Nailed It!

Pinterest. The reason behind so many frustrations and failed attempts to re-create the wonders and beauty we see paraded in front of us on our monitors. There are websites dedicated to the ‘Nailed It' memes we see and scoff at almost daily, where the original picture is displayed in all its perfect glory, next to an attempt that has invariably gone horribly, horribly wrong. Hilaribadly wrong. Cake Wrecks is another famous example: designer cakes, and the attempts to create said cakes by a less-than-capable public. Completely lol-worthy!

I say this because I was seduced by a picture online showing an alternative Christmas tree in the hallway of some posh-looking house: a large, clear vase filled with long and shapely sticks on which were hung colourful baubles and twinkly lights. Actually it was probably just the offering at the servant's entrance, and the real tree for the Family was some twenty foot Fraser fir in the main lobby, bedecked in twenty-two carat gold ornaments, and a real angel tree topper, but never-the-less I thought the vase-tree was rather beautiful. 

Of course, I didn't initially think THAT'S THE YULETIDE SYMBOL OF THE SEASON FOR ME, but in the end I went scavenging for bits of tree a couple of times after the idea took hold; the second of which was a story of great hardship and personal danger, with maybe a slight touch of exaggeration. 

The first time was easy, as the initial Oh! I could pick up some of these sticks and small branches to make that thing I saw online came at the end of a very epic and blustery walk up to the pier, along the beach and back, when it was already beginning to get dark. Sufficiently dark in fact for no-one to really notice my manhandling half a tree in kit form back to my flat. No, the second time was a little more, shall we say, awkward...

It started raining about ten minutes into that second branch search, and by the time I got the the outskirts of the woods, it was lashing-it down and everything was soaking and covered in mud. Fortunately I still came back with a good ten or so decent-sized branches before my brolly decided that I could either have its bedraggled self, or the bits of dead tree, but not both. (Public Service Announcement: when buying a brolly in the Netherlands, please be aware that the life-expectancy of any three-euro folding-umbrella will be roughly one month, or four storms long.)  

Unfortunately the story doesn't end there, because on the way back I remembered that I needed to get a few necessary items from the local supermarket. What a Great Idea. Me: wet, muddy, wheeling a trolley containing several sticks and branches that were equally wet and muddy around a small-ish store, looking for potatoes and milk and trying not to maim the other shoppers with errant pointy bits of salvaged tree. Thankfully it wasn't busy, but the staff were a little... perturbed, and I caught more than one, okay, more than six, staring at me and my modern art I decided to name ‘TrolleyWood'. 

One of the differences between here and home is that at home someone staring at you will, nine times out of ten, drop their gaze, blush, or find something in exactly the opposite direction absolutely fascinating as soon as you catch their eye. Here they just continue to stare. There's usually no malice, but you get the impression that there's no sense of privacy awarded to someone else's life, problems or, shall we say, whimsical use of woodland in an urban environment. 

One member of staff finally got up enough courage to approach the Crazy Stick Lady and asked if I was going to burn them. (I suspect this wasn't the first question that they wanted to ask, but it was probably the most polite.) Once I told them that I was actually going to use them for Christmas decorations, their looks changed from a range of disbelief and fear (I can't imagine what was going through one poor lad's head, but he was genuinely spooked by a trolley filled with an assortment of fallen brush), to those showing they were happier in the knowledge that the lady wasn't so crazy after all. Not *quite* so crazy, anyway.

In any case, as I'm obviously unable to cut a long story short, the scaring of young shop assistants, rolling about in the mud, and gathering of poor blown-off-the-tree-before-their-prime sticks and branchlets eventually resulted in this:

Black and white photography does lend a certain gravitas, and yes, pretentiousness, but in real life the black sticks and silver decorations look rather lovely, even if I say so myself! There's a tiny part of me that wanted to take a copy of this photo and go back to the shop to let those poor, traumatised assistants know that the weird really did have purpose, but perhaps it's better not to remind them of the episode at all...

There was still a fair amount of smaller sticks left over, and I'm all for not wanting to throw things out if they can still be useful somehow, I decided to give the version my sister sent to me as inspiration a while ago a shot; a pretty hanging tree of strung-together sticks in triangle form. I have to say that as soon as I finished making it up, I saw not one, but three different shops in town offering something similar, albeit a little more uniform and... erm... stable perhaps? than my effort, but personality-wise mine wins hands-down. Sticks-down, in fact!

There's something very satisfying about a home-made Christmas! There's something even more satisfying in finding that your home-made Christmas doesn't fall apart of fall over the day after it's been made!

I hope you enjoy your Christmas (if you celebrate it) in whatever form it takes, and let there be good food, much merriment, and perhaps, if you're lucky, some parks, walks and re-creation, too!

Making A Mocha-ry

I found the almost-perfect cookie recipe online the other day.

At first I thought Pinterest was being slightly irreverent, for after showing me it's own interpretation of my wants and needs (gluten-free recipes, pimp-your-own-home-library ideas, and shoes that cost the equivalent of one month's rent) it displayed unto me a recipe for chocolate and coffee cookies. Chocolate and coffee. A perfect combination for the mostly-reformed chocaholic who can't live without her coffee. Little sparkly lights at the edge of my vision may have also been involved. Then came the zinger: fully-glutened chocolate and coffee cookies. Such cruelty.

