Thursday 17th August - Air fryer cake

The big problem I have with making cakes in the air fryer is getting the time and temperature right.  Today I might have cracked it...

Our Philips Air Fryer has a little metal on that fits inside the basket for cooking things that would otherwise run through the holes in the basket.

These pans are ridiculously expensive, but entirely worth the money in my opinion. (There are quite a few pans in different shapes and sizes out there now).

Our pan exactly holds a 2-egg sponge cake; the all-in-one recipe I usually use has 2 eggs, and 4oz each of softened butter, SR flour and sugar. I tip this all into the mixing bowl, adding extra ingredients according to flavour, and a little dollop of milk to loosen the mix if necessary.

For cakes I line the pan with foil or paper.

I made a coffee cake this time, and actually remembered to make a note of the temperature; 155°C, and the timing; 40 minutes. (I cooked it for 35 mins, then added 5 more as it wasn't completely done)

It looked remarkably like the picture above, which I snipped from an advert for the tins. I suspect that the one in the picture might really by a macaroni cheese, though.

I can almost hear half of you saying "why bother with an air fryer?"

We use ours nearly every day, for heating and cooking and reheating and roasting and baking. It is so quick and convenient for the pair of us, does the job with minimum of fuss and no preheating, and best of all, switches itself off when the time is up!

I know they're not for everyone, but suits the pair of us perfectly!

Friday 28th April - strange dreams

I found I was dreaming cross stitches last night, rather in the way I used to dream minesweeper and tetris grids in years gone by. Disconcerting,  and not restful.  After yesterday's lack of cross progress I set to big time today, so I suspect I'll be dreaming of stitches again tonight. But, I am within shouting distance of completing it and posting it tomorrow or Sunday. The bank holiday means that it's going to take an extra day to reach Ang. She's already posted hers to me!

When I can't sleep and my thoughts keep going round on a loop I distract myself with selected audiobooks. They have to be just interesting enough to distract me, but not too exciting or terrifying!

I'm currently most of the way through the second of the Green Knowe children's books by Lucy M Boston. It is nearly too interesting, almost too exciting to be properly sleep-inducing. I set the timer for 30mins, after which the voice fades away, but last night I gave myself an extra 30mins as the story had come to an exciting bit.

We've sent off for a light-weight compact folding rollator, not for me, I hasten to add, but because my father’s super deluxe rollator is an absolute nightmare to fit in the rather small boot of our car. We have to put half the back seat down, empty the boot and and wrangle with the folded rollator while trying not to injure ourselves.

Now that he's accepting lifts from us instead of driving, we need to solve the rollator issue as he prefers it to his walking pole. He's due a visit from an occupational therapist who will hopefully find a better walking stich than this pole he's been using for a couple of years. 

And I've made spring rolls in the air fryer! I made up a mixture of  cooked chicken, spring onion, sriracha sauce, a couple of pieces of jalapeño pepper from a jar, red peppers, fresh coriander and lime juice all chopped small and stirred together. Because I was using cooked chicken I could taste it as I went along.

Then I took two sheets of filo pastry, cut each in half, and made 4 spring rolls. I sprayed them with oil and cooked them for 8 minutes at 190°C, turning and spraying the other side half way through.  For a first attempt I was very pleased; we had them for supper with a little soy sauce for dipping them. It sounds a huge amount of effort, but was actually not that bad. I'll make them again to use up the rest of the filo pastry.

Friday 23rd June - but will they grow?

I have sown more french beans, peas, spinach and spinach beet this afternoon.

The broad beans have got some promising pods growing,, and there are a few on my one remaining pea plant, so I am hopeful for a slight harvest this year. I suspect the potatoes rotted in their pots, and will tip all the contents into the compost heap, or use it for mulch. Thank heavens for shops!

I've also done some more cross stitching after taking a break - I did try earlier in the week, but had to unpick what I'd done s soon as I finished - too many stitches crossed the wrong way round. I'm stitching on what will be my piece of cloth, as was tempted to just let it go - maybe if there had been just one stitch the wrong way round...

