Banana Gingerbread

So this week, I have been ill, with a horrible cough that is set off every time I go out into the cold air, so I haven't been taking a walk out much recently. However, I wanted to bake something nice with some warming spices to drive out the cold.

I don't know where this recipe came from. I remember it being in one of my mum's recipe books growing up, and it being the only thing we ever made from that big chunky hard-back book, and the pages were always stuck together by remnants of treacle from the last batch.

Anyhow, it is a great-tasting cake that doesn't use any butter, which makes it a good one for people who can't have dairy products (though I'm afraid it is not vegan-friendly due to the eggs in it).

I have never had difficulty cooking this before, so long as it is cooked in a lower, wider tin, as when cooked in a loaf tin it will undoubtedly crack and sink in the middle after removing from the oven. However, this time was the first time trying to bake it in a gas oven. I have come to the conclusion that I far prefer electric fan ovens for baking, as they heat up much more reliably, to a more even temperature throughout. Ordinarily, this cake only takes 40 minutes to bake in an electric fan oven, but this time, it took almost an hour to cook through to the centre, meanwhile getting over-cooked at the edges. Ah well. Such is the joys of living in a rental - you take what you get.

In terms of the ingredients, there are a couple of oddities that you may have difficulty finding at your local supermarket. One of those is malt extract - the thick, sticky kind. It is slightly sweet but not as much as one might expect, but adds great depth of flavour to the cake. I have yet to experiment to find other things to use it in, but I should, as I think it would go well with many things. I have rarely seen it in supermarkets, but when it is, you are more likely to find it in the section with the "free-from" stuff and "health-foods" if your supermarket has one, next to the lentil pasta, hemp oil and such. My local Asda has introduced one of these sections, at the end of the aisle of tinned vegetables, and I spotted malt extract available there the last time I was passing. However, all the jars I have got so far have usually been from "health-food" stores, as it is more often sold as a dietary supplement. If you live in the UK, my last ditch attempt if I can't get it anywhere else has always been to stop in to Holland and Barrett - I don't often shop there, but when I needed it, they have always had a jar in the shop.
Secondly, there is black treacle. I use the Lyles Black Treacle that comes in the tins and is so thick it'll dribble off the spoon forever (measure the oil first in the same spoon and it makes the treacle just fall off later). It is not the same as blackstrap molasses - it is sweet and much less bitter. If you cannot find treacle, use a lighter/mild molasses. If all you have is blackstrap molasses, try mixing it 50/50 with glucose syrup or corn syrup.
Thirdly, there is mixed spice, which is a british spice mix similar to pumpkin pie spice in the US, but slightly different in its ratios. According to google, it is similar to koekkruiden in the Netherlands, but without the cardamom. You can make your own mixed spice by combining 1tbsp ground cinnamon, 1 tbsp ground nutmeg, 1 tbsp ground allspice, 1 tsp ground cloves, 1 tsp ground ginger, and1 tsp ground coriander seeds. Or for a slightly different, fresher flavour, you can grind your own from whole spices in a spice grinder, but make sure they are well and finely ground, and any larger pieces sieved out before mixing into your gingerbread.

Lastly, a word about measurements - with the move from imperial to metric system, our family recipes never kept up. As such, some of my recipes are in grams and ml, whilst others are in ounces, teaspoons and tablespoons. This is one of those recipes that never made it out of imperial. As such, I have tried to convert it, but I can only vouch for the accuracy of the imperial version as that's what I set my scale to. To make matters more complicated, tablespoons are not the same now in the UK as they always were, nor are they the same in the UK now as they are in other countries across the world. The tablespoons my family used in cooking were always grannys big old ones. I measured one day, and the one I have holds 25mL - much more than the 15mL standard today in the UK. Because this is what we have, this is what we have always used. However, I will say that the original recipe book this came from more than likely did use the standard 15mL tablespoon. So really, despite the finnicky nature of baking, it seems the quantities are not that essential. Perhaps, if you use normal volumetric measurements of the liquid ingredients rather than my collossal ones, it may cook better and sink less on cooling.

