seventy-seven

stereotypes

We went to the Tate Modern on Saturday.  It was a glorious sunny day - perfect for a stroll along the Southbank and a visit to the Tate.   It's a great place for children - lots of activities for them to do and some great pictures too.   The children chose their favourite picture from what we had seen that day.   My sweet, gentle sensitive son choose Andy Warhol's Gun 1981.   Boys do seem naturally attracted to such things.   I grew up in Northern Ireland  in the 1970s and so not surprisingly am anti-gun.   I was keen to not to have toy guns introduced to my children but it does seem that boys can turn anything into a weapon - a stick found in the woods, the floor brush or a wooden spoon.   I have become less anxious about the whole gun as toy thing and I think that's partly because the children are old enough to talk to about my childhood and my views on guns.  

 I still feel uncomfortable about J's choice though.

back at last

I hadn't intended to be away so long.  When we set of to France in early August I packed my laptop intending to blog about my month away from the big smoke.  Well the internet connection wasn't working and to be honest we were just have too much fun relaxing and reading and swimming that chasing up a repair just seemed like too much hard work.   

And then we came back .....

    

as we turned into our road the heavens opened and in our haste to unpack the car my elderly laptop was dropped hard into a large dirty puddle.  I thought it was the end but the thanks to a the advice of a good friend it has been nursed back to life and here I am.   I hope to be a good blogger this autumn - wish me luck.

  

exhale

We are well and truly in holiday mode now.   The end of term was to be honest completely exhausting.  This was the first year I'd had two schools worth of sports day, concerts, parents evenings and the rest.  Both schools seemed to have lots going on at the end of term and that combined with being ill made it all very hard work.   I usually try to make something simple and handmade for the teachers but this year it simply wasn't possible.  But every cloud has a silver lining and it meant that I found these beautiful mugs from a great charity called ARTHOUSE Meath.

I did manage at least to make personalized cards for the teachers.  A good lesson not to leave things to the last minute.  

Do teachers drink green tea?   By the end of term some of them look in need of something a little stronger. 

  

madeira cake

 

Madeira cake was always a favourite of my mum's when we were little.  As children we always preferred victoria sponge but I do now understand the simple pleasure of madeira cake.

 Preheat your oven to 170C/325F/gas mark 3, and prepare a 13 x 23cm (5x9 inches) loaf tin.

You will need:

240g / 8oz  soft unsalted butter

200g / 7oz golden caster sugar

3 free range eggs

200g / 7oz self raising flour

100g / 3½oz plain flour

zest (finely grated) and juice of 1 lemon

Cream the butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy.  Then sit in the lemon zest.   Beat the eggs in a separate bowl and add a little at a time to the butter and sugar.  Alternate with a spoonful of flour to stop the mixture curdling.  Gently stir in the remaining flour and then the lemon juice.   Pour the mixture into your prepared tin and bake in the oven for about 1 hour.  Allow the cake to cool in the tin before you turn it out.   

This is a good recipe to add to according to your tastes.  You can leave out the lemon and just have it as a rich butter cake, or swap the lemon zest and juice for orange.  Poppy seeds are alway a good match with lemon and my eldest daughter likes to leave out the lemon and add glace cherries.  I'd love to hear any other variations. 

back on form

I have been ill. A few weeks ago a small insect bite became a large swollen insect bite, then it became a completely swollen hand.  "Infected" pronounced the doctor "just take the antibiotics  - it's nothing to worry about unless the swelling goes past your wrist, but it won't".  It did.  I was in a pretty bad way.  But I'm now on the mend, back home which feels so good, and at last today back in the kitchen.  Which is a good thing because I have a large order for madeira cake*.  Should I post the recipe? Let me know.   

*I though it would be better to post a picture of a tasty madeira cake rather than my less than delightful, but now healing, hand. 

when all else fails ...

