Lily’s Blog

Hearts made by a certain mouse a number of years ago

Quoting the lines from the song …

What the world needs now,
Is love, sweet love,
It’s the only thing that there’s just too little of.
What the world needs now,
Is love, sweet love,
No, not just for some but for everyone.

And I’d add the line …

‘No, not just today but for every day’

Dionne Warwick sang this song beautifully on the Late Late on Friday night. At 70, this lady can still sing. Here is an old recording …

Happy Valentine’s for today and for everyday

Niamh left a comment on my recent chocolate cake post, mentioning that her daughter had tried a chocolate cake recipe from the ‘Green & Black’s Chocolate recipes’ cookbook, which was perfect for celiacs. I dug out my copy of the book and tried the recipe. It was an interesting recipe – a flour-less, fat-less chocolate cake. The recipe is actually here on Nigella’s website.

Clementines were simmered for 2 hours, cooled, cut, pips removed and liquidized.The recipe called for eggs to be beaten and then sugar, almonds and baking powder to be added. The pulped clementines were then mixed in and the mixture put into a springform cake tin. How simple does it get! I took a shortcut by first beating the eggs and sugar. I then added in the very roughly chopped clementines and used a hand blender to blend them in. (Saves on the washing up!) I then mixed in the other ingredients and it worked perfectly. The cake was baked for an hour. The Green & Black version of this recipe called for a bar of Maya Gold Chocolate to be grated over the hot cake in the tin. Nigella’s recipe doesn’t include this.

If ‘life’s too short for stuffing mushroom’s’, then I’ve now decided that it also is too short for grating a bar of chocolate! This was a slow job and I don’t have sufficient patience. It was also interesting that when the chocolate was grated onto a plate, something like static built up because the grated chocolate behaved like sand-flies when I tried to spread it over the cake.

Next time I will melt the bar of chocolate to spread it.

The recipe at one point states; Remove the cake from the tin and store in an airtight container and at another point; Don’t be tempted to serve this cake warm. It must only be eaten once it has cooled as the texture becomes moist and the flavours of the almonds and oranges have taken hold. It is best served the day after it is made.

We ignored these ‘hands off on the day it’s made’ instructions and proceeded to try the cake a few hours after it came out of the oven. Well Denis had arrived home late from Hungary so we had to sample it with him. Tommy’s opinion of the cake was ‘meh’. Denis’s opinion was ‘it’s okay’. (Lacking true enthusiasm). I liked it. Next day when we had ‘official permission’, Tommy tried it but still considered it ‘meh ‘. Denis upped his opinion and put it in the ‘definitely repeat category’. I agreed with Denis

I would repeat it because as well as being lovely, it was also relatively healthy and so easy to make.

I just have to get the timing right for when we attack the next one!

This book is the first of the Millenium trilogy written by Stieg Larsson. The trilogy was part of D’s Christmas present from moi. He has read the three books and enjoyed them.

Sadly, Stieg Larsson died in 2004, aged 50 before the trilogy was published. I read the wikipedia article on him after I had read this book. It gave interesting background information.

I liked the book but almost expected to like it more from all I had heard about it from a number of people who have read it.

There are three main characters; Michael Blomkvist, a journalist, Lisbeth Salander, an angry, young computer hacker, after whom the book is named and Henrik Vanger, a wealthy, Swedish Industrialist.

Forty years earlier, Harriet Vanger, a niece of Henrik’s, disappeared from the family’s island. Nobody could tell what happened to her and no corpse was ever found. Henrik Vanger, now elderly, has been tormented all his life by her loss and is convinced that a family member murdered her.

The journalist Blomkvist has recently lost a libel case concerning his reportage of a financial scandal, and is now ‘lying low’. Vanger commissions him to research this unsolved mystery. Early on, Blomkvitst sees a link with a number of other murders committed around the same time. Blomkvist seeks the assistance of Salander, this genius hacker. Blomkvitst and Salander, though an unlikely pairing, work well together to eventually solve the mystery. The book is somewhat a love story.

I read with interest an article in last Saturday’s Irish Times that the Larsson’s authorship of these books is questioned.

Quoting from the article:

Lately, however, most talk of Larsson’s work in Sweden has centred on public criticism of his reporting methods and his talent as a writer, as well as allegations that his life partner of 32 years could actually have written much of the trilogy … Hellberg, now a journalist for Sweden’s top-selling morning paper, wrote that while Larsson was a masterful researcher … he was an awkward writer who had probably called on his partner, Eva Gabrielsson, to do much of the writing for the trilogy.

