reopening my old blog

Well decided it is just stupid to not write on the old blog so as of this minute I intend to publish this particular post to BOTH blogs. This one as from now is strictly for recipes and Brax house in the country is strictly for all the other rantings I do. That way I can attempt to organise my writings and ramblings a little better! So here goes....................

soft white/wholemeal bread recipe

Basic soft white or wholemeal bread has taken me years to make. I use a bread maker about 6 times a week to make nearly all the bread we eat. It has taken me years to suss out soft bread and in the end was down to running out of bread flour. So I substituted for normal cheap plain white flour for just 100g of the total amount. Really it was because we needed bread that day not when I could get to a shop to buy more flour and I just had not got enough of the proper bread flour. Behold a soft bread to rival anything you can buy in  a bakers or a shop.

I have made this originally white extra strong wholemeal but since have now also made with white bread flour.

RECIPE FOR SOFT BREAD:
I use a bread machine to make the dough then bake in the oven so since my machine needs the liquids in the pan first this is how I arranged the recipe. If your machine does it dry ingredients first you will need to adjust. Likewise you can also make by hand:

1 table spoon sunflour/olive oil
300ml water
375g strong bread flour ( white or wholemeal)
100g plain flour
2 and a half tea spoons dried yeast ( I use the normal cheap stuff not the bread maker stuff cos it works fine and is about 1/3 of the price)
1 tea spoon of sugar
1 and a half tea spoons of salt.

I put the liquids in the pan first, then cover with the flour. Make a shallow well in the centre and add the yeast. Then put sugar and salt into different corners making sure they do not touch the yeast since the salt actually stops the reaction and sugar makes it go - if I understand correctly so they need to mix at the right time.

Turn bread machine onto dough setting and leave till finished.
Turn oven onto 220degC.
Take the dough out of the pan.  Form into either a loaf or into rolls. You can also make half of the dough into rolls and the other half can have dried fruit sprinkled on and kneaded into it to make currant buns. A careful sprinkle of mixed spices can also be added but do be careful and just sprinkle on lightly.
Now leave to rise for about half an hour.

At this point I sometimes now make vegan cup cakes in which case put the oven down to 190degC. By the time the cakes are ready to come out of the oven the bread has risen and it doesnt take very long for the oven temperature to get to 220degC ready for the bread to go in. Makes it much cheaper using your oven if you make lots of food at once.

Vegan cupcakes recipe:
2 cups flour - self raising or plain into a bowl
add 1/2 cup sugar or vanilla sugar
1 cup soya milk
1 cup sunflower oil
1 tea spoon bicarbonate of soda
dried mixed fruit. (optional)
Mix well and spoon into paper cases.
Bake for about 10 minutes. Cakes will be light gold on top when ready and if you are unsure stick a skewer into them and if it comes out clean the cakes are ready. Allow to cool on a wire rack.
put the oven up to 220degC.
when at correct temperature put risen bread in and leave about 10 minutes.
When ready the bottom of the rolls or bread will sound hollow if you tap it. Once ready put on a wire rack to cool.

If you are hungry put a potato in and have a jacket potato lunch after all your hard work baking!

Grant vortex 21 is a rubbish boiler- DO NOT BUY A GRANT BOILER!

It was the WHICH best buy of 2008. It broke twice whilst still under warranty and yet again it doesnt work. It as cost us approximately £500 a year since the warranty ran out ( 2 years) just to get it fixed not for services,or normal running costs. And not counting the labour just for the parts to keep the thing working! It actually broke several times whilst still under warranty. Its RUBBISH. I would never ever buy a Grant again. I cannot believe it. The circuit board and some switch or other was only fixed in february 2013 and yet again we have no heating. We do have hot water this time but this has happened before. We need to sit down and work it all out now before we fix again because it may well work out cheaper for us to get a new Firebird or similar that comes with a 5 year guarantee and just have a complete new boiler. Its awful this is. I feel ripped off. I went into debt to buy this boiler and the debt is only due to end this August! What a joke the new efficient boilers are. Our old boiler was 28 years old ( Firebird hence why we are considering instead!) and worked fine but had a leak so we replaced thinking it was the best thing to do. It may well still have been going despite being inefficient and leaking. I until today have always tried to be energy efficient and environmentally aware. I even use natural washing up liquid. What a joke it all is if you end up freezing for the planet! Of course its May thank goodness. So even though its cold and wet we will not die just yet. But I will NEVER BUY A GRANT BOILER EVER AGAIN!

