Vive le baton!

Why not try to create a French baguette? Well, I did partly succeed in doing what I set out to do....

Half of my result shown above, about a foot long. I used part of my sourdough starter (see 'A well-bred loaf' from a few days ago), instead of the 'poolish' suggested in the recipe that I used - French bread and baguettes.

Whilst the recipe seems to be comprehensive, I did find it a little confusing, particularly as to how many times I had to knead the dough. In the end it got three kneads, prior to being put into the hot oven.

Perhaps my dough was a little damper than it should have been, but the two loaves I made were too close together and ended up like siamese twins, with the area of contact being a little moister than it ought to have been - but the other loaf (the one you can't see) was very palatable, despite that. I regret not having some means of making the bottoms of the loaves more rounded - I gather you can buy a specific bread tin for this - but nevertheless very enjoyable!

It will help the next time I do this if I change the loaves around on the baking sheet, as well as turning the sheet around; I feel this would give a more even bake.Yum!

For more recipes of different sorts, keep your browser on this space or take a look at Healthy Eating Recipes.

A well-bred loaf

Having done a little bread baking in the recent past, I thought it was time to take on my first sourdough. This is what happened. (Nothing to do with vegetables, either!)
I picked up the recipe for this from Sourdough bread: How To Begin.

Rather than me go through the whole thing here, best read what he's written first.

I begun my starter last Sunday afternoon (when I had nothing to do, evidently), but I did cheat a little and add a very small amount of dried yeast to the mix - about half a gram.

It didn't take long to start bubbling away in the old (but meticulously clean) pickle jar I had selected as my starter home. As it was doing so well, it wasn't fed as per instructions, as I expected to use it fairly early on.

Decided on Tuesday night that I'd like to bake Wednesday morning, so I started the 'sponge' at about 8 pm. By bedtime, it was going almost like the Old Faithful geyser. Quite fortuitously, I had to get up in the middle of the night, and was able to observe that it was still going well at 3 am.

When I looked at it at 7 am, however, in anticipation of starting the real work, it was as flat as pancake batter - no bubbles, nothing. It smelt as I thought it ought to, though, very yeasty and sour.

Undeterred, the next step was to make the actual dough, but I cheated once again and added 3 gms of dried yeast to the mix before adding the additional flour. Once I'd made the dough, it did rise well, and rose well on the second proofing, too.

After about 30 minutes at gas mark 4, I had a nice-looking loaf, which smelt yeasty-sour. After it had cooled off, it was lunchtime, and this bread was used for the ham sarnies. Great! Nice and chewy, but not too much, and a smashing taste.

The rest of the loaf (I only made a small 1lb. one) went with the soup being made (not by me) for our evening repast. Well, almost all - there was a little left over for a cheese sarnie at suppertime - I can tell you that sourdough and strong cheddar go very well together.

Try it - the major cost is probably the gas for the oven. Going to try a wholemeal or granary one next - or maybe plain old baguettes.....l

The land of the swede II

Well, we made our expected trip to Scandanavia, including Copenhagen and some of southwest Sweden.

Of the few supermarkets that we actually looked into, I think only one tray of swedes (or were they yellow turnips?) was spotted!

However, we enjoyed the rest of the trip so much, the thought of which vegetables were brought to us by Bjorn the Younger or whoever (see last item), didn't have a major place in our outlook.

Starting with two whole days in Copenhagen (the capital of Denmark, for those who are unaware), we saw as much of the city as we could, all of that on foot. Needless to say we were tired by the end of the day, and did not seek out eating establishments too far from our hotel. This was perhaps a mistake, because eating at (touristy) places along the Nyhavn gave us the impression that Danish food was not inexpensive - and we really wondered whether the cash we'd brought for the Swedish portion of the trip would be enough - expecting Sweden to be more expensive.

As far as food was concerned, we were wrong on that score; it seemed to be generally cheaper in Sweden - in the limited number of places we went (not Stockholm, certainly). Our first food in that country was in Lund, where the sandwich we ordered (and were admittedly advised it might be too large for one apiece) turned out almost to be too much split in two - and all for 3 quid!

Other places we visited later did not change that impression - our only regret was that we didn't find the 'real Swedish' restaurant serving meatballs as a main course, though they seemed a frequent part of open sandwiches.

Both countries make a thing of their open sandwiches, but I think the Danes may have brought it to a finer art with their smorrebrod (excuse lack of correct accents) than the Swedish smorgasbord - no doubt the idea behind each is slightly different, but we just enjoyed.

A word about the town in Sweden that we picked to stay in - sounds really cheesy when you think it was selected on the basis of wanting to see the place where the action from most of Henning Mankell's Inspector Wallender series of detective novels takes place - but the fairly ordinary town in Skania that we were expecting (Ystad) turned out to have a large number (about 300) of well-preserved and lived-in timber-frame houses. Despite the cold weather - it was 5-10 degrees, but with a 50mph wind most of the time - these houses were a delight to look at. In the summer, when the trees and flowers are out, it will surely be a beautiful place to visit.

