Been a while

Hello and many apologies for taking so long to come back to this blog!  I am still not sure if it will work anymore.  I learned I had used all the space for photos and did not know how to fix that.  I considered using other avenues to start a new blog, but I really like this one.  So I will attempt to continue and see what we can do about the photo problem.....

I have also lost the drive to cook and experiment, probably due to not being able to blog. So please bear with me and let's see if this is going to work now!

We lost our Bailey dog in February. She was with us for 12 1/2 years and only went down hill a few days before she passed away.  It was sudden and shocking, but what a great life she had!  We miss her every day but are so happy that we were able to share our lives with her for so long.

Sunset at Ayr Beach with our grandson and our beloved Bailey

Roasted Sweet Potato Soup

It has been a long time since I have done a blog and I apologize for this.  I have no idea how my time has become so compressed since I am not doing anything differently.  But I am going to make an effort to catch up with my life and do the things that I enjoy.

Our weather has begun to feel like Autumn!  It has been unseasonably warm but it is almost time to put up the Christmas tree so I am pleased that there has been frost and ice in the mornings recently!

Robin

Today, Alan and I walked along to our local park to get some photos of local wild life.  The camera club we belong to has a 7 day challenge to publish wild life photos.  Since I hardly take photos of birds and such, I was deeply concerned about meeting this challenge!  I must admit it was fun to walk around and search for interesting creatures to photograph!

It was a bit chilly so it was nice to think about making some soup when we got back.  A wonderful coincidence was that I had all the ingredients for Roasted Sweet Potato Soup which is listed as the 22nd November soup in the New Covent Garden Food Co "A Soup for Every Day" cookbook I bought a few years ago.  Considering this IS the 22nd of November, I thought it would be great to not only try the recipe but actually publish this on the same day.

I had a package of frozen sweet potato chunks in the freezer so this made it much easier to put this together quickly.  We had fresh cauliflower last night and I had kept the water it was cooked in and used that for some of the vegetable stock.  I don't think there was any taste of cauliflower though.


Here is the recipe:

Roasted Sweet Potato Soup - 

adapted from the New Covent Garden Food Co "A Soup for Every Day" Cookbook.

This makes 4 servings and only takes about 35 minutes to put together.

Ingredients:

3-4 sweet potatoes, peeled and diced    (or use a package of frozen sweet potatoes)
1 medium onion, peeled and cut into 8 wedges
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon cumin ( I used a spice mix from Tortola since I am allergic to cumin)
750 ml hot vegetable stock
4 tablespoons natural yoghurt or sour cream (I used sour cream.)  (optional)


Oven temp - 200C/400F

1. Put sweet potatoes and onions in a large bowl, drizzle the olive oil over them and stir so the oil is evenly coated.  Sprinkle the spices of your choice over the potatoes and onions and mix so they are evenly coated.

2.  Place vegetables on a roasting tray and roast in the oven for 25 - 30 minutes, or until vegetables are tender.

3.  Using a blender or hand held potato masher, liquidise the soup until smooth.

4.  When serving, swirling yogurt or sour cream on top adds to the flavour, but this soup is nice enough without this added ingredient.

“To feel safe and warm on a cold wet night, all you really need is soup.”

Laurie Colwin

Roasted Sweet Potato Soup

adapted from the New Covent Garden Food Co "A Soup for Every Day" Cookbook.

This makes 4 servings and only takes about 35 minutes to put together.

Ingredients:

3-4 sweet potatoes, peeled and diced    (or use a package of frozen sweet potatoes)
1 medium onion, peeled and cut into 8 wedges
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon cumin ( I used a spice mix from Tortola since I am allergic to cumin)
750 ml hot vegetable stock
4 tablespoons natural yoghurt or sour cream (I used sour cream.) (optional)

Oven temp - 200C/400F

1. Put sweet potatoes and onions in a large bowl, drizzle the olive oil over them and stir so the oil is evenly coated.  Sprinkle the spices of your choice over the potatoes and onions and mix so they are evenly coated.

