Glanbrydan’s Weblog

On new years eve we will be going to a pirates and princess party at Craig and Louise’s. Up to now we haven’t really considered costumes and finery, imagining we could adorn ourselves as pirates from the local charity shops. Yes, I know they don’t keep 18th century jerkins and cutlasses on the hangers just waiting for us but somehow I thought we’d get something we could cut up and alter.

T-W-O is sorted out (sort of). He has my long red silk layered skirt which doesn’t quite do up around his waist and a corset style top in a similar red which just might lace a little down the back. In addition to some boobs to fill out the corset he could do with a tiara and a shawl but I think as long as he takes something else to wear should he start to get cold then he’ll be ok, but he should also wear shorts to protect his modesty from the wanton female pirates lusting after his seductive feminine form! Footware will be a problem for him however to which there is no obvious solution.

Mum and I tried on quite a few blouses and jackets trying to imagine them with sleeves cut off, black trousers and knee length boots. So far we look more like a cross between Abba babes and a couple of hippies.

The day has been saved by purchasing a couple of black eye patches from the chemist but I am still swordless!  I do however have a very nice scarf and a little skirt for my daughter……… but that won’t help us with the pirate look. I know I should have gone and got some material and made something weeks ago – they invited us back at the beginning of November but my excuse is there was too much work.

Oh well we have tomorrow still and the T-W-O has found a theatrical costumieres in Carmarthen so off to there we will go although sense tells me to try Argos etc first………………….

Yesterday was mainly taken up by lunch! After a morning spent tidying the house and then tittifying (T-W-O tells me there is no such word)  ourselves we left to meet a group of friends and didn’t return to late afternoon. Exhausted by all our sitting around chatting and full from food the evening was spent with further sitting around viewing DVDs.

It’s amazing and wonderful how consumed our little band became in enjoying themselves. I don’t think anyone noticed the pub, The Goose and Cuckoo in Llangadog http://www.llangadog.com gradually emptying until we actually came to leave and realised we had become locked in. Good pub grub, a bit of a catch up and general chit chat lead us through various courses: some people enjoyed starters whilst others waited for a main course. All had a main course and some had a pud whilst others enjoyed coffee.  Then out into the very cold air!

I and my Mother enjoyed a walk away from the sunset with the dogs whilst T-W-O dealt with the food and watering of our little menagerie who are also enjoying cold left over meat suppers just as we are.

Sometimes I get away with it

Christmas has been very quiet for us, T-W-O, my mother and myself have shared a couple of slow days, eating drinking and generally just enjoying a rest. We now have a fridge full of cold meat and cheese which would feed an army and have been blessed with sweet gifts from our friends and family to add to our food cupboard. We only suffered one culinary disaster – I forgot to add sugar to the bread and butter pudding. Unusual taste!

Venturing into Llandeilo this morning we watched the hunt gather and then leave the town which we followed with a trip to the shops to have a look at some of the ‘sale’ bargains that are supposed to be around. We were disappointed with what we found and came home without spending too much. My Mum wanted to look for a new fridge/freezer as hers has developed a soggy bottom but it seemed that anything worthwhile was full price.

I didn’t take a photo of the pie but I was very proud of it. Please read through the recipe first as there are a couple of important things (such as it is made over 2 days) that you need to work out first.

The pork pie mixture

700g pork shoulder

200g unsmoked back bacon rashers

1 heaped teaspoon chopped dried sage 

1 tb anchovy sauce – available via some deli’s, waitrose or Harrods!

half teaspoon ground allspice

half teaspoon ground mace

seasoning

 The middle

2 large chicken breasts

150 g cranberries

The pastry

450 g plain flour

1 teaspoon salt

150 g lard

150 ml semi skimmed milk (or full milk and a bit of water or skimmed milk)

a beaten egg

The jelly (leave it out if you detest jelly in your pork pies)

gelatine powder or sheets for half a pint of liquid

half a pint veg stock made with home made stock or veg stock powder.

Line an 8 inch (20cm) cake tin with loose bottom lined with baking parchment to help you free it after it’s cooked and put the oven to 180 degrees C. Gas mark 4.

