Brenda the sourdough starter

Readers, I bought a bread machine. From eBay, because everywhere that sells them new had run out, obviously. It’s  a Lakeland Plus Breadmaker model, and will be the subject of a separate post later. But in short, I love it. However … my husband said the bread was all very nice, but he wished it could…

everyday bread

This is, as named, my everyday bread recipe, lifted from Jack Monroe, the Bootstrap Cook. It is the most forgiving and adaptable of recipes; you can use pretty much any mix of flour, you can bake it into any shape you like, including rolls, you can add nuts or seeds, and it scales beautifully. Now I’ve…

oat and molasses bread

Left with the rest of the jar of molasses that Real Foods kindly sent me to try, I decided to give this recipe a go. It meant I had to dig my American cup measures out for the first time in ages, and if I want to make it again, I’l translate the recipe into…

making good use …

We held a small gathering here the other night, to celebrate a friend’s birthday. We cooked up a slow cooker’s worth of lemony chicken and coriander, and  a big pot of dhal to accompany it, and also for the vegans/veggies in the throng. We also served (bought) chapatis. That recipe, incidentally, is a base –…

rough brown bread

This is yet another Irish soda bread recipe, and the one I make most often. It’s very forgiving of ingredients and mix, but here’s how I did it today. If you have milk or cream that’s gone over, use that. Or yoghurt is fine too (plain, not fruit, obviously, unless you like weird flavoured bread!)….

unexpected crab sandwiches

A few weeks ago, Nigel Slater made a soda bread loaf, which he cooked in a cast iron casserole. We make lots of soda bread here, and it seemed like a good idea, so I gave it a try; but it was hopeless – you couldn’t turn it out to see if it was done,…

Guinness soda bread

I saw this – with apple and cheese – on a Hugh Fearnley-Eatsisall programme a couple of weeks ago, and was so intrigued that I bought a couple of bottles of Guinness to try it. The second was destined for a beef stew, but more on that story later. We eat a lot of soda…

parathas

We eat a lot of Indian food, which means we eat a lot of rice. And sometimes I just want a change. So we decided to have a bash at some Indian bread last night. Mixed 250g wholemeal flour, 4 tbsp of gram (chickpea) flour, 1 tsp of salt, and a good pinch of bicarb….

bread in 5 minutes a day

I read about this book on a friend’s Facebook at the weekend, and a trundle round Google brought forth a recipe, which is here. It seemed too good to be true, and as I was in possession of bread flour and yeast, and a set of American cup measures, I thought I’d give it a…

duck soup

I boiled up the duck carcass – Pete was a hero and stripped it down afterwards; it’s a job I hate. A surprising amount of meat came off it.  And there was, of course, a lot of duck stock. I had deliberately cooked extra veg with the duck on Monday (carrot and leek in vegetable…