But then, I reasoned with myself, I wasn't making a fancy cake where simply substituting wheat flour with GF flour would result in probable disaster, I was going to make cookies. For myself. No-one else need know if disaster ensued. So I decided to use my M&S All-Purpose Gluten Free Flour instead of the wheat flour used in the original recipe, and hang the consequences.

I'm nothing if not a self-enabler under the guise of Food Blogger To The Stars Few. 

Now, I have to admit to making some other changes in the recipe, too, mostly down to replacing the ingredients I didn't have with the ones I did have. With a little sprinkling of laziness, but hey, if I was meant to be a master baker I'm sure the Fates would have pointed me in the right direction well before now. And I'm pretty sure they like a laugh as much as the next person.

So my faithful few, if you've got this far then today we're attempting Espresso Chocolate Chip Cookies from Just A Taste. In the (un)Official Nic Revolutionary Edit of 2015™. Someone so needs to hire me as their spin doctor. I'd be awesome. I'd make everything sound a little cheesy, but I'd be awesome.

For approximately twenty five cookies you need:

3 ounces or 85g of unsweetened chocolate, chopped

2 cups or 350g of semisweet chocolate chips, divided

8 tbs or 115g of unsalted butter, diced

3 large eggs

1 cup + 2 tbs or 250g of sugar

2 tsp instant coffee granules

¾ cup or 105g all-purpose flour (gluten free)

⅓ tsp baking powder

¼ tsp salt

My replacements and substitutions ingredients-wise were thus: I used 100g of dark chocolate (a bars-worth over here in Clogland), mostly because I only had 180 grams of chocolate chips in the cupboard and needed any extra chocolate I could find. A terrible, horrible oversight that, running out of choc chips, and one of which I promise will never happen again. The shame. The humiliation. The... well, shock. Especially as I brought back a huge stash from home the last time I was there, what with them being on average around a quarter of the price of the equivalent over here, and I have no idea where they've gone. Well, no, that's a lie, they've gone to that Great Food Processor in the Sky. It's just obviously set on ‘Turbo Mix'. :: coughs ::

I used 170 grams of white sugar and added light brown sugar to bring it up to 250, purely because I forgot to write ‘white sugar' on my black-board shopping list last week when I realised I was running perilously low.

I also added another teaspoon of coffee granules to the amount advised in the recipe, mostly because I actually wanted to taste coffee in the cookies. I've found in the past that adding a little coffee to a chocolate recipe gives a boost to the overall chocolate taste without actually adding a coffee taste, which is great if you're wanting a Real Chocolate Experience, but because I'm looking for more of a nicely-mixed mocha, I added a little more coffee.

So really, if you want to make exactly what I made, you need:

3½ ounces or 100g 70% dark chocolate, chopped
1 cup or 175g semisweet chocolate chips
8tbs or 115g unsalted butter, diced
2 large eggs (yeah, I forgot to buy those, too)
17/20 cup or 170g white sugar (hey, it's about time the US measurements had to work for a change...)
2/5 cup or 80g light brown sugar (ditto)
3 tsp instant coffee granules

¾ cup or 105g all-purpose flour (gluten free)

⅓ tsp baking powder

¼ tsp salt

You're advised to pre-heat your oven to 350F or 175C, but I decided to wait. Not because I was worried that my poor old oven would be blasting away on stand-by for hours (as suggested by so many other recipes) but because the notes at the end of the recipe tell us that the batter will be much looser than the average cookie dough, no doubt because of the melted chocolate and butter, and I reckoned twenty minutes or so in the fridge before spooning them out to bake would lessen the chance of spread a bit. So I decided I'd put the oven on after placing the batter in the chilly depths of the refrigerator. 

You need to combine the chopped chocolate, the butter, and 1 cup of chocolate chips in a double boiler, and stir until they've melted. Or, if you're me, you'll combine the butter and chocolate (keeping the choc chips for a textural addition to the finished batter because you don't have enough to both melt and add for texture at the end) in a microwave bowl, and blitz it on high for thirty seconds at a time until it has melted.

Who would have thought such a sublime subject would be so difficult to capture by camera phone? Brown does not appear to be the most photogenic of colours when it comes to food.

Next it is suggested that you add a whisk attachment to your stand mixer and whisk the eggs, sugar and instant coffee granules on high speed until very thick, and the mixture forms a ribbon when the whisk is lifted, for about three minutes. Or ten minutes with a hand whisk and a lot of determination.

Then the fun part, although what's not fun about giving yourself neck-ache trying to simulate an electric whisk, (I feel like I'm turning into the Karl Pilkington of the fake food blogging world, and I'm not sure if that amuses or concerns me...) the fun part is slowly adding the melted chocolate to the egg and sugar mix, and whisking just until combined. The smell! THE SMELL, people. Oof. Now I'm really kicking myself for making these on a fast day. 