2.  Place vegetables on a roasting tray and roast in the oven for 25 - 30 minutes, or until vegetables are tender.

3.  Using a blender or hand held potato masher, liquidise the soup until smooth.

4.  When serving, swirling yogurt or sour cream on top adds to the flavour, but this soup is nice enough without this added ingredient.

Peanut Butter and Apple (English) Muffin

Enjoying our picnic
at Belleisle

Having just returned from 2 weeks in Florida, visiting friends and relatives, it was time to catch up with our daughter.  She suggested a walk after work and this morphed into a lovely Autumn picnic!

It was after work for her and me "working" in the kitchen!  My daughter has recently become Vegan and it is going to be a challenge to find recipes suitable for her!  Even in saying that, I must admit, it is really more about reading ingredients and realising Vegan is not too difficult a concept to get used to.  (I was a very dedicated and strict Vegetarian for a few years so I get the drive to eat healthy and applaud her efforts.)

After realising my day was not as long as I would have liked, I settled for Chunky Chilli Bean Soup and a peanut butter and apple English Muffin.  (They are only referred to as Muffins in the UK!  But I have to say "English" so others will know what sort of muffin I used!)  I thought I had shared the soup recipe but it appears as if I have not, so that will have to be done soon.


I must admit the muffin idea was not original, but I don't know where I saw it!  It has been a few months since I have had time to participate in the Peanut Butter Bash and this month the extra ingredient is Apple.  I was having no luck with ideas and had looked around on the web.  Somewhere I saw this and had to recreate it based on memory!  But it is so simple and so delicious, there isn't really any right or wrong!  

(Just a note to say I have had to stop participating in the peanut butter bash, still too much going on with my home life and it is easier this way.  It was fun though!)

Most of the English muffins I saw were made with butter, so I was not able to use them. However, I found one with cinnamon and raisin that did not include butter.  This added another nice dimension to the mixture of peanut butter and apple!  There is really no measuring in this but I will provide a bit of guidance based on the first and only time I have made these.  (Believe me, they will be made often after this!)

Peanut Butter and Apple (English) Muffins

Ingredients:

(English) Muffins
Apples  (1 was enough for 2 muffins)
Peanut Butter (I used chunky but smooth would be just as good)
Cinnamon and Sugar combined to your taste

Cut the muffins in half and spread with 1 tablespoon peanut butter.

Slice apples very thin and stack them, think of Jenga and make a short stack like that! 

Sprinkle generously with cinnamon sugar.

Grill for about 5 minutes.  

I did remember reading that it worked better to let it grill longer than you would expect and this was true for me too.  I started at only 2 minutes and had to keep putting them back, 2 minutes at a time, 4 times!  But the time I was happy with the result, the sugar was all bubbly and the apples were soft.  These muffins are fabulous, if I do say so myself!

Nothing's better than a picnic.

Zooey Deschanel

The Simple Art of Cooking Rice

A group effort was needed to chop all the ingredients for Thai Curry Paste

My friend, Sue, and I were very lucky recipients of The Cook School gift vouchers for Christmas gifts!  (I shamelessly campaigned for Santa to put a voucher in my stocking because I knew Sue was getting one and I wanted us to go together!)  Believe it or not, this is not the last of my Christmas gifts!  In November, I am very much looking forward to seeing Kevin Bridges at the Hydro with my family!

I had been intrigued by the Knife Skills course, but we
managed to get a bit of knife skills during this class!

It took Sue and I quite a while to find a day that suited our schedule!  But, last week, we had the pleasure of spending a day learning Thai Street Food!  During this day, the 10 students learned how to make a Thai Curry Paste, Roast Prawn and watermelon salad with green chilli and roasted peanuts, Sang Wa and Caramel Pineapple with chilli and mint. We had so much fun with this that we have scheduled our own personal day to try to duplicate what we learned.....I expect you will read more about that in a few weeks!

