Baking – an art or a science?

Posted by louisa on Thursday 3 February 2011 in cooking | 2 comments

I’ve noticed recently that people seem to be divided between considering cooking, and baking in particular, an art or a science.

“Baking is an art” people seem to use recipes as inspiration rather than the letter of the law – ingredients are adjusted depending on personal tastes. Measurements & timings are vague and rely on knowing appropriate textures, colour etc. Results are inconsistent until recipes have been tried many, many times.

“Baking is a science” people follow recipes a lot more closely, don’t substitute/add extra ingredients and measure things exactly. They have opinions on weight versus volume, and even weigh liquids as it’s more accurate. Results are reasonably consistent from the get go.

As in life, I’m more of an “art” person – which is why my recipes are sometimes a bit vague with measurements – such as the soda bread recipe says use between “250-300ml” of soured milk. Like the soda bread, our slow rise no knead bread needs slightly different amount of liquids each time we make it – depending, seemingly, on the type of flour and the temperature of the liquid – so for me, dough texture is more important than exact quantities. I’m a bit more (but admittedly) not a lot more scientific the first few times I make something – until I begin to understand what it should be like. I find it more fun to freewheel than to stick to the recipe – but my results are sometimes inconsistent – taking a recently relevant example from cooking in general, sometimes my chilli rocks the free world, sometimes it struggles to rock our living room: edible but meh.

(Funnily enough, I’ve got more exact about favourite recipes after I’ve written them up for here because I’ve made them to the exact recipe for a few times before publishing it and have started to enjoy the consistency – before, I’d just throw a random amount of mustard seeds into kedgeree but now I use 1tsp like a good girl ;) )

Where do you stand? Do you stick to recipes exactly or throw things in at random? Do you favour a more creative process or a more consistent result? Or are you somewhere in the middle?

Buttery treacle spice biscuits recipe

Posted by louisa on Wednesday 2 February 2011 in cooking, recipes | 5 comments

I meant to write up this recipe a few weeks ago but in all the end of year/new 2011 goals excitement, I forgot. The rich dark treacle flavour and cinnamon make them a great winter biscuit – almost warming!

They’re also a perfect fill-the-oven companion to my quick-and-easy soda bread recipe – I get my soda bread in the oven then start making these guys. By the time I’ve measured, mixed and shaped, it’s about 20-25 mins into the soda bread baking, then the biscuits go in and everything finishes at the same time – perfect!

As there is no egg or anything like that in the mix, they’re one of my favourite “cook’s perks” recipes – ie, I get to “test” the dough throughout the making process and lick all the bowls & spoons at the end. :D

There is also a fourth wonderful feature of these biscuits which I say explain at the end so those with easily-offended-by-tastelessness aren’t put off a great biscuit recipe! ;)

The year of ….

Posted by louisa on Tuesday 1 February 2011 in growing | 5 comments

A few days ago, someone started a discussion on UK Veg Gardeners about themes for the year:

“2011 is the “Year of the Raised Bed”. Last year was “Year of the Redcurrant Protector” (not a very snappy title I admit!) and 2009 “Year of the Shed” (much more successful).”

I replied that for us, 2011 is the “Year of Fruit”: “to be accurate it’s going to be Year Minus One of Fruit as most things won’t actually produce anything until next year – but all the work has to be done this year.”

But it’s actually the Year of lots of things here – I think that contradicts the point of having a “the year of” but nevermind! It’s:

• The Year of Fruit – six apple trees & two pear trees are in, a cherry tree to follow; also, two blackcurrant bushes, a lingonberry bush, a cranberry bush and 12 strawberry runners (all which are displaying new green growth today – hurrah!) are also in, with maybe gooseberry & raspberry to follow. Fruit a go go!
• The Year of the Front Garden – those new planters should help out a lot out there
• The Year of Vertical Growing – baskets & wall planters & balcony window boxes & tiers of pots
• The Year of Efficient Bed Usage – some beds were empty for a long time last year; not this year!
• The Year of Perennials – the fruit is part of this; I want to start getting things in that’ll last so each year on, I can concentrate on other stuff
• The Year of the Greenhouse – since it didn’t arrive until July last year, I intend to make the most of it this year – cucumbers, chillis and tomatoes, oh my
• The Year of No More Plastic Tubs – not such a catchy name but last year, when I was setting up on the cheap, I bought a lot of plastic tubs & troughs. No more from now on though, and as they need replacing, I’ll do so with non-plastic options
• The Year of Not Getting Overwhelmed – by planting too many of each thing specifically. But looking at the rest of this list, I think this might the hardest to achieve ;)

What’s it your year of?