Air Fryer Experiments;

Christine's Oatie Biscuits - 

You know how sometimes you meet someone, and you hit it off, and you know that you could be good friends, but somehow time slips past and you don't use your time wisely, and then... you realise you've missed an opportunity and 

oh well. She died (breast cancer) several years ago, and I remember her real Goodness, her remarkable gentleness and honesty. every time I make these biscuits.       

It's a pretty basic recipe - I've photographed the page from my tatty recipe book

If you make half quantities, you can cook just four in the air fryer at 150C for 15 mins. Roll the rest of the dough (assuming half quantities) into balls and put in a lidded container in the fridge.

This way you will only eat four biscuits at a sitting, (or two each shared between us) instead of pigging the lot in one go. The next time, take out four little balls, leave them to soften for about 10 mins at room temperature before cooking them.

I'm very keen on using these reusable non-stick silicone air fryer liners;

 for all sorts of air fryer cooking - they come in different sizes.

But as you will see, the recipe predates all the air fryer excitement. 

Saturday 17th June - better than Friday

That's not to say there was much wrong with Friday, but today was better.

How?

I just had more energy, completed a couple of tasks, and feel the lighter for it.

Cross-stitch8ng, and un-cross-stitching, and un-re-cross-stitching and re-re-cross-stitching happened after lunch. Probably not the best time of day as it was getting hotter by then, but overall it was progress. I sit here to sew;

but with the curtain open. In the afternoon the sun works round to shine in through the patio doors, so I close the curtains to make it a bit cooler. Everything is cleared away, ready to begin again tomorrow morning.  I shall probably stitch while the church service is livestreaming. Either that or knit more sock...

Lunch was spaghetti with sausage meatballs. Himself is usually in charge of the victuals, but today he was feel uninspired by the sausages listed for today, whereas I was feel8ng in the mood to cook.

A rummage in the cupboard produced a jar of red pesto which had been lurking for a while. 'Stir 1-2 tablespoons per person through cooked pasta and serve hot' was the serving suggestion on the label. 

Here's what I did;

I divided each of the 6 sausages into four pieces. They have changed the skins, these new ones are so thin that next time I will just cut them, rather than skinning them and rolling them into little balls. Then I cooked the little meat balls in the air fryer for 5 mins at 180. While that was going on I sliced a red pepper into thinnish strips. After the five minutes were up, I lobbed the bits of pepper on top of the meatballs and gave them another 10 mins. If you don't have an air fryer, a frying pan would do.

The 150g (enough for 2) spaghetti took 10 minutes so this was going on as well. Just before the pasta was done I added a handful of frozen peas. 

Although I made 24 meatballs the plan was to eat 12 and save 12 for another meal.

So, I drained the pasta and peas, returned it to the pan,stirred in 4 tablespoons pesto, 12 meatballs and all the red peppers. 

Served it with parmesan and and black pepper and some basil.

Now we have 12 meatballs in the freezer, and half a jar of pesto in the fridge ready for another time.

My haul of tsundoku continues to grow.... kindle keeps offering me books for 99p... yesterday I stumbled across an episode of Hamish MacBeth on television and guess what, one of the books is.... 99p! 'Death of a Snob' by M C Beaton of Agatha Raisin fame. Now I don’t care for much Agatha, but Hamish...

Tuesday 6th June

 Two friends came round for morning coffee today.

I had a go at making biscuits in the air fryer but the first batch were less beautiful;

That's because I dropped the grey silicone air fryer basket liner. The biscuits were still soft and fell out all crumpled and folded over. Luckily there was a second batch which came out perfectly.

And even more luckily, one of the visitors brought freshly made scones clotted cream and a jar of strawberry jam!

We sat in the garden waiting for the sun to reach the patio table, listening to the birds, watching the Robin's struggles with the suet cage on the bird feeder, the blackbirds scuffling along the flower beds...

Just gently chatting about gardens and flowers and a holiday in Scotland...

An hour of pure perfection. 

Thursday 11th May - new skills, full to-do-list, chocolate o'clock,

The new skill I acquired today was how to unpick a whole line of my current cross stitching with scissors!!! I have avoided using scissors until now, but this time it was unavoidable. I did try to see if I could redo the chart for the remaining half - let me tell you it would have been far quicker to just accept the inevitable...

