Food Makes The Belly Go Round

It is often said that "Money makes the world go around" but for me it has to be food.

Here is a photo of my Birthday Breakfast from this October. Thick slices of Smoked Bacon with a Farmhouse Sausage and two Poached Eggs served with dry fried Mushrooms and the good old reliable Baked Beans. To go along with this was Toast made from my own home baked Wholemeal Bread and a mug of strong English Breakfast Tea

B had extras for his plate (not shown). He's from Scotland and loves to have Lorne Sausage, also known as Square Sausage alongside a grilled slice of Black Pudding to go with it.

I would like to point out that this size of meal would be for Brunch not Breakfast on a normal day. Most days I am happy with just a mug of tea to start the day. I know I can hear people muttering about Breakfast being the most important meal of the day but to be honest with you I have never been a fan of eating of a morning, before I have had a few hours to wake up.Recently I was surprised to find that a number of the photos on my mobile phone are of food.

Never having been a person who has carried a camera on a day to day basis, I have taken very few photos over the years. In the past a mobile phone was for phoning people when I was being mobile. That seemed to be the nature of the beast. A phone to use in the case of emergencies.

My current phone though was a step into a world of technology that I had previously never accessed or understood, so my use of it has developed gradually and been very organic. Now if I lost the phone I would be devastated as to Quote B "It is never out of your hand". I don't play games on it nor do I use it for Facebook as that is a site that to this day puzzles me. I have a page there, but don't ask me to find things on it. I have liked things and joined groups in the past, but have no way of clicking on items, posts or events to see them for a second time or to check appointments and invitations. After a few weeks ignoring it, I think I should log in, but when I do everything has changed yet again. So this is why I never use my phone for Facebook. I also hate all the adverts that appear on my FB page. Why I would want to find a mail-order Russian Bride beats me. Neither do I have a desire to go on a Gay Cruse Ship for a Holiday. I suppose it looks at the people that I am linked with and bases the adverts on those connections. I could be wrong. So to sum it up Facebook thinks I need a Russian Wife and a Gay Holiday. That sounds all a little Bipolar to me. Can a web site be Bipolar?

Twitter on the other hand is super. I enjoy using 140 characters and spaces to sum up what I am thinking and let people know what is engaging my brain at that moment in time.

Currently it all seems to be a little political which also surprises me as it started off as a way to keep in contact with my knitting friends. On twitter you can find me as @jaxomd

Now back to food. Recently I started watching the recorded episodes of The Great British Bake Off. They are quite old now but I am enjoying them a lot. The show has left me inspired to try baking more often.  I have always been a fairly good cook and I enjoy putting food together based of flavours and instinctive gut reactions to textures, as well as the cravings my brain gets from my tummy on a day to day basis. One day it hankers after cheese and the next it's after roast pork or a crunchy salad. So the Great British Bake Off ticks all the boxes for me.

The three tasks set for the contestants is a great way of putting the program together and seeing what surprises come up. The first task set is the one that lets the contestants bake their Signature dish for the judges. Each week it covers a specific element of home baking. The second task is the technical challenge, where all the contestants are given the same ingredients and recipe and asked to bake the same thing. A number of instructions have been left off the recipe intentionally.

This challenge shows the judges the technical skills each baker has to their fingertips as well as the knowledge they have to fill in the blanks on the sheet they are given. Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood are then able to judge the finished food in a blind comparison with out having observed the cooks in action. As they say the proof is in the pudding.

The last test is for each contestant is to produce multiple items in various forms of  similar baked goods. For example it could be twelve mini cakes comprising of six in one flavour and topping and six in a completely different composition. The choice is up to the contestants.

Welsh Cakes cooking on a heavy bottomed frying-pan

I have no desire to take part in future shows. I would be too shy to compete. Having said that though, if in an imaginary world I was on the show, then I would make Welsh Cakes. These flat cakes which are normally cooked on a bake-stone are one of the tastes I remember from my Childhood growing up in Wales.

I bake bread every week but for years now it has come out of my bread maker. Being able to make bread with only a few minutes of weighing up time has meant not having to buy bread from a supermarket for over nine years.

In the past, hand baked bread was always a treat as it took so long and made rather a mess. I loved the process but it did take hours from start to finish.

