I’m not dead…and I made a cake to prove it!

Wow, I never meant for that to happen!

I don’t even have any proper excuses to be honest, just that life got in the way!

I’m still working in the same place, still knitting and sewing whenever I can, I’ve almost finished my BSL Level 1 – check out this woman signing Cee Lo Green – it’s ace but is NOT safe for work!

My camera’s still broken 😥

And most importantly, I’m still cooking, doing my bit for feminism , Nigella!

In a bid to put off my BSL revision for a little longer, tonight I made a cake I’d been dreaming about for a while. I got the recipe from the the beautiful Joy the Baker, whose blog I stalk obsessively read 🙂

Brown Butter Banana Strawberry Bread

Before

Doesn't it look like porridge with strawberries?!

After

Little overdone but still yummers!

In terms of difficulty, it’s pretty easy but it involves a lot of little tasks and a helluva lot of washing up. It’s worth it though, especially if it’s OH’s turn to do the washing up. 🙂

It is a delish banana cake, with lovely tiny strawberry yumminess dotted in it. Perfect energy food for late-night sign language exam cramming!

Speak soon, I promise!

x

Blackberry Day

Saturday was one of those days I’ll remember for a long time. I spent the day with the OH, my sister and her fella in the countryside, picking blackberries and roaming around looking for water voles. For most people, it was probably nowt special, but for me it contained lots of the little things that make me happy, including sunshine, fresh air, food and family. Here’s a round up of the day in pictures:

Mud!

Cute little tiny frog!

Blackberries

Blackberry and apple crumble- yummers

I’ll end with a poem written by my sister, Rachel McGladdery

Jelly Babies

We braved the wasps and nettles,

feet fearing the moist scrabble of tiny frogs

and came home

Twice

with bags of dripping berries.

Elicited nods from sweet old ladies

and questions of recipes.

Oh I scored points for making jam not pies.

To see my babies lined up

neatly labelled

little bonnets

crisp.

To see the sun slant through the ruby

and feel that female pride

of storing bounty up for winter,

anticipating spooning scented jelly

on toast on steaming cold mornings

before school

negates the quarrelling,

the carping,

the thorns in fingers

and dresses ruined with purple.

I am,

in some small fragrant way

that kind of mother.

Lemon Self-Saucing Pudding

I’ve just received my free copy of Olive magazine. Here’s the details to get your copy if you’re interested. I’m not certain that this offer is still available so please don’t hold me responsible if it isn’t!

There’s loads of lovely recipes in this month – but the one that jumped out at me was the Lemon self-saucing pudding. I love lemon flavoured puddings, and I’ve not made a dessert in a while so I thought I’d give it a go. I thought it might be tricky as it is a bit souffle-like but it is super easy. And super yummy. Here it is…

And here is the gooey lemon curd bit underneath..

The recipe says use a food processor, which I don’t have, but elbow grease will suffice. Also, you may have noticed that I forgot to dust it withe the icing sugar. That’s ’cause I’m too greedy to wait. I’ve just eaten mine with single cream but it’s so tasty I may have to go back for seconds, or even thirds. Or I may just polish the whole thing off. OH is out, he’ll never know..

The World Cup Is Over (for England, anyway)

So the World Cup is over. Yes, there may be two weeks to go but as far as England are concerned it’s over. Sigh.

And so my World Cup themed food must also come to an end. I meant to update after each game but I have been struck down by a particularly awful case of the sniffles and haven’t had the energy to blog so here’s a quick update.

England Vs Slovenia

I was a bit lost when it came to Slovenian food but thankfully my friend Zowie came to the rescue. Zowie is one of my bestest friends. She also happens to be a strict vegetarian. However, she’s the kind of ace vegetarian who doesn’t snarl when I order a double cheeseburger and who suggests yummy recipes like Goulash.

I changed the recipe a bit but I’m feeling too lazy to write it out so if anyone wants my recipe specifically then please ask. Here’s how it turned out:

It was yum, but the way I made it, it was quite liquidy, a bit soupy. I’m not sure if it’s meant to be more stewy than soupy but it tasted good and we ate it with bread to soak up some of the liquid.

England Vs Germany

As I was all bunged up with a cold last night I could not be bothered cooking (I was going to make fancy potato pancakes with sausages as well, honest) so the OH did Frankfurters. Bit of a cop out I know. And we had to eat the German food, after Germany had thrashed us 4-1(2)!

Ah well, there’s always the tennis.

And so, as I was sofa-bound most the of the weekend, I’ve had chance to do a lot of crafting. Inspired by my new favourite blog Ruffles and Stuff, I decided to give one of my dull cardigans a makeover. For the tutorial, click here.