time to write again- council tax problems

I finally finished or at least got last years books up to dte yesterday. AND I got teh rest of my products on CPNP database. Of course I have yet to actually check them. Will do that later this week. After yesterday I really need a rest from horrible govt databases.

Well I am realy furious with my incompetant council tax. They wrote to say we had not paid and that if we get 3 reminders in a year they automatically take us to court. BUT WE HAVE PAID! AND we paid before their due date so I find it totally wrong that amagistrates court would charge us £60 to go to court when we have done nothing wrong. Apparently according to our Council tax letter that is the case.

Its because they kept charging us on the wrong date so we stopped the direct debits. We arranged to pay on 15th. they took it on 1st. Then we rearranged for 15th. They took it on 1st. Then we cancelled it completely and tried really hard to rearrange for 15th and again they got it wrong. The problem is each time they get it wrong we get charged by the bank for not having enough money to cover something. Anyway about October last year I got sick of this so I now just pay them on 15th every month and still we keep getting reminders which they send out on 19th or later saying we have not paid and if it carries on I will get charged by the court which is totally unfair. The Manager of Daventry Council who is completley incompetant apparently is called Alison Harris. I really wish next time she tries to harrass us she at least tries to check her records. The woman needs to be sacked. Anyway can you sue your local council for harrassment? If you can and this carries on I hope to find out.

I do not want to pay them by Direct debit cos they always get it wrong. Its us who keep getting charged cos they cannot do their job right. They got paid on time last month and yet they send us a reminder. If apparently we get sent 3 reminders they automatically send us a court order which will cost us £60 and obviously we are being harrassed and bullied here so they will of course send us them just to make their point even though we will have already paid on time and they will get paid on time every month so why do they keep harrassing us? Just because we do not want them to force direct debits on us? So then they can bully us? Why should be forced to pay by Direct debit if it does not suit us to do this? This is supposed to be a free country. Well thats a laugh! We are being bullied by Daventry Council tax office cos they are taking their jobs too far and using them to harrass honest people. Still whats new there?

lemon cake recipe (vegan)

I made this as cupcakes.

2cups SR or plain flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 tea spoon bicarb
1 cup sunflower oil
1 cup soya milk
1 tea spoon of lemon essential oil

ICING- optional
glace icing made with two table spoons of  icing sugar and 1 tea spoon of either hot water or freshly squeezed lemon juice.

Heat oven to 190degC
mix all ingredients for cake very well.
Spoon into cake cases

Bake for about 15 minute.  To check if cooked use a skewer such as a BBQ skewer. It should come out of the cake clean when cooked. Cool on wire rack and either eat as it is or ice with above recipe for icing.

vegan feta recipe

After writing the last post which took me two days!!!!! I realised to make the vegan cheeseless lasagne, you would need to know how to make vegan feta in order to make the uncheese sauce using some of the marinade. So adapted from the uncheese cookbook by Joanne Stephaniak here is my version of vegan feta.
Mainly, I adapted this due to difficulties with obtaining some of the ingredients so for people living in the UK these ingredients are usually available:


Vegan Feta recipe:
I block of shop bought firm tofu
Saucepan of water

Marinade:
1 and a half cups of water ( about 440ml)
half a cup of soya bean paste ( we use soya bean paste from the Korea Food Company available in chinese and indonesian supermartkets. There is one in Coventry at Cannon Park. I am sure they are going to be found all over the UK)
3 tablespoons of white wine or cider vinegar ( probably other vinegars will also work but I have yet to try out)
2 tablespoons salt
Some sort of lidded container
whisk or blender (or fork if nothing else available)

