The Homemade Heart

Spring comes late

Spring in Scotland comes late, and is perhaps the lovliest of seasons, with colour slowly infusing garden and field, lane and woods. After a long, driech winter, the bright Spring sunshine makes the eyes water.
We are fortunate to have a profusion of daffodils in our garden, which come after the dear little snowdrops fade; their rich egg-yolk yellow trumpets are a cheering sight to winter-jaded eyes. There are also paler narcissi, with their dainty white petals and orange centres. The small magnolia tree has bloomed beautifully again; its papery petals now slowly blow across the grass as its season passes for another year.
The daffys seem to have gone over very quickly this Spring, and the blood red tulips are starting to flower. I can see the aliums slowly beginning to open in their turn also.

 

We had a quiet Easter this year, just the four of us, and made a small celebration with a nice brunch. No egg rolling or treasure hunts in the garden now, as we used to when the boys were small, but each age has its joys, and sitting chatting round the breakfast table with the boys is such a delight.
It being Easter, a little chocolate was necessary, so my very quick and easy chocolate cake recipe was pressed into service, with some seasonal decorations in the shape of candy eggs and a chocolate bunny; it looked very jolly, and tasted good too, perfect for our simple Easter celebration.

My kitchen table.

I love a kitchen table; just the words 'kitchen table' make me feel cosy and safe. As a child, sitting at the kitchen table drawing, doing homework or best of all, reading, whilst dinner is being prepared, has to be one of the most comforting feelings in the world. If, like me, you were a bookworm as a child, you will well remember that delightful sensation of cooking smells, familiar voices, and the ebb and flow of family life swirling around you, as you focussed on the page in front of you, simulataneously enjoying the security of your familiar environment whilst living is the world of your chosen book, with its perils, excitement or sadness (I can't be the only person who cried at the tragic death of Beth in Little Women one second, then tucked into a hearty dinner at the kitchen table before the tears were dry).
When we moved into our current house, I loved the fact that the kitchen was big enough to house a good sized table and our boys have grown up eating, playing, celebrating, and squabbling at our now very shabby kitchen table.
Our kitchen table is in fact two tables pushed together; when we reconfigured our dining room into the Boys Room, the dining table (one of those that unfolds from a square into a rectangle) was abutted on to our kitchen table, temporarily, until we decided what to do with it. Three years later it is still there, and we are all used to it now. Such is family life.

Yesterday Derek and the boys were all out, and being alone in the house for most of the day I thought it would be fun to follow a Day in the Life of my kitchen table.

8a.m. Wave off D and boys, tidy away breakfast plates and mug. Dump huge bag of  underwear and 'non-ironables' on the kitchen table and sort out.  Deliver to underwear drawers of respective family members.
 
9a.m. Time for a quick cup of tea before taking Meg out for her walk. Since everyone else is out having a nice time, I decide on the unusual measure of sitting down at the kitchen table (rather than drinking my tea on the hop as I usually do). Look through a couple of quilting books and sigh over photographs of unatainably beautiful quilts.

11a.m Home from walking Meg; perfect day for it: sunny, windy and chilly. Feel hungry for breakfast when I get back. Enjoy setting my place at the kitchen table but really need to hurry up. Still to go to the shops for this evening's dinner to feed the hungry hordes on their return, and I really want some uninterrupted quilting time this afternoon.

1.30pm Back from shops, dump bags on kitchen table. Time to put this little lot away, then onto more creative endeavours.

2 p.m. Trim up my current quilt project ready for binding. Much as I love my kitchen table, at times like this I wish I had a cutting table, though even if I did there's nowhere to put it. Straighten up from kitchen table, ease out crick in lumbar spine. Take quilt through to sewing machine, stitch down binding to front, leave hand stitching for later.

3.30p.m. Cut some more 4 1/2" squares for my next quilt at the kitchen table. Very excited about this project (from this book)as it is the first time I will have followed instructions and not just made the quilt up as I go along. When all squares are cut, neatly assemble them in to piles on my small cutting mat ready to carry through to my room to lay out and arrange on the big bed.

4.30 p.m. Need to start dinner prep and I have decided on a 'proper' Sunday dinner for my returning heroes, who have spent the day in adventurous pursuits in lovely St Andrew's. Roast chicken, roast beef, roast potatoes, gravy, and lots of veg, followed by plum and apple crumble and custard. Work out timings, get ovens on and start cooking. Once everything is in the oven, and the apples and plums are stewing with a tiny amount of water, and a generous sprinkle of sugar, I make the cumble topping (200g plain flour, 100g butter, 100g sugar, tiny pinch salt rubbed together, so easy, so delicious)

8p.m. Dinner is over; everyone enjoyed it. The boys are getting on well just now, so lots of laughter and chat at the kitchen table this evening (as in every family, meal times are not always harmonious, but we take the rough with the smooth, and persevere in making family mealtimes a priority). This evening we chat in some detail about our plans for next year's holiday, which we are all very excited about.
Just the dishes to clear away. Another day in the life of our kitchen table is almost over, then tomorrow it will start all over again.

Cookery Calendar Challenge- April

Welcome to the Cookery Calendar Challenge for April.  If you would like to join the challenge this month, please take a quick look at the Cookery Calendar Challenge page, which will tell you everything you need to know.

