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Saturday 2 March 2024

Jam Sponge Pudding

Yesterday was allegedly the first day of meteorological spring; it poured with rain almost all day. Winter's over, they said... so perhaps someone could tell the weather! Good grief, will it ever stop raining?! Much more of it and we'll all grow webbed feet!

Sometimes comfort food is needed and there's few things more comforting than a sponge pudding with an obscene amount of custard.

As I've mentioned in the past Mr S-V loves a sponge pudding (I'm quite partial to one myself, actually!) so when I saw this recipe from Nigel Slater it looked just the thing. Scroll past all the meaty stuff and go to the last one on the page.

It's as easy as anything and, serendipitously, I had all the ingredients in the pantry, including some home-made plum jam from our own plums. I hope our two trees will come up trumps for me again this year - there's nothing quite like Victoria plums for jam.

I halved the recipe, as you can see below, and steamed it for about an hour to make a pudding more suited to the two of us, and I've paraphrased Nigel's method - he's very wordy!

75g butter
75g caster sugar 
1 large egg 
75g self-raising flour 
1 level tsp ground cinnamon
1 level tsp ground ginger
finely grated zest of half a lemon
1 tbsp milk

2 heaped tbsp blackcurrant, plum or apricot jam

Cut a disc of baking parchment to fit the base of a 1 pint pudding basin. Rub a little butter around the inside of the basin.

Cream the butter and sugar together with an electric mixer till pale and fluffy. Beat the egg lightly and add a little at a time to the butter and sugar, mixing well between each addition. 

Sieve together the flour and spices, then mix into the butter and sugar with the lemon zest. Stir in the milk. Spoon the jam into the base of the pudding basin, then scoop the pudding mixture on top. Level the top a bit with the back of a spoon.

Cover the basin tightly with a square of baking parchment, then a square of double foil. You can tie it on if you like but I don't bother. Stand the basin on an upturned saucer in a pan of boiling water and pop the lid on. Only use enough water to come halfway up the basin. Simmer gently for about an hour.

Leave the basin in the water for 15 minutes to allow the pudding to settle, then turn it out carefully on to a plate. 

Serve with custard... lots of custard, and ignore the vile weather outside!

Tuesday 31 October 2023

Focaccia

I love bread, any bread, just the sound of the word is instantly cheering! I made some last week that I've been threatening to do for ages... focaccia. Arthritic hands (god, I hate getting old!) mean that actual kneading is out of the question, so I enlisted the help of my trusty bread machine for the hard work; I just joined in at the end for shaping and slapping it in the tin. 

I used this recipe by Paul Hollywood. I imagine Paul would get sniffy about me using a bread machine, but there again he gets sniffy about most things.

I reduced the flour to 400g and adjusted the other ingredients accordingly, mainly because I only had a 23cm square tin. We really enjoyed it - lovely fresh from the oven with soup and a chunk of cheese; I could easily have eaten the other half but, showing admirable restraint, I froze it. At the weekend I warmed it briefly in the microwave and served it with this BBC Good Food recipe for Bean and Halloumi Stew.  A really nice easy meal.

As a side issue, I discovered that my "new" oven, which is in fact six years old, has a proving setting! Just goes to show I should have read the instructions in 2017... duh!

I won't comment on the various pantomimes going on in the news. Suffice to say, I think everyone has lost their minds. Collective insanity seems to have taken over - I may well be the only sane one left.

Thursday 23 March 2023

Three years

March 23rd. 

Three years since the entire country was locked down. 

Three years since we were told "Stay home, Protect the NHS, Save lives".

Three years since most workplaces, cinemas, clubs, pubs, restaurants and 'non-essential' shops were forced to close.

Three years since schools closed and children weren't allowed to see their wider family and friends or have a hug from their grandparents.

Three years since elderly people in care homes were locked away with no visitors.

Three years since some poor souls died alone in hospital; their families having to watch on an iPad, denied the chance to be with their loved ones in their final moments.

