A Likeness Of Demeter

For all my obvious love of taking shots of the great outdoors, I notice that I rarely take a landscape landscape photograph. I've been looking at photos I took back to when I used a camera, to see whether using a phone has made a recent difference in shot orientation, but it appears that I've just been more of a portrait landscape artist at heart for as long as I've had the means to capture things on film.

Maybe it's my signature outside shot, or maybe I'm a secret nature anthropomorphiciser? Anthropomorphicist? Person who has a tendency to anthropomorphise (aw, c'mon UK English spell-check, I know for sure that last one is a real word) trees and such, and believe, deep down, that they all need up-and-down portrait shots.

Maybe my preference for the lean and not the broad pigeon-holes me as being narrow-minded? I don't think I am, but who knows what hidden secrets of our psyche can be deciphered from the way we hold our photo-taking apparatus! Or maybe it's somehow showing my inner desire to be more svelte and less stout in shape? Or maybe it's because I like to hold the camera or phone in my left hand, palm facing my body to keep the phone steady, and that means by the very nature of my anatomy that it's held portrait style?

Who knows? But I can say for certain that my current photo-taking apparatus had a field day when I took a fifteen-thousand step jaunt round the Clingendael Estate, via the Oosduin-Arendsdorp park. The sun was out, and Ms Autumn was having a grand old time painting with her palette of bright golds, greens, yellows, and oranges. I should just be glad that her canvas isn't restricted to either landscape or portrait!

GF Peanut Butter Banana Bread Of The Gods

Or at least of the Gods that I worship...

I promised you this recipe if the original author's website didn't come back online, and Lo! No website reappearance equals my doing you the HUGE favour of making a loaf of peanut butter banana bread to work up a new post, just because I promised you I'd do it. No other reason. None at all.

You're welcome.

So, for this manna from the GF gods, you need:

250 grams all-purpose gluten free flour

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon xantham gum

4 medium bananas, mashed (I use 3 bananas and it works out just fine)

130 grams creamy peanut butter

105 grams granulated sugar

110 grams light brown sugar

80 mls buttermilk (I used ordinary milk and added a teaspoon of lemon juice, then left it to set for 5 mins or so)

60 mls olive oil

2 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

I'll be a little less slap-dash with my directions than I normally am, seeing as there's nowhere for me to link to give you the real directions, so excuse me while I adjust my technical cap a little...

Method:

Preheat oven to 175C and grease the tin/pan/whatever you usually use for cake-loaves. (I use a handy baking spray by Doctor Oetker, but feel free to use whichever method you prefer.) The directions also suggest lining the pan with baking paper so it hangs over the side - to make it easier to pull out, I'm reckoning, but this confuses me... I've found the baking spray to be enough to ensure the bread come out of the pan easily, and adding paper on top of the already-sprayed tin seems... wasteful, somehow, but I'll be happy to be corrected on that point!

Mix dry ingredients (excluding the sugars) together in a medium bowl, then set aside.

In a large bowl blend bananas (already mushed if you're doing it old-school like me), peanut butter, and sugar with a hand mixer until well combined (as you can see, I did mine the old-fashioned way with my trusty plastic bowl and wooden spoon combo), then slowly add the oil, buttermilk, eggs and vanilla.

Add the dry ingredients to the wet and mix until the batter is creamy and well combined.

Pour into the prepared pan and bake for 60 minutes, or until a knife (or cake-tester) comes out clean.

The suggestion then is to serve with strong coffee on a bright Summer morning, but seeing as we're in Autumn, and even I have a pretentiousness limit, I instead waited until it had cooled, sliced it up, made lots of arty-farty photographs in bad light, and tried to pretty them up with my PC's photo editing software.

Then I divvied up the slabs, stuffed them into bags and wanged them in the freezer.

Rising Sun In Falling Rain

The Japanese Garden in the Clingendael estate shuts for the season today, and it's absolutely gorgeous weather outside for the closing ceremony. 

