The Modern Housewife Series Vol. I

vegan rock buns

I made rock buns yesterday after there were complaints about the lack of baked goods in the house. Yes. Seriously. I'm bemused but, oh my, how I love rock buns so no real complaints here. I had a total flashback to childhood making and eating these. (Usual substitutions apply to the recipe...vegan 'butter', vegan milk and don't bother with the egg. It will hold together just fine.)

 And here's the conversation we had before the above photo was taken...

Me: you've eaten 4 of them already?!
Him: I'm sure I've only had 3...
Me: you had 3 before I even went upstairs! And I just saw you eat another.
Him: they're just small...like air really. It's  the same as eating celery...

Cinnamon buns

...or the tale of how to win friends and convince them I'm not a complete weirdo.

Along with the banoffee pie I've had an overwhelming need for cinnamon buns and I have found the perfect recipe. As always I'm a bit late to this party but it's true that Pioneer Woman's Cinnamon Buns are the best I have ever made or tasted.

Um, where to start? The pastry melts in the mouth and it's so light I convinced myself I was eating air and not an alarming amount of fat and sugar.Oh and the glaze just gets absorbed right into them creating an ooey gooey mess of deliciousness. I took them along to a gathering and there was much rejoicing. See! I eat normal unhealthy food like everyone else. It's not all mashed yeast and alfalfa sprouts ( a Woody Allen line I think).

Substitutions I made:

Coconut Milk  in the dough ( just normal runny non thick tin of it) because, you know, I decided it didn't contain enough calories. I am breastfeeding you know! It's essential!

Full fat non dairy milk in the glaze

Good non hydrogenated vegan marg/butter. They do make a difference to the flavour.

Oh and the limitations of the village shop struck again ( although to be fair they were refurbishing so had limited stock) so I had to make my own icing sugar (yep, really) using caster sugar. I just blitzed it through the coffee grinder until fine. Oh, and I had no maple extract so really it was more of a coffee vanilla icing. Nice but after 7 of them I started to feel edgy! Argh, caffiene!!

(Oh, and I should add that I quartered the whole recipe and there was still a load of them)

...and yes, I don't normally post a recipe on a Thursday but these were too good not to share right now!

The desperate desire for vegan banoffee pie

 

 

I was hit by the overwhelming desire for banofee pie last week. The thing is I can't ever remember eating banoffee pie in my pre-vegan days but who am I to quash a craving. 

Ingredients

Digestive biscuits/ Graham crackers (about 200-250g...im afraid i eyeballed it)
Vegan butter/margarine (about 75g melted...again, eyeballed this one)
1-2 ripe ( but not black) bananas
Dulce de leche ( see below)
Can of extra thick coconut milk ( chill and do not shake!)
Sea salt

This makes a small 6 inch pie

It can be made in stages if you want as the 'toffee' part of it will keep for a long time in the fridge. This is the only part which involves some time spent over it. Most other banoffee recipes involve boiling a can of condensed milk for hours on end so just think of this stage as being equivalent to that. I followed this dulce de leche recipe but used fresh soya milk (as opposed to the long life kind) and omitted the vanilla. I used the fresh soya milk because it has no trace of beanyness but I think almond milk would be great here. Don't use a low fat milk because what's the point? I also halved the recipe and it made enough for two 6 inch pies.

Once it's made and chilled the rest is easy assembling.

Blend the biscuits and butter/marg together until crumbly and press into the bottom and side of tin. Chill for 5 minutes.

Thinly slice the banana and put a layer on the base. Cover this with a layer of dulce de leche (try and keep the layer from overflowing), a light sprinkling of sea salt and add another layer of thinly sliced banana. The salt adds an extra dimension to the pie and stops it from becoming overwhelmingly sweet.

Take your thick chilled coconut and scoop out only the very thick layer (keep the runny liquid for cooking). Whip it up by whatever means you like ( I used an electric mixer) and then spread this over the top of the pie. Chill.

Eat

The thing is that sometimes it's difficult living somewhere rural when the overwhelming desire to make banoffee pie hits. The teeny tiny shop is not guaranteed to have what I need and certainly doesn't stock milk free digestive biscuits...so I made my own and really it took the same amount of time and effort as it would have done to go to the neighbouring bigger village shop.

