Perfect winter weekend = walk + bake + knit

On Saturday we decided to venture west for a walk in the Midlands, Cliff did a quick search on the web and found a good location . . . Pitsford Water in Northamptonshire.

 

We started our walk at the popular Brixworth Country Park visitors centre and circumnavigated the southern half of the reservoir, a total distance of 7.5 miles – just the right sort of distance to blow the cobwebs out of the mind and put roses in our cheeks!

On the way we passed some recently done hedge-laying . . .

and lots of birdlife, including a large flock of Lapwings (including one of two Golden Plovers) and these beautifully plumaged Greylag Geese . . .

After our walk we went into Brixworth village to see the church, it's set on the edge of the village on the crest of a ridge which overlooks the surrounding farmland, and it is huge . . . and very very old!

Brixworth church was build at least 1200 years ago, only a couple of hundred years after the the Romans upped and left Britain; the Saxon builders reused Roman terracotta tiles to make the massive semicircular archways. The large ground level arches (which have been infilled with stone and windows) where originally interior entrances into small side rooms, chapels or shrines off the main nave of this great basilica, maybe built when Offa was king of Mercia.

Just think how long it's stood here . . . it was over 300 years old when the Normans invaded Britain! Look at how carefully the tiles and stones have been placed to make those simple archways.

Maybe I was still thinking about those Saxon arches when I made this pear up-side down cake for our Sunday lunch?

It was easy to make . . .
- spread creamed butter and soft brown sugar over the base of a lined cake tin;
- over it, lay slices of pear and glacé cherries in pattern;
- make a sponge mixture (100g softened unsalted butter/100g caster sugar/2 eggs/100g self-raising flour) and spoon carefully over the fruit;
- bake at 180˚C for about 40 minutes until the sponge is firm;
- cool slightly and turn out onto a plate;
- eat with a generous helping of freshly made custard.

 

. . . and even easier to eat!

On Sunday evening I finished the shawl I've been knitting from Kauni yarn; I've been knitting this for months; it has been knitted and unraveled a couple of times because it wasn't quite right and I'm a perfectionist; it has traveled with me on trains down to London and up to Liverpool many times, until it became far to big to carry easily.

The shape and size were inspired by the shawls in a Kaffe Fassett knitting book from the 1980s. I chose two colourways of the Kauni yarn and then used a Fair Isle technique to create the patterns, which I made up as I went along and then repeated a few times.


Let's see it outside in natural light where the wintery colours really glow . . .

I was fun to knit, and became cosy and organic as it grew and grew. I worked on 1 metre long double pins, but by the end it was quite a struggle to manipulate all the stitches; so although I still have some yarn over, I decided it was big enough. I probably have enough to make a hat with the leftovers.

And lastly . . .

Thank you to everyone who signed up to get my studio newsletters, there are over twenty who missed the mailing, so I'll be sending out another batch later this evening. Then the next one will be sent at the end of February.

Celia
x

Simple fare

I've been thinking about the food we ate in Galicia . . .

In Pontevedra, behind the Saturday morning clothes market near the river, we ate octopus that had been boiled in a giant cauldron, snipped up with scissors and drizzled with olive oil. Simple but very good.


One evening we sat in one of the dark shadowy squares, drank the local beer and ate plates of tapas – including this sculptural pile of razor clams.


We took the bus to O Grove, once an island – now joined to the mainland by a sandy isthmus, to go to the famous Seafood Festival. It was it's 47th year, so the organisers have cracked the art of serving thousands! The system works well – you pick up a list of stalls, wander round ticking the things you fancy eating, take your list to a large raised dais with girls with computers and tills like a bank and pay for your selection in return for vouchers, then at leisure you take the vouchers to the stalls and swap for plates of freshly prepared seafood . . . brilliant.

Oh, and you eat the seafood with bread washed down with wine, while standing up at high wooden tables, to the accompaniment of the Gallician bagpipes . . . here's a flavour of that heady mix . . .




Back home, sadly we don't have easy access to fresh seafood, but there was another Galician staple that inspired me to cook a simple peasant dish – Caldo Gallego.

I drove to the next village to visit my favourite local butcher . . .


He'd put aside one of the key ingredients – trotters, four for £1. I asked him to split them so all the goodness would cook out and make a delicious jellied stock flavoured with vegetables, herbs and garlic.


Instead of chickpeas I soaked some of my home grown Poletschka beans and added then to the boiling stockpot.


I poured off two litres of the stock to use to make soup at the weekend and removed three of the trotters before adding diced potato, shredded cabbage and chopped chorizo to the pot. I adjusted the seasoning and added a sprinkling of hot smoked paprika (a great holiday purchase).


Tonight's supper – my version of Caldo Gallego – simple, cheap and delicious :-)

Time for tea (and a slice of cake)

Today the studio assistants helped me to empty the cupboards in the studio. You would not believe the stuff I'd accumulated over the years, much of it I don't use any more – suppliers' catalogues for instance, I now look at what's available online.

The blue wheeliebin is already full to the brim, so we've made a big pile of stuff to go in the bin once it's emptied tomorrow morning. All my inks and printing bits and pieces now have a home inside cupboards rather than on surfaces. There's still a bit of tidying still to do, but already my studio feels twice as spacious, a good days work!

The ginger one has done quite a lot of dusting,
so deserves a nap . . .

And his tabby sister is taking a break

to wash her whiskers . . .

I need a cup of tea and . . . I know!
A slice of that lovely cake I baked last night.

Just the ticket – delicious!

The recipe is from Jacqui's blog, so if you'd like to make her Lemon Yogurt Cake pop over to Henrietta - life in the dome where you can also meet her gorgeous chooks.

Pudding memories

This is my Dad's Auntie Vera, in my memory she was notable for being skilled at crochet lace, taking fuchsia cuttings and making Christmas Puddings.


One year I decided I wanted to make a Christmas Pudding, so I asked my Dad if he could obtain 'the recipe' from Auntie Vera, and shortly afterwards I received this . . .


This is actually a photocopy (the original is somewhere safe), and as you can see it's seen a few baking sessions! The first time I followed the recipe, I started weighing out the ingredients and soon realised that this would make more than one pudding – many more!!! So I now make a third of the quantity and it makes one big pudding and a smaller one.


The puddings are cooking as I type this . . . they will be ready when 'The Archers' begins on Radio 4.


On Christmas Day, before breakfast, I'll put the bigger one in the slow cooker and leave it to cook until the end of Christmas Dinner. How do you serve yours? This has become a compromise, I now make a sweet white sauce flavoured with rum. In my family, the pudding would be served with ordinary custard plus a glug of brandy straight from the bottle which was passed around the table :-) Never, ever Brandy Butter – nasty posh stuff!

So, while the Christmas Puddings boil and become rich and moist and wonderful, here are some lovely colourful photos taken this morning in our greenhouse . . .



and garden . . .



For some reason I keep humming that tune that was played for the 'Vision On' gallery . . .

Dum de dum... dum dee dummm
Dum de dum dum... dee dee deeeee

Dum de dum dee dumdee dumdee dumdee . . .

You'll find it on YouTube if you care to look - I'm sorry but I can't do the links for you (the studio computer is saving it's strength to draw science diagrams!) And no, I'm not related to Tony Hart, but he was my hero when I was 7!