Thursday 26th July - Yoghurt cake made with creme fraiche

chocolate cake / blueberry and peach cake

I posted this unlikely recipe for cake made with yoghurt here: http://a-letter-from-home.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/sunday-20th-may-apropos-of-nothing-at.html

It is a favourite recipe, because there is no weighing and no butter. Not that I'm against butter, but it is usually too hard when I am in make-a-cake mode, and by the time it has softened, I have moved on and I'm no longer in the same frame of mind.

Here is it again:

one small pot of yogurt, two of the same pot of SR flour, one and a half pots caster sugar, quarter of a pot of oil, two eggs, all combined into a smooth batter. I usually flavour it with lemon zest, and then pour a syrup of the lemon juice and 4 tablespoons of granulated sugar over the cake as soon as it is cooked.

Bake in a lined tin gas mark 4, 170C fan oven, for around 45 mins. I've found a 1kg loaf tin (actually, it's the foil tray that an "easy-cook" main course from Waitrose came in) to be a good size.

This week I decided to celebrate the return of the lawn (or to hold a wake for the wild-flower meadow - not sure which) by inviting friends to "tea and cakes on the lawn".

Then I discovered that the plain yoghurt was so seriously out of date that I didn't even want to look inside. However there there were a number of fresh, fruit-flavoured yoghurts to choose from. I went for peach in the end, and ten topped the cake with blueberries before I put it in the oven.

A chocolate version was more of a challenge; cherry yogurt, maybe? Certainly NOT strawberry-and-rhubarb. I eyed up the tub of creme fraiche.

A quick zip through Google turned up a version of a rich chocolate cake made with creme-fraiche. Problem solved and I looked no further. I used the recipe above, using the washed peach yoghurt pot as a measure. The creme fraiche seemed very thick, so I used three-quarters of a yoghurt pot of creme fraiche topped up with milk, and carried on as usual, adding a couple of tablespoons of cocoa powder.

Job done. Tea and cakes on the lawn with two kinds of cake. Excellent.

Thursday 26th July - All gone, all gone

I have just about got used to it now.

The clover, the daisies, the plantains, the vivid orange coltsfoot and the little yellow flowers that grew so prettily in our front and back "lawns" are no more, and the meadow has become plain green grass.

The battle of the lawn-mower is over. Whatever it was that needed to be done has been accomplished, and we can add our voice to the steady drone of little engines up and down our road.

Chapter 1: The first cut
http://www.a-letter-from-home.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/palm-sunday-first-cut.html

Chapter 3 (there isn't a chapter 2)
http://a-letter-from-home.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/friday-8th-june-lawnmower-chapter-3.html

Thursday 26th July - An excellent receipt for Iced Tea

This could hardly be simpler:

Take an empty water bottle (the 300ml or 250 ml size; it doesn't matter which)  and fill it with cold water. Add 1 spoonful of tea leaves, or, more conveniently, one teabag. Ordinary tea is fine, but more delicate teas (jasmine, white tea, green tea, darjeeling) are very good too.

Leave in the fridge overnight.

That's it! It's about the only non-alcohlic drink I want in this very, very hot weather.

You can add a sliver of fresh lemon or lime, and a couple of ice cubes if you think that it ought to involve more work. 

Saturday 21st July - Reckless Haste - Thurs 26th July

I wonder what this post was going to have been about?

Something, or someone, must have interrupted me as I got started, and what seemed to be so important and worth sharing last Saturday has completely evaporated. All I have to go on is the heading.

I could just delete the post... but this has reminded me...

from wikipedia: An IBM 704 mainframe (1964).
I'm writing about 1987, but mainframes looked much the same as this!

Years, and years ago, in another life, I worked as an Installation Planner in the Computer Department of a large company. It was large enough that we had several engineers and account managers for the big international computer corporation that supplied the mainframes we had permanently on-site to deal with the never-ending stream of enquiries and general maintenance work required to keep three mainframe computers and several scores of terminals afloat.

I remember setting in train an urgent enquiries about availability of some bit of kit. maybe it was a disk drive (they were about the size of laundromat washing machines in those days). Then a few days later, the situation changed and I was now handed the task of stopping the train.

