Winter

One of the things I dislike about our short winter days is the way that the darkness makes me think that it's later than it really is. Often we end up eating ridiculously early, as I think that, because it's been dark for a while, it must be dinnertime. And that seems to compress the short day even further, since, if it's an overcast day, it can be dark by 3.30. Conversely, in summer when the days are gloriously long, we end up not eating until ten...

I'm actually looking forward to cooking dinner tonight, though, because it's going to involve lots of garlic which means that I can use the nifty garlic-peeling device that my folks brought back from Canada.




It's a dishwasher-proof silicon pot-holder that also works as a trivet, a jar-opener and - weirdly - as a garlic peeler. Just roll it around the garlic clove and rub firmly, and the skin peels off like magic. Even more fun than the whack-the-clove-with-the-back-of-the-knife method.

We're going to watch Gaslight tonight after dinner - one advantage of dark winter evenings is that they're far better for scary movies than sunny summer ones!

Blackberry jam

We went blackberrying yesterday, and I made jam with the berries. The kitchen looked like a serial killer had run amok by the time I'd finished (blackberry juice looks a lot like blood) but the resulting jam is delicious.

Or at least, I think it is. It could probably be a teensy bit runnier, but the flavour is lovely. None of the rest of the family will taste it, though, which sort of spoils it for me. When I eat, a lot (most) of the enjoyment comes from the shared experience, so eating something on my own feels more boring than pleasurable. Like looking at a beautiful view - it's usually better if you have someone to share it with...

Anyway, on the off-chance that someone else would like the recipe, here's what I did:

I simmered the blackberries (about 600g) with about 3/4 of cup of water, until they were soft. Then I pushed them through a sieve to get rid of the seeds. (This was the bit that led to the kitchen looking like an abattoir.) Then I boiled the seedless mix along with about 400g of sugar and three tablespoons of lemon juice. (If I'd had jam sugar I could have left out the lemon juice - it adds pectin which makes the jam set. For runnier jam, use less lemon juice.) About fifteen minutes of boiling later, the jam was ready to jar. (To tell if it's ready, put a saucer in the fridge before you start. It's ready if, when a spoonful of jam is dropped onto the saucer, it wrinkles when you drag a finger through it once it's cooled).

Enjoy!

Money money money....

I am somewhat unnerved by the amount of money I've been spending recently.

The sad thing is, for the most part I haven't even been spending it on anything interesting.





The picture is from a day spent at Wisley Gardens with the family, so that was money reasonably well spent. We need to pack in as much colour and sun as possible before it all goes grey and wet! But I really resent spending my hard-earned money on boring things like food and clothes. (Hmmm ... hard-earned ... not really, considering I have the whole of August off ... Never mind, not going to let that stop me whining!)

Last week I took the girls to the annoyingly named Swots (the only shop which stocks the regulation school blouses and jumpers.) I bought them each a horrible polyester jumper and two blouses, plus a pair of PE shorts for Sophie and a PE shirt for Emily. £88. (Double that for the $ price, multiply by 14 or so for the price in rands.) I bought their trousers and shoes and socks in cheaper places (since they can wear any black trousers and any black shoes); that was another £45 pounds. Aaargh. It probably does still work out cheaper than not having uniforms (and they prefer having them) but still. And then there's all the school stationary to be bought. Always my downfall - I love things like coloured pencils.





And then I went grocery shopping. The newspapers keep going on about the rising food prices and we are definitely starting to feel it now. I bought really worthy stuff - no dead animals (Steve's vegetarianism is good for us) and (gasp!) no chocolate - and I still flinched when I had to hand my credit card over. I am going to have to get super-organised when term starts. Right now I have chickpeas cooking in the crockpot; I will need to keep that sort of thing up once term starts again, because I really don't want to end up wasting money through disorganisation. It's grim walking in when you've had a long day at work, you're exhausted and hungry, and you realise there's nothing in the house for dinner, so on days when we're tired we often end up running to the co-op and buying stuff like soup and hummous and french bread and bagged salad - all of which we could do ourselves for a fraction of the cost.

Here's the chickpea recipe in case anyone wants to try it; it's very nice...

Soak a bag of chickpeas overnight. Cook on low all day.

When you get home, saute a couple of onions with a good few cloves of garlic and a big chunk of grated ginger in a big saucepan. Season with cumin and coriander. Add a couple of tablespoons of balsamic vinegar, and two cups of chopped tomatoes. Drain the chickpeas, and add them to the onions etc; simmer for half-an-hour or so. Serve with brown rice and a tossed salad.

Enjoy!