Cut tofu into small ( about 1 inch or 2.5 cm) cubes into a saucepan of water and bring to the boil then simmer for 2-3 minutes.
While you are doing this make the marinade by mixing all the rest of the ingredients together. Whisk or blend to make a smooth sauce. Put into a bowl or container with a lid. Drain the tofu. Add the hot tofu to the marinade. Allow to cool at room temperature. Once cold refridgerate. Shake or stir occassionally. It will need a minimum of  2 days to cure and needs to be used over next two weeks. To use; drain and add to recipes as you would feta. Works on pizza and as an ingredient in dishes such as cauliflower cheese.

Once the feta is used up you can re-use the marinade a few more times or use to make un-cheese sauces. To do this you need to substitute some of the soya milk for the marinade. It will make a sort if mild tangy sauce or can make a very cheesy sauce depending on the rest of available ingredients. Other things you can add to the sauce to make it more cheesey include lemon juice for the acid taste, and nutritional yeast flakes.

cheeseless lasagne or uncheese lasagne

So much for managing to write every day! Thats just another thing that didnt quite work. Still seem to have got back into writing every couple of days so its still an improvement. Seems this blog is still becoming a sort of diary tho and I was attempting to do something else with it. Right this minute tho I am unsure of exactly what it is I want to use this space in cyberspace for. Its my space tho so will just turn into what it is I suppose. Or should that be hope with fingers crossed several times over?

Unfortunately I never got a photo before half of it was eaten!

 I made a cheeseless lasagne : It originally was meant to have cheezley in the sauce but I decided to economise and used the marinade from making vegan feta instead with a bit of black pepper and juice of 1 lemon. Oh and just a dash of soya sauce for the salty bit. Add all this to about half a litre of soya milk which is already in a pan and coming up to the boil. Stir very well and you have a "sort of cheesey sauce". M says its nice but not that cheesey so unless you either need to economize or you just have not got ny and still fancy lasagne you might find a better recipe. IF however you have no cheese /cheesley and no money or time to go and buy any then this is a very good lasagne recipe.


 FRUGAL LASAGNE
Soak about 1L of soya chunks in boiling water in microwave
With a small amount of marge, fry 2 large field type mushrooms - chopped.

In a large oven proof dish, place some ready made pasta sauce in a thin smudge of a layer over the bottom of the dish.

Add a few slices of courgette, chopped onion and sprinkle some soaked soya chunks.

Put a layer of dried lasagne sheets on top of this.

Then put another layer of lasagne on top of that.

Spread with generous amount of pasta sauce.

Add courgette slices, chopped onion, whole peeled garlic cloves, chopped fried mushrooms, chopped tomatoes and soaked soya chunks or whatever else you have available.

Sprinkle with fresh or dried herbs of your choice. Basil and oregano are traditional but no reason you cannot use sage or thyme or any other you fancy or have available.

Continue to sprinkle herbs as you go along.

Add another double layer of lasagne sheets top with a few courgette slices, chopped onion, whole peeled garlic cloves ( right now they are shooting so its green garlic and no longer as strong as it used to be so best to use up asap and then soon probably end of May/June we get the new crop of garlic so right now we use as much as we can), chopped fried mushrooms, chopped tomatoes and soaked soya chunks.

Cover with remaining pasta sauce.

Sprinkle with herbs.

Cover dish with either a lid if available or with silver foil and bake at 180degC.

When its been in for about half an hour check to see if it needs more liquid. If it is looking cooked but the pasta is not cooked ( to check stick a BLUNT Knife in and if goes in easy it is cooked. If pasta not cooked and it is out of liquid a little add more and cover and cook for longer. Once pasta is cooked liquid should just about be gone.

Now make the cheesy sauce recipe as above and pour over the top.