"No worries", said the account manager (or whatever was the current slang of the era). "I hadn't started looking into yet. I've always found it better to wait for a day so make sure that it is worth the effort of researching the query, as past experience shows that you (I hope he meant the company, and not me personally!) so often change your mind."

This response has stayed with me all these years, and prevented me from rushing off to get stuck into things without allowing some time - at least a couple of seconds, sometimes several years - for reflection first. I haven't mentioned the name of the computer company concerned, as I guess this "laissez-faire" attitude on the part of its employees would be severely frowned upon. But it was a valuable lesson, even if the management of the company concerned would have been appalled by this response!



 

Saturday 21st July - A Drop in the Ocean

I started this blogging lark back in February 2012.

This is post number 111 - a pleasant sort of number - easy to type, easy to remember.

Since February I have trawled through zillions of blogs. It is a stunning resource with so much variety. I have discovered the google reader (thank you, Arch Druid Eileen of The Beaker Folk) so I now have a kind of personal daily magazine of posts. Some are scarily erudite, with deep insights into the issues of the day. Others are collections of pictures, cartoons, captions which entertain and amuse. It becomes a weeny bit much at times; if I don't keep up, I can find myself with going on for 100 items in my in-box to get through before bedtime...

I guess I'm just a "background blogger". One of the many millions who type on regardless, pouring out the words to please themselves, but delighted when a comment pops up from time to time. We share the events of the day, thoughts that occur, items of interest that we trip across. I say "we", because all this sharing helps to develop a sense of community. I have no idea who "Greenpatches" or "Arch Druid Eileen" are in real life; other people I follow have more of an identity through various clues - RevdKathy posted a lot of pictures from Cornwall - was that an extended visit? Or does she live down that way? They have become people I care about. 

I do look at the stats (I don't have the willpower to keep away). I am ridiculously pleased to see that every post has been read at least once by someone other than me (all except one!). These posts are a drop in the ocean, but a way of being in community - with my own family and friends, and with fellow bloggers.

Saturday 21st July - Oh frabjous day, calloo callay

Yeah, OK. Just another Saturday.

No it isn't! It is the first day of the Summer Holidays!

I love my work. I am passionate about it. BUT; passion costs, and costs a lot. I can only teach the way I do, with energy, commitment and focus, knowing that every weekend I get a few hours of "down time", every 6 or 7 weeks I get a few days of "down time", and once a year I get several weeks of NO TEACHING.

A few piano pupils will phone up to see if they can have a lesson. Indeed, three are coming on Monday morning (such enthusiasm!).

A lot of hours will pass in planning lessons for next term, brushing up on ukulele chords (which I will be teaching to around 70 children), arranging music for the fairly random combination of recorder players, sorting out suitable songs and chants to fit in with topics and activities.

More hours will be spent in hard graft, learning the grade 7 and 8 syllabus pieces and scales so that I understand how to teach them to a couple of advanced pupils.

Many more hours will be spent in practising and playing the piano FOR MYSELF. There is almost no time for keeping my own skills sharp during the term, and I can feel my hands and fingers becoming clumsy and slow as the weeks pass. I "get by" on experience, sight-reading skills, quick wits and the remnants of technical ability.

And then there are the "to do" lists;

the "have-to-do" list :(

annual "extreme gardening" sessions to reclaim the garden from the goosegrass, brambles, rambling rose and to clear the knee-high weeds from the paved area.

annual "extreme housework" sessions to reclaim the house from dust, spiders, piles of stuff waiting to be sorted, excavating nooks and crannies and the darkest corners. 

the "want-to-do" list :)

meet up with friends

the pursuit of poetry and literature; books to read, poems to absorb, journals to fill

creative projects, exhibitions,

the "fixed points" list :]

holiday dates

appointments

Oh no! I will have to create a schedule or it will never get done! So much to do, so little time to do it in....
I wanted to find an illustration for "Frabjous Day". The original drawing is very dark,
in every sense of the word.



from wikipedia

I had forgotten the context;

the slaying of the fearsome Jabberwok.

I've always used the phrase at times of joyful delight and excitement.














Googling away, I found several images and reworkings; this was unexpected, but fun and original.

Christopher Myers’s take on the greatest nonsense verse in the English-speaking world — a basketball face-off

Read about it here; http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/11/books/review/Lewis-t.html

I shall keep an eye out for the book.