Milk Tart Recipe

I seem to get a lot of hits from people looking for milk tart recipes, so - since I don't think I've ever posted a recipe - I thought I'd share the two recipes that we use. We use the crustless recipe most often, but the second recipe reminds me so strongly of Bobby's mum that I make it when I'm feeling nostalgic for Pietermaritzburg.

Crustless Milk Tart

Ingredients

4 cups milk

2 tablespoons butter or margarine

1 cup flour

pinch of salt salt

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

3 eggs, separated

1 cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

Directions

1. Melt the butter, add the egg yolks and sugar, and whisk mixture.
   
2. Add the dry ingredients and milk to the egg mixture.
   
3. Beat the egg whites until stiff, then fold into the mix and blend well.
   
4. Pour into an oven-proof dish about 35x20cm- the mixture should be about 3cm deep.
   
5. Bake at 160C for 45-60mins.
   
6. Sprinkle with cinnamon. Serve hot or cold.
   

And here's the more traditional recipe - milk tart in a pastry shell. My mother-in-law makes this all the time; she seldom goes to visit anyone without taking a freshly-baked milk tart along with her.

Traditional Milk Tart

Pie Crust

1/2 C. margarine

1/2 C. sugar

1 egg

2 C. flour, sifted

pinch of salt

Filling

4 C. milk
1 Tbs. margarine
1 C. sugar
2 eggs
3 Tbs. cornflour
3 Tbs. flour
1 Tsp. vanilla extract

Directions

1. Cream the margarine and sugar together and beat in the egg.
   
2. Add the flour and salt and knead until a soft dough is formed.
   
3. Press the mixture into a greased circular pie dish and bake at 350°F / 180Cfor 15 minutes.
   
4. Bring the milk and margarine to the boil.
   
5. Cream the sugar, eggs, corn starch, flour and vanilla essence.
   
6. Add some of the hot milk to the creamed mixture, then pour mixture back into the pot and heat gently until it thickens. Do not boil.
   
7. Pour the filling into the pie crust and cool.
   
8. Refrigerate until required and sprinkle with cinnamon to serve.
   

Enjoy!

For Maddy ... eight random things about me.

RULES - Post rules before giving the facts - Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves - People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules - At the end of the your blog you need to tag eight people and list their names - Leave them a comment on their blog, telling them they have been tagged and not to forget to read your blog.

1. I always support the underdog.
   
2. To the extent that I tend to switch sides if the underdog starts winning.
   
3. I don't eat the white part of fried or boiled or poached eggs.
   
4. My favourite weather is cold and sunny.
   
5. My least favourite is grey and drizzly. (Lucky I live in England, isn't it?)
   
6. I like moving house.
   
7. I have tried to like gardening, but I really don't.
   
8. I have a strange block when it comes to posting things - somehow all the steps involved (finding an envelope, finding a pen, finding a stamp, actually getting the item into the mail) are too much for me.
   

Eight more people to do this ... Lisa, Lisa, Chris, Rachel, Jennifer, Jane, J, and Madre-Terra.

And for Lisa, who asked if we and the children still felt South African ... Interesting question, though hard to answer... Bobby and I still do think of ourselves as South African. I think if you grow up in a certain country, you can't help but be permanently shaped by it. But I also think that living first in the US and now here in England has changed us. And is still changing us, probably. I suspect that we're eventually going to end up feeling not particularly native to any country. I would imagine that if we live here for another 10 years, say, we'll feel more and more out of touch with South African issues. But I doubt we'll ever entirely assimilate here. For instance, we'll always have our SA accents which (even though we forget we have them) are instantly recognisable as foreign to British people the moment we open our mouths. It's the same for Stephen, he says. The girls feel differently, though. Sophie, who was three when we moved to Florida, says she doesn't feel at all South African, she feels like she's a mixture of American and English, but becoming more and more English. And Emily, who was eight when we left, says she feels like a complete mixture; something new.

It is odd, having children who are growing up in such a different world to the one we grew up in. I always find it jarring when they use different words for things than the ones Bobby or I would choose. For instance, I noticed this afternoon, when I was making marmalade (first time ever - and it worked!) that I still refer to naartjies, but the kids call them satsumas.

Anyway, in case anyone would like it, here is the recipe for this delicious marmalade:

4 naartjies
2 lemons
500 ml water
2 cups sugar
A splash of brandy - added on impulse

Squeeze the juice and pulp from the fruit into a pan. Add the water. Cut up the peel into the size chunks you like. Bring the mixture to the boil, and simmer till the peel is soft. Add the sugar. Stir till dissolved. Boil till it starts getting thick. Apparently the test of "doneness" is to put a teaspoon full on a cold saucer, put it in the fridge for a couple of minutes. If you can wrinkle it with a finger at that stage, then it's ready. Makes enough for two jars full.

Enjoy!