Alas, I won't be joining the hordes clamouring for one last look before the gates close to the public until next Spring. My new-found not-hate of small crowds would undoubtedly be stretched beyond its still amorphous borders, and I wouldn't be able to hold myself responsible for all the loud sighing and tsking I'd emit (the extent of which the noticeable signs of my disapproval would manifest). I'd be thinking loud “GET OUT OF MY SHOT" and “PERSONAL SPACE MEANS NOT HAVING TO PUT UP WITH YOUR ELBOW OVER MY FACE JUST BECAUSE YOU WANT TO TAKE A PHOTO FROM THE EXACT SPOT I'M STANDING ON RIGHT NOW, BUT YOU HAD THE MISFORTUNE TO ARRIVE AFTER I DID AND COULDN'T WAIT TEN SECONDS FOR ME TO FINISH" thoughts, though. (Welcome to Throwback Thursday Japanse Tuin October 2014: Sunday version.)

I did, however, set my alarm to go off early on Friday because Wunderground.com told me just before I went to bed that it was set to be a clear and sunny morning not six hours from when I finally laid down my head to sleep. Huzzah! Waking up to clouds and a little drizzle those few hours later was pretty much par for the course, but never one to be deterred by a little rain (societal behaviours may differ between Scotland and the Netherlands, but the rain stays the same), I set out to hopefully catch the garden before it got too busy.

I wasn't the only person with that idea, of course, but there were few enough of us that I felt I could take my time to just meander about the pathways, absorb the very special atmosphere, and take some photos without feeling rushed. I'm still amazed how much this little phone camera seems to prefer working on dull days than on sunny ones. I wonder if its components were sourced in Scotland...

An Autumn Colour Treasure Hunt

Accompanied by my trusty John Steed umbrella, I left the house to meet a friend for lunch just as it had finished drizzling outside. The forecast was dull, dreich, and disheartening, so, true Scot that I am, I was armed and ready for any rainy eventuality.

But Mother Nature, being her normal capricious self, had other plans, and halfway through the meal she swept away some clouds and invited the sun to peek through, naughty matron that she is, and gave me itchy feet into the bargain.

I wasn't intending to go for a walk today, mainly because, meh, drizzle and grey skies are not really conducive to expending ambulatory energy, but on being presented with a bright blue sky and even brighter orange leaves (the first photo on the page) just as I left the café, I realised that my brain had already decided to go on an Autumn colour treasure hunt.

So away we went, Moeder Natuur and I, across the city, capturing seasonal riches where we found them, and we came back with quite the haul...

Oh I Do Like To Be Beside The Seaside

Yesterday I:

• walked 14,000 steps, or just over, up to Scheveningen, along the beach, past the pier, and back via Madurodam. It was a bit of a dreich day, but I fancied a decent walk and going up to the beach and back is a favourite route if my aim is to get a fair amount of miles clocked, and this extended version is just over five of those on foot. Yes, it's not the most scenic route, except for the mile or so along the beach front, but it's simple and on a day like this when nature is taking some 'me' time and not caring so much about the wants of humanity, it's ideal for a good leg stretch without having to worry if there's enough juice left in the phone battery in case of emergency photo-taking. Okay, I took one photo, but there were extenuating circumstances: Many, many boats.
  
  
  
  
  
