food for jenny (2 out of 2)

Food For Jenny: A whole Saturday

For breakfast I had Tesco's own brand bran flakes, with soya milk.

HAHA that's a lie. I had a cupcake. Orange sponge with a square of dark chocolate in the middle.

Homemade, so it doesn't count.

Lunch was Linda McCartney sausages in my Mum's 'miracle bread' rolls that I brought back from home a couple of days ago. They have soya flour, and linseeds, and all sorts of stuff. Also in there was 'fresh' (actually week- old) spinach, ketchup, tabasco sauce, hummus and a pinch of magic BBQ spice mix. And bancha hojicha (a Japanese green tea).

Then I made my own bread. It wasn't altogether successful.

Over the course of the afternoon I drank a cold bottled concoction calling itself jasmine tea from the Chinese supermarket (because whenever I go into a Chinese supermarket I have to try a new weird drink).

Dinner, then, was a sort of chilli bean stew, because I thought that would go well with the weird bread...

[Soak and boil dried kidney beans; skip this part for canned ones, and chuck them in whenever].

Boileth a quarter of a swede and large chunks of new potatoes with the kidney beans, until everything is soft.



Meanwhile:

Half an onion, two cloves of garlic, a courgette, a red pepper, broad beans (frozen), a handful of tomatos and a handful of mushrooms into the wok to fry until they looked mostly cooked. Plus pinches of: Vegeta (which is a particularly good vegetable stock you'll find in an Eastern European supermarket); cajun spice mix; chilli powder; piri piri spice mix; garam masala and mixed herbs, and let sizzle for a while longer. Then Quorn mince and a tin of chopped tomatoes, a good mix, and simmer for an indeterminate amount of time (or until the other pan of boiling things is done).



Combine two pans of boiling/simmering things (ideally into largest pan).



Eat with bread and/or rice and/or a spoon.



Follow with more cupcakes and tea.

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Sat 13th of April 2013 at 8:51pm (Z)

Last modified: Sat 13th of April 2013 at 8:51pm (Z)

My First Bread

Could have been better.

I based it on this bread recipe, but amended according to my mother's advice.

Thus, I made a batter with 1/3 of the flour (strong white bread flour; 6oz), all of the yeast (one 7g packet) and all of the water (415ml) and the oil (30ml), and left that covered in the airing cupboard for an hour where it bubbled away merrily.

Next I mixed in the rest of the flour (12oz) and some salt and a handful of sunflour seeds, poppyseeds and pumpkin seeds. Contrary to what my mother promised, it was very sticky. I stirred vigorously and kept adding flour until I could cope with it, and kneading began. I kneaded for fifteen minutes, having discovered that sometimes punching instead of regular kneading is much more enjoyable.



I turned it into six balls and one long bit, and arranged them on a tray and in an ad-hoc loaf tin, and they went back in the airing cupboard for about two and a half hours (I went out). I covered them, as instructed, and that was where things started to go wrong..





The bits that didn't get stuck to the tinfoil rose great. But the bits that stuck pretty much didn't get to rise. They rose outwards loads, but upwards was constrained. Rubbish.

I baked them anyway (30 minutes, 220 degress celcius).



Tastes great, textures is okay, appearance is disappointing. Next time I won't cover them quite so securely while they're rising. Far more holey than I was anticipating too; I'm not sure if under- or over-kneading causes this.

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Sat 13th of April 2013 at 6:47pm (Z)

Last modified: Sat 13th of April 2013 at 6:47pm (Z)