(It's not the first time I've conveniently misplaced the knowledge that I'm supposed to be on a food vacation day. My earliest attempt at making peanut butter banana bread fell on a fast day. No, actually, I'm well aware that it's a fast day, yet, incredibly, my brain likes to convince me that it's actually a clever idea to bake something that smells ridiculously tasty when I'm not actually allowed to eat it that day. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Brains are awesome but awful.

I'm talking about the 5:2 diet/lifestyle thing where I eat five hundred calories for two non-consecutive days per week. I've written about it already. I may write about it again at some point. It's not starvation, but it's five hundred calories to be consumed however you choose over one day, twice weekly. I usually choose some variety of home-made vegetable soup for lunch, and a massive pile of roast veggies for dinner. I don't feel full ever on these fast days (a potential oxymoron if I ever saw one), and although I'm not fit for company by the evening, I'm a great fan of the diet. The lifestyle. The whatever it is.)

So, after lamenting over the suspicion that your brain secretly hates you, you then need to turn off your stand mixer, or try to massage some life back into your dead arm, sift the flour, baking powder and salt into the bowl and stir until just combined, then add the remaining (or only) cup of chocolate chips.

It's at this point I put the bowl of batter in the fridge to harden a little (and put the oven on to pre-heat), because, as promised in the notes, the batter was a lot looser than your average cookie dough, and I figured putting them in the (pre-heated) oven as they were would only result in one massive tray-shaped cookie*, instead of more portion-friendly cookie batches. Although to be honest, it would have looked prettier than the... well, the effort below. 

After ten to twelve minutes in the oven (or until the cookies are cracked on top, and a little puffy-looking) you can take them out, and let them cool a little on the tray before transferring them to a rack. I was happy to see my effort exceeded all expectations in the looks department.

I then took artè-fartè photos of said not-so-ugly cookies; some not-quite-in-focus close-ups of broken cookies, then put them all BROKEN COOKIES INCLUDED in a box in the fridge. My will-power received a hearty slap on the back.

Cookies for breakfast tomorrow, though...

The Day After Edit: Oh my stars. These are good. REALLY good. Just squidgey enough in the middle whilst retaining their slightly crisp cookie edge, and a heavenly mix of coffee and chocolate. If you change nothing else in the original recipe, I (racing) heartily suggest adding an extra teaspoon of instant coffee granules. Because. Om. mmtastymm

* In the spirit of honesty, I must admit that this option did indeed cross my mind.

A Tale Of One City

I have another blog entitled “Portals And Gateways And Doors, Oh My" that I add to occasionally, which, in the whole scheme of blogging, is pretty basic. Basic in that it's no words and all pictures, which is okay for a coffee-table book perhaps, but it's hardly going to bring in the reading hordes. 

But then, that's not really its purpose, for it's actually a receptacle for every door photo I've taken since I first started pounding the pavement back in August 2013. And it's a love of finding new doors to immortalise on cyber-celluloid that led me to enjoy walking in the open air as a form of exercise to help me lose weight, which in turn led me to an appreciation of the beautiful parks and woods that I'm lucky to come across on my travels.

So the doors have meaning. They're special. They could be made of the slickest, shiniest plastic, and all-seeing glass, or the roughest, most weathered wooden slats. Or the doors themselves might be a little bland, but they may be surrounded by the most abstract, elaborate, or stunning frames. I've been known to take a photograph of the entire bottom floor of a building, or whole shop-front if I think the story is better told in a door and windows context, than just by the door alone. They don't have to be historically of interest, they don't have to be beautiful, they don't even need to be functioning. They just need to be.

Normally I let the photos speak for themselves on their own internet real estate, but I had the opportunity to spend a day walking around Brugge (or Bruges) in Belgium last week, and it was so epic, both in portal overload, and sheer energy expended over the walk, that I wanted to include it here. 

Apart from half an hour sitting in a lovely wee café sipping on a restorative ginger tea and finding my bearings again, I spent five hours walking around the city, being led not by my map (although thankfully I had one safely stashed in my pocket) but by doors. Ancient doors shouting in old, raspy tones to stop and have a chat; elegant doors whispering sweet nothings suggesting that a photo might be in order; faded and forgotten doors surprised to get attention, opulently enormous doors demanding to be admired; wonderful hybrids that aren't always content to be what they once were; and many more doors disappearing around corners bidding me to follow them...

Of course, those corners turned into some great vistas, too, and although it was raining pretty much the whole day, there were still long shots to please the eye! And not all cookie-cutter postcard cute, either. I like to see a bit of character, and there was character aplenty everywhere I turned!

And, um, yes... chocolate shops. There were chocolate shops aplenty, too...

Faith, Hope And Cookies

When I read a claim that promises whatever is being touted is the best, cheapest, healthiest, tastiest, or most perfect thing ever, I tend to scoff and move on, suspecting that they're get-rich-quick efforts from online sharks; the evangelistic opinion of one; or anything in between the two. What can I say? I have trust issues. Still, for some reason, cookies inhabit another part of my brain. A trusting part. A part that promises me comfort and revels in the sensory delights of baking. I know, I know. I shouldn't trust this part of my brain any more than those internet snake-oil salesmen, because, hello? Until someone invents a zero-calorie treat, every wondrous cookie claim should be taken with a pinch of baking soda. 