We managed to climb up to their Stonehenge equivalent - the Ales Stones - a 'ring' of standing stones in the form of a Viking ship - legend has it that it is a burial place, or a memorial for lost sailors, among others - in the face of a biting 70mph wind (well 25m/s, which I reckoned as 70mph). 'Twas bloody cold, that.

Anyway, we didn't bring any swedes (vegetable type) home with us, but our memory was that the food in both Denmark and Sweden was excellent. The people (90% of whom we spoke to had better English than many Brits) were unfailingly helpful. Driving in Sweden was a little boring - everyone stuck to the speed limits - even when there were few other cars on the road - which is most of the time, even in the rush hour.

Nice place - would go again.

The land of the swede

We are soon off for a short break in the land that first gave us the swede - Sweden, suprisingly enough. Made me think of a couple of things related to this vegetable (and in its various other guises such as rutabaga, neeps or turnips).

At boarding school, where we had no choice in what was served up to us, we did get mashed swede occasionally, but not that often. At home in the holidays, though (well, my grandmother's house) we had it regularly. Unfortunately, she was the sort that put the sprouts for the Christmas lunch on at 9am in the morning (for lunch at 2!), so when swede was served, it was practically tasteless. I think that is what really put me off it, and can't recall having actually asked for it to be included in my diet for over forty years!

The Scots tend to serve it up (so I hear from the likes of Billy Connolly) mixed with spuds as 'neeps and tatties' - but I don't recall whether they're mashed up together or diced and mixed.

There must be some recipes around for this apparently filling vegetable (it was practically all they had to eat in Germany in the winter of 1916-17) that make it attractive to eat?

Will be attempting to find swede recipes (or at least restaurant dishes containing it) during the upcoming holiday. If I'm suitably impressed, I'll report back - otherwise I won't.

Carrot and Stick (without the carrot)

This is a green issue, I suppose (and does have a vegetable in the title).

The current UK government (and all the ones before, and most likely all the future ones), claim they would very much like us motorists - along with all other roadusers - to create fewer exhaust fumes and so reduce pollution, most likely so they can boast of their 'green' credentials among their EU peers, rather than a real wish to reduce greenhouse gases.

The latest among a whole range of suggestions (read 'threats') was for country-wide road pricing, along with 'big brother' monitoring. I seem to recall that one of the experts who put forward this proposal on behalf of the government claims he was misrepresented (or has since changed his mind, I can't remember exactly), and that he only meant for busy routes to be chargeable. Whichever of the two is correct, this is still a 'stick' to beat the driver with.

A majority of private motorists would probably accept such charges, on condition that the funds accrued from such charges were applied directly to the replacement public transport system that we would all be using instead of our cars. This would be the 'carrot'.

But no UK government seems capable of producing a unified public transport policy, much less actually implementing one!

How is it that many european countries seem able to do so, but not us?

I used the system (trams, trolley buses and buses) in Zürich over a couple of years (admittedly this was a number of years ago), and it worked fine. Towns in southern France are waking up and installing tram systems, to try to reduce traffic within the city centres. Marseilles, Nice and (I think) Bordeaux are well advanced in such projects. Yes, Sheffield and Croydon have done something similar, and these seem to be working well in reducing centre traffic. We would probably be reasonably happy to give up our private cars to travel in well-appointed and dependable mass-transit systems, particularly in the rush hours.

We are encouraged (or threatened with having) to travel by train rather than drive. On long-distance stuff, like London-Edinburgh, I would have no problem with it in terms of reduced stress; then you find that you may have to stand all the way (how is that for reducing stress) despite having had to get a second mortgage to afford the ticket. If there are two of you, it is far cheaper to drive London-Edinburgh than take the train. So that 'carrot' almost becomes a 'stick'. Admittedly, the rail system is no longer government-run, but they should include it in their planning - I wonder if they do?

Are there any real carrots on offer to us poor drivers? Or are we simply to be beaten with the stick until we give up totally?

Rhubarb! Rhubarb!

There is a rumour that rhubarb is to be outlawed.

In order to reduce the continual scaring of government ministers by frequent shouts across the chamber of 'Rhubarb! Rhubarb!' by the opposition and Labour back-benchers alike, it has been rumoured in Whitehall that a Bill will soon be put before the House that rhubarb (or at least the mention of it) should be banned from Parliament.

Whilst a total ban may calm the nerves of ministers in one sense, how many of them will feel deprived of one of their favourite desserts, with custard, as a total ban would probably have to include all of the eating establishments that the House of Commons (and the Other Place) has?

Perhaps the ban would result in a new cry - 'Custard! Custard!'. Doesn't have quite the same ring to it somehow....

Lemon Plums

Just uncovered this link.

Lemon Plums

Anyone seen these in the UK?