Make the pork filling.

Use a food processor for best results. Chop up the pork into chunks removing any skin and place in the food processor. Take the bacon and remove the rind, chop into chunks and put in the food processor. Add to this the rest of the pork pie filling ingredients (I use about half a ts salt and half a ts ground black pepper and whizz. We like our pie chunky so we don’t whizz too much but be guided by your own taste and whizz until you have a consistency you think is right for you. Put this in a bowl or tub, cover it and refrigerate until you need it.

The Middle bit

Take the chicken breast and a rolling pin. Lay a breast on a solid board and bash it flat. I find that prefrozen breasts brake up so fresh is best here if you can and repeat with the other breast. Pop these to one side.

The Pastry

Now you need all your pastry ingredients ready. Put the flour and salt into a bowl – you need a bowl that can be kept a bit warm so plastic is out. Now you need a saucepan and a wooden spoon ready. Put the lard in the saucepan and put on a medium heat, when the lard has just melted add the milk, if you forget about the lard don’t be tempted to add the milk as it will boil up and maybe over. I like to pop the milk in the microwave for a minute as the lard melts and then add it. Keep a close eye on you milky lard. Ithe lard and milk stay seperated so don’t worry about stirring it. Just as the milk starts to boil remove it from the heat.

Carefully tip the hot liquid into the flour and stir with the wooden spoon, the liquid will start to cool but PLEASE check the heat of your mixture before you put your hands in and need it. Need until it starts to smooth out and feels like a dough. Remember it needs to be kept warm.

I keep the bowl on top of my cooker – not on the rings but on the bits in between with a cloth over it. If you run a hob this may not be possible so have a pan with some hot water in ready and put your covered bowl over that.

Now take two thirds of the dough and some spare flour, generously flour your board and roll out to fill and overflow an 8 inch (I think is 20 cm) cake tin, not the deep tin, just a victoria sandwich one and carefully lay the pastry in, as long as it’s warm it’s pliable. Leave a bit of overhang for cutting.

Put it all together

Next lay in half the pork mixture and press down gently to fill the base. Use a chicken breast to layer over the pork as best you can and then tip in your cranberries. Then the next chicken breast and top this with the rest of the pork mixture.

Take the rest of the pastry and roll out to cover the top. Brush the pasty edge with some egg and put this on the pie, egg side down. I used a fork to push the egdes together working my way gently round the top of the pie. You need a vent hole in the middle of the top big enough to get a funnel in and then carefully trim the pie edge with a sharp knife.. I made a few leaf shapes to decorate and a few berries with the left over pastry. Brush the top with beaten egg.

Cook in the middle of the oven for 2 hours. Checking after an hour and then a few times more to make sure the top insn’t burning. If it starts to look dark on top pop a piece of foil over it.

When the 2 hours is up remove from the oven and allow to cool in the tin. I pushed it up from the bottom to make sure the sides were free and then lowered it back in to let it cool.

The Jelly

Once it has cooled make the jelly. Use enough gelatin for about half a pint of liquid and follow your packet instructions, use vegetable stock in the liquid, I used veg stock powder. Let it cool a bit, stirring to make sure it won’t set and then add a few spoons of the stock through a funnel into the vent hole of the pie. Leave for a few minutes and then then keep doing this until all the liquid is gone or until it starts to seep through the base. Allow it to stand for a couple of hours and then pop in the fridge to complete the setting process. After half a day you need to decant the pie from it’s cake tin. Put the tin on top of a big jar – coffee or pickles make a good choice and lower the cake tine sides away from the base. Remove the paper from the sides of the pie and then take the pie gently from the base onto a plate. Keep in a fridge until you need it. It needs a sharp knife to cut it open.

The latest pie is in the oven. We’ve taken the pork pie middle, added chicken and cranberries and wrapped it up like a giant pork pie. All being well I’ll publish the recipe this weekend. Lets see how it looks and tastes first.

The kitchen is now home to lots or pasty fillings all wrapped up and cooling. Tomorrow we will make our first pies – maybe mince and veg or steak and kidney – not sure yet but it’s time to make up my mind.