All the same, going recipe-hunting and coming across one whose very name would normally have me scrolling on if it was anything other than a cookie recipe, was a hook I couldn't ignore!

The Healthiest Cookies Ever is that hook. I mean, yeah, sure, “healthiest cookies ever". (Please note the irony quotes.) But cookies... It's a real scroll on/click link quandary.

Please. Of course I clicked. And liked. And printed out.

The recipe says the quantity of mix is for twelve cookies, but I made mine more bite-sized and got twenty-six, uh wait... :: looks at final cookie photo :: um, twenty-four cookies :: wipes crumbs from mouth :: in total.

You need:

1½ cups or approx 190g raw walnut halves

1 cup or approx 175g dates, pitted (I used fourteen whole dates)

¼ tsp salt

½ tsp baking soda

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 egg (recommended flax egg if paleo or vegan)

½ cup or 190g dark chocolate chips (optional)

(I always snort when I see the word ‘optional' after ingredients such as chocolate chips. To me it's just as redundant as the ‘sharing' packs of Revels or M&Ms, or their added sticky closure so you can save more for later, as if the manufacturers truly believe you won't actually just scarf the whole bag down in one go. Bless.) 

It's quite a quick recipe this, doubly so for me this time, because I was going to use an electric implement. Oh yes! Well, actually, it's the last working pieces of an old hand-blender/electric whisk/mini processor that I bought a few years ago. I used the blender part to blitz my home-made soups, but because it was made of plastic, it didn't actually last very long. (Metal all the way, boys and girls, if you like your hand-blender to remain unwarped and working properly for more than six months...)

But I digress. Before I interrupted myself, I was explaining that this is actually quite a quick recipe, so I have no qualms in inviting you to preheat your ovens to 350f or 175c. (How many recipes have I done that say Turn On Your Oven, then tell you near the end that you need to set/proof/chill the dough for hours, forgetting that your oven has been on, toasty, and eagerly awaiting your raw cookies for an eternity already.)

So. Ovens on? Then we'll begin.

Firstly (or secondly if you're including turning on the oven...) line your baking sheets with parchment, and set them aside. 

In your glorified herb chopper (or food processor should you own one) whizz the dates and walnuts together until they form a crumbly mixture.

Then add in the salt, baking soda, vanilla extract, and egg (flax or otherwise) and whizz again until the batter is smoothish, then add in the choc chips, then give it a final quick whizz to distribute them evenly.

Bring your lined baking sheets back from whence they were banished, and spoon on the batter, using your hands to flatten the cookie dough. Actually, I used another spoon kept damp to avoid sticking to each cookie as I pressed it down. Not that you can tell...

Bake for twelve minutes, or until the edges are slightly golden, then keep them on the sheets to cool for ten minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

According to the author, you can store these up to a week in the fridge, or for a month or more in the freezer. They're really rather deliciously squishy and moreish, so more power to you if you feel that you won't be able to get through the cookies before they go off, and need to freeze them instead.

Me? Mine are already boxed up and in the fridge, safe away from grabby hands (mine) and will no doubt be enjoyably snarfled long before they have time to even think about being anything less than scrumptious! (But in a conscientious way of course... emptying the container in one day would turn these Healthiest Cookies Ever into an oxymoron!)

Great Balls Of Frying Pan Into The Fire

‟Nic's day started off poorly. The electrician who was called to fix the faulty bathroom light did so by properly screwing in one of the 3 new light-bulbs already tried by your author. It appears her wrists are pathetically weak when faced with these new-fangled CFL bulbs. :: sigh ::

The day continued in a better vein, however, when 2 parcels arrived from her very kind little sister, one containing lovely things for Christmas (which may or may not include chocolate), and in the other 3 kettle-bells of differing weights, which will not only help work off that Schrödinger's chocolate, but will also strengthen up those obviously weak wrist muscles. 

It's almost like she knew..."

The postie rang my door buzzer and presented me with a rather large and heavy parcel from Amazon the other morning, and once I managed to drag it upstairs and open it up, this was inside (well, this plus and awful lot of packing air pockets - Amazon do seem to enjoy sending their wares in disproportionately large boxes, and this one was no exception. I don't have photographic evidence, because, really, I think we've already seen more fantastic examples of ridiculous packing practises on social media, so you can use your imagination!

Now, I have to point out that I was not responsible for the order (I know, I know; that spoiler was already broadcast in the status, but bear with me), so I made a bee-line for the little card glued to the top of the box, which read:

The blanked-out name is my sister - the Queen of Sarcasm! (A very kind, and benevolent queen, it must be said!) She had ordered some kettle-bells for herself when I was last at home and we were both fair taken with them; they seemed well made, looked great, and handled nicely. Or as nicely as we could tell by pretending to work out then and there in her kitchen, whilst also trying to avoid squishing her box-loving kitties.