I used this spelt digestive biscuit recipe except did not use spelt. I only had wholemeal chapati flour on hand so I used that and it worked just fine.( I also did not use oatmeal but rolled oats. Also, no to the milk, I used soya milk. Ditto with butter, just a nice non hydrogenated margarine)

 

Macaroon bars: bonus Sunday post

 It's fairly obvious but these are not the delicate French macarons but the teeth achingly sweet Scottish macaroon bar. As you will see I follow the simple and traditional recipe of using potato as a base.

Yes. Potato.

I mean really...how does someone come up with the idea of mixing potato and sugar together as a tasty treat?! Then again, this is the nation which created the deep fried mars bar.

Be warned, the recipe is vague, and for good reason. The quantity of most of the ingredients depend entirely on the size of potato used. Use a small potato. Really. I'm talking one the size of a new potato.

 

Scottish Macaroon bars

1 small tattie (potato),peeled

Icing sugar (sieved, very important)

Chocolate

Desiccated coconut  

Boil up your tattie until soft and then mash it until smooth. When still hot start mixing in the sieved icing sugar. Keep adding until it forms a very thick icing almost the consistency of a dough and it should hold its shape when sat on the counter top.

Take this mix and shape it into a long oblong (or two if you failed to heed the warning to use a small potato). Sit it on some greaseproof paper and allow it to dry out. It will need turned a couple of times to evenly dry the surface. Once dried slice them  and then allow the slices to dry out. 

Once hard melt chocolate and dip the slices in it and then in desiccated coconut (either toasted or as it is). Allow chocolate to harden. 

Eat. 

Marvel at how much your teeth ache.

 

sage and onion potato pie

Yes, I can make pies too! Not quite such exciting ones as Cat, but delicious all the same, the flavour of sage and onion combined is wonderful. The pastry here is made with Kamut flour, an ancient grain related to wheat but much lower in gluten and higher in selenium and other nutrients. It's wholemeal but totally smooth like white flour and makes great pastry.

Basic pastry making method is written up here in this pasty recipe.

The filling is made of:

a little olive oil

2 chopped onions

about 8 medium potatoes, skins left on but sliced thinly

a teaspoon of dried sage (fresh would probably be even better but use 2 or 3 teaspoons)

seasalt to taste

a tablespoon of gluten free flour (other flour will do)

half a cup or so of soya milk for a thick creamy sauce

Roll out your pastry and line the bottom and sides of an oven proof dish with over half of it. Fry the onion in the oil for a few minutes then add the sage and salt. Add the sliced potatoes and cook up for a another few minutes, stirring frequently as it will stick. Add the flour and mix well, then stirring in the soya milk until you have a thick sauce coating the potatoes. Plop in all into the dish, top with the remaining pastry, squidge the edges together and stab it a few times for what I think of as 'air holes'. Bake in a hot oven for at least half an hour. Prod it with a knife to test the softness of potatoes.

Yum. Had it with chips and salad.

Turning creativity cant's into can dos

(Just to tease you!)

I have a banoffee pie recipe to share, but not until Monday. No reason  other than I am a cruel woman. I also have a cinnamon roll recipe that I may or may not wait until the following Monday to share because not only am I cruel but evil.

You see Thursday's are for wittering and waffling and Monday's are for recipes and rambunctiousness. Something like that.

You will be pleased to hear I wont be boring you with my on going organisation, other than it is miraculously continuing, and I won't detail my new home cleaning regime, as that's far too domestic and housewifey. No today it's all about creativity.

I have always felt that I'm not a 'creative' type and that my lot in life is to be a very practical person. You know, that person who is always unflappable and calm in a crisis. Practical.  I've always felt that creativity is for other people...artists, graphic designers, sewers, knitters, crafters,sculptors, makers...not for me then. When I was at school, primary and secondary, I was the quintessential average student. There was nothing I excelled at, mostly I was average but some things I failed miserably at. I couldn't draw, I couldn't sew, I couldn't knit...I couldn't create. I couldn't even grasp the basic concepts of how to do these things, they seemed so abstract! I have such strong memories about being baffled about how to even start off sewing and sure enough anything I made would somehow unravel and fall apart and I'd still be left feeling bemused. Worse still to have what you have just sewn ripped apart, literally, by a sadistic sewing teacher. Art was even worse and it got to the point when I stopped doing my homework entirely so that I wouldn't get another D scribbled across it.

Its not until the last 5 or 6 years that I have really started to get over some of my school day hangups and realise that I can do all these things. It's helped that I have realised that 'creativity' has a broader scope and definition than I previously thought. I write regularly on this blog...isnt that creative? I have taught myself to crochet...isn't that creative? I can sew reversible baby trousers when I havent sewn in years...isnt that creative? I can garden, create new recipes and develop unusual herbal recipes. All these things are creative. I'm learning in my own way, at my own pace and am now no longer afraid of making mistakes because this is how I learn. 