There are days when I just can't settle to what I am supposed to be doing and nights when I can't sleep and there is only one answer - bake.  I had become a little lazy just baking the things I know well.  Making things I could do in my sleep - if only I could sleep.  Well I have a large collection of cookbooks - I buy some myself and it seems like it's the default for family who don't know what else to get me for Christmas and birthdays -  and so it seemed like a good time to start using them all and figure out which ones to keep.  

 
 I love carrot cake but never made it at home until the cookbook sort out.  I've tried several recipes from different books and this is the one.  It's from Rachel Allen's book Bake but the recipe is generously supplied on her website.  There is only one thing I disagree with Rachel about in relation to this cake and it's that if you don't ice it then it's nice spread with butter - no no no!  I tried it iced and not and all who tried it agreed no icing and definitely no butter.

My sleeping problem is not about getting to sleep it about waking at 3 or 4 in the morning and not being able to get back to sleep - my family have become accustomed to waking to the smell of cake!

we love books

 I saw a fabulous post over at quilt while you're ahead.  Monica, another book lover, has given up a meticulous system of book organisation and sorted her books by colour.  The effect is beautiful.  I would love to be so brave.  In our house we have organised the books by subject and/or author.  The system and it's in-built idiosyncrasies have evolved over fourteen years of marriage and three house moves.   

 

My husband loves his books and I fear if he came home to find I had re-arranged everything by colour we might not make that fifteenth anniversary.  (I am kidding about the divorce but he would not be happy).  So for now when I want to gaze at a beautiful bookcase organised according to colour I shall have to go elsewhere.

PS - I will show him the second photo as evidence that he doesn't always put the books where they should be.  I mean to say The Spanish Civil War smack in the middle of American political autobiographies tsk tsk. 

summer muffins

Last Friday there were lovely raspberries and blueberries at the market and although most of them were were scoffed over the weekend there were a few left this morning.  They were a little bit smushy and there not quite enough for a cake but plenty for muffins.

makes 12 standard muffins

• 10 oz/280g self raising flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• pinch of salt
•  4oz/110g caster sugar
  
• 1 egg
• 8fl oz/240ml milk
• 3fl oz/90 ml vegetable oil OR  3oz/85g butter (melted)
• 6oz/170g summer berries (you can use frozen straight from the freezer)

1. Pre-heat oven to 375F/190C/gas mark 5, and put liners in the muffin tins.
2. In a large bowl sift the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar.
3. in another bowl beat the egg and stir in the milk and oil (or melted butter).
4. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and stir until just combined.  The mixture will be lumpy but that's fine.
5. Gently stir in the berries and spoon the mixture into the muffin papers.
6. Bake in the oven for about 20-25 minutes.

those magnificent men in their flying machines

We had a lovely day on Sunday in Victoria Park in East London.  My favorite steam fair Carter's was there as part of a bigger shindig called Paradise Gardens.  However the best part of the day was a show we caught just by chance from a theatre company called Hoodwink.  The show was called Leap of Faith and was (in their own words) a celebration of the human aspiration to fly: paper wings, balloons, feathers, and flying monks.   The children from aged 2 to 12 and all the grown-ups were engaged for the full 45 minutes.  There was a even a monk fired from a cannon - honest!

I couldn't write about the day without a picture of the merry-go-round.  

P.S.  The title of the post comes from a song I remember from my childhood but I must point out for the sake of vanity that the film from whence the song came was made BEFORE I was born.

smitten

 There are few things I love more than a a piece of homemade cake, accompanied by a cup of tea of course.  Poppy seed and lemon is a particularly good combination but I have tried many recipes for lemon and poppyseed cake and they were all lacking something.  But now the long search is over, and I am smitten. The recipe for this slice of heaven came courtesy of Smitten Kitchen.   It is rich with butter, heady with lemon and dark with poppy seeds  - a perfect summer cake.  As it seems that Smitten Kitchen and I share a common view on what we require from a good cake I may have to work my way through the cake recipes on her site.  In the interests of research of course! 
I would like to have shown you a picture of it's rich seedy interior but the cake was a gift for our hosts on Sunday and I think they have thought me a little more odd than usual if I had brought it along with a slice taken out.