I had not intended to post anything about this day until we had experimented and seen if our results were worthy of discussion!  However, the attention my Facebook post got about the simple way our chef told us to cook rice said to me that I should post this so I can refer to it again myself!

With all 10 people scurrying around chopping, stirring and basically just thinking about all the things going on in our own stations, it was up the chef to make the rice!  So this is what he told us:


Put the rice in a pan, he did no more than 10 servings at a time. 10 Servings seems way more than I would have been comfortable with anyway.  Last night, I only made 2 servings.

Use your pinky to gauge the depth of the water over the rice. As in, lay your finger down and the depth of water should just be the depth of your finger. Of course, almost your whole hand gets wet but who cares! 

Put a lid on, bring to boil and then turn off the heat and time for 7 minutes. And it worked. This was just rice, not Uncle Ben's or anything. I never expected rice to cook that quickly but it did!

The only complaint my husband had was he prefers rice that is not sticky.  This method is stickier than the way I usually make it, but so much easier......I wonder how long it will take him to get used to it!!    ;-)

If you are a chef, no matter how good a chef you are, it's not good cooking for yourself; the joy is in cooking for others - it's the same with music.    will.i.am

Chicken Caeser Pasta Salad

After spending 12 nights on a Fred Olson cruise to cross the Arctic Circle and eating absolutely wonderful food non-stop, I never expected to be instantly inspired when I saw a recipe posted on my Facebook page.  This was from Yummly.com  and consisted of pasta, cheese and cold chicken.  Quick and easy, maybe not as quick as walking into a buffet, but it was pretty fast!  Here is the link to the original blog showing this amazing and delicious recipe:  Chicken Caesar Pasta Salad.

Alan and I just got home this morning and are really, really tired.  This seems odd since we only drove to the Edinburgh area, not a long haul flight!  But I imagine it was the sleep deprivation more than anything!  When you travel to Norway this time of year, with the long days and non-existent nights, sleep just does not happen.  Here is the link to my blog about our cruise to the Arctic Circle:  Crossing the Arctic Circle

I didn't follow this recipe completely, mainly because I couldn't find the right lettuce.  I also picked up the wrong cheese and only noticed that when I edited the picture to add in this post!  So I imagine anything goes in this salad and I would suggest only using the ingredients and numbers as a guide!  

The original post does not state how many this recipe serves, but Alan had 3 servings, I had 2 and there are at least two bowl fulls left!  One would have actually been enough, but we are going into a bit of food withdrawal following the eating binge of being on a cruise, or at least that is our excuse! 

I have supplied what I believe is Yummly's ingredient list with my changes and suggestions included!   I have tried to find the original person who posted this recipe and it appears to be under Everyday Dishes & DIY, but the address is Yummly's.  Very difficult to ensure I have given the correct person credit for this wonderful salad!  

I also did not convert the measurements into Imperial because, this is really just a salad and anything goes with a salad!  Just use your imagination and taste buds and it will be perfect! 

Chicken Caesar Pasta Salad   

adapted from a recipe found on the Yummy webpage                                        

Ingredients:

• 1 lb penne pasta
  
• 2 tsp salt*
• 1 cup Caesar dressing (I used one entire small bottle from the fresh produce section)
• 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
• ¼ tsp garlic granules
• 1 Tbsp lemon juice
• 1 bag lettuce, of any sort (I know it should be Romaine for a Caesar Salad, but I used Seasonal Four Leaf Salad and it was amazing)  Tear the lettuce leaves into smaller sizes
• 1 punnet cherry or plum tomatoes (cut in half)
• ½ cup finely shredded Parmesan cheese**
• ½ tsp black pepper
• 2 cups diced cooked chicken
• salt to taste

*I really hate to add salt and could not bring myself to put this much salt into the pasta even though I had measured it out.  I put in just over half of what was called for.