Right, enough of the baring the soul. I want this year to be the year I really unleash my creativity. Yeah, sure, everything has already been done but not by me. I'm not going to get too hung up about originality. So here is how i plan to approach my creative year.

• I will not hoard sketch books/notebooks but use them instead I have a terrible habit of collecting notebooks and then either get quite annoyed when they get used by others or am so terrified of filling them with utter drivel that they remain blank and untainted.

 

• I will not worry about the contents of said notebook. No one else has to see it. 

 

• Anything I make must be either practical and therefore not clutter or so fabulously fabulous that it must stay in my house forever and become a much coveted item by all who come visit.

 

• I will not permit further UFOs in this house as there are enough of them already! UFOs (unfinished objects) will be completed before taking up new projects. So no more crocheting more interesting items until my granny square blanket is complete! (although it's gone from a full size blanket to a cot size and now a dolls bed sized blanket...I may manage to complete that).

 

• I will not take on unmanageable projects in terms of size (see above) or ability (therefore no launching in with a self drafted coat).

 

• I will not let doubt or flashbacks to school days cramp my creativity. I'm a big girl now and don't have unmotivating and uninspiring teachers breathing down my neck whispering words of negativity in my ears. I am a creative person and have the ability to master anything I desire (so up yours Miss Stewart (my evil sewing teacher) and the drunk art teacher who I can't remember the name of but know she drank cheap sherry in the art store cupboard.)

 

• I will not inflict unwanted handmade goods on everyone I know, including my child. I will not force badly made gifts onto my loved ones...but if I hate you then oh, yes, I shall gift you the worst items I can, insist you wear them and then ask about them all the time. If I particularly despise you I shall make sure your name is on it so you can't give it away either... Bwhahaahahahahaha.

I think that's everything. Anybody else got any ideas on how to be/stay creative? What do you feel your creative outlet is?

Tidy cupboard

I flew back to Sweden on January 4th, ready to take down the Christmas decorations (all 4 of them) the following day only to find out that Christmas goes on for another week here. The decorations only got into the box on Friday. The box is still waiting to be taken up to the attic. Maybe that will happen today. 

I guess that makes it almost time to spring clean. I should probably do a regular clean first though. Fur balls keep blowing around the flat and the kitchen floor is covered in splashes as I can't keep anything in the pot. I did finally tidy up the kitchen cupboards. Things just kept getting shoved into one oversized shelf space and ended up in one big pile that was annoying to sort through in the middle of cooking/baking. Now, however, I've moved the shelves so they are more equally spaced and everything is neatly arranged. Well as neat as it could be.

If you are wondering, vetemjöl is plain flour, strösocker is granulated sugar, the yellow box is filled with cornstarch and the white box is potato starch.

Now that I'm using more than one shelf, I had to stick post-it notes on the door to remind me where everything is.

The shelf above the flour has things like cereal, rice, polenta, quinoa, oats and pop corn kernels. Below the flour are a few cans of coconut milk and corn. There's also a box of wine, a bottle of rose water, soya milk powder, a bag of spaghetti, roasted onions, baking potatoes and a bag of bags of onions and garlic.

We'll see how long I can keep everything in order.

apple and blackcurrant pie with a coconut crust and a coconut crumble topping

Or just apple and blackcurrant pie if you want to be concise. 

Before we continue I'd like to firstly draw your attention to the left where you will find a link to a page about us should you be at all interested and also an email address if you are gripped by a sudden desire to contact us.

There was almost no post at all today because the baby is teething and...blah, blah, blah insert excuses and lots of talking about babies but fortunately I type most of my posts up on my itouch and email them to myself...strange but true...so here is the recipe I promised. It's very good.

I'm not the best at instructions so read it through first and if anything is unclear let me know. 

Your oven will need to be preheated to 200C ( but don't turn it on until after your pastry has chilled)

Pastry
100g plain flour

100g self-raising flour

75g margarine

25g caster sugar

75g grated creamed coconut

Enough coconut milk to bring it together

Mix the flour, sugar and creamed coconut together then rub in the margarine until it forms breadcrumbs. Mix in enough coconut milk to bring together to form a dough. ( you can use water or some sort of milk if you don't want to open a can of coconut milk). Chill for 30 minutes then roll out to line a  loose form deep flan tin. I always roll this pastry out between two sheets of cling film and then peel off one layer of film and flip the pastry into the tin before removing the other sheet of film. You can roll it without cling film but it will stick to everything and break apart. Alternatively you could probably just press it into the tin and forgo the rolling out entirely.