Three years since our politicians lost their minds, but found a really good way to control an entire population while simultaneously trashing the economy, children's education and the health service.

I thought, as time went on, I would lose some of the anger I felt about what politicians and 'scientists' did to us. I was wrong! Now I'm able to look back at it all and see everything they put us through, recall how much they lied and how badly their disproportionate reaction to a flu virus has affected every aspect of life, I'm actually more angry! 

It won't do any good - politicians are fireproof; nothing touches them and nothing stops them. 

I'm not a great believer in natural justice - I just hope that in some way or another they're forced one day to pay for what they did.

Thursday 1 December 2022

The start of Christmas

Since I was here last we've lost Boris as PM (thank god!), lost Truss as the subsequent PM (she might have turned out to be ok but her MPs gave her the boot) and laughably, we now have the useless Rishi (why are his clothes too small?) as the third PM since the end of the summer. Don't ask...

Sadly, HM the Queen died at the beginning of September. At the age of 96 it wasn't a surprise but it was still a shock. Most people had never known this country without her as Monarch. It still seems strange.

Meanwhile, Covid has all but been forgotten despite the best efforts of the media and the NHS to keep it relevant; unsurprisingly, the NHS is continuing to use Covid as the best excuse it can find for being relentlessly useless. Nothing new there, then.

The scorching days of summer seem long ago. It's now winter, it's cold, the sun sets at around 4pm and Christmas is approaching at speed. There was even Christmas music on the radio today!

Our Advent calendars made an appearance this morning! I bought one for Mr S-V from Bonne Maman which has a dinky little jar of jam behind every door... how cute is that?! - and we've unearthed the decorations ready for their annual outing in a week or so.

Best of all, given that it's December the 1st, we've made a start on the "treats" drawer in the kitchen which is full of nice little bits and pieces to have with an afternoon cuppa; well, there's no way I'm waiting until Dec 24th before I dive into the goodies!

Today's little treat was a slice of stollen - I've never made one and I'm never likely to; why bother when Waitrose does them so well?

This year Waitrose and M&S will be doing most of the heavy lifting in the kitchen as mobility issues have become a bit of a problem for me. Kitchen chores have to be broken down into small chunks so I shall only be making the things I really want to. 

Obviously, that includes a Nut Roast Wellington for when The Troops come for lunch on Christmas Eve, and a tray of Not Sausage Rolls. No Christmas at this house would be complete without them! 

I've already made the usual batch of Freeze-ahead Roast Potatoes which really are the best thing since sliced bread; they're snuggled up in the freezer along with red cabbage and desserts from Waitrose.

I saw a nice recipe the other day for sprouts stir-fried with chilli and crème fraiche - I'd post a link if I could remember where I saw the damn thing!

As usual it will all creep up on me and I'll say, as I always do, that next year I'd like to do something different or maybe we could just ignore Christmas altogether. Then next year comes around... and off we go again!

Wednesday 13 April 2022

Once a liar, always a liar

I said he was lying and now the police have confirmed it. Boris Johnson, our esteemed (esteemed?!) Prime Minister has been fined over his lockdown parties. Our tax-dodging Chancellor and assorted others will also have to shell out for breaking the rules that they implemented. Of course, the rules were for others, not for them.

The week before Boris's first party (there were eleven others!) it was our son's birthday. Under the rules we weren't allowed to meet indoors so we sat in their garden for socially distanced tea and cake. We didn't break the law but the people who made the laws did.

They told us repeatedly it was a highly dangerous virus, so dangerous in fact that we couldn't see or hug our closest family... but that was just another lie, wasn't it? Covid was never the deadly virus we were led to believe. Would they really have put themselves and their families at risk if it was as lethal as they said? I can only suppose power and status somehow confer immunity... HM the Queen mustn't have got the memo about that; without any fuss she managed to follow the rules even though the PM didn't.

