Normal service...

...will be resumed shortly. Hopefully. Hold tight, hang loose and share and enjoy mon amis. x

Happy Towel Day

Today is Towel Day. For those not in the know the 25th May is a day of remembrance for Douglas Adams; author, mac user, screenwriter, musician and conservationist best known for his series 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.' He died in 2001 from a heart attack aged just 49. Towel Day is so named after a section from Hitchhiker's in which the guide itself expounds on the usefulness of always knowing where your towel is:

"A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapors; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (such a mind-bogglingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.
More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitch hiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have "lost". What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with."

Chapter 3 , Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams.

Now - I freely admit I am more than a little anal about Douglas Adams including but not just limited to, Hitchhiker's. I have all the books in many different covers including H2G2* itself in Norwegian, Turkish, Spanish and French. You get the picture? So today - I salute you with a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster held high Douglas Adams, and I thank you for the wondrous stories you brought into our lives and onto our screens.

*H2G2: Hitchhikers Guide to the Glaxy

Oaty Cookies

Whilst my experiments with cooking with oats have been a solely savoury journey so far and will remain predominantly so I'm certainly not averse to a little playing with the sweet stuff. :-D
This recipe was labeled as 'Healthy Oat Cookies' - I can only assume they're alluding to the dairy-free spread listed rather than the sugar content but it sounded a good basis for a quick simple cookie recipe I could make for the bakeathon my work was holding for charity.
I changed some of the ingredients around and personally found the cooking time / temp totally inadequate though that may be more to do with my oven than the recipe. Here's my version:

Oaty Cookies - preheat oven to gas 3/170
100g butter
50g light brown sugar [or whatever you've got]
2tbsp runny honey
0.5 - 1 tsp ground mixed spice
100g self raising flour
100g oats
50g candied peel and crystallized ginger chopped fine

Melt the butter, sugar and honey together in a microwave.
Weigh flour and put in sieve. Weigh oats and add peel / ginger to it and stir well so the fruit doesn't stick in lumps.
Sieve in flour, add mixed spice, oats and peel/ginger and stir well to combine.
I found the mix a little dry at this point so added a splash of water.
Put spponfuls of mixture on greased baking tray, flattenuing slightly and put in oven for 15 mins. After 15mins have a look and see they're not even vaguely 'golden' looking so turn gas up to 4-4.5 and put in for another 7ish mins.
Remove from oven and cool on wire rack.

Nice but I wish I'd seen the comment a user had put on the original recipe about these continuing to harden as they cool. Mine did finish up a bit hard, I think a combo of the cooking time and the dryness of the mix. These were more like a biscuit then a chewy cookie. My oven does seem to be a little unreliable at the lower temps so next time I think gas 4 for 10 mins and a little more butter or a splash of milk in the mix.
I'd like to try these using ground ginger in place of the mixed spice with pieces of chopped crystallized ginger. There's infinite variations you can try really, dried cranberries could be a nice xmassy type, or orange choc for a rather less healthy version.

Surprise gift

I returned home yesterday to find an intriguingly rattly and slightly portly envelope residing on the doormat. I love receiving proper post but sadly it barely happens these days, it's either all junk mail or the bank / utility companies telling me something I don't want to know. This then was a lovely little lift for me at the end of a long day, especially when I recognised the handwriting of a very good friend on the envelope.

Intrigued I tore in, noting that the postie had been kind enough to let me off the 19p underpayment on the stamp, plus a £1 'handling fee'! Thank you postie! :-)

I had...seeds!! I love seeds, I am addicted to seeds and although I may have a plethora of seed packets spilling out of their box and threatening world domination; or at least front room domination, I am certainly not averse to receiving some more.

My friend had sent me a mixture of veg, leaf, herb and a gooseberry which I've never grown before, with a little note to say she thought I may like these. What a star, and what a simple thing that made me a happy bunny for the rest of the evening.

I shall wrack my brains to think of a suitable reciprocal little item to send winging it's way to her.

Small kindnesses gladden my heart and make the world that little bit nicer a place.

Final, leg 1: Chiefs v Bristol

Last night was the first leg of the final against Bristol for a chance for either Bristol or the Exeter Chiefs to go up to the Premiership. So just a wee bit important then.

A sell out game meant 10,000 supporters crowding into Sandy Park stadium and it was pretty busy. Not impossible to get around though and as is generally true with rugby all very good natured.

Well, it was a tough game with neither side wanting to give anything away. We spent most of the first half in our own half of the pitch but managed to prevent Bristol from scoring a try. Half time came with an equalising penalty for Bristol leaving us both with a measly 3 points apiece. Both teams had attempts at a try in the second half but none were allowed after consultation with the video ref; Exeter managed to ground the ball first a couple of times right in front of where I was standing to our great relief.

