A final fling - for now

We are the only ones here. It feels only right, a final treat, to have it all to ourselves.

If I could bottle and sell this walk, the sense of calm that I feel as I emerge from the wooded valley onto the beach, the sound of the birdsong, clearer and richer than I've ever heard before giving way to the hush and rush of the waves, I'd be a wealthy woman.

The tide is quite high on this, the day of our final fling on our favourite beach until the Autumn. Alone, but not lonely.

We walk as far as we can, the dog chasing ahead to make sure there are no seagulls in need of a good talking to, before returning to remind me that it's high time I started throwing stones into the sea.

We turn and head back, and I marvel at the fact that we are the only ones who have seen the beach exactly as it is, in this moment. The pattern the waves leave on the shore, the configuration of the shells, pebbles, seaweed and other debris that marks the tideline.

Already the sea is washing away our footprints, imperceptibly shifting stones, reshaping sand. By the time the next visitors arrive, certainly by Autumn, it will be a different beach - although hopefully the same.

Going...

 

Going...

Gone.

 Roll on October.

Extreme dog walking - and doughnuts, Roald Dahl style

The recent weather hasn't been kind to anyone. We've got away relatively lightly, considering, with a couple of fence panels down, and I know that there are plenty of people who've suffered real hardship. I say this before I descend to the trivial, and suggest that it's really not been a great time to be a dog owner. 

Heading out to do battle with the elements day after day, well, it's not really what you sign up for. Yes, you know you'll be out every day - that's part of the joy of dog owning. But when the weather is relentlessly grim, driving rain, howling wind, there's a little voice inside saying "Why me? Why did I do this thing, and commit myself to this daily drudge?". And then you have to pull yourself together and work out where to go that means you will not get (a) crushed by a falling tree (b) blown away to Wiltshire (c) drowned in a mire and (d) whether to even try persuding the rest of the family to come with you. 

It hasn't been easy, I tell you.

Of course there's not much use bleating about it when your dog of choice doesn't give a stuff about the weather, and indeed, seems to find the wind and rain extra invigorating - for a start he can't hear you screaming at him to come back, as he joyfully follows whatever scent trail has tickled his nostrils through the fields. And when you're a springer spaniel, frankly, the muddier the better. 

I've become accustomed to it over the 3+ years that Fred's been in our lives, but when you get an extended period of miserable weather such as we've had recently, well, it gets you down. 

We had a glorious winter's day yesterday, frosty, sunny, but when I got up this morning to resumed gales, my heart sank. And reader, I quailed. I took the coward's way out and dashed up the nearest field to give Fred the briefest of opportunities to do what a dog needs to do, before returning home, promising that "when the weather clears later" I'd take him out properly. Later. 

How then to fill a morning? Pink received Roald Dahl's Revolting Recipes for Christmas. It's a set of recipes compiled by Josie Fison and Felicity Dahl, the great author's wife, based on dishes from his children's books: there's Wormy Spaghetti (from The Twits), Lickable Wallpaper for Nurseries (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), Scrambled Dregs (James and the Giant Peach) and Bunce's Doughnuts (Fantastic Mr Fox). 

And so, seamlessly from dog walking to doughnuts.

Any resemblance to her mother is purely coincidental

I've made doughnuts once before in my life. It was a long time ago. We were friends with another family who lived a few streets away. They were eccentric and fabulous: the parents, both incredibly committed doctors, working in tropical diseases, and paediatrics, and 4 children, a girl a year or so older then me, and 3 boys. When we met them, they had returned from a long stint working in Malawi. They were absolutely their own people. Generous, kind and completely unreliable. I remember one Sunday they were due to come for lunch. Time passed and they didn't appear, so my father and I went round to see what was up (no anxious texting). We knocked, and the husband flung the door open with a wide smile. "Come in, come in! What can we do for you? Would you like some lunch" Completely oblivious to the fact that it was they who should have been at our house. 

One afternoon, my brothers and I found ourselves at their house with no parents in evidence. The circumstances have escaped me, as have the reasons for making doughnuts, or most of the specifics of the endeavour, but I recall that an instruction in the recipe that we were following required us, for some reason, to the "throw the dough".Where or why we were supposed to throw the dough, I have no idea, but in our infinite wisdom, we decided to take the instruction literally. 

