Becky Bakes…

Go? Usually at this time of the year my preparations for Christmas are well under way. This year hasn’t been a whole lot different as I had already been buying “things” when I saw them. You know how it is, if you don’t get it when you see it, it will be gone when you go back. In addition to that I’ve also “embraced” on-line shopping – to a small extent. As things stand though, as a family of 7 we may not be able gather as a group and now we hear of further restrictions looming who knows what the situation will be by the end of December. So what’s to do? Well I’m going to continue to prepare in the hope we may see some of them at some time. Sprouts are a must on my shopping list, to be cooked in that special way (fry a small onion, chopped, with some snipped streaky bacon, add halved sprouts. After 2 mins add a splash of stock and some single cream; lid on, 5 mins and you’re done – just a twist of nutmeg and that’s it) As far as The Tree goes, that will be left to others and becomes a riot of colour with no theme or regard for shapes and sizes. The control freak in me stays well away, instead master minding a more elegant creation. Last year it was sprigs sprayed silver (evidence still on the conservatory floor..)then held in a wide vase by hundreds of marbles and glass pebbles, then finally hung with tiny silver and pale blue baubles. Quite ethereal. We can still do all this even if not together, we must make the best of whatever situation we find ourselves in. So, dear reader, it really will be a case of ready, set, GO!

My goodness, the Bake Off is stirring up emotions! Pastry week set a challenge with pasties – the pastry, the filling and even the correct number of crimps. It came as no surprise that the contestants all did it their way and the one sent home had, honestly, made samosas. But following the programme the level of criticism and the arguments that raged across social media were vicious……just scroll by people! Remember these programmes were made several months ago and your anger is not going to make one iota of difference to the outcome of the contest. I must say though, that I feel GBBO has lost its’ way and has clearly struggled to find recipes to contest – some of them are so far removed from normality that they aren’t dishes anyone would want to try at home. A Cornish pasty should have offered a way of testing everyone’s ability to make good shortcrust pastry which then has a tasty filling of potato, carrot, swede, beef and onion. It’s all in the seasoning too. Did any of them do that? No.

It’s definitely here – the sweaters are on, so are the socks. We’ve had a mixed week with sunshine and showers. If it rains much more into the already over-flowing pond we will have escaping fish across the lawn. Speaking of which the grass is now green and a massive clump of honey fungus has appeared where a long gone tree was felled. Thankfully the sneezing and coughing from the tech-team is subsiding and we’ve made two videos this week which are ready to share with you when November arrives. These were greeted with a better response than my chutneys of last week! In an attempt to mask the odours I lit scented candles and that just made them cough even more….Anyway how about a bonus recipe? A true winter warmer for these chilly evenings. Into the bottom of an ovenproof dish layer a chopped onion, chunks of courgette and pepper with peeled garlic cloves and tomatoes. Sit two sausages per person on top and cook for 40 mins at gas 6/200C, then add half a pint of stock into which you blend a dessertspoon of tomato puree. Turn the sausages over to get them evenly browned and return to the oven for another 15 or 20 minutes. Serve with pasta, potatoes or rice. Hey presto! Baked sausages.

I was so looking forward to this week’s GBBO as it was bread week and that’s Paul Hollywood’s speciality and in the past he has introduced us to some inspiring new ideas. Do you remember the 8 strand plait? Or was it 10…..? Anyway, this week the contestants first had to create 2 varieties of soda bread. Fair enough – we have a brilliant recipe that lots of you tried out and is still one of our most popular videos. But it seemed that flavour and ingredients had to be so completely unexpected that ,honestly, there wasn’t one produced that I would want to try. So, on to the second dish – the yeasted mixture – and it was bagels. OK, they are interesting as they need to be boiled before baking.. tricky at the best of times. But they were to be coloured like rainbows.Why? It’s well known that before tasting anything, we eat with our eyes. The colours were so livid, what were the colourings made of? We, as a family, have experience of rainbow coloured ice cream which had a disastrous effect on our children’s digestive system. Say no more. It seems Mr.Hollywood got himself into deep water too for not properly explaining the meaning and use of rainbows in popular culture. Anyway, how would smoked salmon and cream cheese look on those bagels? Dreadful I think. So the third challenge for the contestants was to make some kind of picture using bread. Really? Are we going to try that at home? Dear GBBO, I fear you have lost the plot.

Earlier this week a young friend asked me what was my favourite gadget. Without giving it too much thought I replied that I’m not a gadget person and that I don’t appreciate gifts with plugs on… ! We recently had a trip to Norwich where I enjoyed perusing all the kitchenalia in the Lakeland store but walked past the spiralisers and nutri whatnots, only buying paper cases and toothpicks. So it was during this week, when I’d made a batch of soup, that I went to my machinery cupboard and took out the stick blender – that’s it! My favourite gadget. I’ve had it for many years and used it frequently as it also has a mini chopping thing (perfect for making breadcrumbs) which is run by the detachable handle. Then the tall narrow part twists in to the handle too and since it’s plastic doesn’t scratch any pans when resting on the base and drawing in the lumps of vegetables through the arches around the base. Am I giving you a picture of this thing ? My runner-up in the usefulness stakes would be my food processor closely followed by the apple segmenter – useful for pears too – which came from Pampered chef and other makes can be found in most supermarkets these days….but the mango cutter ? Hasn’t seen the light of day for a while. What about you ? What would your most useful gadget be ?

