Chrimble - and the latter part of 2014!

Well once again it seems that time has positively zoomed by leaving me looking a little like a cack writer of blogs! K  I am somewhat ashamed that I haven't got round to posting since August, and I'm afraid I don't even have any kind of decent excuse.  So - enough of the self-flagellation.  What has been afoot?
I did some temping in the local city council offices, in the planning department.  I printed stuff out, I scanned stuff in.  Rather more scanning than printing and it had to be said - it was pretty dull.  It paid however, and that was the main thing.  Much nicer environment to work in than my last place too, which was nice. J Sadly it was just a 3 month contract so I'm now looking for something else after New Year.

Myself and a friend discovered a new cute micropub called the Pig & Pickle Taphouse, that opened this year in Exeter in an old post office.  This is the third pub owned by the proprietor of the original Fat Pig and Rusty Bike.  They have a microbrewery in the cellar of the Fat Pig (in the 2014 CAMRA Good Beer Guide no less) and you can now get their ales in any of their three pubs.  The Pig & Pickle is delightfully quirky, small and very friendly.  They also offer a whole plethora of different pickles, as the name suggests, that you can pick from to make up a platter to have with your pint.
The Doctor chap I was seeing is no more.  Wasn't for me as a long term thing so best to call it a day sooner rather than later.
I've also been cooking, baking, making some chrimbo bits and trying to sort out the vast amount of stuff I seem to own that is taking over the house!  I may have said it before but 2015 really needs to be the year of the life laundry I think.
For the Christmas period I've been back in Dorset with family, and visiting a few familiar haunts.
Studland beach, owned by the National Trust, is somewhere we've been going since I was tiny.  A beautiful long golden beach with protected heathland behind, it's great for a boxing day walk as well as a summer laze.  At the Knoll beach end where we start our walk you can see Old Harry's Rocks in the distance to the west.  Rather tiny in the background of this photo.  J (I know the horizon is wonky - frozen fingers!)

On the way back from Studland we stopped in the small village of Stoborough, just outside Wareham, and had a well deserved pint in The King Arms.  I had a chilli pickled egg too - very nice and suitably warming after our walk.  :-)

Well, this is a quick post just to reassure that I'm still alive out here!  I'm intending to get back to much more regular blogging in the new year, as soon as I get the damn internet in my house sorted out!

I hope you've all had a joyous and peaceful festive season.  All the best for 2015 from me and Zeke cat.  J

A Soup Maker recipe - spicy parsnip soup

Back at Christmas my gift from my mother was a soup maker.  She knows me and my love for kitchen gadgets well!

They were everywhere at the festive season and seem to be the next ‘thing’.  (Move over bread makers, cool your heels ice-cream machines, talk to the hand, cake-pop makers.)  Although I wasn't sure whether they were just a gimmick – after all – I had a blender didn't I? – I was now the proud; if slightly dubious, owner of one.  

A few days later once I was back home I cracked it out for a test run and thought I'd try an adaptation of my spiced roasted parsnip soup recipe.  (May have had something to do with the 4 bags of parsnips I picked up for 25p a go from the CFC too...)

I skipped the roasting this time as I wasn't putting the oven on for anything else and it seemed a bit unnecessary just for a few 'snips.

For some reason the post got lost in the ether but in case anyone is considering the merits of owning one of these, or have recently acquired one, I thought I‘d finally post the recipe.

Spicy Parsnip Soup, for Soup Maker machines

600ml veg stock. 

0.5tsp ground turmeric

0.5tsp ground cayenne

1tsp garam masala

1tsp ground cumin 

1 small Onion

3 sticks Celery

4 small Spud

250g (4sml + 1 larger) Parsnip

100ml water to top up + rinse spices from jug

100ml milk- to taste

100-150ml plain greek yoghurt - taste

Stir spices into stock and leave to cool.  [My soup maker insists on cold stock.]

Chop veg into 2-3cm cubes.

Pop everything bar the milk and yoghurt in measuring jug of your soup maker and check you’re within the volume limits of the machine.  (This will vary from model to model.)

Pour the contents of the jug into the soup maker and press the ‘on’ button.  I used the puree option; my soup maker also comes with a ‘chunky’ option.

Once the cycle has finished taste it.  A little thick and / or on the spicy side – add the milk and yoghurt as desired.

So 20 minutes later and ta daaa – I for one was very impressed.  Super tasty soup in a minimal time frame, especially if you’ve thought ahead and have cold stock to hand.  A short cut for that which I’ll try next time would be to make the stock cube up with a minimal amount of water; just enough to dissolve it, then top up to the required amount with cold water.*

This is invaluable for making fresh soup to take to work for your lunch – you can chuck everything in the jug the night before and just press on when you rise in the morning.  Pop it in a flask and in the colder months it was a lifesaver for this office worker in a building with no microwave!

