Some recipes for a happy life
About half an hour ago - today is Saturday - I made some popcorn, a great big bowl of popcorn, of which Richard and I quickly ate every scrap. We inherited two great big Costco-sized containers of popcorn kernels when we moved into our original flat. I prepared some of the popcorn, only to realise that it was pretty dreadful stuff. The kernels had tough, tough centers even after they had popped. So we gave it away to some senior missionaries who feed a lot of YSA, hoping that the YSA would be much less fussy than we are. Then we trotted off to our local Costco, hoping that they would keep our beloved Orville Redenbacher's. Not only did they not have Orville Redenbacher's, but we soon discovered that they were actually the source of the popcorn we so disliked. We eventually settled for buying a small packet of popcorn kernels from Sainsbury's and said packet has sat in our grocery cupboard for nine months now, staring at me reproachfully every time I choose something else. So today I hauled it out and made popcorn. We bought a largish pot for just this purpose a few weeks ago. Sadly I did not measure anything, but I will give you my best guesses at amounts.
First I emptied an almost empty bottle of oil into the pot. I'm guessing it was between 2 and 3 tablespoons of oil. Then I added a lump of butter, I think about 2 tablespoonsful. I heated the pot over high heat until the butter had melted and swirled the oils together before adding the popcorn. I used about the same volume of popcorn as there was oil mixture, around 1/4 to 1/3 cup. I continued heating the popcorn on high, adding 1/2 teaspoon salt and, just as the first kernel popped, a snatched handful (about a tablespoonful? my hands are small) of white sugar. I then covered the pot, swirled it again, and kept it on high heat for a minute while kernels popped. In retrospect, the high heat after adding the sugar was an error; next time I will drop the heat to medium as soon as the sugar has been added, to avoid the occasional burnt sugar kernel.
Anyway, the result was quite delicious. The extra fat meant the popcorn was "buttered" without being greasy, and it had a hint of saltiness and a hint of sweetness. We ate every scrap and look forward to trying it again.
While on the subject of recipes, Scotch broth has become a favorite of ours. This is the ultimate Scottish soup, made with vegetable stock or water. The solid ingredients are barley, carrots, turnip, dried peas, celery, onion and/or leek. These get cooked in the stock and one ends up with a cheap, nourishing, tasty vegetable soup. I read somewhere that it used to be made with mutton stock, so one day I added some chunks of lamb to the mix at the same time as I added the barley, and cooked it for about an hour before adding the other vegetables.. And then one day I had some mushrooms that needed using, so tossed those in. These additions rapidly elevated scotch broth from "cheap, nourishing and tasty" to "not-quite-so-cheap, nourishing and silkily delicious" We ate the modified version regularly last winter, took a break through the summer, and have started indulging again.
One more recipe: Good old South African crunchies, to which some fine British chocolate can be added. So you take
1 cup flour
1 cup oats (rolled or quick, either will work, but not instant)
1 cup unsweetened coconut. (fine or medium - if you can only get sweetened, add less sugar)
1/2 cup sugar (or less if you use sweetened coconut or more golden syrup)
1 level tsp baking soda (do not be generous with the baking soda)
1/2 tsp salt
Mix in a good sized bowl
Now, melt together
4-6 oz butter. (4 oz for soft, 6 oz for crisper crunchies)
1-2 generous tablespoons of golden syrup (larger amount for crispier crunchies. Use less sugar if you use more syrup. If you can't find syrup, use honey, 1/4 to 1/2 cup.
Add the butter mixture to the dry ingredients and mix well. Press into a baking pan or cookie sheet, about 1/4 to 1/3 inch thick for crisp crunchies, 1/2 inch thick for soft crunchies.
Bake at 300 deg F for 15 to 25 minutes until golden. Coll in the baking pan for a few minutes, until firm enough to cut into serving squares.
Now, here is my Scottish variation:
Firstly, double the recipe, Use a 13 by 9 pan, and chop up about 250g of milk chocolate. Or you could use 1.5 cups of milk chocolate chips.
Press a little more than half of the crunchie mix into the pan, then sprinkle the chocolate over the dough, making sure none of the chocolate touches the dish. Press the rest of the crunchie mixture over the chocolate. You could just add the chocolate to the mixture, but this way none of the chocolate comes into contact with the dish, getting itself burned and bitter.
That's enough recipes for now.
Last Sunday Richard and I volunteered to clean the meetinghouse this week. This seemed a not unreasonable thing to do, as we have our evenings free, don't we? We got handed a key to the building and the arrangement was we would go over whenever we could and clean the building ready for Sunday meetings.
So we decided to go on Monday evening, sort of for FHE. Only Richard left the key in his other suit pocket, so we would have had to go to our flat first to get the key. Our flat, the mission office, and the Dalkeith chapel lie on the points of a triangle, with a 20 to 30 minute drive between each of them. We knew if we went home first we would be too tired to go out again, so decided to put it off until Tuesday.
Tuesday, Elder S received two important pieces of mail. He lost his wallet nearly six weeks ago, with his personal credit card and his mission debit card. The original replacements arrived four weeks ago and I mailed them on to him in separate envelopes. Neither of those envelopes reached their destination, which is most unlike the Royal Mail. Meantime, the elder did not have any of the usual sources of funds and Richard arranged for his companion to receive extra funds and of course there was a transfer in the middle of all this.We waited two weeks before we finally gave up and declared the first set of replacement cards lost, and arranged for another set of new cards to be ordered. These were the ones that arrived on Tuesday. There was no way that we were going to risk mailing them to him again, so we left the office 45 minutes early and set off to deliver the cards in person. It turned out to be a five hour round trip, so we finally got home, pretty tired at about our start-to-get-ready-for-bed time; we would go clean the chapel on Wednesday night.
One of our beloved office missionaries has completed her mission and flew home today. We were planning on having a farewell lunch for her on Friday, and I would prepare the main dish on Thursday night, so cleaning the chapel on Wednesday would work well. Only, some senior missionaries really wanted to come to the lunch and couldn't make it on Friday, so could we please have the lunch on Thursday instead? Fine, but instead of being free to go cleaning on Wednesday, we had to shop and cook. No problem, we would go clean the chapel on Thursday instead.
And we did! It was quite a job. I mostly vacuumed while Richard did everything else. We both worked hard for a little more than an hour and the job was done. The only glitch was the strong and dreadful aroma emanating from the Primary room, reminiscent of somewhere Shrek might have enjoyed living. Richard managed to track down the source - it turns out mould can be really stinky, and he had just sprayed the evil area and opened numerous doors for ventilation when the ward leadership arrived for ward council meeting. They bravely proceeded to start the meeting in the usual place - the primary room - and promised they would close all the doors when they were done, so we were free to go.
We will probably volunteer to clean the chapel again, as often as needed, but it is quite clear that when we do, we had better plan on getting the job done as soon as possible, in the full knowledge that it might take most of the week to get there.
First I emptied an almost empty bottle of oil into the pot. I'm guessing it was between 2 and 3 tablespoons of oil. Then I added a lump of butter, I think about 2 tablespoonsful. I heated the pot over high heat until the butter had melted and swirled the oils together before adding the popcorn. I used about the same volume of popcorn as there was oil mixture, around 1/4 to 1/3 cup. I continued heating the popcorn on high, adding 1/2 teaspoon salt and, just as the first kernel popped, a snatched handful (about a tablespoonful? my hands are small) of white sugar. I then covered the pot, swirled it again, and kept it on high heat for a minute while kernels popped. In retrospect, the high heat after adding the sugar was an error; next time I will drop the heat to medium as soon as the sugar has been added, to avoid the occasional burnt sugar kernel.
Anyway, the result was quite delicious. The extra fat meant the popcorn was "buttered" without being greasy, and it had a hint of saltiness and a hint of sweetness. We ate every scrap and look forward to trying it again.
While on the subject of recipes, Scotch broth has become a favorite of ours. This is the ultimate Scottish soup, made with vegetable stock or water. The solid ingredients are barley, carrots, turnip, dried peas, celery, onion and/or leek. These get cooked in the stock and one ends up with a cheap, nourishing, tasty vegetable soup. I read somewhere that it used to be made with mutton stock, so one day I added some chunks of lamb to the mix at the same time as I added the barley, and cooked it for about an hour before adding the other vegetables.. And then one day I had some mushrooms that needed using, so tossed those in. These additions rapidly elevated scotch broth from "cheap, nourishing and tasty" to "not-quite-so-cheap, nourishing and silkily delicious" We ate the modified version regularly last winter, took a break through the summer, and have started indulging again.
One more recipe: Good old South African crunchies, to which some fine British chocolate can be added. So you take
1 cup flour
1 cup oats (rolled or quick, either will work, but not instant)
1 cup unsweetened coconut. (fine or medium - if you can only get sweetened, add less sugar)
1/2 cup sugar (or less if you use sweetened coconut or more golden syrup)
1 level tsp baking soda (do not be generous with the baking soda)
1/2 tsp salt
Mix in a good sized bowl
Now, melt together
4-6 oz butter. (4 oz for soft, 6 oz for crisper crunchies)
1-2 generous tablespoons of golden syrup (larger amount for crispier crunchies. Use less sugar if you use more syrup. If you can't find syrup, use honey, 1/4 to 1/2 cup.
Add the butter mixture to the dry ingredients and mix well. Press into a baking pan or cookie sheet, about 1/4 to 1/3 inch thick for crisp crunchies, 1/2 inch thick for soft crunchies.
Bake at 300 deg F for 15 to 25 minutes until golden. Coll in the baking pan for a few minutes, until firm enough to cut into serving squares.
Now, here is my Scottish variation:
Firstly, double the recipe, Use a 13 by 9 pan, and chop up about 250g of milk chocolate. Or you could use 1.5 cups of milk chocolate chips.
Press a little more than half of the crunchie mix into the pan, then sprinkle the chocolate over the dough, making sure none of the chocolate touches the dish. Press the rest of the crunchie mixture over the chocolate. You could just add the chocolate to the mixture, but this way none of the chocolate comes into contact with the dish, getting itself burned and bitter.
That's enough recipes for now.
Last Sunday Richard and I volunteered to clean the meetinghouse this week. This seemed a not unreasonable thing to do, as we have our evenings free, don't we? We got handed a key to the building and the arrangement was we would go over whenever we could and clean the building ready for Sunday meetings.
So we decided to go on Monday evening, sort of for FHE. Only Richard left the key in his other suit pocket, so we would have had to go to our flat first to get the key. Our flat, the mission office, and the Dalkeith chapel lie on the points of a triangle, with a 20 to 30 minute drive between each of them. We knew if we went home first we would be too tired to go out again, so decided to put it off until Tuesday.
Tuesday, Elder S received two important pieces of mail. He lost his wallet nearly six weeks ago, with his personal credit card and his mission debit card. The original replacements arrived four weeks ago and I mailed them on to him in separate envelopes. Neither of those envelopes reached their destination, which is most unlike the Royal Mail. Meantime, the elder did not have any of the usual sources of funds and Richard arranged for his companion to receive extra funds and of course there was a transfer in the middle of all this.We waited two weeks before we finally gave up and declared the first set of replacement cards lost, and arranged for another set of new cards to be ordered. These were the ones that arrived on Tuesday. There was no way that we were going to risk mailing them to him again, so we left the office 45 minutes early and set off to deliver the cards in person. It turned out to be a five hour round trip, so we finally got home, pretty tired at about our start-to-get-ready-for-bed time; we would go clean the chapel on Wednesday night.
One of our beloved office missionaries has completed her mission and flew home today. We were planning on having a farewell lunch for her on Friday, and I would prepare the main dish on Thursday night, so cleaning the chapel on Wednesday would work well. Only, some senior missionaries really wanted to come to the lunch and couldn't make it on Friday, so could we please have the lunch on Thursday instead? Fine, but instead of being free to go cleaning on Wednesday, we had to shop and cook. No problem, we would go clean the chapel on Thursday instead.
And we did! It was quite a job. I mostly vacuumed while Richard did everything else. We both worked hard for a little more than an hour and the job was done. The only glitch was the strong and dreadful aroma emanating from the Primary room, reminiscent of somewhere Shrek might have enjoyed living. Richard managed to track down the source - it turns out mould can be really stinky, and he had just sprayed the evil area and opened numerous doors for ventilation when the ward leadership arrived for ward council meeting. They bravely proceeded to start the meeting in the usual place - the primary room - and promised they would close all the doors when they were done, so we were free to go.
We will probably volunteer to clean the chapel again, as often as needed, but it is quite clear that when we do, we had better plan on getting the job done as soon as possible, in the full knowledge that it might take most of the week to get there.
Yummy recipes
ReplyDeleteI think I need to introduce my kids to crunchies. Also, that chapel cleaning story is great. And has a very familiar feel to it :)
ReplyDelete