My Cat Poppy

Hello!

I'm going to try to update my blog via my iPhone so I'm sending this photo as a tester to see if it works.

Hope it arrives!!

Homemade Bagels

Thought I would write a blog about these bagels that I made a few weeks ago, I've been so busy over the last few weeks that I've not had time to do any blogging!

I got this recipe card from my father-in-law from a National Newspaper he reads. I knew I had just started baking bread so saved the card for me!

 

 

Like all homemade bread, there are very few ingredients in bagels, unlike shop bought ones, which can be full of preservatives and flavour enhancers. This is the recipe for the bagels.

 

500g strong white flour

2 tsp salt

4 tsp sugar

25g butter

1 tsp dried instant yeast

240 ml warm water

 

 

I used my beautiful Kitchen Aid mixer to mix the dough, I sometimes mix dough by hand but as I've only just bought my mixer I wanted to play with it!

 

I mixed the dough for 10 minutes, as I do with with my White Tin Loaves.

 

I then left the dough to rise for an hour in a bowl covered with clingfilm. The dough doubled in size during that time but its consistency was much denser than normal bread.

 

I then divided the dough into 9 equal (or in my case, not so equal!!) pieces. 

 

I then shaped the pieces of dough into bagel shapes by making the dough into little round balls and then pushing my finger through the centre of each dough ball. Not perfect as you can see but never mind!

 

The bagels then need to be cooked in boiling salted water. Have the water boiling hard before you put the bagels in so that they start to 'puff up' as soon as they enter the water. The bagels need to be cooked for 5 minutes on each side, so keep the water on a high temperature to keep the water on the boil all the time-the kitchen was filled with steam once I'd cooked all 3 batches of 3 bagels!!

 

The bagels look very anaemic when they come out of the boiling water-pale, doughy and not very appetising!!

 

The bagels are now ready for coating! First they must be dipped into an egg dip made from a well beaten egg. Then I coated my bagels with some seeds-I used Poppy seeds, Sesame seeds and Linseeds.

 

Once they have their seed coating they are ready to be baked in a very very hot oven. The recipe said at 240°C but my oven has a maximum temperature of 220°C so I put my bagels in at this temperature but had the shelf at the very top of the oven where the highest temperature would be. I baked my bagels for about 15-20 minutes.

 

And this is my completed bagels. All shapes. All sizes. And all homemade!

 

The texture inside is quite dense, as bagels should be, so they are very filling but absolutely delicious.

 

My favourites were the bagels coated in Linseeds, which I love. I toasted my bagel and ate it with a little spread of butter on-yummy!

My Spring Garden

 

Despite it being the middle of May we are still harvesting some of the Winter crops. Our leeks have been particularly good this year so we have made a lot of leek and potato soup and leek in cheese sauce with pasta-a really warming, comforting dish after being in the garden in this cold May weather!

 

 

We also have some parsnips still growing in the veg garden (one of my favourite vegetables which I just simply roast). We are going to grow more parsnip (Tender and True) this year in an effort to expand our winter veg garden.

 

 

Our rhubarb is growing really well this year, we've had several rhubarb crumbles already and I've made Rhubarb and Apple Jam with it too (see previous blog post). 

 

 

Our potatoes (Desiree) have been very slow to germinate this year but are starting to emerge from the ground now.

 

 

The garlic is just staring to germinate too. We haven't grown garlic for a few years (I've no idea why really as we use it a lot!) so this year we have put in a few bulbs to see how it grows-hopefully very well.

 

 

The white onions (Golden Ball) are starting to emerge.

 

 

As are the red onions (Red Baron).

 

 

And we even have some flowers on the strawberries this year. Last year they were very poor, so we are hoping for better success this year. Maybe we should put them under a cloche??

 

 

The Tayberries are starting to flower too, these berries are so sweet that they make excellent jam or can be eaten with meringues and cream-lovely!

 

 

Our compost this year has been so good, really crumbly fine stuff. It's amazing to think that this comes from all our kitchen waste, with a few grass clippings and newspaper thrown in too. Just wish we had more space for more than the 3 compost bins we have!

 

 

The spring grape hyacinth (Muscari armeniacum) seem to be spreading everywhere in our back garden, but they are beautiful so we don't mind! 

 

 

 My Bleeding Heart (Lamprocapnos spectabilis, formerly Dicentra spectabilis) plant was also looking really good before this cold, wet, windy May weather returned to batter it's delicate flowers!

