May 2009 Archives

Since Little Missy arrived on the scene, the breadmaker has been working at full tilt. The loaves aren't the most beautiful but, then again, looks aren't everything and the convenience and flavour more than make up for it. A few mornings a week, before the Husband heads out the door to work, he loads it up with the ingredients for a Fennel-Aniseed-Caraway Loaf and, as Little Missy and I snooze away, it kneads, proves, knocks back and bakes a loaf of warm, sweet-smelling bread. At least, that has been the routine.

This morning, though, I did a bit of disasterous fiddling with the mixture - thought it was too dry so added some water then figured it looked wet so put in some more flour - and left it to go on its own merry way, or so I thought. I didn't realise that the amount of mixture added up to a little more than the machine could cope with until, a few hours later, I smelled burning and caught sight of smoke pouring from under the lid.

Fortunately I was there in the house to catch it before it caused too much damage, and it was promptly switched off, plugged out and emptied outside. The bread had flowed over the sides of the internal baking tin and was burning, creating copious amounts of acrid-smelling smoke, onto the cooking element that heats the breadmaker. There'll be no upping the quanitities of ingredients in future, always presuming that I'll be able to use it again!

Here's the recipe for the Fennel-Aniseed-Caraway Loaf that we make at the moment. My midwife recommended I take the fennel, aniseed and caraway seeds in a tea to help my milk production when I started nursing Little Missy but they taste far better in bread. You don't need to be producing milk to enjoy this bread: it's especially good toasted and eaten with boiled, scrambled or fried eggs.

My breadmaker is a Cookworks Signature Stainless Steel one from Argos that I got via Gumtree and I normally use it, as below, to make a 2lb loaf. For this machine, you put the liquid in before the flour but I know some machines are different - just check the manual for your own machine.

Mornings have gotten spicier in recent times, not to mention more chocolaty, as I've been using some of Carluccio's hot chilli oil to fry my breakfast egg (ah, maternity leave: time - Little Missy willing - for a full breakfast!) and grating lots of birthday cacao over. Mouthfuls of intense, savoury yumminess, and plenty of lovely runny egg yoke, courtesy of our ever-productive hens, to mop up with homemade Fennel-Aniseed-Caraway Bread.

I've also had these, like Willie suggests in his book, with beans, using some of the Mexican Beans that I always keep stashed in the freezer. Well worth trying out.

I've just been enjoying the trailer for Julie & Julia, a film based on two books: My Life in France by American chef Julia Child and Julie Powell's laugh-out-loud memoir. Meryl Streep plays a suitably patrician Julia in post-WWII Paris, while the lovely Amy Adams takes on the role of modern day Julie. Check out the trailer below, read my review of Julie Powell's book here and watch out for the film, which should be out in Ireland on 11 September. I just might have to smuggle Little Missy in to the cinema!

After watching all the programmes and getting my hands on the book, the Husband turned up trumps for my birthday with a selection of Willie Harcourt-Cooze's chocolate blocks and bars.

I now have a couple of his 70% Peruvian dark chocolate bars, another pair of the 72% Venezuelan dark chocolate bars and, most especially, two blocks of the 100% pure cacao for cooking with. We've only opened the Peruvian bar so far - a dinky little square box that contains two slabs of fruity, full-flavoured eating chocolate. This isn't chocolate for the fainthearted or those that prefer milk chocolate but, for me, it is heaven in a box!

We spent the weekend trying out the cacao à la Willie: grated over eggs fried in chilli oil, with a spicy tomato mince sauce, on top of scrambled eggs. He recommends that you use the cacao as if it were salt, to accentuate flavour, and the smell of chocolate over meals is getting to be a familiar one. I'll have to try some of the sweet as well as savoury recipes in his cookbook now.

Willie's chocolate isn't very widely available but, for Cork readers, the Husband managed to track it down in the English Market's Chocolate Shop and I've also seen it on sale at the Gubbeen stall which goes around to various markets, including the one in Mahon Point on Thursdays.

I've been getting out and about a good bit recently - Little Missy always in tow as she doesn't like to let her food source out of sight for too long - and I've noticed that lunchtimes have suddenly become more complicated. It's not as easy to hop on a bus and head down to Cork as I used to do regularly, meeting up with one of the Sisters or the Small Brother for lunch at The Continental (Ballymaloe-style food, never as busy as it should be), Annie's gastropub (the walk up to Sunday's Well will work up an appetite for their fantastic food) or The Liberty Grill (close to UCC for the Little Sister, with enough big burgers and chunky sandwiches to keep any errant student happy).

Now, with pushchair attached and car a necessity, it's not as easy to manoeuver our way into the city centre. A trip to Limerick's Crescent Shopping Centre - H&M there is one of the few places that stock a choice of reasonably priced nursing tops - led to a horribly burnt O'Briens' toasted sandwich, eaten in the car as I fed Little Missy. A trip to Mahon Point on a Wednesday led to me getting a horrible bagel at The Bagel Bar in their food court, after which I vowed never again to rely on shopping centre food offerings.

An abortive journey - someone forgot their essential photo id - to Cork to get Little Missy registered was made up for with a very pleasant, relaxed lunch at Jacobs (make sure you order the D&B - Date & Butterscotch Pudding - for pudding). After you get past the four steps at the entrance, the airy spacious room is very easy to manage with a pushchair and, if you choose well, lunch need be no more expensive than the rubbish served at O'Briens.

Second time round, registration went without a hitch so, as it was a Thursday, we took the opportunity to meet up with the Husband for lunch at the Mahon Point Farmers' Market. We arrived there first so there was plenty of time to look around at our lunch options. I picked the steak sandwiches that were being sold by Gar's Sandwiches, a stall that also had proper spicy ginger beer, brewed down Dingle-direction. The Husband went for a chicken wrap, with juicy roasted peppers and onions although, as some rugby players turned up to order armloads of wraps before him, his wait was much longer than mine. Little Missy insisted on her own lunch as I was eating, something that was easy to facilitate at one of the many tables and chairs scattered around the market.

Free parking, a choice of good food for a sociable lunch and plenty of other stalls for stocking up makes the Mahon Point Farmers' Market a great lunchtime choice, especially as I get to catch up with friends and family there. Any other suggestions for baby-friendly lunch venues welcomed!

For anyone who uses their freezer as much as I do and is always looking for tips to keep it more efficient:
The Minimalist - Freezer Helps Make Cooking Cheaper and Easier - NYTimes.com (registration necessary but worth it for the wealth of food writing available)

While I may not be able to do quite as much cooking and baking these days while tethered to the couch by Little Missy and her demands for food, I can always read about it and - as every new mum knows - online shopping is your friend. The results of a few precious uninterrupted minutes with the computer earlier this week landed on the doorstep today for my reading pleasure over the long weekend: Willie's Chocolate Factory Cookbook and Laurie Colwin's Home Cooking.

The Colwin book is one of those books that keeps cropping up in other people's must read lists and has been on my wish list for quite a while and now seemed like the perfect time to enjoy it. After eagerly following Willie Harcourt-Cooze's adventures on C4 last Easter in Willie's Wonky Chocolate Factory, as well as delighting in the follow-up programmes at Christmas and Easter, I couldn't resist his cookbook.

All this, and my Christmas Gourmet subscription - a well-chosen present from the Husband - also arrived yesterday. Little Missy will be swallowing new recipes along with mother's milk!