However, the various charts I tried did give me some more ideas so I am hoping that the result of exercising patience and self-control will result in a better finished piece. So far, so good, especially now I have removed the offending area!

Various things added themselves to the to-do list as the day went along; for example giving the back door mat a good clean. Why would one do that? Ah, therein lies a tale.

Personally, I always carry the entire compost caddy out to 'the worms' as we affectionately call the compost bin. We have switched to using brown paper bags for the kitchen waste as it decomposes better, and I don't trust them in the situation where the scraps and peelings are a bit soggy, just in case this

happens... which, as you can see, it DID happen. Those caddies hold a surprising amount of... gunk.

Another item added was the making of a cake; on Thursdays we now go to Waitrose armed with a shopping list provided by my father, and then take it round to his flat and sort through the fridge. This week there were two eggs left from the half dozen, but someone had put a plastic milk bottle on its side above the egg box which had almost disintegrated. We dealt the the puddle, and swapped the eggs over and took the two old ones home. Rather than have eggs which had been soaked in milk hanging around, we made a cake...

Air fryer sponge cake

Make an ordinary 2-egg victoria sponge type recipe (2 eggs, 4oz each sugar, butter, SR flour - maybe a little more flour, in which case add a little milk or coffee essence). Combine - I do 'all-in-one' method, and bake in a suitable container for 23mins at 160C - at least that's what our air fryer needs. Coffee cake for elevenses tomorrow.

Chocolate o'clock has got out of hand. It seems to be happening twice a day! But I have reduced the size of my potion from 4 squares back down to one. Mostly. Quite often. 

 

    

Friday 21st April - I have had some sherry. Expect typos

 The last three days have been heavy on admin, and heavy on zooms; only two extra zooms on top the of scheduled 6 piano zooms and one church house group zoom, but it seems that the effect of increasing numbers of zoom sessions is more than one might think. Still, it's the end of the week, and no more zooms until Sunday (church livestream, not really a zoom, followed by two 'chatty' zooms)

I've written up all the piano lessons apart from the two today. I like to leave a day before I write up the lesson - is that laziness at the end of the day? Or a chance to reflect on the lesson? Or maybe both?

I've written up and emailed the notes from the house group zoom, and printed a set to post/deliver to our non-internet member.

And - this is the biggie - I have started gathering together the facts and figures to construct a tax return... the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth as far as I can manage.

 It's not been all playing the piano keyboard and tapping the computer keyboard. 

I've been watching youtubes on drawing trees;

I finished my sketch-a-day journal on 1st April, and rather than buy yet another notebook, I decided to use my Commonplace Book for the daily sketches. I've had a series of Commonplace Books on the go for a number of years, to note down poems, quotations, etc etc and this particular book has pages which are able to cope with pen and ink, and watercolour (as long as it isn't too wet). 

Just before Easter I bought the companion book to 'Bored Of Lunch - Slow Cooker recipe book', which is 'Bored of Lunch - Air Fryer recipe book'

I had a go at the low-calorie sausage rolls, made with tortilla wraps instead of pastry. They were pretty good - we shared half for supper, and will have the other half for supper tomorrow. The picture shows half the batch. 

I didn't quite understand the instructions so this is what I did; I used half a dozen decent quality sausages (not the low-calorie ones specified), one egg, three large tortilla wraps.

Skin the sausages, and mix the meat with extra herbs if you like. Divide into three lumps.

Beat the egg to use partly as glue, and partly as egg wash (I wonder if milk would be as good?)

Take a tortilla, lay flat and trim off a little of four edges to square it up a bit. Squidge the meat into a long thin sausage and lay near one edge, roll up the wrap and sausage using a generous application of egg-wash to make sure the thing sticks and stays rolled up. Repeat for other two tortillas. 

Cut each roll into bite sizes - I got about 16-18 pieces - glaze with egg wash and cook for 11 mins at 200C. Not bad. I cooked them on silicone air-fryer liner which you can see in the picture - it sits in the basket and saves on washing up.

Some kitting today - the mitre-square blanket. I am slowly re-doing the cuffs of the socks in order to do a stretchier cast off, and that needs brain. 

No cross stitch - I am short on brain power today, and now that I've drunk that glass of sherry the brain power is going fast.