To understand the full meaning of the note, you need to go back a couple of years here on the blog, and you'll find a post or two :: coughs :: (I shan't be winning Miss Graceful Co-ordination any time soon) about my extraordinary gift for thwacking myself in the face with various supposedly weight-losing, health-improving exercise tools whilst attempting to work out. I can't quite remember the last occasion I committed actual bodily harm to myself (although no doubt it's not that long ago - I stopped taking note once it became obvious that the first three or four times weren't going to be isolated incidents) but one thing's for sure; I'd be left with more than a graze or two and a bloody nose if any part of myself was on the receiving end of one of these babies:

Two, three, and four kilogram kettle-bells from DKN. (Not an affiliated link, but maybe I should start thinking about touting for business... Or maybe not. I suspect most makers of exercise equipment don't really want to be associated with Little Miss Clumsy here.)

Aren't they pretty, though? (Hey, sis - the blue one'll go with my kitchen!! Sorry, private joke. Ach, not so private - most of my El Cheapo accoutrements de cuisine, ranging from plastic spoons, to mixing bowls, to sets of kitchen knives, to silicon cookie mats, [hey, I forgot I had that - this blog is coming in very handy for rediscoveries of all kinds] are turquoise. It started with a whisk in France, which is a lot less exciting than it sounds... A little shop opened up near me, selling all sorts of wonderful kitchen gadgets and aids, but it was all a tad out of my price range, until I saw the silicon whisk in a tantalising turquoise blue. It was love at first polymer compound.)

But getting back to the pretty cannonballs with handles, I can tell you that the pink kettle-bell has already been put to the test in a kettle-bell inspired video workout by my online trainer of choice, Ms Smith of JessicaSmithTV fame, and I think my arms and stomach muscles may stop complaining in the next day or so.

I'll keep you informed once I have control over my upper body again...

All Workout And No Moan...

“There's nothing quite like sweating through a painfully efficient workout followed by a hot shower in a cold bathroom, then stepping into a toasty pair of pyjamas and settling down with a cup of tea to unwind, and realising that you still have to take the rubbish out for tomorrow's early morning collection and it's blowing a gale and pouring with rain outside."

It was a good workout, though, comprising of three videos from Jessica Smith TV; one a yoga/strength-training mash-up, one more general aerobic circuit training, and the last a power-walking workout:

I admit to being a sweaty mess by the end, but one of the great things about the myriad of videos available from this online trainer is being able to choose a combination of exercises influenced by how I'm feeling, or what I think I need to concentrate on, which then become my nearly daily hour of self-induced torture health-improving cardio and/or strength-training. A pot-pourri of pain, if you will, or a pick-and-mix (for those of a British disposition) of muscle misery.

I moan, of course I do. It's hard work, and I make it even harder work for myself by pushing as physically hard as I can safely can, but in a positive let's-try-and-improve-my-quality-of-life way, not in a negative I-hate-myself-and-want-to-feel-even-worse way. Even though, yes, I moan about it. But as we both know, complaining is half the fun!

As a tiny, but relevant aside, I had a lovely catch-up with a dear friend recently, and conversation turned to jobs, bosses, earning a living, and that although we sometimes weren't keen on what we had to do or who we had to work with, we were glad (in a it-could-be-worse way) that we had the possibility of someone to rail against, something to throw our frustrations at, and in that respect we were fortunate because otherwise we might instead be railing at ourselves, perhaps even to the extent of hitting self-destruct buttons. 

So in rather the same way, I moan about putting myself through challenging workouts, but in this case choosing to shoot the video messenger with my grumble gun, instead of shooting myself in the foot for being the one to impose such hardship in the first place.

I purposefully make it hard work for myself because I came to understand early on in the exercise process that you get out what you put in. I reckon that if I did my workout half-assed (as our American cousins so colourfully describe it) instead of whole-assed (or whatever the equivalent is) it would more than likely lead to retaining the full form of my entire derrière (and other wobbly bits that I want to de-wobble) for a much longer period of time, and therefore I'd have to work twice as long for the same end result than I would if I had thrown my entire energy at the workout in the first place.

Now, I know the mathematics, statistics and number-type thingies may not be so easy to manipulate (wordz ma thang, yo) so half-assed workouts may not precisely mean half as many calories lost, or twice as much work needed to create the same result, but you get the picture. I'm not really a lazy person, but if I can get my calories burnt or my muscles fatigued in an hour while sweating hard, instead of two hours of playing along with the videos, then I'll go with the first option. And, although my claim to a lack of numerical aptitude is true, I'm of the suspicion that one hour of full energy and muscle use, and two hours of perfunctory fannying around do not the same calorific deficiency make.

So I try to push myself to ensure I'm getting my money's worth (I'm Scottish - this analogy works for pretty much everything) out of this exercising-at-home-using-free-YouTube-videos lark by making sure they're intense, and then I moan about it. But I'd be moaning more if I knew it would be taking me twice as long to get to this chapter in my weight loss and getting healthy story just because I didn't give it my all in the first place!

But excuse me if I also moan about having to get changed out of my cosy jammies, and drag my rubbish bin down two-and-a-half storeys and out into the cold and rain. It's truly grumble-worthy!