I'll leave the scene that followed to your imagination, and I can't even remember what the resulting confections were like, but it's a memory that's stayed with me, and popped back into my head when Pink and I saw this recipe. Fortunately, no throwing is required for these babies, and apart from the deep frying at the end, it's a pretty child friendly recipe. Pink made the dough pretty much all herself with a bit of input from me. 

Even better, as the time came for the dough to go in the fridge, the rain miraculously cleared so the dog got his walk after all. 

As for the deep frying, well it's something that I've long had the fear about. I don't think I've ever really had a go, and I was a bit reluctant to attempt this recipe on that basis, but in the end, I took a deep breath and got on with it. Just like the dog walking, in fact. And it wasn't as scary as I thought it might have been. So this afternoon, dog walked, and while the Husband and Blue went off to the allotment to get some veg for dinner, Pink and I stayed home and fried us some doughnuts. 

There's no gender stereotyping in our house, no siree.

They weren't the greatest doughnuts I've ever eaten, but they were perfectly satisfactory as the fruits of a wet day's labours in the kitchen.

Cinammon Doughnuts

100g soft brown sugar
50g soft unsalted butter
1 large egg
450g plain flour
1/2 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp cinammon
pinch of salt
2 tbsp hot water
1/4 tsp vanilla essence (or equivalent)
75ml milk

oil for deep frying
caster sugar for rolling the doughnuts in after frying

(Oh & do check out my lovely new scales...)

Make the dough by creaming together the sugar and butter. Whisk up the egg a little then add gradually to the creamed butter & sugar.

In a bowl combine the flour, cinammon, salt and baking powder then stir into the mixture, along with the hot water, milk and vanilla. I was all out of extract, so used vanilla bean paste instead..

This combined easily in the Kenwood to a stiff smooth dough. Wrap this in clingfilm and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.

Lick the bowl/walk the dog*.


When your dough has refrigerated, divide it in half and leave half in the fridge while you roll out the other half and using 2 cutters, one smaller than the other, cut out your doughnuts. The book suggests using a 6 cm and a 3 cm cutter. Mine were 8 cm and 5 cm. Roll the dough to about 0.5 cm thickness and cut out to your heart's content. Re-roll the scraps and keep cutting.

When we got fed up of re-rolling, we just left the smaller circles as they were, ready to fry as hole-less doughnuts.

Fill your pan to about 5 cm with vegetable oil and bring to temperature - you need it to be 190C (375F) and this is NOT something the kids can be involved with. 

Fry your doughnuts in batches, turning once, till golden brown. I found that mine sank to the bottom when I dropped them in, then rose to the top and needed a little longer before being flipped over. 

Once cooked, drain on kitchen paper and toss in caster sugar.

Eat while warm. And try not to lick your lips. Mmmmm.

_________________________
* delete as applicable

Freedom - and chewy fruit bars

One of my favourite things to do is to drive into the sunset. Usually on a Friday evening, heading west down the A303. Who cares that it's usually choccablock with bad feeling and stress emanating out of the other vehicles as thick as the exhaust fumes around us - we have a van and the coast is calling. Passing Stonehenge, skirting Salisbury Plain, into Wiltshire, North Somerset, usually ending up somewhere on the Dorset/Devon coastline. Freedom.

So, yes, you've guessed it, Daisy is back on the road and I have itchy feet.

Never mind the steely skies - we want an adventure!

For 6 months of the year, I am without wheels. The Husband needs the car for work and Daisy is too much of an old lady to be out on the roads in winter. That's OK - I work at home, the children go to school in the village, and if necessary, I can get everything we need for day to day living locally - veg from a local box scheme or the back garden, meat and fish from the butcher, eggs from our own chickens, a Co-Op, a couple of gift shops. The Husband travels a lot, but me? I stay put. I can go for what seems like WEEKS without leaving the village - apart from walking the dog, when I might stray into a neighbouring parish. By February, I'm starting to twitch and by mid-March, well, stir crazy would be a good place to start.