  (I also like walking this route, because it takes me through the shopping arcade at the pier which houses my brother's favourite chocolate shop. Well, a shop that houses his favourite chocolate. Ach, it's probably his favourite chocolate shop, too! (The Swiss brand Lindt, for those of the wondering persuasion.) I like to have a look in there when I pass to see if I can find anything that he wouldn't be able to find at home, because surprising him with something he's never seen before made from his favourite brand is cool and unusual. He's not very... shall we say excitable when it comes to receiving gifts, so presenting him with something new from his favourite sweetie brand is worth its weight in gold-wrapped Lindor.) Which takes me to my next bullet point:
• didn't buy any chocolate for myself. And there's a cinnamon-coriander variety of Lindor just out. I am sure you will understand the will-power that had to be exerted for me to leave the shop without handing over a significant portion of my grocery budget to be the custodian (even if only for a few short days) of such chocolate perfection.
• kept within my calorie limit. Thanks in part to, you know, not purchasing the Cinnamon Lindor of The Gods. 
• had excellent hair. It's naturally long and straight, but I wind it up in a bun when it's damp to give it a bit of movement, and yesterday those waves were vintage Hollywood (ish) and behaved almost impeccably when I went out. (My hair is my only vanity, at least when it doesn't look like I've been dragged through a hedge backwards, which sadly happens more often than not.) Yes, it was partly because there was hardly any wind for a change, because normally when you live this close to the North Sea, Wind Happens. Every day. Sometimes gale-force, very, very occasionally the gentlest zephyr's breath. Usually it's on the blustery umbrella-mangling end of the scale, so yesterday I was surprised to find the breeze lightly caressing my hair around my face, instead of whipping it about like I was an extra in Hurricane Chasers III - The Attack Of The Mane. It was a good hair day.
• worked-out. I hooped for half an hour or so, then made my triceps complain that it was Sunday, and surely that's supposed to be a day of rest. Mwahahahah! No chance! I am a mean muscle-mom! 
• let all that positivity be completely eclipsed by a cute man giving me the once-over with a snide smile-snort as he saw me walk out of the chocolate shop at the beach.

Why do I let people do that to me? What I really mean is, why do I let these people into my head? I will probably never see this guy ever again. He deserves not even a pinhead-sized plot of my brain real-estate. Yet...

Just before that I was feeling pretty okay. I was just over halfway of a really good calorie-crushing walk, it hadn't rained although I brought my trusty black umbrella that makes me feel like a female John Steed (the ORIGINAL Avenger) just in case, my hair was all Rita Hayworth (redhead version), and I had left the chocolate shop after not buying anything, feeling a little virtuous in the knowledge that I didn't actually need anything there, and WHAM! Stupid head thinking that a stranger's opinion of me was more important that my own self-acknowledged awesomeness. And not only that, I let this stranger's rudeness take hold, and grow pervasive confidence-draining roots into my self-esteem. Shame on him, but shame on me, too.

Seeing a fat chick walking out of chocolate shop is quite the stereotype. I get the inherent need to judge. I don't like it, but I've been alive long enough to know how humanity works at a base level. But you know, you can think mean thoughts without letting the meanness show on the outside. You can make snarky assumptions about me and my (presumed) lifestyle without inviting the world to share in your exaggerated sneer. There's no need to mock me so openly just because you've snap-decided that the reason I look the way I look is because I'm lazy and greedy, or whatever your particular chosen cliché is.

But, underneath this disquiet, I have to realise that I can't change this man. Amongst other personality traits, he has been conditioned by society to treat certain things with contempt, and for that I can't fault him so much. I do fault him for his methods in displaying his conditioning, though. You don't have to act like a dick just because you don't like something, or don't understand something, or are uncomfortable when faced with something that confuses you.

What I can attempt to change is my own reaction when faced with emotional ineptitude in the behaviour of others towards me. It's something I do try to do, but not always successfully, and although it doesn't make a dent in the surrounding layers of ignorance, I can try to use a more positive reaction to repair some of the cracks in my own armour, and instead turn them from blemishes into beauty marks.

• Yesterday I let myself be brought down. 
• Today I'm going to bring myself right back up again.
  