My chosen cookery book for February was 'Duchy Originals Cookbook' by Johnny Acton and Nick Sandler. I have owned this book for many years, and may have cooked one or two dishes from it, but none that I specifically remember. This book is rather charming, combining slightly posh food with a whiff of nursery dinners. It has an earnestly worded introduction from H.R.H. Prince Charles, and is then divided seasonally, with a few pages of information regarding animal husbandry and  food production by various producers of Duchy Originals foods around the UK, before the collection of recipes for that season.
Needless to say all the recipes use Duchy Original products; anything from Duchy Originals milk, to Duchy Originals organic meats, but obviously the recipes can be made with non Duchy Originals products. The recipes are all given in cups, and ounces, which makes me suspect it was not-so-subtly aimed at American tourists visiting the UK and buying a recipe book to take home, but that's fine with me. I would love to visit America and buy an American book with the recipes in grams and milliletres. Cup measures are easy to come by, and easy to use, so this was not a problem.

The first of my selected dishes this month was Canneloni stuffed with Smoked Ham and Cheddar. I didn't have any canneloni tubes in my dry goods cupboard, so used lasagne sheets, thereby creating more of a smoked ham and leek lasagne. The leeks were fried off until soft with sliced red onion, then set aside, After this, a basic white sauce was made, with added creme fraiche and a teaspoon or two of dijon mustard (not in the recipe, but I thought it would give a nice little punch of flavour to the sauce). I added a small amount of grated cheddar to the sauce (that was in the recipe); then layered up the lasagne sheets, white/cheese sauce, and the leeks, onions and chopped smoked ham. I sprinkled a little more grated cheese on top and  popped it in a hot oven for about forty minutes until the top was bubbling. I served it with roasted cherry tomatoes, well seasoned with salt and pepper and splashed with olive oil, and cooked until soft.

This dish was a big success, and to my surprise earned me a double green tick from the carnivores, who gobbled it with relish. It is always most gratifying when the family enjoy meals I have prepared, and I do tend to make the most of it.
Me: 'What do you think?'
Derek/Jacob: 'Mmm/ nice/ really good/ yum/ great'
Me: (turning a little pink) 'Oh, really? I am so pleased!'
(Silence/eating noises/scraping of cutlery etc)
Me: 'So what's nice about it? Anything in particular? Flavour? Texture?'
Derek/Jacob 'Er dunno, it's just nice/good flavour/nice and savoury' etc
Me: (airily) 'Well I did put in quite a lot of effort, and I also added a spoonful of mustard to the sauce. Did you notice that? What about the sauce- not too cheesy? How about the tomatoes? What did you think?'
Derek/Jacob 'They're ok/it's fine/mustard-yuk, wish you hadn't told me that/can I leave the table?'
And dinner is over for another night.

My second dish was a baked cheesecake. I think this is possibly the first pudding I have made as part of the Cookery Calendar Challenge, not to mention one of the few cheesecakes I have made in my life. I had a slight hidden agenda with this dish, as one of the competitions in the Dalmally Show this year is a baked cheesecake, and I thought this would be a good opportunity to try out a suitable recipe.
The base is made from crushed Duchy Original oaten biscuits (posh digestives, essentially), mixed with melted butter and brown sugar. This sandy mixture is then pressed firmly into the base of a well buttered springform release tin.
The topping is made from a mixture of egg yolks and sugar, beaten together, to which creme fraiche and a quite staggering quantity of full fat cream cheese are added. The zest of a lemon is grated in, and a few drops of vanilla extract. The egg whites are whisked to soft peaks stage, and folded in to the cream cheese mixture, and this is then poured on to the base, and baked at Gas 4 for twenty minutes, and Gas 3 for a further forty minutes. I didn't hold out much hope for this cheesecake, as I made it in a tearing hurry, and also realised that I didn't have any creme fraiche in the fridge after I started, so hastily improvised with some double cream soured with a squeeze of lemon juice. However it obviously thrived on neglect as it turned out very well; rose beautifully, and turned a deep golden colour on top.  
It should have been served with some berries, or a little fruit coulis, but my greedy (and I mean that in a very loving way) family just ate it plain, in fact still warm, and loved it. I am not a huge cheesecake fan, and found the flavour a little bland, but I think that is the nature of cheesecakes. The texture was extremely light and creamy (hardly surprising given the amount of cream and cream cheese in the recipe) so I think this recipe has passed muster and will make a reappearance for the baking competiton at the Dalmally Show this year.

I am pleased I revisited this book. Many of the recipes are more down to earth than they initially appear, and there is a wealth of good hearty eating within its pages.

My chosen recipe book for April is Persianna, by Sabrina Gahyour. This book was first published in 2014 to great acclaim, but I have only just got round to buying a copy, partly because I am always at 'the coo's tail'* as we say in Scotland, and partly because I wasn't that interested in Middle Eastern cookery in 2014, but over the last couple of years have become more interested in it.

If you joined me last month, thank you. If you would like to join the challenge this month, this is what to do:

The challenge is simple: the first week of every month, select a cookery book from your shelf, and cook two new recipes from it. The recipes can be for any meal. Cakes and bakes are excluded, but puddings are included. Don't worry about photographs; if you haven't taken a photograph of the dish, post a photograph of the recipe book you used. Similarly, you are welcome to share a recipe if you wish, but there is no pressure to do so. This project is more about the process of reconnecting with your cookery book collection, than about recipe sharing or food photography. At the beginning of the following month, blog about the recipes you have used, and announce your chosen cookery book for the month ahead. This is an ongoing project, it's never too late to get involved, and everyone is very welcome.
I would appreciate a link back to this Cookery Calendar Challenge post in your post. Grab the Cookery Calendar Challenge badge to display on your blog too, if you like (just copy and paste the code on to your dashboard to display). You can also join via Instagram using hashtag #cookerycalendarchallenge (you will find me on Instagram @penny.homemadeheart )

(*'the coo's tail'= 'the cow's tail' i.e. always behind everyone else)

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