Bake till sauce is thick on top and serve.

Planting, planting

I will try to spell better in this post! Have to get back to sorting the products onto the cpnp database in a bit. Nearly half way thru today and have yet to begin any real work. The alotment is full of seeds. Or what we have already dug is so nowq time to dig the rest and start the endless task of weeding. And of course have to try and work out what is a weed and what is wanted which I find is not an easy thing to begin with. If you do not get rid of teh weed the planyt you want does not do well but identifying the weeds from the seedlings you actually want to keep is really hard. If it doesnt rain soon there will be nothing growing anyway. We have no water at our allotment. Something we need to sort out once we get it all planted. We have collected quite a pile of wood for building a roof area to catch water and feed a water butt but as yet also have no water butt to fill. And the rain must come soon...........Anyway the allotment is now full of seeds which gives it a reasonable chance this year. I ran out of florence fennel so have planted the stuff you put into curry. Will it grow?

At war with the mice

Well its started to get bit diaryish soooooooo I remember when I went to the allotment in the early morning last year. The sun was bright and shiny but not hot as yet. Early morning tends to be the best time I find. I hate the hot afternoon. Right now we need rain else we will have no crops at all. You cannot win in the UK. Lats year it was so dull I only got two red tomatoes all summer. Lots of green but it was pretty much a waste of time bothering to lant them. I have 14 this year tho the mice ate two in the night. They are protected in a workshop with a plastic roof so ok for now and lots of light from above. Found out the workshop has mice tho! I hate to kill something so I am going to try one of those sonic anti mice things that you just plug in and the sound gets rid of the mice. I have yet to find out if it will be too close to my hens tho. If they are made unhappy then obviously it willnot last long. Well off to try planting so stuff today. Not sure what yet but will see what gets put in I suppose. Time to start of the runner and french beans too about now. The weather feels good for that. The mice also broke into a cold frame last night and ate all my sweetcorn seeds. I am rubbish with sweetcorn at the best of toimes so this is not what I need. Have moved the pots to a higher place and planted more. The worst bit here is I had 5 healthy plants and they ate them as well as the seeds that had yet to germinate. I am at war with the mice!

The cpnp nightmare

My life is not working out at all right now. Firstly no time for writing due to CPNP nightmare. I have to get every soap ( I have nearly 50 formulations) uploaded now. Have done all the rest of teh products at least those we shall continue to sell. Some have gone since bad sellers or too expensive so no point wasting time doing them. Have checked and rechecked and updated as I realised I had done hings wrong. Even attached wrong docs and all sorts of errors. That will teach me not to do important stuff when flu-ish. Just wastes time if you have to go back and check it all again. Nearly there now tho. Just realised we are almost out of money so no way round it got to do a car boot this week to get cash for Mick to go to work else he will not manage to get there. I think the van may need brakes soon as well so its all got to start coming in soon else we will be completely knackered. Still I suppose we are both healthy so I have to think of good things really else I would just curl up in a ball and die.......... Will just have to wait and see what happens.

Baked stuffed aubergine with melon and lambs lettuce salad and coconutty-coriander sauce