Man Does Not Live On Bread Alone

Or at all. I'm forever on the hunt for a decent bread substitute. Yes, yes, I know: don't waste my time trying to find GF substitutes for old favourites, because I'm just setting myself up for a disappointment of epic proportions. Certainly the “bread" I found in the bio/gluten-free section at the supermarket only really deserves the irony-quotes, because it certainly doesn't deserve the appellation bread. The bread mixes are okay if hell is freezing over, but I'm slowly, finally reaching that end stage of GF grief: acceptance that I'm never again going to enjoy another slice of thick, white, doughy bread that smells like childhood, and tastes of comfort. Preferably slathered in Lurpak by my Gran thirty years ago when all this was much simpler and my stomach upsets were treated with Milk of Magnesia and a lie down.

I did try my hand at 'dinner rolls', but they turned out so much more like dense cornmeal scones, that I'm not going to give you the recipe I used, out of respect to the author of said poor recipe that I no doubt mangled horribly. If I finally get the timing/mixing/petition the right baking gods and they finish up even a tiny semblance of the pictures on the recipe, then believe-you-me, that'll be written up faster than you can say “she really needs to invest in at least one more un-chipped plate if she's going to keep doing these weird recipe posts".

I've been playing with the sweet breads, but have gone wrong as many times as right. Partially, I'm sure, because I haven't yet accepted that they're not bread, they're really cake. IT'S ALL LIES! SWEET, CAKEY LIES!!

A wrong effort was a rustic-type carrot, banana and walnut bread that ended up the weirdest of textures. All entirely my fault, I'm sure. I still can't quite describe it. It was tasty enough, because you should know me by now, if I didn't throw out the monstrously bad Travesty To Cake-Dom, then something a little chewy. glutinous, compacted, just as weird as that walnut carrot thing was stands a very good chance of being finished off within a fortnight. My standards remain rather low in regards to things that don't make me ill. I can eat it without doubling up in toxic agony? Then it's fine by me. It tastes of rubber? Meh, worse things happen at sea.

Things have gone well, though, like banana bread, and zucchini bread. Okay, peanut butter banana  bread - you NEED to make this. It's one of my favourite things I've made to date. And now I'm looking for it online, I can't find it any more. I think it was on asweetsimplelife.com but the site has been down for a few weeks now. If it's not up soon, then I'm posting this recipe as is, because it is pretty wonderful.  The photo isn't pretty wonderful, but it shows the first one I made and I was so pleased it came out looking bread-like that once it had cooled I took a quick pic to show my sis, before I finished carving it up, scarfing down a slice or two in culinary ecstasy, and storing the rest in the freezer. So good. SO GOOD!  But you'll just have to take my word for it until I either find the recipe online, or truly suffer for my art and work up a post with another loaf. The things I do for you.

The zucchini bread (I'd call it courgette bread, but although I never usually use the Americanism/Italianism normally, it feels right when it's a bread, somehow. Yeah, okay. Cake.) was something unexpected. Of course, I didn't just make any old zucchini bread, I made Double Chocolate Zucchini Bread. :: cough double chocolate courgette cake cough ::

Tasty, tasty bread/cake. Yes, I may have used fifty per cent white choc chips in with the dark. Because I could. 

But then I came across this: Savo(u)ry Gluten Free Zucchini Bread from Gluten Free on a Shoestring. It is a thing of wonder, delight, and if I can't have wheat bread ever again, this'll help ease the pain!

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 yogurt

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, not for aesthetic reasons, just because I couldn't grate it all without adding a little human flesh to the batter.)

I don't have a blow-by-blow photo-story for you, so here's a quick run-down of the procedure:

Dry stuff in a bowl and mixed together, wet stuff in another bowl and combined 'very well'. You then have to add half the dry stuff in with the wet stuff, followed by the grated courgette and the cheeses, and mix all that up together, and once that's all nicely combined, you mix in the rest of the dry ingredients. You then scrape the (thick) mixture into a prepared pan (I use a basic bread/cake tin), place it in the centre of the preheated oven (oh, yes, you need to preheat your oven to 175C) and bake it until it's lightly golden brown on top, and a toothpick has been prodded and come out clean. Around 35 to 40 minutes.

I took heed of the warning not to slice it until it was cool. I learn. Slowly. But I learn!