**In error, I purchased Vegetarian Hard Cheese and, as I said earlier, I never noticed!  It did seem not quite as hard as it should have, but it tasted just the same! 

Add pasta to a pot of boiling water.  The recipe says to add salt to prevent sticking, but I don't believe this actually makes a difference.  Cook pasta according to directions on package until tender but still slightly firm, or as my Dad would have said "Al Dente"! Drain paste and then  rinse under cold water to cool pasta and stop cooking. Set aside to drain completely.

While waiting for the pasta to be ready, find a very large bowl that the salad with be served in.   Add the Caesar dressing, Worcestershire sauce, garlic granules and lemon juice.  Stir.

Add torn lettuce, tomatoes, Parmesan, black pepper and then the well-drained pasta.  Stir until ingredients are well coated.

Add chicken then either stir again to distribute chicken evenly through salad or serve the chicken on top of the salad for a more aesthetic appearance.  If necessary, season to taste, although I think it was perfect just the way it was!   Serve immediately or chill until ready to serve. 

In trying to find a quote to end this blog, I was reminded of a something that actually happened to Alan and me when we were dating. If you can call him flying 3,000 miles or so from Scotland to Atlanta, GA a "date"!  One of those weird conversations about Worcestershire Sauce folks have, including all the strange pronunciations.  That night I took Alan to a comedy club, no idea what it was called.  One of the stand ups started talking about going into the fridge late at night for a snack and picking up a condiment bottle - 

 "What's this here sauce?  What's this here sauce?"

It was funny anyway but perfectly followed our afternoon conversation!  

Chicken Caesar Pasta Salad  

adapted from the Yummy website:                                         

Ingredients:

• 1 lb penne pasta or any pasta will do
• 2 tsp salt*
• 1 cup Caesar dressing (I used one entire small bottle from the fresh produce section)
• 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
• ¼ tsp garlic granules
• 1 Tbsp lemon juice
• 1 bag lettuce, of any sort (I know it should be Romaine for a Caesar Salad, but I used Seasonal Four Leaf Salad and it was amazing)  Tear the lettuce leaves into smaller sizes
• 1 punnet cherry or plum tomatoes (cut in half)
• ½ cup finely shredded Parmesan cheese**
• ½ tsp black pepper
• 2 cups diced cooked chicken
• salt to taste

*I really hate to add salt and could not bring myself to put this much salt into the pasta even though I had measured it out.  I put in just over half of what was called for.

**In error, I purchased Vegetarian Hard Cheese and, as I said earlier, I never noticed!  It did seem not quite as hard as it should have, but it tasted just the same! 

Add pasta to a pot of boiling water.  The recipe says to add salt to prevent sticking, but I don't believe this actually makes a difference.  Cook pasta according to directions on package until tender but still slightly firm, or as my Dad would have said "Al Dente"! Drain paste and then  rinse under cold water to cool pasta and stop cooking. Set aside to drain completely.

While waiting for the pasta to be ready, find a very large bowl that the salad with be served in.   Add the Caesar dressing, Worcestershire sauce, garlic granules and lemon juice.  Stir.  
After the ingredients for the dressing are thoroughly combined, all the lettuce, tomatoes, cheese, pepper and pasta.  Stir again until everything is well coated.

Add chicken then either stir again to distribute chicken evenly through salad or serve the chicken on top of the salad for a more aesthetic appearance.  If necessary, season to taste, although I think it was perfect just the way it was!   Serve immediately or chill until ready to serve. 

Thanks again to http://www.yummly.com/recipe/external/Chicken-Caesar-pasta-salad-1121120  for providing the inspiration for my first food blog in a while and also a wonderful dinner last night! 

Weekend in Wales - Last stop, the Lake District!

Getting up early and beating the rush hour traffic, Alan and I headed up to the Lake District for one more treat and walk down memory lane!  Years ago, we spent quite a bit of time in this beautiful part of England and we were really looking forward to seeing it again!