Here’s my boring old cardy before…

And after…

I shortened the sleeves, added a lacy trim, then added some buttons I’d covered in fabric. It was a pain in the bum to make. I’m not a very patient or methodical crafter. Once I’d attached the buttons, I tried to fasten the top and realised the buttons were too big for the buttonholes. So I took a pair of scissors to the buttonholes. I don’t recommend this kind of botched approach but it suits me. So, it may only last a few days before it falls apart but until then, I have a lovely new top!

England vs Algeria aka Lamb Tagine with Flatbreads

Yesterday England played Algeria, so continuing with my World Cup food theme I needed to make an Algerian dish. I decided on lamb tagine, which may be more Moroccan but hey, they’re both in North Africa and I’m sure they eat it in Algeria too. My sister gave me a rough idea of how to make it but I also had a look online for a few recipes as I’d never made it before. I didn’t find any recipes which I fancied so I used this one as a guide but changed it quite a bit to my liking. I love courgettes so that was used as my main veg, I also put in dried apricots as advised by my big sis, and I’m glad I did as they were so yummy, they just melt in your mouth when they’re cooked. Here’s the recipe:

Olive oil

3 courgettes, chopped

5 garlic cloves, crushed

1 onion, diced

Some fresh ginger, grated

3tsp ground cinnamon

3tsp ground cumin

Salt and pepper

Some lamb (I bought a half shoulder, removed the fat and cut it into chunks)

2 tbsp tomato puree

3 tins chopped tomatoes

3-4 tbsp honey

Some dried apricots

Some raisins

As usual, I didn’t weigh/count everything (I ain’t counting raisins for nobody, sorry) so here’s a pic to give you a rough idea of quantities, if you’re the picky type.

First I fried the onions, ginger, garlic, cumin, cinnamon, salt and pepper in olive oil for a few mins, then added the meat for a few more mins. Then I put this, plus all the remaining ingredients in a casserole dish. I then added a bit of boiling water to the pan used for the onions etc as the spices had stuck to the bottom. Using a wooden spoon, I loosed the spices and added this liquid to the casserole dish. I then put the lid on and put it into an oven (preheated to 160 C) for about 2 hours. For the last hour, I removed the lid, as advised by Rachel Allen.

To go with this I made flatbreads, again an idea my sister gave me. For this, I thought I’d better follow a recipe so I used this one. I was surprised how easy they are to make and quick. Next time, I might try putting cheese on them or make flatbread pizza. Everything tastes better with cheese. Mmm.

The food was great, the tagine was lovely and sweet (maybe a little too sweet, a bit less honey next time) and there’s enough for tonight’s tea, and maybe even tomorrow’s. So overall, the meal was a great success, shame I can’t say the same about the football 😦

Rudding Park Hotel and The World Cup

As promised, although a little late , here are some food pics from our recent stay at Rudding Park Hotel in Follifoot (part of Harrogate, Yorkshire).

The hotel was lovely – they even took our bags to our room – I felt well posh! 🙂

They had a driving range in the grounds so we booked in there before dinner. I was incredibly bad, but the OH was pretty good – let’s hope that’s the only thing he shares with Tiger Woods!

Some people might think it’s a little odd that I take pictures of my food, and well yeah it probably is but food is a big part of the experience whenever I go anywhere and so I like to keep those memories, just as I would take photos of the places we visited and the things we’d seen.

So, you might have noticed that the World Cup has started. I’ve got my inflatable England hands ready, face painted and I’ve even made some red and white bunting for the window.  Strangely, the OH has even decided to back the England team, despite the fact that he’s Welsh. Funny that.

Anyway, for me this is just another excuse to make yummy food. So, on Saturday, as England were playing USA (we didn’t lose yey!) we decided to make USA themed food. We had burgers with sweet potato wedges and real strawberry milkshakes – yum.

I intend to do the same based on every team England face in the competition. I’m really looking forward to Friday when we play Algeria! Slovenia, on the other hand, any ideas?!?!

Banana and Blueberry Muffins

Hiya,

We have had wonderful weather lately, which means I’m finding it difficult to get anything done, you just want to be outside when it’s nice don’t you? Therefore, this blog has been a little neglected. Sorry.

Anyway, here’s what I’ve been cooking up. I often buy bananas, but usually end up with a couple left on the banana tree, slowly going brown and so I thought I’d make some muffins. Old bananas are ace in muffins and cakes but add some blueberries and they’re even better. Here’s the recipe I used for scrummy Bananaberry Muffins from the ever-so-talented Bakerella.

The OH tried taking some arty ‘in progress’ photos – I think we need to work on that. And the final photo I took myself, mainly just to blatantly show off some of my favourite things from my flat.

I bought the flowers myself , yes I have to buy myself flowers. You’d think that my OH would thank his lucky stars that he has a domestic goddess for a girlfriend who can whip up a batch of tasty muffins in no time, and occasionally treat me to a bunch of flowers to say thanks, but no.

The Veg Box Has Arrived!

