best blog of the day award

thankyou whoever nominated me best blog of the day. best blog of the day and in the local paper in the same week, watch this space.

bread making

For me bread making is one of the most satisfying of downshifting practices, cheap and easy and so rewarding. Apart from the baking the preperation takes no longer than a trip to the local shop, where the choice of loaves is a sorry sight. There is nothing like pulling out a hot loaf from the oven, as you can tell I love to make bread.

Here is a recipe for a standard wholemeal loaf.

1kg wholemeal flour
28g salt
packet of dried yeast
2 tea spoons brown sugar
750ml warm water

Place the warm water into a mixing bowl and add the yeast and leave untill you see it start to develop tiny bubbles, this takes about 5 - 10 mins depending on the temperature of the room.

While you are waiting in a measuring bowl measure out all the other ingredients.

Then it’s the fun part when the yeast is ready add the flour etc to the mixing bowl and get your hands in mixing it up, when it starts to bind together tip it out onto a floured serface and knead it, which means fold it and squash it for about 5 mins.

Place back in the bowl cover with a damp tea towel place in a warm place and wait untill it has doubled in size, this can take a while. When its double the size knead again then seperate into two equal pieces and place each one into a greased bread tray. Cover with the tea towel again and leave to rise.

When it’s double the size again place into a pre heated oven at 200 oC for about 30 mins, but you can keep checking after 15 mins. When it looks ready take one out turn it over and tap the bottom, if it sounds hollow it’s ready.

Leave to cool, then eat. Your first loaf will be gone in about half an hour!

Now this will get you started, however I don’t stick to this. I never measure anything any more. If it’s your first time try halfing the wholemeal flour with plain flour, as this will mean it is certain to rise fully, when you have done it a few times you will get a feel for it. You can use fresh yeast which I get free from Asda, in which case you need a piece about the size of a stock cube.

I often add pumpkin, sunflower and poppy seeds and a good glug of olive oil. but I could not tell you how much, just experiment.

voluntary hard-work

Voluntary simplicity, downshifting, low impact what ever you want to call it, sometimes feels like alot more hard-work than the name implies. Much of the way in which I choose to live requires me to break with the norm, to leave behind accepted behaviour. I often feel resentful at having to explain my reasons for not wanting to do something or why I choose to do without. Even psyically the attempt to be an ethical shopper requires me to travel further, rather than aquiring everything from one place. Sometimes I have to keep reminding myself that it’s worth it, there is no prize for being an ethical shopper or reducing your eco footprint.

However there is also part of me who enjoys the challenge, finding the lowest price the most local produce. Our lives in the western world are no longer a struggle, but why should food etc be so easily obtained. So often you here” I would buy organic but it’s too expensive” or ”they don’t sell it here”, my argument is, that it’s not an organic chicken thats expensive, it’s the factory reared chicken thats too cheep (sorry bad joke). I get such a good feeling walking with my son, visiting the differnt shops talking to people who actually know where there produce comes from. Perhaps people would have a greater respect for there food and their environment if they were forced to be more envolved in it.

How to use a ratchet press

The ratchet press I use is very simple but came with no instructions, so here are some, it’s not rocket science.

Start by filling the wooden barrel with your crushed apple press down firmly and fill to the top. Then add the two half moon wooden pieces, and press down. Remember to have the bucket under the press from this point as juice will start to flow immediately. Next build up a stagered tower with the timber blocks, you are only given four pieces but I cut a few more to give extra hight. The trick is to build the tower as high as you can as this saves unwinding the ratchet to add more pieces.

Then srew on the ratchet untill it meets the wooden blocks. Then comes the important part, as you need to slot in two shieves. The ratchet will not work without them. They are always placed in opposite directions.

If you want the ratchet to go down point the shieves in a clockwise direction and visa versa.Think of it like this, if you want it to go down, as you place the shieves in, think of a clockwise motion and have the pointed end of the shieve pointing in that direction. When you want to reverse it just swop them over easy.

When it gets to a point when you feel that you can’t possibly go any further, stop, and then wait a while. I normally give it half an hour to an hour, smoke a fag make a cup of tea. When you return you will find that you are able to crank it with ease again for a while. When it gets stiff again stop wait a few mins and then reverse the shieves, take off the ratchet and wooden blocks open the barrel an you are left with a squashed apple cake as my son calls it. My press is a 15 ltr I -guess this is the volume of the barrel- this gives me on average 5ltr’s of juice from each press. It also will be necessary to build a table or have something to fix it to when pressing as without you are unable to exert enough force.

Best of all it’s great fun, next year I will be able to enjoy some year old cider between presses.