But then, as the end of March approaches, the prospect of Daisy's release from her winter quarters. Will she start? Will she make it up the hill to the garage for her MOT and service? This year, as she has for the last 2 years, all has been well. A tense time charging up the battery, the need for a new thermostat and advice to 'keep an eye on the water level' - a panic of a SORN notice and she's back on the road.

She wasn't taxed till 1 April, and a visit from my mother in law last weekend, work commitments - and, frankly, the appalling weather, has kept us as yet uncamped, but I've been desperate to get out in her - and even more so for the first trip to be a fun one rather than something dull like going in to town to get new school shoes.

Fortunately, today was the day, and I rounded up the kids and Fred the dog and headed East to the great forests of Bracknell to meet up with 2 of my greatest friends, their respective gorgeous children, and Barnaby the yellow labrador. Not a night away - not just yet - but a fun afternoon. And I can't tell you how fantastic it felt to be back behind her wheel, chugging up the M3 at 56 miles and hour with an eye on her ever temperamental petrol gauge. Happy days.

The Look Out was heaving - the car park and play/den making areas at least, but once assembled, we headed off into the Crown Estate woods which surround the Discovery Centre, at which point the children formed a pack and went rampaging off, sticks in hand, into the undergrowth.

See any children? Me neither - marvellous

Just what they need. Freedom.

Of course, all this activity requires sustenance, and my contribution to proceedings were some chewy bar things that I got out of the Hairy Dieters book that I borrowed from the library earlier in the week. I wasn't sure how they would be received, but I had some rice krispies supermarket own brand unsweetened puffed rice cereal that needed using up, and this has loads of dried fruit and oats in it too. Definitely healthy. Blue and I made it this morning - it was very easy to throw together although there's a sticky porridgey moment that required adult involvement. We didn't have any flaked almonds (almost a national emergency in the RJ household) nor enough maple syrup, so we made substitutions of pumpkin seeds and runny honey.

According to the Bikers, these will last 5 days in an airtight tin. You'll have to take their word for it - with 9 feral, wood-rampaging offspring to fuel, they didn't last a day. And if you cut it into 24 pieces (equal pieces, that is) each one will be 82 calories.

25g pumpkin seeds
40g dried apricots, chopped small
40g dried cranberries
40g raisins
75g unsweetened puffed rice cereal
40g dessicated coconut
100ml maple syrup
50ml runny honey
400ml cloudy apple juice
125g porridge oats

20x30cm brownie tin - lined with greaseproof paper



Pre-heat the oven to 190C and roast the pumpkin seeds on a baking tray for 5-6 minutes.

In a bowl, mix together the roasted seeds, dried fruit, cereal and coconut

Put the maple syrup, honey and apple juice into a large pan, and warm for a couple of minutes, stirring occasionally. Tip in the oats, stir and bring to a simmer over a gentle heat. Keep stirring for 4-5 minutes till the mixture thickens, then remove from the heat and stir the porridge into the dry ingredients.

Spoon the mixture into the lined tin, flatten well, then bake in the oven for about 45 minutes. It will be golden brown and the surface crisp.

Leave to cool for about 30 minutes before cutting into squares and removing from the tin in the paper. Peel off the paper and leave to go cold.

Chewy and fruity and the kids loved them. And did I get my drive into the sunset - well yes, as we headed back west from Berkshire to the RJ corner of Hampshire, I almost felt the rays of a sunset glowing around us. Before the rain started, that is...

Trials of Dogs and Husbands - and a light but sophisticated supper ;-)

 

Quite often, we save our big meal for the evening on a Sunday and spend the day doing exciting things like shovelling horse manure into the allotment or moving greenhouses, but the weather was so foul this weekend that we couldn't think of anything to do outside except a particularly unpleasant dog walk for which (surprise surprise) there were no other takers (apart from the dog, of course). The dog couldn't care less whether it's wet or dry, grey, sunny, snowing - whatever. He doesn't do very well when it's very hot and slows down a fraction, but otherwise, well, as long as he's out and free: whoopee - he's a happy spaniel.