Found the perfect hat in Grassmere!
(Alan's photo)

With time not being on our side, we chose not to stop at Windermere. Of our 3 favourite villages in the Lake District, Windermere is number 3 and we had to make a choice.....

Alan's photo, I couldn't get a good angle!

Alan's again!

So our first stop was at Ambleside.  This is the village with the darling little house that is situated over a running stream!  When we first visited this, we were told that a family with 8 children lived in the little house of two rooms - one upstairs and one downstairs.

Can you call this the ground floor when it sits above a running
stream?

I can't begin to describe how little this house is and hope the photos I am sharing can give you an idea.  I had to stand outside the door to get these!  However, on this visit, and in the link I have included, we learned that this structure was built to store apples. The cool running water underneath would keep them fresh. Makes more sense, but I think,  possibly, both stories are true.  Maybe it was originally an apple storehouse, but then became a teeny, tiny family home!

Upstairs! 

This little house is owned by the National Trust but you don't have to be a member to get to go inside.  That is really nice!

After our (short) visit to this house, Alan spotted a lovely tea shop called "The Apple Pie" so he must have known we needed to go in there before leaving Ambleside!

We both got apple pie and ice cream, strangely enough, although the whole menu sounded wonderful, even their Mexican breakfast was tempting!  The ice cream on its own was amazing, but together with warm apple pie - fabulous!

To find a table, you have to walk through their bakery and that is temptation itself!  Loads and loads of wonderful items just needing to be purchased and taken home!

This is going to be one of those must do stops every time we visit Ambleside from now on!







Next stop was Grasmere.  This is one of the very few villages in the Lake District we have had the pleasure of spending a few days in!  Home of William Wordsworth and just one of those beautiful and restful places that come along very rarely.

Grasmere

Unfortunately, and this is not a new development, there are masses of tourists here all the time.  Not only does this area attract hillwalkers, nature lovers and photographers, it also attracts more literary and historic interests with its ties to poets like William Wordsworth or writers like Beatrix Potter.  All of the Lake District is crowded, but not so much that it makes me never want to go back!

I wish I had taken this when our car took up the whole lane!

I am saying all this because we could not park near Dove Cottage, so I was not able to re-visit this lovely building, which was home to The Wordsworth for  a few years.  In fact, we almost got stuck in the narrowest of streets!  Things change in years between visits, so the car park we were looking for seemed to not exist, maybe we didn't remember it correctly. But we meekly followed a sign that indicated going up what looked like a driveway, and in between two cottages that appear to be holiday cottages owned by Dove Cottage. The drive actually goes between those cottages and into the Dove Cottage coffee shop. But on this day, the people who apparently were staying in those 2 cottages decided to use the drive as their parking places so we were stopped behind them in a very awkward position!  Once again, I must compliment my husband's driving. The twists and turns between two stone walls was really demanding when he was going forward, but then he had to reverse to get out of this drive!  I remain impressed!

Grasmere is where I found the hat in the photo at the beginning of this blog!  I have searched for years for a cute, collapsible hat and it was right there in a hillwalking shop - just waiting for me!  It seems like the perfect hat and I can't wait for the right weather to truly enjoy it!  (Alan hates it, but he hates all my hats...)

The major portion of our time spent in Grasmere was just walking around and enjoying being there. But this village has a unique gingerbread shop and it would not be proper to visit and not purchase some to take home.  Grasmere Gingerbread is unique to Grasmere and the most unusual form of gingerbread I could ever imagine.  It isn't like gingerbread cake or gingerbread cookies.  I believe it has to be tasted to be appreciated!  When Alan first bought it for me in 1986, I didn't really enjoy it because I didn't understand it!  But after a few years' exposure, it is really, really nice! And very special since you cannot get it anywhere else than Grasmere.  OK, with modern technology, you CAN order it, but it is only produced in Grasmere!

It isn't all gingerbread in the shop, you can gain weight just walking in and enjoying the wonderful aroma! 