Crumble topping
110g plain flour

75g Sugar

100g Grated creamed coconut 

75g Marg

Mix flour, sugar and creamed coconut together then roughly rub in the marg. You don't need it to be too finely rubbed in. Big chunks are fine. Set aside.

Filling
4-5 tbsp ground almonds ( you can use desiccated coconut but the ground almonds have a better texture.

3 eating apples, peeled and thinly sliced ( and tossed with a little lemon juice.

500g blackcurrants (if frozen defrost first)

40g Corn flour

75g caster sugar

Scatter the ground almonds across the base of the pastry. Place the sliced apples on top. Mix the sugar and cornflour with the blackcurrants and put them on top of the apples. Scatter the crumble across the top of the blackcurrants.

Bake for 20 minutes at 200C then turn down to 160C and bake for a further 20 minutes.

Eat

Pressure cooking beans makes the house smell of flatulence, and almost becoming a lady

(7am is not the time to be making beans look attractive)

That's the only problem with beans. They permeate and linger and leave the whole house smelling of flatulence. I still do it though and in bulk too! We eat a lot of beans (maybe it's not the beans making the house smell) so the cheapness factor wins through over the smell. After all, I can always just open a window or blame the dog.

It does involve a bit of forward planning. Not much though! I mean, come on, I manage it! Soak the beans overnight (the only bit of planning required) , rinse, put in pressure cooker with fresh water and bring up to pressure (about 15 minutes), cook for 15 to 20 minutes (depending on bean type) and then turn off heat and leave.

It might sound a bit of a hassle but really it's not. Mostly the beans are doing their own thing and I put them on just before having breakfast so I'm in the kitchen anyway and don't have to hang about. Even including the cost of the fuel it's much cheaper than tinned. I then drain, cool and freeze them in handy portions.

I started cooking beans this way when I was 17. Back in the day the only beans I could get tinned were kidney beans so for variety I started buying dried beans and quickly realised the only way to do them was in bulk and in a pressure cooker. There is definitely a greater variety of tinned beans now but they're still costly.

I refused too eat beans and lentils as a child. It was probably a texture thing as I also used to refuse to eat anything which I decided had any texture at all. If memory serves me correctly I really only ate tomato soup and macaroni cheese. Oh, and cake, jelly, ice-cream, biscuits...funny that...somehow all sugar laden foods were deemed to have a good texture...Now I eat some form of beans or lentils every day. Sometimes twice a day. I should add that all rumours of beans causing gas are only vaguely true...I wont go into details. I guess many people think that all beans are the same which is a shame because they are missing out on the variety of flavours and textures as well as their versatility. I'll not bore you with their nutritional prowess but suffice to say they are good for you.

Some other things:
Still organising. It now requires me to get things out rather than just filling bags for charity and stacking up piles for selling. I've found that half the battle is getting started. Before I began the huge organisation I started small because if I achieve something I'm more likely to continue. I started with my bag which began like this:

(genuine contents of my bag. No purse, no phone. Mainly sweetie wrappers...but a nice pen!)


And is now like this:

(All brightly coloured so I can find it in my bag)

Look! I'm almost a lady! (In my head ladies are organised, wear co-ordinated outfits, look elegant, have refined manners, don't swear and carry handbags... I have a handbag so I'm almost there)

And finally a question for any sewers out there. I'm in the process of deciding on a sewing machine  and what I want to know is... What is the benefit of all the fancy extra stitches on the more expensive models (other than being fancy)? If it helps I'm planning on using the machine for a whole variety of craft, quilt and clothing projects. Thanks.

sweet buttons

I sewed a button on something! It's amazing; a post-Christmas miracle if you will...

There it is :) It's attached to a piece of knitting that I did a couple of years ago, initially intended to be a scarf but the yarn ran out before it was long enough. So now it is a marvelous hip warmer/knitted warm up thing (trust me I look fabulous in it!), it goes so well with my legwarmers...

stars not my work...

In other sweet news, I am on a sugar and wheat avoiding thing, eating these flapjacks and feeling mellow. While I can't compete with Cat's pie, I have been baking sugary things for other people and they're quite pretty: