Category Archives: Personal

Everything That Could Go Wrong? Did…

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So this year I decided, after my success last year with St Delia’s (hallowed be her baking) Cake in a Box, to make a Christmas cake from scratch, especially after my in laws confirmed they would be at ours for the holidays.

So I grabbed my St Delia’s (hallowed be her baking) Christmas Book and bought the fruit and the peel and the parchment and the brandy.

Yesterday, as instructed, I measured and mixed the fruit and peel with the brandy.

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More dried fruit than I have ever seen in one place before. Ever.

Today, I made the cake. Adam is on half term holiday but decided he didn’t want to help. He’s very wise, my son.

The first mistake happened when I was sifting the dry ingredients. I didn’t realize I wasn’t quite over the bowl and some of the flour etc went on the counter. So I scooped it back in and went on my merry way. (Get it? Merry? Christmas? Never mind…)

Next up it was time to cream the butter and sugar. So I put them into another bowl and stuck my electric hand whisk into it. Butter starts to fly as it was still too hard.

So I scooped up what I could and moved it to my food processor, which has a stronger motor. But not strong enough as I discovered when one of the whisk blades snapped right off. Probably not the motor’s fault, on reflection.

So I scraped it back into the original bowl and dropped some on the floor. Now, my counters are clean. I clean them regularly during the day and I always wipe them down with soap and water before I begin to cook, so scooping spilled flour back into the bowl was no great hazard. My floor, however, needs a wash. So I swept up the butter and sugar and hoped it wasn’t as much as it looked like as I threw it in the bin.

And then I set to work creaming by hand. Which hurts as my arthritis is quite bad in my wrists today. Once it was softer, I went back to the electric hand whisk to finish the job.

Here I need to stop and explain something. I was taught to cook, more or less, by my Jewish mother. In Judaism, if you find a blood spot inside an egg, the egg cannot be eaten, which is why each egg is cracked individually into one bowl before being added to other eggs or ingredients.

Yes, I was making a Christmas cake and I don’t practice Judaism anyway and have never thrown out an egg with a blood spot in it, but I still crack my eggs into a bowl or glass on their own before adding them. Indoctrination is hard to shake…

Anyway, the next thing to go wrong was when I was cracking my eggs. I tend to use a small glass for this only today I used a really small glass for this for some unknown reason and when I cracked one of the eggs the shell slipped out of my hand and half of it landed in the glass with the egg. And I couldn’t get it out.

So I pour the egg though my fingers and am praying I caught all of the shell…maybe people will think it’s a very skinny almond if I didn’t?

So. The eggs were added. Next problem…

Recipe says to fold dry into wet. Only I used the wrong bowls. I used the huge bowl for the dry and the medium bowl for the wet. There was no way the wet plus all that fruit (see above) was going in that bowl. So I folded the wet into the dry and prayed that St Delia (hallowed be her baking) would forgive me.

After that things went a bit more smoothly. Everything incorporated well and looked the same as it had last year when I had St Delia’s (hallowed be her baking)  measurements instead of my own.

Then came the parchment paper.

It is a fact that parchment paper hates me. If I tell it to fold crisply, it flops. If I try to cut it to size, it wiggles and I miss. So it probably took me 30 minutes to get the damn cake tin lined. And I was so frustrated I almost didn’t line my tin, just to see what would happen. But I had come so far…

But I did it. And it’s in the oven. For those 4.5 hours. With Adam asking me every 10 minutes “Where’s the cake?”

Which he will never be allowed to eat due to the brandy.

The verdict?

If for some reason I ever again say “I think I’ll make a Christmas Cake this year.” Simon has been instructed to tell me to go lie down until the urge goes away.

The aftermath.

But I’m still thinking about making my own Christmas pudding…

Why I Don’t Work Full Time

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1 trip to school

1 walk to the bus

1 bus ride

1 shopping trip

1 bus ride

1 monitor setup

1 ride in the car

1 meeting over coffee with a client

1 meeting/networking event with strangers

Means I’m out of spoons at 3pm

Still have to do:

1 pick up of a small boy from child minder

1 dinner cooked

1 boy into bed, with no help as Simon works late on Wednesdays

So I’m about 3 spoons short…

Signs Of Progress

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So, I think I mentioned, Adam’s school is a 1.5 mile walk, one way.

This means that three days a week I walk six miles, and one or two days a week I walk three miles, depending on whether or not Simon can take him on a Friday. His childminder picks him up Wednesday and Friday, so Simon or I only have to go there and back on those days.

And I’m seeing some results.

First result is that what has been a 30 minute walk for me, when Adam isn’t with me, is slowly getting faster. I expect it will take me around 20 by Christmas.

The second is the centimetres are falling away. I have lost a total of one and half centimetres off my waist and two and half off my hips. My neck, which is weird to measure anyway, has stayed the same.

The third is half a kilo gone.

I actually think I am more pleased by the centimeters lost than the kilos!

New clothes here I come!!!

The Good And The Bad…

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A week or so ago I placed an order with my favourite porn kitchen store, Lakeland. I love their products and their service.

On Wednesday I had a card through my door from Hermes Delivery Service saying nothing but that they had missed me and would try again on Thursday. No phone number to call, despite there being a space for it on the card.

Thursday I was home for a good part of the morning but, alas, came home from picking Adam up from school and found another card from Hermes through my door. This one had a phone number and a name and, more or less, said if I didn’t get in touch they’d try one more time and then return it to the sender. I immediately rang the number, getting a generic answer phone rather than a specific one, asking them to re-deliver Friday afternoon, as I’d be out all morning.

Friday afternoon I get home to find a third Hermes delivery slip. This one said ‘Luckily your neighbour at number 15 was home and we don’t deliver to your area except in the morning.’ So my lovely neighbour had taken in my box and I finally got it.

And so I went looking for a way to complain to Hermes, not just for the lack of phone number the first time, but the tone of the final note. That is not good customer service. If a customer rings you and says ‘I can only be home in the afternoon.’ you say ‘Okay, then I’ll deliver in the afternoon.’

However, if you go to the Hermes website you learn something. You learn that all Hermes drivers are contractors. And that they have no complaints procedure. Really?

So I went to MyHermes, made up a tracking number, as it wouldn’t let me fill in the form with out it, and made my complaint that way.

I also told them I would be contacting the vendor to let them know how unhappy I was with their delivery and to suggest they find a better company.

I received replies from both companies today.

Lakeland fell all over themselves apologizing and assuring me they would speak to their delivery firm and they hoped I’d give them another chance. Which, of course, I will. They are the Good.

Hermes fell all over themselves blaming the driver and explaining that they are trained but are on their own beyond that but they’d try to speak to them. The Bad.

Here’s the thing. I have a voice. I have a computer. I have a Twitter. Granted, Hermes has no social media presence that I can find, although if you search Twitter from them you’ll find hundreds of complaints. There is one local Hermes franchise delivery page on Facebook but nothing for the general company.

But I will be hash tagging this as Hermes and @LakelandUK.

So people will know: Lakeland is The Good. And Hermes is The Bad.

And Hermes? It’s time to come into the 21st Century, improve your service, and use the internet. I know a really great company that could help you…

 

Pie!

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The Last Pie.

So if you follow me on Twitter you may have seen this:

Which is a pie that I made.

So tonight I did it again. And took pictures.

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Veggie Tables.

To make my chicken pie, which is made with leftover chicken. Or turkey. Or, in tonight’s case, chicken and ham…anyway, to make it you start with some vegetables.

Tonight I had a swede (That’s turnip to those of you in the US. Or maybe rutabaga. Not sure), some carrots, potatoes, a parsnip and some leftover green beans. I also used a small onion and about four cloves of garlic. All of that, except the potatoes, was thrown in the food processor with some sage and made into a rough medium to small cut. Different sizes is good because texture is good! The potatoes I just cut into small chunks.

The chicken I used was leftover from one I made in the slow cooker on Monday. If you’ve never made a whole chicken in the slow cooker, give it a go. Just shove it on there with four or five halved and squeezed lemons with one or two shoved inside the cavity of the bird, bung the lid on and cook for around 10 hours on low. So.Very.Good. And even better?

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Solid Stock. Really.

The stock you get. The chicken fat just all melts and combines with the lemon juice and the chicken juices to make this incredible stock. You can try making gravy with it but gravy is the one cooking nemesis I am still working on, so I save it instead and threw it in the ‘fridge to use in the pie.

I took it out of the ‘fridge and removed all the congealed fat and brought it to a boil. Once it was boiling I added the veg and potatoes and turned it down to medium low. I let it simmer for about two hours, until all of the vegetables were tender and there was a thickish sauce.

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Now with added cream.

I then added some single cream (which is just, well, cream, in the US) and cooked it another 10 minutes with the lid off.

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Meat! (And beans.)

While I was letting that simmer and heating the oven (200C, that’s something or other F. Use Google.) I layered the bottom of my pie tin (Don’t you love this tin? So old fashion. Lakeland. I love them.) with the ham (which, by the way, was also made in the slow cooker. On Sunday. Ham in Coke. Let me know if you want the recipe), chicken and green beans.

Now I have a confession to make. I don’t make pastry. Ever. I buy it. Always.

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Store bought. Don’t judge me.

See?

Do you want to know why I buy my pastry? Do you? Because Angela Hartnett told me to in a recipe of her’s I use. If it’s good enough for her? It’s certainly good enough for me.

Anyway, after the veg is finished cooking, it is poured over the meat in the bottom of the tin. Then I egg wash the edges of the tin and place a strip of the pastry along it. Then I egg wash the strip and place the rest of the pastry on top, trim the edges, make a cross in the top and shallow cuts along the sides (This makes the pastry puff up more) and then egg wash the whole thing.

Place in the middle of the oven for about 30 minutes and you get…

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TA DA! Okay, a bit burnt. Again…don’t judge me.

It was delicious. Again.

Poultry pie. Nailed it.

When You Walk To School…

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You get to see the men unloading trucks in front of Iceland and get to watch the lift on the back of the truck go up and down.

You get to see a train at the train station and get to watch it leave.

You get to see how many front doors you can count.

You get to jump into puddles.

You get to say hi to lots of dogs.

You get to carry an umbrella.

You get to point out all the flowers and berries you see.

So who would want to drive?!