 

 

My miniature Narcissus are surviving well though in their tub next to the sheltering wall in the back garden.

 

 

The giant Iris (Iris giganticaerulea) is looking really healthy in the front garden. This is a cutting we took 2 years ago from the original rhizomes, which we divided into 8 plants. Only one of the cuttings flowered last year but this year all 8 plants have flower heads on them, which we are really pleased about. The flowers are a lovely delicate blue, quite fragle, so lets hope the wind and rain stop before the flowers emerge!

 

 

 I'm not sure what this ground cover plant is! We bought it from a National Trust garden a few years ago and I've lost the label for it :(   It has grown really well in our garden though and has lovely little cornflower blue flowers in early spring. One of my cats, Tilly, uses it as an outdoor carpet to lie on when the sun is in the front garden! 

Rhubarb and Apple Jam

 



Ever since me and my husband started growing our own food, over 13 years ago, we've always grown rhubarb. I wanted to grow it as I remember my Dad growing it in our garden in Chester when I was a little girl. My cat Sooty used to sleep amongst the stalks on a warm summers day.

 

Our rhubarb patch this year has been really good, I knew with such a good crop that I had enough to make one of my husbands favourite jams-rhubarb and apple.

 



 



The recipe book I use for this jam is a Sue Ashworth book called Traditional Jams, Jellies and Preserves. I've used this book for several jam recipes including Plum Jam, Damson Jam and Blackberry and Apple Jam. All have been successful.





 

 

The recipe is so easy to follow, only 4 steps in the whole recipe. I didn't have any fresh ginger so used ground ginger. The addition of the ginger and cinnamon to the final jam just gives it a little bit of 'bite' but it's very subtle so if you aren't a lover of ginger I would still add it. 

 

 

I roped my 18 year old son into peeling the apples with me, mainly by challenging him to an apple peeling competition-the longest length of apple skin wins! I won :)

 

 

The rhubarb is first softened in the water for 10-15 minutes before the apple is added. This is then softened for a further 30 minutes.

 

 

Once the fruit is softened the sugar is added away from the heat and when this has all dissolved the jam is returned to the heat to be hard boiled.

 

The jam takes quite a lot of hard boiling before the setting point is reached, mainly because the rhubarb and apple are quite watery fruit. The jam also produces quite a lot of 'skum' which needs to be skimmed off as the jam boils.

 

Once the setting point is reached the ginger and cinnamon are stirred into the jam.

 

 

Once the ginger and cinnamon are added the jam is poured into sterilised jars and sealed straight away.

 

I always use recycled jars for my jam, although I have some Kilner Jars too. So most of the jars I use have been recycled several times and are perfectly good, as long as they are sterilised before they are reused.

 

 I used these pretty labels to label my jam, which my daughter bought for me for Mother's Day. I always date my jams too so that I can use the oldest stock first.

 

 

The Rhubarb and Apple Jam is lovely spread on homemade bread and is a lovely reminder of my Dads rhubarb patch from many years ago. Not to mention my cat Sooty!

 



Leeks

We grow leeks every year but this year has been a really good year for them, possibly because of the long cold winter we have had, which leeks seem to like. At one point during the winter the snow completely covered the leeks and we thought the leeks probably wouldn't survive but once the snow cleared the leeks were still there, looking a bit bedraggled but still growing!

We use the Thompson and Morgan leeks seeds called 'Musselburgh' (Allium porrum). We sow these in the potting shed during March or April in a peat free compost and then pot them on into larger pots. We usually keep them in the potting shed during the early summer months and then plant them out in a veggie bed that we use for our early potatoes once these potatoes are harvested.

Once the leeks are in the ground they pretty much take care of themselves, apart from trying to keep weeds down in between the plants we don't do much else to them, as it's usually late summer or early autumn by the time we plant them out there is little need to water them as the great British weather takes care of that!

One year we tried growing them in staggered batches but this added to the work load and once the leeks were in the ground they all seemed to grow at the same rate, with the later batches soon catching up with the earlier batches.

We harvest them as and when we need them as the best way to store them is in the ground.

We use them to make Leek and Potato Soup (see below for recipe) or Leek and Potato Bake. Or sometimes we just have them as a vegetable! They have a lovely subtle flavour, much 'gentler' than onions.

Leek and Potato Soup

Ingredients

 

1 tbsp vegetable oil

1 onion, sliced

8oz potatoes, cubed

2 medium leeks,sliced

2 pints vegetable stock

5fl oz double cream or crème fraîche

salt and freshly ground black pepper

Preparation method

Heat the oil in a large pan and add the onions, potatoes and leeks. Cook for 3-4 minutes until starting to soften.