Having not been totally sure about the benefits of a soup maker, this is a gift that has very quickly convinced me of its value amongst my kitchen gadgets.  It’s fast and it’s proving to be economical as it’s great for those ‘bottom of the veg drawer’ soups –chuck it in and hit ‘puree’.  It’s not the quietest thing in the world when it hits the blend part of the cycle but then, neither is a regular blender or FP.  I’m a firm fan!   Now, just to find somewhere for it to live...
*I've tried this since and it works a treat.

Pudding vodka

No - it's not vodka to be sipped with your pudding course like a dessert wine.  Although that is perhaps an avenue worth exploring.  This is vodka infused with the scents and flavours of chrimble pud.  Taking just 3 days to steep I started this on Thursday evening for some last minute presents.  (I did mean to make this about a week ago but the Chap kept using the vodka for cocktails so I had to send him out for some more!)I'm afraid my tardiness in writing this up means it's a little too late for you to make it for chrimble but it could be a New Years Eve winner.
It's a frugal recipe as you can use the cheapest vodka - Aldi do a 70cl bottle for about 8 and a half quid.  S'burys basics version is £9.85 so you can happily get a bottle for under a tenner.  Some dried fruit, spices and an orange and a lemon complete the ingredients.
The recipe comes courtesy of the lovely Dan over at Frugal Living UK blog and can be found here - made rather earlier than mine as he's rather better organised than me!
I chose to up the amount so ramped up the rest of the ingredients correspondingly.  His recipe is for a single 70cl bottle so head over there for the quantities if you wish - mine are for a bottle and a half (1050ml) of vodka.

Christmas Pudding Vodka

Vodka - a bottle and a half (1050ml)

450g dried mixed fruit

112g sugar

3 cinnamon sticks

9 cloves

1.5tsp grated nutmeg
What should have been: 3tsp ground mixed spice but, as I was rather lower on the mixed spice than I thought it actually was: 1.5tsp mixed spice, 1tsp chinese 5 spice and 0.5tsp ground all spice berries
Zest of 1 orange and 1 lemon

Put the lot in a big container and stir well.  Cover.  The original instructions said to keep it in the fridge but I've got mine out on the counter - it's alcohol so it won't spoil. 

Stir at least once a day - I'm doing mine most times I go past to get all the lovely flavours into the drink. 

Steep for a minimum of 3 days - if I had longer I'd leave it longer but tempus fugit and we are hurtling headlong towards the day of festivities.

Strain though a coffee filter paper.  Dan mentions you can use muslin but I think a filter paper will give a better result - though it may take a while!!

Decant into some sterilised and prettified bottles and label.

Now Dan mentions that the vodka has a less than promising look; being the sort of brown colour that one would normally avoid putting in your mouth.  To this end I have come up with a little rhyme which I shall write on the labels for the vodka:

 Be not afeared

Of a taste that's weird

The colour it be

Is just mimicry



The sealed pot challenge

I'm taking part in SFT's sealed pot challenge for 2013.  This involves finding a suitable receptacle that can be tightly sealed to allow no sneaky borrowing over the year; then you chuck your spare change in from  today the 4th to next year the 3rd December.  At that point you unseal your pot and see what you've managed to save. 
In theory having an idea of what the funds will go towards is a good idea but I'm not sure on that front yet.  Being one of life's perpetual procrastinators I am keen to non-commit in case I want to change my mind half way through.  Not that there's anything to disallow such fickle intentions in the rules but I have an abiding guilt/complex type thing about stuff like that, that leaves me stymied and more likely to not do something at all rather than cope with the idea of announcing my goal early on only to have to admit to failing on it later.
Does that make any kind of sense?  No, thought not.  Anyway, back to the pot...
My pot cost me a grand total of nowt - free.  As a friend of ours says 'nuppence - it's my favourite price'.  This was full of Ferrero Rocher and a gift to the office by a visiting agent.  I begged the container, no-one else wanted it tbh so it wasn't exactly a great feat.  There were even some Ferrero Rochers left in it but I was ever so good and left those behind in the office.  Ok, ok, I did have one but as I now have the next 8 days off work (using up annual leave before the end of the year) I doubt there'd be any left by the time I return.
I need to remove the FR label, seal the pot up and hacksaw a slot in the side but here it is with the first contribution - the change from my purse today minus the £ coins.  These may get in in later months but not this month.  Even with trying to make things / buy pre-loved and generally not partake too much in the materialistic crapmas shopping hell that December can all too easily turn into; it is a more expensive month. 
I will post a pic now and then as we go on with the challenge but for now I am holding off decorating Pot with pics of the end goal - as aforementioned I really don't have one decided upon yet.  :-)
Before you think me totally humbugish let me assure you I do enjoy the festive season; the lights, the colours, sparkles and the warmth that giving brings.  I offer up my advent surprise I did for the Chap yesterday (ok, I was a little late; then again he is 42 so should count himself lucky to receive chocolate bears and elves with popping candy in at all) as proof that I am not bereft of the chrimble urge.  Just lacking in motivation to get into debt over a religion-hijacked pagan celebration of midwinter.  So there.  ;-p

& the storms continue unabated...