So it’s just a quick note tonight.

See you tomorrow

sunset on Antigua - they have clouds too?

We have one of those things on our pc – virus alert – security warning. Millions of virus threats so come buy our software to get rid of it. How like blackmail it feels. Pay us to remove something we invaded your pc with. It also blocks navigation to web pages as unauthorised!

We will try and google for a fix to get it sorted. It may be a coincidence but it arrived as as I downloaded the BBC iplayer, could it have hopped ride into the workings of our programs to sit there and annoy us, appearing when you have just typed up an email to send or when you’ve just finished a blog and are publishing.

I often consider what sort of person spends time producing this software, then spending their time trying to catch you out to make you buy a resolution to your problem. They seem to be clever enough to understand your pc and if so surely they could have a good living doing something positive with their talent.

Tomorrow we start baking for the two farmers markets. We are adding a pork and chicken grand pie with a layer of cranberries in the middle especially for Christmas which we will sell in slices if it all turns out ok. We have been considering moving the pasties to pies as many people seem confused by the idea of gourmet pasties but happy when we explain they are really like pie fillings. I now have some tin foil cases so I might try a few mince beef and veg pies.

I am behind with making the Christmas puds and will have to work hard to catch up. I wonder how the markets will be this weekend -will shoppers go to the cities or stay local.

Britain seems to be in the grip of a cold spell. The TV very helpfully told me that it hasn’t been this cold for 30 years which reminded me that when I was young we did have frosts at this time of year and in summer dresses usually had a cardi over the top. I remember, remember the  5th of November fireworks were watched by a group of freezing cold children, the cold seeming to arrive knowing we would be stamping our feet and wearing our gloves for the first time of the year.

T-W-O went on an un autherised spending spree today picking up a new workmate for about £12 in one of the hundreds of pre Christmas sales we are experiencing and is currently unpacking the box of bits. His old workmake disintegarted and although he cannot be trusted with a saw we do need kindling.

We sat in waitrose on Friday enjoying a sausage sandwhich from their cafe for lunch on our long trip home having given up on the M4 and taken the country route back from London and all we could hear around us were people discussing the sales, as we read a paper (a benefit of eating there) we too could see the plethera of adverts from many well known stores  ‘Sale -sale -sale!

Having yet to complete our Christmas shopping we may benefit from some of these offers but for now at least we can make kindling.

Sunday started slowly with a lay in and then seemed to disappear before we realised. We did get the tree up though and have spent the evening in a room lit by fairly lights and a tea light snowman.

The laptop has left it’s usual little table to make room for the tree, we don’t have a study until we build one and the laptop is after all portable. To prepare our little house for the arrival of the tree we cleared the space and hoovered the floor.

The tree we chose was very bushy and stood under 8 feet tall. We went to a local Christmas tree farm where all they do is grow and sell Christmas trees, the owners are retired and yet they run this place with thousands of Christmas trees (I think tens of thousands).

The tree was wonderful and when T-W-O held it up for me to view I new it was coming home with us. ‘A little large for our house isn’t it?’ T-W-O enquired. I held the tree tightly whilst T-W-O looked at other trees, holding upright specimens of less spread or height until he gave in and we had our tree bagged.

T-W-O worked hard to cut lumps off the base until it finally fitted into the age old stand. Then we had to cut the top of the tree off as it was around twelve inches too high for the ceiling. Then not quite straight we moved the tree around until we had the best shape facing into the room. This was followed by dinner, cleaning up and then tree decorating. I like to decorate the tree on my own then I don’t feel too bad when I move things around a few times.

I have to admit the tree is a little large and we can’t shut the curtains or the door to the living room. T-W-O says I have a problem with Christmas trees and never fit the tree to the room, rather the room to the tree.

Our house has a heart? Oh yes…… Our house really does have a heart. Maybe I’m a little mad but it also has a face and a few stones that just hold it up.

