash and wonky bow and replaced it with a sash made of leftover dress fabric and some peacock feathers, which just so happened to be the perfect green.  I also changed the horrible chunky white hairband  to a thin one which I covered in brown ribbon.

I found the jacket in a charity shop and bought my shoes on ebay.

Mid mad dancing....we had an extremely good evening....

Free Food!

There has to be something to look forward to as the Summer begins to wind down, so it's just as well we have Autumn.  We're not quite there yet so I wont mention it too loudly in case it brings it on any faster, but the first hint is that there is piles of free food to be had if you know where to look and what to do with it.

The only rules are: 1. Don't pick fruit next to a very busy road
2. If the fruit is in or attached to someone's garden, ask first - you will be surprised how many people don't even realise what free treats they have in their own gardens and are usually happy to let you pick it ( how about offering a jar of jam or a freshly baked cake in exchange?).

The very first blackberries you pick have to be stuffed quickly one after another into your mouth in a steady stream.  Once you are saturated, close your eyes and savour the magic.  They taste of childhood and holidays, of hot grass and dusty roads, of late summer and bonfires.

Eating apples are a no-brainer, collect windfalls or pick straight from the tree and store in the fridge or in a cool dark cupboard wrapped in newspaper (they'll keep for weeks like this, but check them regularly and remove any rotten ones).  There is no complicated latin-name, green-fingered, plant-boffin knowledge needed to find out what's what.  When ripe, eating apples usually have some red on and cooking apples stay green.  Find a relatively big apple on the ground or tree, taste it.  If it's nice, collect some more, if it's very sharp and green collect for cooking (pies crumbles, chutney) if it's horrible (very rare!) search for another tree!

My friend and I went blackberrying Wednesday evening.  It was warm, everything smelt heavenly and there was a gorgeous sunset.  I stuffed myself silly with blackberries before settling down to picking for the basket.

This is the canal at Harefield.  We parked at The Old Orchard Pub and walked down this hill to the canal and spent a delicious few hours wandering about picking.  I also spotted some out of reach plums which I will have to return for next week with a chair or ladder!

This is a terrible photograph, but if you look very closely you can see all the blackberries!  They are best picked when it's dry at least, sunny too is even better.  It is a bit like hunting Easter eggs when you are about four years old.  as you pick one, you notice another branch dripping with glossy fat berries hiding under a leaf, and another and another!

As the forecast for today said rain, I went for a forage around the block yesterday evening too and found millions!

These are my spoils after an hour and a half's picking.  They are now in the freezer waiting to be made into thousands of delicious things as soon as I have a spare minute...

Back to School

Even if you're not going back to school and you are just continuing with work just as you have been all summer (gosh I miss long summer holidays!) I still get an urge to sort through my stationery, tidy the pen drawer and maybe treat myself to some new item.  Pencil cases also come under scrutiny and having thrown a few dodgy ones out I think a new one is in order.  Also as Edward is soon starting a new posting, which always requires at least a new pencil case, I thought I'd make one especially for him.  Here is how so that you can make your own!

First cut two pieces of fabric and two of lining.  Make sure they are big enough for whatever it is you want to put inside and add 1cm seam allowance all the way round.

Embellish the fabric if you want to.  (I used yellow felt to make the Batman shape, then stuck it to the fabric with Bondaweb and blanket stitched round the edge.)

Place the right sides of the outer fabric together and stitch together using a long stitch across where you want the zip to go.  Open out the fabric and press one seam to each side.

Fold over and press 1cm along the zip edges of the lining pieces.

place the zip right side down on the seam, making sure the middle of the zip is over the stitches.  Place the lining wrong side down with the folded edge along the edge of the plastic teethy ridgey bit.  Pin through all layers, then stitch as close to the folded edge as you can.

Cut the long stitches along the zip, then open to fabric out, placing right sides of the outside pieces together and right sides of the lining together.  Pin along both edged and the end of the outside pieces, pushing the zip seams over to the lining side.

Stitch the three pinned sides and trim the outside fabric corners.  Fold over and press 1cm along the two open edges of fabric.  Turn the lining inside out so that it meets wrong sides together at the same edge as the seam with the trimmed corners.  Push that seam out of the way and pin the lining edges together.

Over-stitch by hand along the edge.

Turn the right way round - hey presto!

Moving house is not the time to start buying things so sadly this year I will have to do without my little stationery treat...

Super Quick Pâté

It always surprises me that pâté is so expensive in the supermarket when it is so easy and cheap to make your own.  This chicken liver pâté is great for canapés, as a starter, to take on a picnic or even in sandwiches and takes only minutes to whip up.

200g chicken livers, each cut in half

1oz butter

1 large shallot or several small ones, finely sliced

3 cloves garlic, finely sliced

1stick of celery finely sliced (optional - if you happen to have one knocking about

3tbsp sherry/brandy

1tbsp double cream (optional)

pinch thyme

salt and pepper

Melt the butter in a small pan, add the chicken livers and fry until brown all over.

Add the shallots to the pan and fry until soft, then add the garlic and fry until the shallots turn golden.

Add the shallots to the plate and simmer the sherry/brandy in the pan for 2 minutes before adding back in the livers and shallots, along with the thyme and salt and pepper (and the cream if you're using it).

Simmer for a minute, then remove from the heat and leave to col slightly.  Shove the whole lot in a blender and blend until smooth.  (Not very beautiful, but very delicious)

Pressed into ramekins and topped with melted butter, or kept in a jam jar, the pâté will keep for 3 days in the fridge, otherwise you can keep it in the freezer.

Here it is served as a starter with sliced avocado, cucumber relish and slices of Baguette drizzled with olive oil toasted in the oven.