This is interesting because Wikipedia’s article on Larsson states:

In May 2008 it was announced that Larsson’s 1977 will, found soon after his death, declared his wish to leave his assets to the Umeå branch of the Communist Workers League (now the Socialist Party). As the will was unwitnessed, it was not valid under Swedish law, with the result that all of Larsson’s estate, including future royalties from book sales, went to his father and brother. His long term partner Eva Gabrielsson, who found the will, has no legal right to the inheritance, sparking controversy between her and his father and brother. The two never married because, under Swedish law, couples entering into marriage are to make their addresses (at the time) publicly available; marrying would have been a security risk. Owing to his reporting on extremist groups and the death threats he had received, the couple had sought and been granted masking of their addresses, personal data and identity numbers from public records, to make it harder for e.g. stalkers to trace them; this kind of “identity cover” was integral to his work as a journalist and would have been difficult to bypass if the two had married or become registered partners.

It further states Gabrielsson claims the author had little contact with his father and brother and requests the rights to control his work so it may be presented in the way he would have wanted.

Ouch!

This recipe came from Roly’s Café and Bakery cookbook. The recipe called for pork loin. I used pork fillet since that was what I had and it worked perfectly. I slit the fillet and pounded it reasonably flat with a rolling pin. I then stuffed it with Clonakilty black pudding and tied it up with string. The recipe then shocked me. ‘Pour over the vegetable oil’, i.e., 200ml. I used a fraction of that amount and actually used olive oil. I started the meat in a hot oven and then transferred it to a slow oven until fully cooked. I then prepared the vegetables. The ‘burnt looking’ carrots are actually purple carrots. Yet again the recipe shocked me. ‘Pour over the olive oil’. This time the recipe called for 300ml of olive oil. Again I used far less.

The apple sauce was simply cooking apple, water and sugar. I didn’t bother puréeing as the recipe suggested

I’m now guessing that Roly’s have shares in some oil refinery and weight-watchers!

But the recipe will still go into the ‘definitely repeat’ category. It was gorgeous.

500ml of oil to roast the meat and vegetables for a dinner for 4? What do you think?

On Sunday Kati from Hungary wrote,

‘Traditional Hungarian winter weather has returned from Ireland to its homeland again …’

She sent the following photographs.

Having checked the temperature in Budapest, Denis packed appropriately. We Irish are very well up on snowy weather now.

Denis emailed this photograph from Budapest last night.

Amn’t I glad spring has arrived in Ireland.

I’m definitely spring keeping!

First day of Spring
The first day of February
St Bridget’s day

St Bridget’s day on the first of February was an important day in our growing up. St Bridget was the patron saint of Kildare and I was from that county. I remember trying to make St Bridget’s crosses from rushes at school. The crosses were then hung at home and their purpose was to get the help of St Briget in warding off sickness.

The tradition of making St Bridget’s crosses was the inspiration for a great sculpture on the M7 near Kildare.

It brings to mind the words of the Irish poet Ó Raifteirí which we learned at school

Anois teacht an Earraigh
beidh an lá dúl chun shíneadh,
Is tar eis na féil Bríde
ardóigh mé mo sheol.
Go Coillte Mach rachad
ní stopfaidh me choíche
Go seasfaidh mé síos
i lár Chondae Mhaigh Eo.

Translated as

Now with the springtime
The days will grow longer
And after St. Bride’s day’
My sail I’ll let go
I put my mind to it,
And I never will linger
Till I find myself back
In the County Mayo

Maybe Patrick had thoughts like Ó Raifteirí who lived from 1784 to 1835. He put his mind to it and didn’t linger to fly a small plane from Vancouver to San Francisco this weekend. Like me, Antaine Ó Raifteirí’s mother was probably also worrying about her son’s journey back then too.

Though she didn’t have twitter then to keep up with his progress back then. Twitter told me that Patrick touched down in Palo Alto 7 hours ago.

So on this St Bridget’s day, wishing everyone good health and safe journeys for the year ahead.

This recipe came from Roly’s Cafe and Bakery and was just gorgeous. Straight into the exceptional category.

I cut a whole chicken into pieces and put the chicken pieces in a large bowl with garlic, rosemary, thyme and chopped carrot. I covered this with half a bottle of red wine and left it for a few hours in the fridge. (recipe says overnight actually).

Olive oil (recipe called for 200ml, I used a tablespoon!) was added to a heavy saucepan to cook a chopped onion, then smoked bacon and mushrooms.

The chicken was removed from the marinade, dried, seasoned with salt and pepper, browned on a hot pan, then added to the pot with the onion, bacon and and mushrooms.

The marinade was supposed to be strained but I didn’t bother and added it exactly as it was, (with the carrots, garlic and herbs), to the pot with the chicken. I later extracted the rosemary and thyme stalks. If I followed the recipe literally, the carrots would never have been added.

I cooked the chicken in the oven, recipe says 200C for 1 hour. I slow cooked it for a lot longer.