Oh and I also have a teddy bear that I still allow to share our bed. Mr P Bear. Who was purchased by T-W-O a few years ago to be put in a microwave (yes I know!!!!!!!!! he won’t be!) to keep my side of the bed warm.

Instead Mr P Bear has been on his travels since then, accompanying me on my travels with work and all other trips away he is officially a well travelled bear – who is photo shy.

T-W-Os Grandparents (as were) home in Germany. Line drawn by son in law - Clever boy

We both had a works do in London yesterday and so didn’t come home last night.

London was the same as always; crowded and noisy, full of life. I was fed and watered in China town while T-W-O went off to some other quarter to enjoy an Italian meal. Having the do on the same days means we split the cost of the travel and room between the two companies we work for.

Leaving at 3.00am yesterday we were both tired by late afternoon, the body clocks believing it was bed time. We had an early night and woke up to the noise of traffic, buses and people, something we have forgotten about. Making it home by lunch time I required an hours sleep to prepare myself for an afternoons works followed by an evening in the kitchen.

T-W-O has done his bit tonight (some swearing was heard from his corner of the kitchen) and between us we managed to produce enough pasties for tomorrows market. I have replaced the ricotta tarts with baby quiches so we’ll see how they go. I have also not had time to make pork pies. I keep thinking I’ll make up the meat and cook them in the morning but T-W-O has persuaded me that the bit of pork shoulder we purchased to make them would also make a Sunday lunch – although we have to visit my Dad if he is home from hospital post his Knee operation. If we don’t go tomorrow we are short of pre Christmas time to visit because next weekend we have two markets.

The poor dogs have stayed in the kennels longer than we wanted, having returnedhome we have not had the time to collect them. I do miss them when they are not around but I can see the sense in leaving them put for another day. We are lucky that they love Dianne and Steve who run the kennels.

Bertie dog needs to go back to the vets as everyone who knows anything about doggy illness believe he now has Crohns disease on top of everything else. We will make an appointment for him and he will go tail between legs, muzzle on. His years of illness have left him with a poor opinion of vets in general – he quite rightly believes that a visit there means something nasty for him!

Goslar town square, Lower Saxony

As I was cooking last night I began to think about the things on the kitchen windowsill. They all have some sentimental meaning for me and may say something about me. As I spend so much time in the kitchen it’s nice to have a few meaningful objects close by.

On the left is a little collection of bottles. The long tall bottle came home from Germany a few years ago and contains white vinegar, the Germans use this in their cucumber salad and coleslaw (rather than mayonnaise). T-W-O had a German mother, now departed, and we visit the area in Lower Saxony whenever we can. This is flanked by 2 smallerbottles, one came from my Mums house many years ago and I think is an old ink bottle with a stopper that’s been added from somewhere else and the other we dug up from the garden in our old cottage. I keep dried lavender in that one. The last little pot contains dried petals from my 40thbirthday party, they were in a bouquet of red roses and I couldn’t part with them.

Further along the sill is a garlic jar our middle daughter brought for us in (I think) Portugal many a year ago, maybe I will be corrected about the origin. The neighbour to these is a small Wedgwood ashtray (no we don’t smoke) which is occupied by a model chicken and some dried apple pips. The chicken was a birthday present from a neighbour and the pips……….I don’t remember how they arrived but I will plant them in the spring.

Centre stage are an old fashioned black and brass set of salter scales with weights. Followed by a 1920′s Noritake gold leafed bonbon dish where I keep my washing up liquid bottle. The only things left are two plants and an old stone jar, again dug up from the old garden.

On the subject of cucumber salad here is the recipe. It’s rather nice with cold meats or sausages and boiled potatoes, rather appropriate for boxing day even if cucumber is very out of season.

You need

Half a cucumber peeled and sliced

White wine vinegar

a few teaspoons of white sugar

Salt

a few drops of olive oil

Pour in enough white wine vinegarto to give the cucumber a shallow bath.

Add a couple of teaspoons of sugar, a few drops of olive oil and a pinch of salt.

Stir well, add the cucumber and leave for at least a day if not two before serving.

Serve with cooked sausage or cold meats and potatoes boiled with a stock cube in the water