January – end of month review

Posted by louisa on Monday 31 January 2011 in goals, less than 12 clothes challenge, meta | 13 comments

Just a quick post reviewing my progress on my various goals/spending, and about tracking other stuff that I may or may not have mentioned.

(I mentioned this on Twitter – I’d had this bunting for a while and John surprised me by putting it up in our dining room. Pretty!)

Goals in 2011 progress

I haven’t really achieved any of my goals for 2011 yet – early days, early cold days. I think we’ve baked something every week so far though and I’ve also started tracking of usage of more consumables (FYI – but possibly TMI too – it takes us 6 days to use a toilet roll), so that’s a start. I also built some things from wood for the garden, which will help me with my piece-of-furniture making goal.

Buy less than 12 items of clothing in 2011

I haven’t bought clothes this month so my tally for the year is still at zero. (More info about the challenge…)

I did look at stuff in the sales online at the start of the year but wasn’t persuaded by anything. And last week, I went into a few shops that sell clothes amongst other things (mostly charity shops) – but I put my blinkers on and went straight for the other stuff – homeware things – instead of looking at clothes. It’s quite a poor area so the vast majority of the clothes are cheap makes – I don’t mind buying some of my items from charity shops but I want to avoid poor quality clothes wherever they are sold.

Growing stuff & the chickens

Since it’s still chilly winter, not much is happening on the growing front. I sowed some winter gem lettuce near the start of the month and they’re still tiny, but getting bigger by the day. We also had some fruit trees delivered – six apples and two pears – and John’s planted those out now. I also bought two blackcurrant bushes – I feel like we’re making good progress in the perennial fruit situation now.

The chickens have enjoyed the factionally longer days and the mostly warmer weather – and the two black rocks both started laying mid-month. Lime is still moulting and Buff is still refusing to give up the goods, but we’ve had a solid five eggs a day from the other five nearly every day for the last fortnight. We’ve had 109 eggs in total for January – not bad going since it was just one or two a day at the start of the month! (Also, in late breaking news, some of the chickens are currently grounded – I let them out to play again yesterday and someone, Ginger I think, led the parade into the wooded bit of our garden – it took me about half an hour to catch them all again!)

Wooden planters made from scrap wood

Posted by louisa on Monday 31 January 2011 in growing, making, wood stuff | 6 comments

Last week, I got the cravings – the “I NEED to make something out of wood” cravings – so I set Saturday aside for playing.

I actually set out into the garden to make one thing but found some planks (the long bits in the picture) that would be much more appropriate for something else on my to-do list – wooden planters. John’s dad had brought them for us last week – he regularly collects scraps of wood from a joiners’ yard for firewood and when he visited that day, they gave him these salvaged planks too – but he thought they were too good for firewood so they ended up in our general scrap lumber pile instead. The shorter bits in the picture are also scrap wood from the same source – all roughly about the same size so almost no sawing required!

With that scrap, and five 6ft long battens (leftover from when I built removable shelves in our airing cupboard), I made two planters – each about 4ft long by 1ft, by about 9ins deep.

The bases are different because each batten made exactly one long length and two shorter lengths – I was delighted to find it was pretty much exact, again minimal sawing! – and that was the most efficient way to make use of the wood.

I’ll use a liner of some sort in the planters and puncture that between the slats of the base for drainage. I added little feet to the bottom (in a way appropriate to the base) to raise the slats off the ground too. The whole thing will need treating with some veg-safe preservative too, to maximise it’s usefulness.

Neither planter would get me a job as an artisan woodworker or would be used as a practical example to teach even spacing or the concept of right angles – but they’ll grow salad (or similar) as well as planters that would cost me £50 each from a garden centre. Plus I had loads of fun making them :)

I think these will go in the front garden – we have some dead space out there which I’d like to make useful this year. Not sure exactly what we’ll plant in them yet – I really need to get on with planning where everything is going to go this year!

Some thoughts on my newly rediscovered love of crochet

Posted by louisa on Friday 28 January 2011 in crochet & knitting, making | 11 comments

After a break from crafts for a while, I’ve got back into crochet with a vengeance recently.