Boris has paid the fine and given a full apology but, even while apologising, he tried to weasel out of any responsibility by saying he didn't realise it was a breach of the rules. The rules he made!

He must think we're as stupid as he is. 

He can shove his apology... sideways. It's worthless, as is he. 

He should do the decent thing and resign but, sadly for us, there isn't a shred of decency in his miserable body. He's a lying scumbag who, when he's caught out lying, just tells more lies. They trip so easily off his tongue; he clearly thinks his position puts him above the law.

I'm amazed at how many people online and in the news media are saying it wasn't important, move on. Clearly, I have higher standards than them and certainly higher than the people who supposedly lead this country.

Thursday 17 March 2022

Our "wonderful" NHS... yet again

It was two years ago yesterday that all over-70s were told to stay at home for their own safety because of a dangerous new virus... subsequently called Covid-19. The following week everyone was told to stay at home. So began two very long years of lockdowns, rules and regulations.

Recently all the ludicrously disproportionate restrictions brought in to contain this "dangerous" virus have been ditched; Boris says we have to live with it. Great... about time, too; pity he didn't say it sooner. 

To all intents and purposes Covid is over, so why is the NHS keeping up the charade? Hospitals are still restricting access to visitors; people still have to wear a mask to enter its sacred portals; many wards are still closed, allegedly because of a shortage of staff who are off sick with Covid (why, when they're all masked and jabbed and in every other workplace there's no staff shortage at all?); GPs still won't allow patients to book face to face appointments and hospital waiting times for treatment are growing longer by the day.

The NHS lives in its own little world - covering up its many inadequacies by keeping people at arm's length. There's no accountability, no responsibility. The longer they can keep people out, the longer they can perpetuate the lie that they're working desperately hard and absolutely run off their feet. The actual fact is somewhat different - we have a health service which is letting down the nation, it is not fit for purpose. It's a money pit - politicians keep throwing our taxes at it, saying how "wonderful" it is, but there is no discernible improvement in the service offered. It's a conspiracy of silence.

I spoke to someone today whose relative is in hospital. An appointment has to be made before visiting and only one named person is allowed to visit. One hour, once a day. Problem is, no-one ever answers the phone to enable an appointment to be made! Said relative was in A&E for a day and a half waiting for a bed and has now been in hospital for five days - without once being helped to have a bath or shower! Just one small example of the "caring" face of our health service. It's outrageous.

Covid has become very convenient for the NHS - they won't let this virus go without a fight. It's their only cover against people seeing how crap it really is.

I previously said the actions of the NHS regarding Covid were a pointless pantomime - it's worse than that, it's a cover-up of mammoth proportions where people are suffering at the hands of the very institution that should be helping and protecting them in their hour of need. "Shameful" doesn't even come close.

Tuesday 8 March 2022

NHS theatre

I'm still wittering on about Covid even though, as we know, it's yesterday's news. It's over. So why is the NHS continuing to behave like it isn't?

Yesterday, I had an appointment at the local hospital - an investigative procedure for something that could have been very nasty but, thankfully, turned out not to be.

I wasn't asked if I'd taken an LFT (No), I wasn't asked whether I had any Covid symptoms (No) nor was I asked if I'd been vaccinated (emphatically, No!) I had to wear a mask and wash my hands at the door. I was then seen by five different masked medics who were all within inches of my face. There was no other PPE or special safety measures used by them, nor were they wearing gloves. I was fine with this. So it's clearly not the very dangerous disease they've been telling us, then?

So why had most of the chairs in the waiting area been removed, leaving several people with nowhere to sit while they waited to be seen? Those chairs that were left were placed singly, two metres apart. Some poor souls had to stand and were leaning against the wall. 

This is a major hospital in one of the richest countries in the world. How on earth is this acceptable?

The NHS has clearly not seen the date. It's March 2022 not March 2020. Someone send them a memo... You can stop the pointless pantomime, we're done with Covid.