Here we are, more than 6 months in, with 28 videos uploaded and we’ve decided to take a break. Not for long – just a breather so the tech team can fully recover from their dreadful colds. The sneezing and coughing need to disappear completely before we can think about recording anything else or there will be some unpleasant “noises off”. Over the next couple of weeks we are going to start thinking about Christmas for when we come back, so look out for some more useful, reliable recipes…winter warmers and comfort food too. In the meantime I’ll continue with my Saturday blog and, heads up…the website wizard is going to take the opportunity to reorganise the recipe section to make it easier to navigate. Bx

Our fine crop of tomatoes – I hesitate to call it a surplus, never mind a glut – seldom causes a problem. We can always give some away as well as eating them with most meals. Usually I put some in the freezer then add them to casseroles in the winter and they’re a great addition to bolognaise or anything where I’m using ragu-style sauces. This year we’ve had so many Marmandes which have a lot of flesh and very few seeds, so chutney became the solution, thanks to a timely reminder from a friend who’d done the same with her green tomatoes. This takes me back to a Friday afternoon when my group of international students wanted to make traditional jams, lemon curd and chutney to take home at Christmas. The jam and lemon curd were fine, making the whole building smell wonderful. But the chutney? That didn’t go down too well with The Boss as he had a group of prospective parents to impress. He later put his head round the door and asked if we could leave that recipe out in future…? It was the one and only time he didn’t appreciate our endeavours – usually he relished any tasters that came his way, looking forward particularly to bread making and, of course chocolate cake. Happy days !

Those were the words of an ex-pupil when his mother showed him one of my videos. I’m hoping it was said with a wistful sigh rather than a grumpy frown, but I consider him to be one of the lucky ones. Many of the young people I meet have had little or no proper introduction to cooking and the value of food for which I blame the introduction of the National Curriculum. One of the first modules I taught under the then-new guidelines was called “Airline Catering”. Packaging materials were smuggled off planes by jet-setting husbands and menus were kindly sent to us by airlines. The pupils had to think about dietary requirements, but we weren’t supposed to actually teach them about it, the plan was that they’d find out for themselves- “research”. It was all a bit thin. So at the end of that term what had they cooked? Nothing. Not a single thing. They were expected to draw pictures of food or cut them out of magazines. What a waste of time. So you can understand my disappointment that we had lost control of our ability to teach what we thought was necessary and important. Many years later I was confronted by a Head who spoke about the “nominal GCSE in cake decorating”, considering food studies trivial and unimportant because “we all know how to eat”. But do we? So, for anyone who didn’t experience the delight of proudly taking home a magnificent bake – these videos are for you. For anyone who has become jaded and a bit fed up with the dishes you’ ve been making for many years- these videos are for you. For anyone who still wants to learn just a bit more- these videos are for you. Forgive me if it’s like being back at school, but I can’t do it any other way…once a teacher always a teacher! xx

This is a phrase I’ve often used over the years and have, in the past, created a rainbow poster from tiny magazine fruit and vegs pictures and even a massive version, on a sheet spread over the school hall floor, with the real thing! But we found it increasingly difficult to eat our rainbow during lockdown. Richard took on the role of “hunter-gatherer” for us and a neighbour but struggled with the sheer volume when required to put all the goods on the belt before the nice lady could begin to scan all the shopping. My solution was to take on the acquisition of our fruit & vegs. We are lucky to have 2 greengrocers in the town so I went to the larger one first. The variety on offer was enormous – they even had the elusive lemon curd as well as eggs, milk and flour. But as all their goods are in full sun for most of the day my choices quickly deteriorated and I felt I needed to make two visits each week . So I tried the smaller shop and sadly that wasn’t much better, not least because of the pigeons wandering round eating the spilled seed. The final solution was for Richard to shop twice a week until restrictions were eased and our neighbour felt ready to enjoy the delights of impulse buys and her own choices. Thankfully our garden began to produce lovely lettuces and pea shoots as well as asparagus, potatoes and lots more. Richard is still doing our shopping and this week I found I had an accidental surplus of peppers so dug deeply to find an obscure dish from the past – pepperonata. So here’s a bonus recipe for you; slice and gently fry an onion with 2 crushed garlic cloves ,in olive oil and butter until soft, add 4 or 5 sliced deseeded peppers, red, orange and/or yellow and cook them gently for 10 minutes. Add 5 tomatoes, cut in half. Put a lid on and simmer for 20 mins, remove tomato skins as they start to peel off. Salt and pepper, taste and your done. Great served hot, but I like it better cold. Keeps in the fridge for several days (unless you do a “Nigella” and steal spoons of the stuff when you open the fridge anytime!) Helps with your rainbow…….let me know if you try this one xx

It came as quite a surprise to find that the video for Soda bread had only been uploaded for 5 minutes when already quite a number of people had watched it. Then, quick as a flash, a photo of a lovely one made by a friend appeared in my instant message box. Wow, I commented, that was quick! In a couple of minutes there was another one and, checking the statistics, I discovered the video watching was increasing faster than most. After only 4 days it’s already more popular than one or two of the others and I ask myself why? So, dear reader, is it because it’s a savoury dish? Are you looking for more of those? Interestingly the most popular recipes to date have been Fork biscuits and Victoria Sandwich. VS was our first one, so maybe that had the novelty value and FB’s were so quick and easy – I’d imagined Brownie would be up there too, but no! So, now that we’re almost 6 months in, we are going to enter a new phase and introduce more savoury dishes if that’s what you’d like. You can send me a message if you have an opinion!