the fruits of my labour

So here’s the sourdough I made out of that starter I showed a couple of posts ago:

It was really dense and chewy, as the recipe (from here) promised. And it was pretty sour. I’m not sure if the extreme heat we experienced that week made the starter more intense, or if the first loaf from a new starter is more sour than successive loaves, but Chris couldn’t handle it. The kids and I liked it, but I’d be happy with a milder flavour, especially if that means Chris will eat it. So I’ll see how the next one goes and report back here.

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Something that wasn’t sour in the least, was the Sufjan Stevens concert Chris and I escaped the house to go see last week. Breathtaking. Hope we get to see him again one day.

It was my 31st birthday on Tuesday and Chris and I celebrated it last Saturday night with a simple meal of rainbow trout with thyme and roasted lemons, salad and crispy potatoes. And good wine, of course.

The next day, we celebrated again with the kids and Chris’s dad, with Jamie Oliver’s carrot cake with lime marscapone icing. The recipe is from this book and can be found here. I’ve had the book a while, possibly since my last birthday, and this is the first thing I’ve cooked from it. If this cake is anything to go by, I should cook more from it soon. Very soon.

Getting older isn’t so bad when you have good people and good food to get you through.

Well, that was an unexpected delay, but here I am after some technical difficulties and other impediments to blogging, like tiredness, kids and life in general. Not that I am complaining about kids and life. Without them, there’d be nothing to write about, right?

Anyway, the little sewing project I mentioned a while ago is finally finished and without further ado, I shall unveil it:

It’s an apron (I like to state the obvious) for Chris and I’m pretty happy with it. Excuse the creases, but I couldn’t get a photo of it before Chris used it, which I’m not complaining about, as it means he must really like it. It’s linen and it feels lovely. I was very much inspired (as I so often am) by the aprons of Amanda of SouleMama, who uses a lot of linen and makes a lot of (beautiful) aprons. I have no idea if the linen I used is like what Amanda uses, as there seems to be many kinds, at vastly differing prices, but I got mine here and I like it. I have more and intend to make an apron for both Elliott and me from it.

I didn’t use a pattern, I just traced an old apron of Chris’s and just kind of made up the rest as I went along. At times I felt I was crazy, as a sewing novice, for doing this, but then usually I would tell myself I was being an idiot and it was just an apron and it really couldn’t be that hard. And it wasn’t. I’m certainly not saying it’s perfect, but it works as an apron, I learnt a few things and it wouldn’t have been perfect if I’d used a pattern anyway. Nevertheless, I’m expecting an order of sewing books to arrive from Amazon any day now, and I think they’ll help me feel more confident. Or completely overwhelmed and out of my depth. One of the two.

Don’t know about that, but these muffins sure are good. Yesterday morning I was able to get up and sneak into the kitchen and start making these while both children were sleeping. (Quite amazing as it was after 7:30 and Elliott’s usually up at least an hour earlier.) In an impressive feat of organisation (in my mind, anyway), I had measured and bagged all the dry ingredients needed for the muffins the last time I made a batch. All I had to do was whisk the wet ingredients and add some raisins.

These muffins are surprisingly addictive, given they don’t contain any chocolate and they’re moderately healthy thanks to the oats, wheat bran, vegetable oil and buttermilk. They make a great breakfast, but are equally as good any other time that hunger strikes. The recipe comes from 500 Cupcakes: The Only Cupcake Compendium You’ll Ever Need, a great little book I got as a gift. I might write more about this book in the future, but I will say now that despite the recipe saying it makes a dozen, I always get an extra half dozen, as well as a decent lick of the spoon and bowl. And of course I always let Elliott have that.

Here’s my version of the recipe:

225g (8oz) plain flour
200g (7oz) brown sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
40g (1 1/2 oz) wheat bran
40g (1 1/2 oz) porridge oats
pinch of salt
450ml (16 fl oz) buttermilk
2 lightly beaten eggs
175ml (6 fl oz) vegetable oil
175g (6oz) raisins

Preheat the oven to 175C (350F/Gas mark 4) and grease a muffin tin or tins (see above) or line with muffin cases.

Mix the dry ingredients together with a spoon in a medium bowl and whisk the wet ingredients together in a large bowl. Add the dry ingredients to the wet and stir until almost blended, then fold in the raisins.

Spoon the mixture into the tin or tins. Bake for 20 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the muffins comes out clean. Take tin from oven and cool for 5 minutes before removing muffins and cooling on a rack.

These muffins keep well for a few days in an airtight container. Not that they last that long here! You can freeze them, too. And of course, there are many ways you could vary them, by substituting something else for the raisins, although I never have. Hmmm, chocolate chips, though…

As for my photography:

There’s much I (clearly) need to learn. I know the right light’s pretty important, but I don’t exactly know what the right light is or where/when to find it. I doubt it was in my dark kitchen on a wet and windy Wednesday morning. I took a few photos, but I think these two are the best. And that’s saying something! The top one was taken with the flash and the on below without. That’s probably pretty obvious. I’m not sure which one’s better (or worse). Maybe I should have zoomed in when I used the flash so it wasn’t so glary? Not sure. I’d appreciate some feedback if anyone has any. Otherwise I’ll just keep plodding along, slowly learning a bit here and there like I so often do.

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