Deceased Yeast

I've been on the look-out for more savoury bread recipes recently, because:

1. I still haven't managed to make those 'dinner rolls' from posts past look and have the texture of anything other than common or garden cornmeal scones (which is great because I at least have a go-to accidental savoury scone recipe, I guess, but not so excellent if I actually want to enjoy the light and fluffy rolls so promised by the author)
2. as much as I love the savoury zucchini bread I wrote about in the last post, sometimes one needs something other than courgette in their diet, and
3. we both know that I'm nicely-off for sweet bread recipes at the moment! (Which reminds me - I have some bananas that I need to use up. Oh dear, how awful, such a chore...mmm peanut butter banana bread of the gods!)

This little number caught my eye on scrolling through Pinterest the other day: Gluten-Free Triple Herb Overnight Dinner Rolls. It looked eminently do-able, time-wise, skill-wise, and ingredients-wise, so I thought I'd give the recipe a go, and record the proceedings wearing my fake food-blogger disguise.

So. :: rolls up disguise's sleeves ::

To make 12 rolls you need:

1 ¼ cups or 295ml of milk (I used semi-skimmed)
2 tbs or 30g of butter (I used half butter, half 'spreadable' butter - don't judge - that's all I had to hand!)
1 packet of yeast (usually 7g so I'm presuming this is the measurement here)
1 ½ tbs or 20g of sugar (I'm guessing it's ordinary table sugar like granulated or the slightly finer caster)
1 cup or 122g of tapioca flour
¾ cup or 142g of brown rice flour
¾ cup or 144g of potato starch (not flour)
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp xanthan gum
2 tsp salt
1 tbs each of fresh, chopped rosemary, thyme, and sage. (I used dried, and a little less of each)
1 tbs olive oil
2 large eggs

Well, your first instruction is to generously grease and rice flour a muffin tin. Hmm. Well, I have a tiny muffin pan for my tiny oven, but many muffin cases, so...

But to get in to the actual mixing things together stage, next you need to combine the milk and butter in a microwave cup or jug of some sort, and nuke it until the mixture reaches 110-120 degrees (I presumed Celsius, because that's my go-to, but I have a terrible suspicion that because the author says it takes 1:10 in their microwave to get it to that temp, but doesn't state at which setting and it took four minutes of blitzing at full strength to get anything near that hot in my old banger that it may not be Celsius at all... This may be trial and error - I'll let you know if you need to bump the temp down and use 110-120 Fahrenheit instead (43-49 Celsius), once we've seen whether they rise or not... So, once you've either melted it gently, or blasted it to kingdom-come (depending on those f's and c's) you need to add the yeast and the sugar and then you're instructed to set the bowl aside while it proofs.

While it's proving. Proofing. Hmm. While it's doing strange and wonderful yeasty things, add the tapioca flour, brown rice flour, potato starch, baking powder, xanthan gum, salt, and herbs to another bowl and give it a good mix (after taking arty-farty photos first if you, too, are playing at fake food-blogger along with me).

Once the yeast is prooved. Proved. Proofed (around 10 minutes), mix in the olive oil and the eggs. (On a low speed, says the recipe. Or a lazy arm, says me), then slowly add in the flour mixture, then beat on a high speed for at least 1:30. Or alternatively give yourself muscle fatigue and beat it with a wooden spoon for five minutes.

Then you spoon the dough into the muffin forms, cases of whatever you're using, around ¾ full (although to be honest, mine were more half full, possibly due to yeast issues...), then gently smooth the top of each one with wet fingertips. To get the cross shape on the top, dip kitchen scissors in tapioca flour then snip each dough ball in half, then in half again so you have quarters. My first six were happy to sit in the muffin pan, the second lot had to make do with an ordinary baking tray. They showed how they felt about being second-best by ignoring their paper case boundaries and instead sulking in formless blobs.

Next you pretend they all look the same and brush the tops with a small amount of olive oil, then cover the trays with cling-film - the oil will keep the plastic from getting too cosy with the dough while it rises. And I've just realised I forgot to do that. Well, we'll learn tomorrow just how important it really is to brush them with oil, won't we, girls and boys? After you've fought the cling-film and used approximately four times as much as you really need because it won't stick to the pans but it'll stick happily to itself, place the trays in the fridge and leave overnight, or at least for eight hours. Legend has it that this is called a 'cold rise'.

I left them in for ten hours. Not only did I not have to worry about the dough sticking to the cling-film, I think we proved (ahahahah) that it is Fahrenheit and not Celsius for the melting process. It appears I killed the yeast. Or at least maimed it enough to make it believe that playing dead was the safest option, for there was no sign of life, and nary a rise to be seen.

Once they've risen sufficiently (let's pretend, shall we?), remove the rolls from the fridge and let them sit at room temperature while the oven pre-heats to 350F or 175C, then bake them for 28-35 minutes until the tops are golden brown. (I jimmied my second batch - the :: cough :: free-form, sulking version of which I refused to show you - into the muffin tray after taking the first lot out [my oven is only big enough for one tray at a time], and it actually turned out better than the first, if we exclude the rather sad-looking paper-cases, so let that be a lesson in judging things by their appearance. Or something.)

