I am having another productive and enjoyable weekend. Friday evening A came over for a visit and
nice long chat, and after she left I did a bit of light de-cluttering. Yesterday I went to see P&D to chew the
cud, exchange secrets, and plan a few festive occasions. After that I baked my Poppy seed cake.
I momentarily considered sharing the recipe for this Poppy
seed cake, but dismissed it swiftly. I
am not even sure I will make it again myself!
It is not only hideously time consuming and laborious, it also has the
nasty after effect of tiny black seeds all over the house and my own
person. If I find one in my belly button
tonight I will not be surprised!
I only made it because I had bought three packets (750gr) of
poppy seeds six months ago in a fit of lunacy, and they were nearing their sell
by date so I thought I had better do something about them. This is what you do. You pour boiling water over the poppy seeds,
skim off the bits that swim on top after a while, and put the whole mess – and
it is a mess – into a sieve (a large one!).
Then you put them back into a large bowl and pour boiling milk over
them, and leave them overnight. Since
you are dealing with millions tiny seeds, which get stuck everywhere, the whole
kitchen will be littered with them by now.
This includes the cloths and sponges you use trying to remove them,
obviously.
The next morning (my Saturday) you put the milk poppy seed
mixture into a sieve again and let it drip dry.
Then you skip town, if you are wise, and let someone else deal with the
mess. I went to visit P&D. But I had to return home eventually.
Now the recipe calls for grinding the seeds. You can forget doing it in a little
hand-grinder, the seeds are so small they slip right through. Even mixing them with almonds and raisins as
the recipe suggests doesn’t work. A few
years ago my indulgent and knowledgeable sister sent me a special poppy seed
grinder, but it gave me no joy – after an hour of trying I gave up. At this stage I am quite prepared to use the
darn seeds as they are, unground and unsquished. But I have already mixed them with the
almonds and raisins, which need to be ground.
Dash dash dash!!!! I run the
mixture through my newly acquired little electric grinder. It takes more than an hour! Put in three spoonfuls, try to wipe the
little seeds from the lid so you can fit the lid, grind for half a minute,
extract mixture with almonds and raisins shredded and seeds still intact, curse
to high heaven because seeds got into workings of grinder …..
It goes on and on.
Anyone with a less strong character would have bundled up the whole
mess, bowls electric grinder, seed-mix and all, and buried them at the bottom
of the garden. But I stayed strong!
Having cursed my way through the seed grinding, I prepared a
basic crumble dough. Then I put crumble
dough at the bottom and sides of two cake tins, decanted the seed mix to which
I had added sugar, cream, and eggs, into the tins, added a layer of crumble on
top, and shoved the lot into my new cooker.
An hour later the cakes were done.
I took them out, put them onto racks to cool off, and went to bed. It was quite late.
This morning I had to go down and clean up whatever seeds I
had overlooked the previous night, and cut up the cake and popped it into the
freezer. Then I had a piece for
breakfast. Never again! In Germany
After that I did some laundry and cooked the Sunday
roast. Hanging up laundry is much easier
now that I have slashed my garden into submission. I have three clear lines where I can suspend
my clothes from. Previously most of the
lines were overgrown by some ambitious vegetable or other, and I had to fit my
clothes in here and there where I could find a gap in the growth. But I am glad I finally asserted myself and
showed the plants who is boss. And if
they try anything funny next year, I still have that hedge-trimmer!
Lunch was roast beef.
One of my favourite foods. Just
make the oven as hot as you dare, pat the meat dry, salt and paper the surface,
put on a rack over a pan, bung into the oven with a meat thermometer, and in an
hour or two food is ready. I also had
new potatoes and leeks. For a special
treat I fried red onions, added the beef juice, and also some sloe-sirup (jam
works as well). Made a great gravy!
View of Garden from Bathroom (Note the laundry!)
After lunch I did a bit more de-cluttering and invented a
way to store my hats efficiently in a non-cluttering fashion, and discovered
that the attic light broke.
Now I am sitting in the Nostalgia Studio looking out of the
window willing the laundry to dry before it goes dark outside. I hung it up at 10, but it grows dark so
early these days, I am not sure everything will be dry in time. There is a jay sitting outside the window,
the size of a magpie. Last Spring it
robbed several nests in my garden, so I am not very welcoming. And what does it have in its talons and is
pecking at?
View of Garden from Nostalgia Studio (Note the laundry!)
Time for another cup of tea and the newspaper! The outside world is going to have to take
care of itself for a while.
The Bathroom (at the request of a reader)