Meanwhile I steamed peeled potatoes, then mashed them well, added butter and milk (instead of cream), salt and pepper and scallions.

The result was simply scrumptious

Well when I did get back to proper cooking, I had to make something chocolaty (that is a word!) for youngest mouse who had been off chocolate for the whole of 2009. This recipe came from Jim’s Kitchen. I’ve made a number of different chocolate cake recipes over the years. This recipe struck me as more healthy, (if chocolate cake can be) and very quick and easy. The dry ingredients, dark cocoa, plain flour, castor sugar, bread soda and baking powder were mixed together. The wet ingredients, eggs, sunflower oil and milk were mixed and then honey was mixed in. The wet ingredients were mixed with the dry ingredients, the mixture was put into a lined cake tin and baked for 50 minutes.

The icing was made by heating chocolate and cream. The cake was cut into three layers and each was covered with icing.

For the icing, I used dark chocolate. If, when repeating it for youngest mouse, I will use milk chocolate. Whilst I did weigh all the ingredients, I would probably add a little more honey next time.

This recipe goes into the ‘Definitely repeat category’.

Nyom, nom

I thought of this poem by Russian poet, Inna Kabysh as I was making marmalade at the weekend.

Making Jam in July

A woman who’s making jam in July
is preparing to be around for a while.
She intends to soldier on, to hibernate
through the discomforts of winter.
Otherwise, for what reason, and notice,
not out of any feeling of duty,
should she be spending the short summer
skimming residue off jam?

A woman who’s making jam in July
in all the chaos of a steamy kitchen,
isn’t going to be absconding to the West
or buying a ticket to the States.
That woman will be scrambling out of snowdrifts,
buoyed up by the savour of the fruit.
Whoever’s making jam in Russia
knows there isn’t any way out.

I like this poem.

Making marmalade isn’t part of my new cooking experiment as I used a recipe from Darina Allen’s Ballymaloe cookery course. It was only afterwards that I spotted that one of the books I’m using for my experiment, Jim’s Kitchen, has three marmalade recipes. Oh well!

I washed 2kg of marmalade oranges and put them into two pots with 5.4 litres of water in total. A lot of water and thus two pots because I don’t have one big enough for the full quantity. The pots were brought to the boil, transferred to the slow oven for about two hours and then left to cool.

Youngest mouse had borrowed my camera so I only took photos of the later stages, when he got back.

The oranges, soft at this stage were removed from the liquid, halved and the centres scooped out onto muslin cloth. I tied the muslin cloth into a bag and added it into the liquid. The orange skins were finely chopped and also added in. All escaping juice was collected and added back into the saucepan. The liquid was then boiled and reduced to just over a third of its original volume.

4.4kg of sugar was warmed in the slow oven and then added into the liquid now in one saucepan. I dissolved the sugar fully but then used a second saucepan to rapidly boil smaller quantities of the marmalade until setting point was reached. It was great fun trying to judge how far I could go without it all boiling over. I like living dangerously!

Judging when setting point is reached is really a bit of guess work, for me anyhow. Because I only make marmalade once a year, I never remember how long it actually takes. I try testing some of the liquid on a plate cooled in the freezer. If it passes the ‘wrinkle test’, it means it will set!

Usually I’m on a wing and a prayer, hoping I’ve boiled it enough to set it, but not too much to spoil it.

The end result was well worth all the winging and praying!

For the smell in the kitchen alone, it was well worth it!

Later on, Denis and I sat down and ate fresh brown bread and still hot, fresh marmalade.

A woman who’s making jam in July
is resigned to living with her husband.

I’m not sure if this counts though for marmalade in January!

I’ve been neglectful of the cookery experiment for a number of weeks. Various things, Christmas, busy at work, Young Scientist, etc all kept me from experimenting. Well normality now seems to be returning.

Though I’m always glad to get a break from cooking, I actually miss it a lot when I am away from it for any length. The break however helped me re-think my experiment. I’m going to change direction. Instead of doing all of the Avoca Cafe Cookbook, I’m going to emulate Kitchen Diaries Challenge and do about ten recipes from each of a number of books. It should be more interesting for both you, the reader and for me. I’m choosing books that have interesting everyday recipes. I’ll continue like before and serve them to whatever guinea pigs happen to be around and we’ll rate them using our new simpler rating system with just three categories:

The books I’ve identified for the moment are as follows:

Jim’s Kitchen by Jim Tynan

Eat Good Things Every Day by Carmel Somers

Roly’s Cafe and Bakery

Cornucopia at Home

Avoca Cafe Cookbook

I’ll finish ten from it, I’ve eight already done. I’ve posted a picture of this book before!

Please feel free to suggest others.

Let the experiment begin, I mean continue!