Once they're ready, let them sit in their pans for five minutes until they're cool enough to handle, then turn them out to finish cooling on a wire rack.

Or immediately tear one apart, spread a little butter on it, and nom! Whatever you prefer!

To be honest, I'm surprised they've turned out so well, considering the unspeakable atrocities performed upon the yeast; the texture is surprisingly not so heavy, although the next time (and yes, there will be a next time) I'll try not to commit fermentocide!

Be prepared, however, to be overwhelmed by the enticing herby baking smell that will fill your house when making these. Deliciously distracting!

A+ would bake again!

Making It Up As I Go Along

There are good things and bad things about taking your time to lose weight. The main good thing is mostly in the hope that if you're losing weight slowly yet steadily (give or take a few hiccups) it could give you an assist in maintaining possible weight-loss once you've hit whatever goal you were aiming for. Knowing that you're in it for the long haul doesn't automatically make you one hundred per cent comfortable with the concept, though, and I think it's not the cleverest of options to believe that you won't sometimes feel helpless in a tide of negative emotions, or that you won't possibly be overwhelmed by the daunting notion that the hard work may well be endless.

Gods, though, but that's a trying notion; the thought of a never-ending battle against being big is exhausting if I allow myself to dwell on it. And I don't really have a plan to cope with that. As with most things, I don't really have a plan at all.

I set off thinking that losing weight would be great if I could manage it, but not having a final number, shape, or clothes size in mind. I have a suspicion that I thought it might not happen, that I had been this big for too long, and my whole being, soul, even my personality was so used to this enormous entity that I'd become, that I'd be stuck forever in a life-sucking cocoon of morbid obesity and self-disgust. Or that my head and body would fight me tooth and nail to stay the same, safely large, as I had always been, because that's all it, and I, had ever known.

If you're into astrology, it won't surprise you to know that I was born under the sign of Taurus the Bull. If you're not into astrology, it won't surprise you to learn that I'm stubborn, that I like to know what I'm doing at all times, and I'm not keen on unexpected changes to my routine, so taking off into weight-loss wilds unknown was much of a bigger deal than I was (or still am) completely prepared for.

I have to admit that on the many things upon which I didn't plan, I didn't actually plan on success. I still have to remind myself that losing a hundred pounds isn't something that happened to somebody else, but instead it was, is, something I accomplished after an awful lot of hard work, and about which I should be inordinately proud. That although I'm basically flying on a wing and a prayer, I've actually unlocked some achievements (if you'll excuse the gaming metaphor). My strength, constitution and dexterity have been steadily levelling-up over the past few years, charisma is more of a two steps forward one mighty blow to the self-confidence step back again, but it's being worked on. I'm still trying to figure out how to win more wisdom and intelligence experience points, but I don't think trying to knock some sense into my thick noggin with a nose-bloodying Wiimote, or out-of-control wrist-weights has gone too well on that front so far...

I continue plan-less.

In the end-game of an ideal world, perhaps I'll eventually find I have a body I can use well, one with as much extra skin as I can cope with and not absolutely loathe, one that's as healthy as it can feasibly be, without my ending up a neurotic, weight-obsessed, health-evangelistic mess of the formerly over-fleshed. In an ideal world I won't have to workout almost every evening, and walk miles nearly every day because I'll be maintaining my weight-loss, not still struggling to take it off. I'll be able to intermittently fast for one day a week instead of two because it makes my brain work well, keeps my body on an even keel, and I enjoy it, and not because I still have fifty pounds to lose. 

Of course I'm under no impression whatsoever that arriving at a non-obese, ideal-world weight would automatically mean I can do or have things other people that weight can do or have. That belief, that hope has already been put aside without too much rancour. I won't ever have skin that sits flush on my toned muscles, although toned they will be. I won't ever have a jawline (or lack thereof) that doesn't look like it belongs to an OAP. I have the feeling that my knees will always be the curmudgeons of my corpus, and my left hip is, I suspect, on its last ten years of working order. My feasible ideal world doesn't include the luxury of skin removal surgery or face-lifts. But it does include normal cholesterol, normal blood-sugar, normal BP, and hopefully less of a chance of contracting nasty illnesses. To make it even more black and white, at least dermis-wise, it's either taught skin and dying at fifty, or slack skin and hopefully making it to an age where I can wear purple and spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves!

I also realise that arriving at a non-obese ideal-world weight will not make all my dreams come true, like some Disney fairytale or other. Fat Girl gets thin after life of sad loneliness and finds dream career, dream home, and dream family handed to her on a (convoluted yet obvious) plate. WOOHOO! :: throws confetti :: But yes, the internal bodily changes will make, are already making, an enormous (black and white) difference to my quality of life, and, hopefully, my future quality of life. External bodily transformations have already brought about the ability to get into a pair of jeans from a standard clothes shop. My head is more of a work-in-progress, of course, because no matter how 'normal' I may eventually appear to the general public, if I still feel myself to be the fat, unloved and ridiculed kid I was at school, for whatever reasons, then the chances are that this weight will just pile back on again. It's my own fairy tale, perhaps more in the style of the Brothers Grimm than Disney, but I'm working for, if not Happy Ever After, then at least not Unhappy Ever After!