The match ended as a low scoring 9-6 to Chiefs, all points scored from penalties in an uncomfortably close game.Next Wednesday we're up to Bristol although unfortunately I'll have to watch that leg in the pub. We'd have liked to go with a bigger margin but if we can just hang in there as we did last night, prevent Bristol from passing and running then maybe we can win by not necessarily being better than the opponents but by preventing them from winning.

[Oh dear, that almost sounded like our dumbass farce of a recent election...]

All still to play for then.

Stoo & Dumplin's

I wanted to try one of the handful of recipes involving oatmeal that I had searched out in the interests of this months frugality. Oatmeal is not just for porridge and flapjacks! Oh no, it can thicken and bulk out a soup or stew, make a tasty veggie roast stuffing dish and even form a crumble on a sweet or savoury dish.

I had come across this recipe in the WW2 section of the interesting 'History Cook Book' resource. Wartime recipes had to be pretty frugal but still generally utilised lots of fresh veg. I changed their recipe a little to make it veggie and because I (erroneously) thought I had no paprika, and I added dumplings on a whim. Hadn't had dumplings in months and they're so simple. Perhaps not the most summery of recipes but it hasn't been the most summery of Mays and Sunday (when I made this) was cold and rainy.

Veg & Oatmeal Stew

1lb mixed root veg

Decent splosh olive oil and/or knob butter

2oz oatmeal

Cayenne

Dried herbs

S & P

2 tbsp Mushroom Ketchup

1 pint veg stock

Peel veg as necessary and dice. I used 1 onion, 1 leek, 1 carrot, 1 parsnip and some swede for my 1lb of veg. I meant to add some garlic but forgot!

Heat the oil and/or butter in a large heavy based pan and gently saute the veg until a little cooked. I used both oil and butter as the butter can add flavour but remove for a vegan dish.

Add the oatmeal and stir until the fat is absorbed.

Season; I added 0.5 tsp Cayenne, 1 tsp dried rosemary, 0.5 tsp dried basil, 0.5 tsp dried oregano, 1 tsp celery seeds, 0.5 tsp garlic salt and a grinding of black pepper.

Stir in the mushroom ketchup. You could use something like marmite here I guess if you were COMPLETELY INSANE and like the stuff but I'm not a fan personally. (Can you tell?! :-D)

Add the stock and cover. Simmer gently for an hour, remembering to stir from time to time or it'll stick and burn on the bottom. I found it necessary to add extra water from about half way into the cooking time. Probably added just under an additional half a pint. I wanted liquid to cook the dumplings in though and it was plenty thick by the time it was served.

Dumplings Prepare these once the stew is on to simmer, they need approx 30 mins cooking time.

6oz self raising flour

0.5tsp salt

1.5oz fat - I used veggie suet

Sift the flour into a bowl. Add the salt and suet.

Rub the fat into the flour well.

Add water a little at a time until you have a sticky dough.

Shape into balls and boil for 30 mins.

I made fairly biggish dumplings so got 9 and they needed more like 40 mins cooking time so aim for about 12 from this recipe, or size as you like adjusting cooking time appropriately.

I thoroughly enjoyed this stew. I know it looks a little 'grey' perhaps but it was thoroughly lovely and cheered me up no end on a miserable evening. I must admit I wasn't sure about the cayenne when I tasted the stew during the cooking but by the end of the cooking time it had faded to the background and just lent a pleasant edge of warmth. The oatmeal had thickened the stew nicely and the long cooking time meant you couldn't really discern it. I'd definitely make this again.

A Crisp Experiment

Crisps are my downfall, I admit it. Not for me the craving for chocolate, or cake, or sweets - I'm a savoury girl and I love my crisps. Generally ready salted or sea salt and black pepper. *drool* I am addicted. I try and stay away from them, I really do. They're terribly bad for you; full of fat and salt and calories. Also they're actually worse for your teeth to eat in the middle of the day than sweets are! (Thank you QI for that bit of doom and gloom.) The starch in the potato adheres to your teeth potentially causing more damage than a bagful of humbugs. Pah!

Anyway, I was heating some oil for prawn crackers on Saturday (yes - another highly unhealthy snack) and I thought to myself 'I wonder if I could do crisps like this?' I grabbed a small spudato (just an ickle one as this was an experimental type of party), sliced it as thin as I could, patted the moisture off on kitchen towel and chucked into the hot fat. Left them until mostly golden (I was a little impatient), hauled them out and sprinkled with sea salt. YUM!!!! The slighlty thicker ones were a bit chip tasting but I reckon this could be the way forwards. The future of the Ruth / Crisp symbiosis no less. Not health wise evidently but if it can save me 60p out of the machine at work I'll be a happy frugal crisp munching bunny. Now there's an image. :-D