Yesterday as I tramped (or rather, sloshed) through the fields, and he frolicked ahead, I had one of those pivotal dog owning moments. The dog runs nose down following smells to wherever they may take him. One day he will run straight into something - a comedy tree, or concrete bollard randomly placed in the middle of a field but yesterday he hit a metaphorical pot of gold: fox sh*t. If you don't have much contact with dogs, this will be lost on you, but dog owners everywhere will sympathise when I tell you that even from 50ft away, I saw the look of ecstasy cross his face and through the gale, heard the sigh of contentment as he flopped, shoulder first, into the pile for a good old roll.

"F-R-E-D-C-O-M-E-H-E-R-E-Y-O-U-H-O-R-R-I-B-B-L-E-D-O-G"
  
It's a measure of how far we've come, Fred and I, since the dogcatcher cake incident that he actually stopped, mid-shoulder rub, pulled himself together and (knock me down with a feather) - came back. Fortunately, that was at the beginning of the walk, and it was so wet that the rain actually rid him of the eau de reynard (sounds so much better in French) before we'd got home.

We ate our lunch and had a fun afternoon (actually, the kids had their mates round and built a better than Hot Wheels car run down the stairs using chopping boards with the aim of shooting the cars into the wellies by the back door rather than through the glass, while the Husband bemoaned the fact that he couldn't finish moving his greenhouse* and watched the rugby instead and I laid low and surfed the internet).
 
By the time the kids were in bed, the Husband was starting to feel hungry again. This is a problem with eating on a Sunday lunchtime rather than in the evening, especially when, like yesterday, the kids get their tea at a 'Messy Church' session that we go to once a month. I tend to forget that we might need to eat in the evening.

At the same time that I was staring into the abyss of the Sunday night fridge, the Husband decided to make like Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and prepare some soup to feed us on Monday when we both work at home, using a haybox. If you don't know, the principle of haybox cookery is that you heat your food up to boiling and then transfer the pan to a well insulated box and cover it with an equally insulated lid and it cooks. While he was cluttering up the kitchen with the enormous polystyrene box he has somehow salvaged for this purpose, a great big enormous parsnip from the garden, plus (ridiculous to the sublime) his ipod Touch to access the 'app' which had provided him with the basic recipe for soup he was following, I was also trying to make like Hugh F-W, all be it in a more elegant, 'sophisticated light supper' way. The kind of thing the man himself might serve up in that gorgeous rustic kitchen of his...

I found mushrooms, leeks, some dill and a pot of double cream. Hugh would have been proud.

Sophisticated mushrooms on toast for 2


a little olive oil
250g button chestnut mushrooms (wiped if you can be bothered for that extra sophisticated touch)
2 leeks (thinly sliced)
double cream - perhaps 50 ml?
a tsp dijon mustard
some fronds of dill, finely chopped - to taste (frankly, in my case it was whatever I could salvage that wasn't only good for the compost bin)
salt & pepper 

slices of good sourdough bread (if you have it - and do please smite me for being smug), toasted - and possibly buttered.





Heat the oil gently in a small pan and sweat the leeks for a couple of minutes before adding the mushrooms and cook gently for ten minutes or so, stirring every now and then, till everything is smelling lovely. Add in the cream, the mustard and the dill, and stir together, still on the heat, for a few more minutes. grind in some salt and pepper, taste etc.

Serve on the toast. Feel sophisticated.

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POSTSCRIPT

if you look closely, you can just see that it once held squash soup

*In fact, the Husband did progress the greenhouse project - he is in the process of constructing a heatsink which is something I am completely ignorant about despite him explaining it to me very slowly and clearly a couple of times. It involves pipes and rubble buried in the soil and a fan - and apparently my pseudo-tupperware. I am impervious to engineering, though, unless it's about cake or how to spatchcock a chicken, but so far this has involved him disembowelling a hard drive of an old PC for a fan, and inserting it into one of my valuable plastic tubs (valuable because he used one with a matching lid). The heatsink will somehow act as a heating system for the greenhouse by harnessing the sun's heat, but beyond that well - ask Brian Cox or someone who understands, to explain it to you. The Haybox soup was pretty good too.