Inspired by fellow blogger/tweeter Jemjabella, I recently ordered an organic vegetable box from Riverford and today it arrived! I am so excited. Here it is:

The contents are: new potatoes, broccoli, carrots, cherry tomatoes, cucumber, bag of salad leaves, mushrooms, spring onions and that weird thing in the foreground is kohl rabi. I didn’t have a clue what it was but thankfully one of OH’s colleagues did when I sent through a photo.

Now here’s where I ask you (yes, you) to give something back. This whole relationship is starting to feel a little one-sided but don’t worry, I think with a little love and compromise, we can get things back on track. I want you, my reader(s) to do me a favour and tell me what the hell to do with this scrumptious bundle of veg. I’m talking ideas, recipes etc.  The veg needs to last for about 1 week for 2 (greedy) people. Obviously I will need to buy meat, fish etc and I have the usual storecupboardy stuff in. I even have fresh herbs. Yes, despite neglecting them over the mini heatwave we had last weekend, I have an abundance of chives and basil and a frankly pathetic bit of parsley.

So you know what to do, now get to it! (Please). xxx

Roasted Root Vegetable Soup, Plus Sewing Snippets

Just a quick post for you today but I will be back very soon with some scrumptious delights. The OH and I have been away recently on a very mini ‘mini break’ to Harrogate so I’ll be sure to tell you all about that as well.

For now, here’s a couple of recent creations from the Pavlova household to whet your appetite:

Roasted Root Vegetable Soup

I got the idea for this from Comfort Food by Bridget Jones but didn’t really follow the recipe. I find you don’t really need to with soups. It was very simple to make and was made even simpler by the fact that OH had already roast the root vegetables (carrots, swede, parsnip, onions with garlic oil and mixed herbs) for tea so I nicked half of the roast veg and put them in a pan for my soup. Add some chicken stock, boil for a bit, 20 mins or so, then blitz it with a hand blender. That’s it. Simples.

And mega cheap too, always a bonus.

Next we have some oatmeal and raisin cookies which OH made last night. The recipe was taken from Rachel Allen’s Bake! Here’s the recipe. The only alteration was that OH used plain flour instead of SR as we didn’t have any. It didn’t matter, they tasted great. I enjoyed mine with a large class of strawberry milkshake. Mmmm. I think OH is definitely the better dessert chef.

Finally, here’s a couple of my non-edible creations. I’ve got back into sewing lately which is great, but I worry it will eat into my cooking (and eating) time!

I made these cushion covers based on a tutorial from Craftblog. These are great for a newbie sewer, very easy and it doesn’t really matter if you don’t get the measurements spot on.

And this is a little wristlet I made last night, from a tutorial from Javajem Knits. This was a little bit more difficult, but after a few tantrums and one broken needle (don’t sew over pins!) I got there and I’m happy with the results.

I’m not sure what to use it for though. Maybe just as a purse, or a pencil case. Any suggestions welcome, I look forward to some particularly silly ones from my family. That’s it for today, be back soon. x

The Best Chocolate Cake in the World

So, I hope all of you who are eligible have voted. I have…OK that’s enough politics.

Last weekend, on a whim, we decided to climb Pendle Hill. And for some reason, OH decided we should follow the steepest route. It hurt. A lot. In fact I thought I might actually die. But it was worth it for the views, and of course the smug sense of accomplishment.

On the journey home we discovered an ace farm shop, Huntleys of Samlesbury. Farm shops have a strange effect on me.  For some reason I find myself regressing, pointing at things saying “I want that, I neeeeeeed that”. You must understand that farm shops are like churches for foodies like me. And cheese is God.

That leads me to my first recipe.

Since me and OH have been together I’ve not been able to eat cauliflower as he doesn’t like it -he says it tastes really strong. No, I don’t get it either. So, I decided to make cauliflower cheese in a bid to convert him:

Saz’ Incredible OH – Converting Cauliflower Cheese

200g grated cheese

25g butter

30g (ish) flour

300ml milk

1 cauliflower

First I had to make a roux, which I’d never done before. I melted the butter in a pan gently. Once melted, I took the pan off the heat, added most of the flour and mixed to make a paste. I put the pan back on the heat and slowly added the milk and the remaining flour, whisking continuously to get rid of any lumps.

Once it had thickened, I added the cheese and mixed. I then poured the cheese sauce over the cooked cauliflower and put it under the grill for a couple of mins until I couldn’t wait any more and I had to eat it.

So after all that effort, what did the OH say?…

“You could make broccoli cheese next time”

Now here‘s a recipe that OH did like. Don’t worry, it works fine with regular cocoa.

This is actually the best chocolate cake in the whole world. If you don’t believe me then you should make it. If you still think that you know of a better chocolate cake then feel free to send me a piece and I will gladly be the judge. I know, it’s a tough job but someone’s got to do it. 🙂