On a day-to-day level, however, I just get on with it, and try not to worry about what may or may not be next. It's enough to eat less, workout, eat less, go for a walk, eat less, strength-train, eat less, make cookies... I respond well to a weekly routine without planning too far into the future.

And guilt, I respond well to guilt, too. Right now, for example, I'm on a writing roll. This is a subject that fills my head with so many emotions, and gives me such a wealth of theories I long to expound, that I could keep typing until my fingers cramp, my eyelids fall, or my right butt cheek goes numb. (For some reason it's always the right one. The left one must be slightly better padded. Or it might just be the less aware of the passing of time compared to the right one. It's obviously the dreamer of the two.) But in five short minutes begins the time that I've set aside for my workout, and as much as I try to will myself to stay at the keyboard I know I'll end up doing my exercise anyway (which starts today with a session on the cross trainer) just beginning ten minutes later because I've dithered around with the vain notion that I could throw this (self-imposed) schedule to the four winds and write, write, write, like I wasn't already feeling guilty because I should be doing something else. Like getting changed, pulling the trainer onto its non-squeaky floorboard spot, and striding my way to sweating off five hundred calories worth of fat from possibly the big toe on my right foot.*

So, the non-plan is just to keep moving onwards, doing much the same thing, in much the same hope that one day I'll find what I'm still not sure I'm searching for. But with less stress and more cake.

* In fact this is exactly what happened. Except the big toe thing - I find myself quite unable to confirm that. But the whole guilt and stopping writing and working out. Totally happened. If only I could predict next week's lottery numbers with such foresight and conviction.

Courgette Revisited

I know, I know! I've already done a post about the savoury zucchini bread, but it didn't include step-by-step photos, did it? No! So, HAH! This post is totally justified, and doesn't merely exist because it's still pouring with rain outside and although my walking shoes can cope with mud and the occasional puddle, solid, battering rain is a friend to nothing, man nor footwear, and I've already finished everything else I had to do today.

Anyhoo. I'm out of savoury bread, so this post fills several needs. And hopefully my stomach in a little while. So here it is again: Savo[u]ry Gluten Free Zucchini Bread from Gluten Free on a Shoestring. (The original recipe works in US cups and other measurements; I've converted them to UK measurements below.)

You need:

280 grams basic gluten-free flour

3/4 teaspoon xanthan gum

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt (kosher or otherwise)

75 grams (80mls) vegetable oil

2 eggs at room temperature, beaten

75 grams (70 mls) plain whole milk yoghurt

170 grams grated zucchini (courgette)

75 grams Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, finely grated

60 grams sharp white cheddar cheese, grated (I left a few small chunks in the mix again, not for aesthetic reasons, but because those chunks of cheese are a tasty, tasty surprise!)

Before I go on, though, I HAVE to show you my new matryoshka US cup measures I found on special at I Want One Of Those dot com (sadly I'm not affiliated with IWOOT, but how cool if I was - they have the craziest cookware!!) 

I think the truth that I'm easily amused has already been proven, but for those previous unbelievers, this is probably the final confirmation you need!

So, to begin with, you need to preheat your oven to 175C, then put the flour, xanthan gum, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl and mix them together.

In a bigger bowl add the eggs, oil, and yoghurt and whisk really well to emulsify the ingredients together,

(Excuse the difference in colours; my phone camera is fickle. And possibly lazy. Maybe colour-blind.)

Add half the dry ingredients to the mixture, which will then thicken considerably, and then add the grated courgette, and the cheeses. 

Ah yes, the cheeses. This time I used some grated 'Italian Cheese For Pasta' in lieu of the proper (and way more expensive) Parmigiano, and some good, old Dutch cheese (oude kaas - it's good stuff, man, good stuff) instead of the white cheddar. I reckon you can add any combination of cheese you like, as long as the consistency is at least similar, so probably no soft cheeses unless you really squeeze the courgette dry. (Um, see the next paragraph for an explanation of that...)

Pro :: cough :: tip with the courgette: after grating I put it in a sieve over another bowl and gently squeezed out some of the excess liquid. Why? Because the first time I made this I had to add extra flour because the courgette was rather watery. The second time I added the courgette and squeezed a lot of fluid out, which resulted in a rather dry dough, because I threw the liquid away. Third time lucky and I saved the liquid in case I needed to add some, which I did, but maybe just half. A Goldilocks portion, if you will! 

After this, add the rest of the dry ingredients and mix well (the dough/batter will be thick) then add the finished dough to a greased (or sprayed) loaf tin, and bake it in the oven until golden brown on top (approximately thirty-five to forty minutes) checking to see that it's baked all the way through by poking it with a cake tester, or toothpick, making sure it comes out clean. (I always forget, but the recipe suggests taking a wet spatula and smoothing out the top of the loaf before putting it in the oven. Maybe next time...)

The author suggests that you wait ten minutes before taking the loaf out of the tin to lay it on a cooling rack, and waiting until it has completely cooled down before carving it up. 

Or the matryoshka will find you...