Ok, ok, that isn't technically correct as we did have a day off (mostly) from the rain on Friday.  The river fell so you could nigh on see the paths, if not actually pass along them without dipping your toes in but yesterday was a return to form with heavy rains battering us along with some high winds and up went the water again.  Here's a daytime shot from about the same viewpoint as the night shot in the last post. 

The water's actually slightly higher this time. 

Anyone for a nice relaxing bike ride on a Sunday?  No??!  (Look at the size of that log!  If only we had a wood burner.  I'd be out after every flood scavenging the river banks for free fuel.)
'Welcome to soggy Exeter' that should perhaps read. 
I think this little chap is wondering where his home's gone.  Along with a lot of unfortunate people in these floods.  Sadly a woman also lost her life locally when a tree fell which in turn took a wall down on top of where she was living in a tent.  Another example that if we as a society could take better care of all members rather than worrying about sh-t like what we'll be sitting on come crapmas day we'd perhaps all be a little bit richer human beings.  (What is it with this pressure of supposedly needing a new sofa for chrimble?  Will my old one spontaneously give up the ghost in shame at it's non-newness?  I somehow doubt it - it's managed to tough it out each year so far.  Piss off ad-men.)
I didn't intend this to be a ranty post so excuse the slight tangent; though I am asking no excuses at all for the content.
Anyway - a whistle round blog-land this morning has appraised me of 2 things.  Firstly, in a slightly suspicious coincidental way Blogger has apparently told several of the blogs I perused that they've run out of space and would they like to pay for the privilege of uploading photos?  It just gave me this message too.  Now, I know that the finite space they give you will fill up but the fact that they've all gone at the same time makes me think it's a ploy.  Plus someone had put a comment somewhere saying it's Blogger wanting to shift us all to another provider or something.  :-(  Anyway, no, I do not want to pay, especially to an online company that can't tell I'm in the UK and would therefore use a corresponding unit of currency so I am using Flickr instead from now on and uploading from there.  Or at least I am if there are images in this post.  If it's a bit lacking on the image front then I evidently failed to get it to work!  Hmm - you seem to have to add it as html code otherwise if you use the 'share' to blogger option it makes it a new post.  Slightly more longwinded but I'll cope with it.

The second fact I quickly caught on to is that it's 'stir-up Sunday' - traditionally the day when chrimble puddings are made.  (Having just skim read the wiki article I've linked there it actually appears to be a religous thing that has become associated and overtaken by the pudding thing.  Shows how much of a heathen I am that I had no idea of that I guess!)  Now, being somewhat lackadaisical in some areas I have yet to make our chrimble cake (having been inspired to by both Being Penny Wise and Frugal Living UK's frugal based versions) so I figured that with a month to go perhaps I'd better worry about that first.  Although when I think about it I probably prefer a very small pud rather than cake.  Never made pud though and it strikes me as something one ought to have at least a little forward planning for so it shall have to wait for next year, or the year after, or...you get the picture.  I'm slightly alarmed by the reminder that both those blog authors soaked their fruit for a week - mine shall have overnight and be grateful for it I think. 

Given that I'm stealing some of the dying-from-man-flu (that I gave him) Chap's medicinal brandy to soak the fruit in, along with a mix of some in which he steeped spiced baked apple, a freebie single malt whisky and possibly some of this chrimble mead (though I'm not sure that at 13% it's up to the job.  Anyone?) I don't think I can really nick enough off him to last a full week! 

Anyway, in keeping with their Frugal theme but with a slightly different bent I decided to make my cake only utilising what is in the cupboards already.  IE no new purchases.  Hence the theft of the Chap's brandy and slightly idiosyncratic line up of ingredients / booze that will be utilised.  That's another post though - right now I really must get the fruit and brandy in the bowl before he finishes drinking it all.  If that comes to pass I'll have to sacrifice some of the sloe gin instead.....  Noooooooo.........  :-D

& then it was chrimble

Well I hope you all had a lovely season. I had the festive lurgy - hey ho. Still can't speak properly but it didn't stop us enjoying some bracing walks in the Dorset snow along with a pint or 2 in the local.