 

Add the vegetable stock and bring to the boil. Season well and simmer until the vegetables are tender.

 

Whizz with a hand blender or in a blender until smooth. Reheat in a clean pan, stir in the cream or crème fraîche, heat through and serve.

Delicious Fruit Loaf

When I bought Paul Hollywood's book 'How to Bake' I thought this recipe for Fruit Loaf looked lovely. I have a sweet tooth too so sweet bread with fruit in it sounded like my kind of bread!

 

The recipe says that you should use a food mixer for this recipe with a dough hook, as the dough is 'rich and sticky' but I haven't got a dough hook so I just used my food processor with the ordinary 'blade' attached, and this seemed to work okay.



 

 

The flour, salt, instant yeast, butter, sugar, warmed milk and water are all placed into the mixer and mixed together. The recipe says to mix this for 7 minutes in total which seemed a long time but I ended up doing it for that length of time to help to get the correct elasticity in the dough. Once you reach this elasticity you add the fruit and cinnamon and mix again for 2 more minutes. I added sultanas, raisins and apricots but left out the mixed peel which I don't like! 

 

This is the dough once mixed; its really soft, almost runny. And as you can see from this photograph the yeast is very active! 

 

I only left my dough to rise for an hour before I checked it and it had already doubled in size (the recipe says 2-3 hours). The dough was still very soft and runny, so much so that I thought I'd done it wrong!! So don't be worried if yours is the same too!

 

I hadn't realised when I started the recipe that this recipe actually makes 2 loaves, as once the dough has risen you divide it into 2 portions. So if you like you could do half the recipe quantities and make just one loaf.

 

When I was knocking the dough back I was still a little worried that the dough was too soft and runny but I formed it into the two loaves and left it to prove, as the recipe stated, and hoped for the best!

 

The loaf once it has proven.

 

Once the loaves had baked for about 20 minutes I iced them straight away while the loaves were still warm. The icing is simply icing sugar, water and the zest of a lemon.

 

And I needn't have worried about the softness of the dough as the loaves turned out perfectly okay! Here are the completed loaves!

 

The loaf is really sweet and the fruit swells up really well in the baking so is soft too. I ate my bread with nothing on it as the bread is sweet enough without the need to spread butter, and with the sweet icing on top there is no need for any further flavour. Beware though, its very moorish so one slice is never enough!

 

Cooking Bread on an Aga

When we were booking a holiday in Scotland for an Easter break I noticed that the only oven at the cottage was an Aga. I've never cooked on an Aga before so thought it would be a great opportunity to have a go!

 

I don't really know much about Aga's but a friend on Twitter informs me that the Aga we had on holiday is a two oven Aga with a roasting oven and simmering oven.  

 

I found it really easy to cook on and the warmth it generates so homely. I used the roasting oven the most but the simmering oven was great to use to keep things warm in.

 



 

 

I decided to bake a simple white cob loaf on the Aga while I was on holiday and had taken the ingredients I needed with me for this purpose. I've baked this bread before so know I can do it okay and thought it would be a good loaf to try out.

I used the Paul Hollywood recipe for my loaf

500g Strong White Flour
10g Salt
10g Instant Yeast
30g Butter
320ml Water
Oil for Kneading

I combined all the ingredients together in a bowl (making sure not to let the yeast come into contact with the salt) and then kneaded the dough for 10 minutes until it formed a smooth dough. This is my favourite part of bread making!

Once it was kneaded I left it to rise in a bowl over the Aga for 2 hours.

 

Once it had risen I knocked it back and then formed it into a cob shape. Once it was in this shape I left it to prove next to the Aga which was a lovely warm spot. The loaf proved really well in this warm atomsphere.

 

Once the loaf had proved for an hour I cooked it in the roasting oven of the Aga. It cooked much quicker than in the gas oven I have at home, and the base of the loaf cooked really well, which I've had a problem with in my gas cooker.

 

The resulting loaf was well risen and very crispy on the outside.

 



 

This is the loaf structure on the inside. It has a dense structure with no large air bubbles inside and a uniform rise throughout the whole loaf.

 

Because we had the use of the Aga I decided to use the Aga's roasting oven to make some lovely crusty toast from my cob loaf-it makes the best toast I've ever tasted!

Having had a chance to use the Aga I'm now convinced I need one of my own!