Having watched The GBBO though I think I should get back into hand baking again. the taste and texture is so much nicer than bread out of the machine. Should my Bread machine ever brake down though, I would have the replace it at once. The thought of having to rely on shop bought bread again sends shudders down my spine.

So as soon as I am up and out of bed and back in action  I'm going to hit the baking again. I aim to bake one bread each week sans machine and at least one other baked item. The pies and pastries in my new books look wonderful so there is going to be loads of options. This will please B no end.

Recently I have started going to the Tuesday Market at Abergavenny, where there are very good traveling butchers selling reasonable priced meat. I hope in future entries of this blog to cover the market. Till then, here are some photos of the meat I bought last time I went.

Free Range Chicken Breasts cost £20

Topside of Beef on the left
Rump Streak on the right. All for £30

Resurrection And Taking A Tumble

This is a good time to Resurrect my blog for many reasons. But the main one is that: 
Today I have rather a lot of time on my hands as I'm once more in bed. This time I have managed to avoid the Shingles, Calcific Tendinitis and Food Poisoning (Not my cooking!) and am happy to announce that it was a tumble down the staircase at home from top to bottom.
The reason I am happy is that I didn't brake any bones so feel as though I should find the silver lining in this particular cloud. 
My staring role as Humpty Dumpty was on Saturday when setting out to go to Boots the Chemist for some supplies.  Never before as an adult, have I cried after experiencing an accident; this time however I was sobbing, even if it was dry sobs. Yet again my lack of vocabulary when it comes to curse words let me down. I am reliably informed that a good hearty string of blood curdling, toe curling curse words punctuated by the odd profanity does wonders for relieving pain instantaneously. 
My time with Calcific Tendinitis was equally marred by the lack of a good solid four letter knowledge. Table, foot and Spud don't have the same ring nor the inherent pain relief. Anyway here I am five days later sitting on my bed watching BBC iPlayer and catching up with all sorts of programs I missed due to lack of time before. I also have a right ankle that is twice the size of my left one. 
Trying to rest downstairs on the sofa doesn't work as B tends to be mooching round in the Kitchen, Dinning Room or Garden and shouts out "How does this work?" or "Can you check this for me?" So I end up hobbling to investigate or clarify something resulting in ooddles of pain. Reflex catching of onions falling out of cupboards or tubs of Spread cascading out of the fridge is excruciatingly painful and reminds you why a Doctor often recommends "Bed" rest as opposed to just "Rest" when people are injured. 
So upstairs and hiding from the unforeseen occurrences that are just waiting to befall me, I am watching a lot of food related programs. One of these is the cookery series which sees Nigel Slater turn his weekly shop into a number of delicious dishes. In the first one he shows ways to cook with an abundance of ingredients. This got me thinking about my Christmas present downstairs waiting to be wrapped and put under the tree. It's Nigel's new book Kitchen Diaries II.









B has been watching the programs live on TV but I have missed them, so was a little surprised when he started asking for a dish I have never cooked for him before. The more B talked about the dish the more he included other dishes being showcased in the program. His memory for the technical aspects of the various dishes and their creation hit me as unusual. I do all the cooking in the house so cooking tecniques have never been top of the agenda when it comes to our chats on car journies. The chat then turned into "You would like the new book for Christmas" a statement of fact, rather than a question of "Would you like?"B is not a cook and is more likely to watch Real Madrid or Man United play football than a cookery program, so I let him buy me the book and will try to produce what he wants from it. A lollypop stick has more chance against a tsunami than me when it comes to this particular recipe. It WILL  be cooked and I WILL have the book whether I like it or not. 
There are worse things to give into than a cookery book, so I am very happy to oblige. As the book is for Christmas and the recipie yet unmade. B's hankering after the meal in question has not gone away. This has resulted in an odd thing. B has taken to buying me Recipie Books all week. I now not only have a copy of Kitchen Diaries II but also a copy of How To Bake by Paul Hollywood and a copy of Step-by-Step Baking by Caroline Bretherton produced by Dorling Kindersley. 


The Paul Hollywood book is by one of the Judges on The Great British Bake Off and looks very interesting. 








The DK book has just the best range of photographs a cook could want when it comes to learning a new recipe or technique. so I am going to have a super time dipping into the books and cooking for us both when the swelling of my ankle has gone down.

Am I lucky or what? The Recipe that has been causing all the culinary stir in my home is a Date and Bacon Buttie







I think I can knock one of those up for B when I am back on my feet.