I found it hard to like crochet at first – the first tutorials I did were boring, just creating a stiff solid fabric – and it wasn’t until I made a “net” shopping bag and granny squares that I saw the value of it over knitting. If I was teaching someone how to crochet, I’d start with granny squares which I’d use for the base of a “net” shopping bag/fruit bag – I liked being able to make something actually useful very quickly.

I love the many “sense of completion” moments when making granny squares or similar patches. My first big project was a hexagon hearth rug. I got a small buzz after completing each round, then each hexagon, then each colour combination set, then all the hexagons… Great motivation to keep me going. By comparison, my current stripes project (above) is very slow going and not that rewarding – it takes about 25 mins to finish each stripe and then it’s only one more stripe in a blanket of a hundred (and it’s even more when I do the wrong colour combination and have to frog over an hour’s work). It’s a nice yarn to work with though and when it’s finished, it’ll be lovely.

My favourite stitch is a HTC (HDC in US terms) – the ease of a DC (SC) but with extra height. Is it wrong/nerdy to have a favourite crochet stitch?

Kate from Living the Frugal Life’s Desert Island Dinners

Posted by louisa on Thursday 27 January 2011 in desert island dinners | 2 comments

I mentioned earlier that I had a bit of a wacky idea a few days ago – “Desert Island Dinners”. Basically Desert Island Discs but with a frugal/simple living theme instead of music.

I picked Kate from Living the Frugal Life to be one of the first castaways – since she’s got such a great, inspiring blog and I wanted to get my hands on some of her simple living secrets!

First up, the premise:

You’re about to become a castaway on a desert island. The desert island will provide you with misc edible vegetation/wildlife and items that can be fashioned into basic pots/pans/utensils — but just before you’re whisked away, you have enough time to grab a herb or spice from your store cupboard; a special kitchen gadget/tool/utensil or piece of equipment; a cookbook; and a packet of seeds to grow on your any-climate island paradise. What would you pick to take with you? And which of your simple/frugal living skills do you think would be the most valuable while you’re there, and why?

And here are Kate‘s replies:

Herb or spice: Unequivocally this would have to be fresh garlic. I use it constantly and am galled when the stores of our homegrown start to get sprouty (round about this time of year), which leaves me with the dilemma of either buying store-bought, or making do only with our dehydrated garlic.

When it comes to kitchen gadgets my answer is pretty boring. I’d take a good knife. A good knife in combination with good knife skills will answer so many needs in a kitchen. I’m not much for gadgets, and a good knife would be very hard to improvise. For preference I’d take the Japanese made santoku my husband gave me as a gift a few years back. It pretty much instantly became my most heavily used knife. I’d been skeptical of santokus up to that time.

When it comes to cookbooks, I’m more of a skimmer than a follower. Almost invariably I end up departing from written recipes when it comes to cooking. I trained as a chef, which provides the confidence to do so. But when it comes to baking, in which I lack formal training, that’s a very different story. In baking you must follow fairly strict guidelines, prepare your dough, and then relinquish control to the oven. So perhaps I’d take a baking cookbook. Tough call between Peter Reinhart’s The Bread Baker’s Apprentice, Dorie Greenspan’s Baking with Julia, and Maggie Glezer’s Artisan Baking. Very tough call. Forced to choose, it would probably come down to the first though, since it’s so comprehensive.

One packet of seeds would be tough to choose. I’d agonize over the choice, but would probably end up picking Tuscan kale. It’s reliable, healthy, tasty, versatile, and has a very long season.

Most valuable skill – I probably couldn’t predict which of my skills would turn out to be most most valuable. Whether well founded or not, I have a pretty high confidence in my ability to do most things at least passably well, so I’m willing to try anything once and unlikely to give up in despair. I think I’ve learned to improvise fairly well, which would surely be a useful skill on a desert island. I consider myself a decent observer of the natural world, which would also be useful. I can garden and cook and am quite content with solitude. Again if forced to choose, the first skill, confidence, would be the one I’d predict to be most valuable. On the other hand, I have absolutely no sense of direction, so my exploration of the island would be very slow and cautious.

Thanks so much to Kate for taking part – I’m really interested in learning about santokus now so I’m really glad I asked! I also can’t believe I forgot garlic when I was having my cumin or chilli conundrum! How could I cook without garlic?!!?

Anyone else want to join in the mirth and merriment? :)