Tomatillos

I have a love hate relationship with the tomatillo I love to eat them and add them to all manner of recipes, like chutney, soups, currys, salsa or just in salad but what I hate is having to peel them. Like in most of these situations I shout who want to help me cook normally to the sound of children running upstairs, but this time I fooled sorry involved my son into peeling the sticky buggers. For anybody who has never tried to grow them I would strongly recommend them they crop hard and you can have them well into november even after a light frost, they are also less work tham tomatos as they dont need pinching out.

It’s alive

After yesterdays slight explosion I cleaned out the air locks and thought that was it only to find this morning it all up the wall and worktop in the utillity room, again. It better be worth it !!!

Beef Wellington

My wife is so proud of this as it all went to plan.

1 kg Beef fillet
salt
pepper
olive oil
100g butter
1 onion
250g mushrooms
3 cloves garlic
handful of parsley
2 tbs brandy
2 tbs double cream
375g puff pastry
1 egg, beaten

Pre heat oven to 220c ,season beef. Heat oil in a pan and brown the meat all over.Remove the meat and set it aside on the plate. Reduce the heat and add butter to the pan gently fry onion till soft. Add the mushrooms and garlic and cook for a futher 15 mins. Stir through the parsley and then add brandy, simmer for 5 mins and then add the cream and stir it through.Remove the pan from the heat. Roll out the pastry into a large square, big enough to wrap the meat in. Spread the cooled mushroom mixture over the pastry leaving about 3cm around the edge. Brush the edges with a little beaten egg. Place the meat in the middle and then bring up both sides so that they meet in the middle and pinch together, and tuck the ends under. Brush over with a bit more of the egg allow to dry and repeat. Then roast for 20/30 mins, leave to stand before carving.

real meat mince pies

I’ve been meaning to try this for a couple of years now after seeing it on the river cottage programme. Everybody keeps telling me that the meat will rot or that I’ve got the recipe mixed up I bet thay change there mind when they eat them , hopefully………

Hugh’s Real Meat Mincemeat

This is a recipe from the good old days, when mincemeat was what it said it was a highly spiced condiment containing meat. This makes some people squeamish, but really there is nothing to fear. The meat is ‘invisible’. But its inclusion means that mince pies made from this mincemeat are less sweet and sickly than the usual fare, and have more body and substance. I guarantee you will love them.
The quality of the beef is important: it should be lean and free from tough sinews. I like to buy braising or chuck steak and trim and mince it myself. Make the mincemeat at least a week, ideally a month, before you use it. It also makes a great stuffing for a loin of pork.

Ingredients:
Makes 5-6 jam jars of mincemeat
500g finely minced lean beef
250g beef suet
250g currants
250g raisins
250g tart eating apples, peeled, cored and finely chopped
125g soft brown sugar
125g ground almonds
100g preserved ginger in syrup, finely chopped, plus 4 tablespoons syrup from the jar
100g mixed candied peel, finely chopped
grated zest and juice of 1 lemon
grated zest and juice of 1 orange
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
2 teaspoons ground mixed spice
250ml rum, brandy or Calvados

Put everything in a large bowl and mix thoroughly, ideally with your hands. Keep in sealed jars in a cool place for up to a month before using. Make into mince pies using your favourite sweet pastry recipe, or a bought pastry, and serve piping hot with either brandy butter or a rich egg custard laced with Calvados, rum or brandy.

Lemon and Ginger Wine

This a recipe for lemon and ginger wine that I got from modern day hippie on the selfsufficientish.com web site I got the brewing bucket and two demijohns from free cycle so could not wait to put them to good use.

Hi this is a bit of a self made recipe but have made three lots and seems to work fine
also unless you grow lemons or ginger most of its shop brought im afraid so a bit of a cheat but still a lot nicer and cheaper than any shop brought ones ive tried.
you will need a beer or wine fermenting bucket and two demijohs
this makes 12 bottles
ingredients
1LB stem root ginger (can be grown but never managed to grow that much)
12 lemons
2kgs sugar
yeast any will do i use two sachets of dried bread making yeast
this is the easy part chop up the ginger slice the lemons and throw into the bucket add about 6-8pints of hot water and soak overnight.
next day add enough water to make up to 10 litres and leave for a further two to three days this could be left longer but the ginger starts to go funny so i wouldnt recomend it.
now for the messy part remove the lemons and ginger and squezze at as much quice as possible strain the liquid and dissolve in the sugar.
place into the two demijohns and add a sachet of yeast to each.

after three weeks or when all bubbling has ceased i add two cambden tablets into each demijohn and bottle
you can also filter the wine at this stage as well if wanted.
now the fun part this wine has two flavors if left for a week its very lemony with a hint of ginger but after three months it loses the lemon flavor and becomes more of a ginger wine
Ps for true ginger fans try making some now and leaving a couple of bottles till christmas but dont blame me if its to strong
happy drinking