Ashness Bridge

Once we made this purchase, we headed off to Keswick, not to see Keswick but to visit Ashness Bridge one of the most, if not the most, photographed packhorse bridges!  We have made this trip many times, but the views never disappoint.  Maybe the amount of people can disappoint, like today when a group was eating their lunch right in centre of the view of this bridge.  But, hey ho, they were enjoying themselves and life is too short to sweat the small stuff. It was just nice being there.

Bluebells

Above Derwentwater just outside of Keswick

After a wonderful 4 days in England and Wales, we headed back to Scotland.  This had been the right direction to take since Scotland had gale force winds and heavy rain over the time period we had amazing weather!

"Come sit at my table and share with me,

Warm gingerbread cookies and cinnamon tea."    

Unknown

Wales in a Weekend - a slight detour on the way home, the Cotswolds!

Ice cream at Bourton-on-the-Water

For some reason, I thought it would make sense to go to the Cotswolds on the way back to Scotland!  This was quite a journey for us, but Alan never corrected me since we have not been to the Cotswolds for almost 27 years.  We think the last time we came through this beautiful part of the UK was when my Dad and stepmother were over when our daughter was 3 months old......!

Bourton-on-the-Water

And the old adage you can never go back also rang true.  Yes, this area is gorgeous and well worth a visit, but it certainly was not as nice as when we were last here.  Not only have the trees grown and spoiled some views, but there were also a massive amount of more tourists now.  Since we are all struggling financially and having austerity politics and all that, where do all these folks get the time and money to travel?  (oh, that includes me!)

moral of the story of this journey:
Never say no to ice cream again!

Bourton-on-the-Water

Lower Slaughter

Following decades old footsteps, our next stop was Upper and Lower Slaughter.   I did wonder why they were called Slaughter when they are associated with mills.  In the attached article it explains that in old English, a word similar to slaughter meant muddy place. And these two villages are mentioned in the Domesday Book!

We could only remember visiting Lower Slaughter clearly although I believe we probably did visit both.  Unfortunately we did not have real memories of these villages and really enjoyed visiting Lower Slaughter. But we seemed to have missed the main part of Upper Slaughter this time, which is claimed to be the more picturesque of the two villages.

Lower Slaughter

Lower Slaughter, cottage with lavender on its porch
between mill and larger cottage!

We had a lovely walk along the stream that flows through Lower Slaughter and I purchased a little handmade bag of lavender that was in a basket at the cottage just across from the mill.  Who could resist that?

One of our last stops was supposed to be Broadway, but we were feeling the push of time so we more or less drove through.  But right before we arrived we past the cutest little gate house and across the street was a darling church.  So it wasn't a wasted journey!

Anyway we have always wanted to return to the Cotswolds and now we have. So we can take that off the bucket list and head off to places like
Cambridge or Kent next!






Alan made the fantastic decision to get past Birmingham so that we did not have to deal with that ridiculous amount of traffic on the way home. Wonderful idea, terrible hotel though. We booked the Ramada Inn in Cannock. Well, the hotel was fine but the food was the absolute worst meal either of us have ever experienced!  Alan even had to get ketchup to mask the taste of his charcoal flavoured rump steak.  Both of ours were supposed to be medium, but they were charcoal on the outside and raw on the inside.  Yes, we should have sent them back, but there was no way to salvage this meal and the waitress never returned to our table after we had already told her the potato wedges were not cooked completely.  (The frozen fries they replaced them with were not as good as the uncooked wedges!)  So we struggled through, taking off the layers of charcoal and eating what we could.  Readers should be familiar with the fact we travel fast and don't eat much, so this was a huge set back for us!  Eventually, the waitress became aware of our dilemma and did not charge us for the meal, but it was quite a traumatic experience!   When my nice, quiet, British husband wants to pursue and have a conversation with the manager about his disappointment in the meal, you know that it is a very valid complaint!

I like food. I like eating. And I don't want to deprive myself of good food.

Sarah Michelle Gellar