Well this is an adaptation of a recipe I found years ago in the Demuth`s cook book. 1 large aubergine - cut in half lengthways and roasted with foil over it to protect it. Roast in a small amount of oil for about 30mins at 180degC - allow to cool Make filling. You can use just about anything really so long as it has fruit and spices. I used: about a handful of chopped ready to eat prunes, small handful of golden sultanas, About a teaspoon of crystalised ginger chopped small and added with sugar that coats it, 4 chopped ready to eat apricots, half a can of black eye beans, mixed cake spice - about a teaspoon, tablespoon of cumin seeds, half to one tablespoon of dried chilli flakes, one onion chopped and fried in oil ( or microwave for about 3 mins), 3 cloves of garlic, 1 chopped fresh tomato, A splash of apple juice, A splash of soya sauce, sprinkle of black pepper, Scoop out the cooked flesh of the inside of the aubergines making sure you leave the shells intact. Put shells into an oven proof dish. Make sure they are supported so will not fall over as you cook. Mix all of above filling ingredients together with the chopped aubergine pulp. Microwave for a couple of minutes. Mix again. Now put the filling into the empty aubergine shells. Make sure they are overfilled rather than underfilled. Bake for about 20-30 mins until slightly browned on top. If it is going too dark cover with some foil. Keep an eye on them since you do not want to end up with crunchy burned tops. For the coconutty sauce: 1 can of coconut milk 750 ml water large sprig of coriander (or I also use about 100m total of frozen fresh chopped coriander in water and add instead of last two ingredients) i onion and small amount of sunflower oil 2 cloves of garlic juice of 1 lemon tablespoon of turmeric 1/2 tea spoon cayenne 3 pieces of cinnamon stick about 100g ground almonds or enough to thicken the sauce To make sauce fry onion in oil. Do not brown. Add garlic to fried onion. Add rest of ingredients except for ground almonds and stir for several minutes. Cook on very low heat for about 10 minutes and then tiurn heat off, cover and remove cinnamon sticks. Blend. Add cinnamon sticks back to the sauce mixture and allow the cinnamon sticks to infuse into the sauce for half an hour or so before serving. Remove to serve. SALAD melon balls from half a honeydew melon two tomatoes chopped handful of fresh baby spinach leaves handful of fresh lambs lettuce In a container with lid such as jam jar, add about 50ml sunflower oil, 50ml white wine vinegar, dessert spoon of light soya sauce. Shake to mixe and mix with salad ingredients and leave to "cook" for about half an hour. I am having formatting problems with Blogger. Why is everything so terribly difficult?

brilliant start

Well and so it was a terrible begining. First day of writing and it all went to pot! I never got round to it! So today should I write 2 posts to try and make up for it? Doesnt quite cut it really. Still here goes............. Yesterday I spent the entire day trying to put products on the CPNP european cosmetics portal. I actually even managed to get banned from the support pages!! All because I told them the program was ridiculously difficult to use and sent them a screen dump of an error message only to have someone contact me saying the support people will not deal with me due to the tone of my question. Well why cant you just tell me the answer then???. Well honestly I really really did not mean or expect to upset anyone. Very touchy these government types. Makes me think its all true about faffing about when it comes to EU legislation etc. I got zero help but did manage to log several of my products tho no idea how to check if they are there and it looks like no one can be bothered to tell me where to find the database listing. I have read and re-read the useless manual they sent me since just about Christmas time and it just makes no sense at all. You actually have to log into 3 programs and finding your way from one to the other is it appears just a matter of trial and error or of luck. I still do not understand at all what exactly is meant to go on there. If I do not get it sorted by next july thats that for my soap making business. WE are off out in a minute to an event in Peterborough which may be good who knows. I am sitting drinking my tea waiting to let out my chickens and then we are off out. It is worrying though this new EU stuff cos if I get it wrong and we get fined it is likely we would have to sell the house to pay for it and that will mean the end to our world not just to my soap making business. The fines for getting it wrong are so huge and yet to pay an expert to put this stuff on their registeris impossible cos its thousands. What a scary thing to think really...........So this is a question indeed: Will the eventual ban which takes effect on July 11th 2013, on experimenting on animals for cosmetics mean small vegan businesses like mine cease to trade at all?

blog 1 - just for me. Aims and desires.

No idea what I am going to do with this blog but as the title suggests I may have to turn it into a recipe blog. This is my first blog here so has the feel of "anything can happen" and very possibly it will. My aims are to write in good English. That will be a challenge on it's own! Then to write daily. Something worth writing even if just as a practice for me and no one else out there has any desire to read it. This blog here is just for me really. Plan of action for 2013 To write daily in the blog. To complete the book, Walter. To complete a recipe book for vegans - no title as yet. To get published the Natural cosmetics book I am currently sending to everyone. To attempt to write a novel.