Rather bravely Chap came along with me too this year and met the rest of the familial members for the first time on chrimble eve. There was time to pop the pressies under the tree, grab a bowl of veg curry before nipping down the (heaving) 14thC local for a bev or two before bed and chrimble morn. Sated on a full brekkie [I don't do that often] we got on with the gift unwrapping before venturing out onto the skating rink masquerading as a road [closed] outside Ma's house. Had a little amble around and took some pics before a [quieter] visit to the local pub and returning home to make the dinner and all that entails.

Then before we knew it it was Boxing day and a rather sunnier if damn chilly day saw us on the heath by Wareham forest - time for some more pics of the beautiful winter landscape and the fantastic forms the hoar frost makes.

Christmassy foodie things #2 - Preserved Clementines in a spiced ginger syrup

I made this recipe from the Atomic Shrimp website as a last minute foodie type gift for friends and family. They look great and are relatively inexpensive to make as a gift for any time of the year. The small Kilner jars I used were £2 a go from Wilkinsons and are a nice touch I think. I doubled the amounts in the original recipe as clementines were on offer 2 bags for £2 when I bought them. I added a couple of thickly sliced lemons to make up the weight and used Stones Green Ginger Wine in place of the suggested spirits.

1200g fruit - 2 bags of clementine + 2 lemons

1kg Sugar - white granulated

200ml Stones Ginger Wine
900ml Water

5 Cloves

1 stick cinnamon broken into pieces

Heat the water, 100ml of the ginger wine and the spices gently with the sugar until the sugar dissolves.

Meanwhile wash and destalk the fruit.

Thickly slice the lemons discarding the ends that are all rind.

Put 2 cuts in the non-stalk end of the clementines in a cross - Atomic Shrimp says this is to let the juice out and the syrup in.

Once the sugar is dissolved carefully add the fruit and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat, cover and simmer for 1 hour, turning the fruit every 10 mins or so.

10 minutes before the end of the cooking time sterilise your jars.

Remove lid from pan and gently 'squish' the fruit a little against the side or base to release some extra juice. You can see from the picture that the cuts on the fruit will open up as the skins are much softer now.

With a spoon place in jars - the fruit is very soft now and will squash easily so take care.

Add last 100ml Ginger wine to the syrup in the pan and stir. Spoon over to cover fruit in jars and seal.

Adorn with a lovely bow and tag if wanted or keep for yourself and guzzle on top of yoghurt or good quality vanilla ice-cream. Mmmm...

Christmassy foodie things - the return of cake sunday

One of the foodie bits I made over chrimble were some filo pastry mince pies. Frankly these are so easy I feel a bit of a fraud giving a 'recipe' so here's a synopsis with pics of the process.

Filo was my choice as t'chap hates pastry having a pathological hatred of fat and has too many times over the years had soggy bottomed pasties putting him right off, I think. I also hate thick pastry - all too often found on bought mince pies, which is a shame as a mince pie is one of the sweet things I like at this time of year. We only had a couple though - the rest came to the pub with us in a much belated return of 'Cake Sunday'.

1 Jar mincemeat - mine was homemade from a friend and boozy and gorgeous it was too!
Filo pastry - note that it needs to be removed from the fridge 20 mins before use - I only realised this on reading the box immediately prior to wanting to use it so it had 5 mins on the radiator instead. ;-)

A little melted butter

Preheat oven to Gas 4.

Unroll filo and carefully seperate 2 sheets. The size of sheet can vary vastly - I was using 'Jus-Rol' chilled and the sheets are way smaller than their frozen version. [In fact about half size, near enough.] Anyway - cut into sections - 4 for this size sheet. Lay them at angles to each other - see pic. Place in case / cake or muffin tin hole - push down carefully. I reuse foil cases as well as using my silicone cases - one of the few useful things I've found to do with them frankly as they stick like gits with cakes. [The silicone ones, not the foil.]

Fill generously [though I may have been a little too generous as I only got 11 from the whole jar of mincemeat!] Brush a little melted butter on the edges of the pastry and draw closed, scrunching together.

Bake 10-15 mins until pastry edges are golden.
Cool on a wire rack - be aware that if you have accidentally torn the pastry the filling will ooze out at this point until it cools enough to 'glue' itself shut.

Take to pub and share with friends and feel all warm and festive and fuzzy. :-D

Use last cut bits of filo for a savoury mushroom, pesto and blue cheese mix as a treat for Chap for leaving me be in the kitchen even though we were running about an hour and a half late at that point!