Ingredients:

• 10 oz (284g) plain flour
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda/baking soda
• 4 tsp ground ginger
• 2 tsp ground mixed spice
• 4 oz (115g) soft brown sugar
• 4 tbsp sunflower oil
• 2 tbsp black treacle
• 2 tbsp liquid malt extract
• 2 medium, room temperature eggs
• 4 tbsp orange juice
• 3 ripe bananas, mashed thoroughly
• 4 oz (115g) sultanas or raisins

Recipe:

1. Preheat oven to 180C/ 170C fan/ gas mark 4, and grease and line a 30x20m baking tray.
2. Sieve the Flour, bicarbonate of soda, and ground spices into a bowl. Place the sugar in the sieve, add some of the flour mix on top, and use to rub the sugar through the sieve. Keep adding more flour as neccesary (the sugar does need to be soft for this to work).
3. Make a well in the centre and add in all the wet ingredients. Mix well, incorporating a little at a time to avoid lumps.
4. Add the mashed banana and sultanas, and mix. Scrape the mixture into the baking tin, and bake for around 40 minutes. A skewer inserted into the centre should come out mostly clean, provided the bananas were mashed well, though some bits of re-hydrated sultana may stick to it. It should, however be free of batter.
5. When cooled, cut the gingerbread into slices or squares. This recipe usually makes around 20 for me.

Spring equinox gardening

Earlier this week, the spring equinox flew past us all. With the ridiculousness surrounding Brexit, and the dread that comes with knowing that we are a week away with no decisions made and little that we as members of the public can do about it, I feel as though I need to keep my mind busy. I'd done much of my spring cleaning last week prior to my parents coming to visit. I made some honey cakes from a recipe I found online, but have decided that I am not a tremendous fan of this recipe (though my partner likes them). I think it could be improved on by removing some of the baking powder, and instead whisking the honey/sugar/butter mixture to make it lighter, and whisking the egg whites before folding that in. However, I figured I wasn't up for fighting with an unreliable gas oven to try to test my theory out at the moment. So I put that thought on the back-burner and decided it was time to do a little relaxing gardening instead. Before even getting as far as the garden, I noticed the plum tomato seedlings I'd planted a couple of weeks ago have come up out of the soil in the seedling tray in the porch

Unfortunately, the aphids had already completely infested the young shoots of my parsley plant already, and had some small cabbage butterfly caterpillars wandering around, and it is barely even spring yet. Parsley is probably my least used of all my herbs, so in a vain effort to try and prevent compete infestation of all my plants for a second year in a row, the parsley has been dug up and removed. I see no aphids on my other plants for now, and have given them a little spray with soapy water, but I may need to look into buying some ladybirds to keep them under control. I doubt there is much I can do about the caterpillars other than keep a close eye and remove as I go - they were probably the least of the issues last year anyway.

I ended up planting up two pots with bamboo stakes with some early-crop peas. I also planted a longer rectangle planter with some spinach seeds, as spinach is probably my single most often used leafy vegetable in both my hot cooking and cold salads, and put some copper anti-slug tape around the top portion of the outside of the pot in an attempt to deter them. I re-potted my rosemary into a larger pot, as it is one of my favourite herbs, and planted some seeds from some wild strawberries I collected in Poland last year, just to see if they will grow here, since my old wild strawberries died over winter.

Unfortunately, I did not get all the gardening done that I hoped I would, as I both ran out of compost, and need some more pots and trays to re-pot some things like my lavender or the aforementioned tomato seedlings into larger pots. My partner also wants to plant some radishes again, but in order to plant them in the other long pot I have, I need to re-pot some cherry seedlings that sprouted from some cherry seeds my partner put out last spring and subsequently thought were dead, which I need more compost/soil for. My partner hopes to make a bonsai out of one of them, and I think hopes to be able to plant some of the others in the ground should we be able to afford our own home in the future. Eventually, the butternut squash will also need a new pot presuming that the seeds ever germinate, as there is currently very little sign, along with the sweet pepper seeds I planted, though it has only been a couple of weeks, so there is time yet. I have been debating planting some chilli seeds, but I do not regularly cook with chilli, and there is not a lot of space in the porch that will already hopefully have plum tomatoes and sweet peppers in it.

On the upside, presuming my plants do all grow and do not get devoured by aphids, caterpillars, or slugs,  I will hopefully have quite a nice crop of vegetables this year. I am especially looking forward to snacking on fresh podded peas.

Ox-tail stew recipe (Slow-cooker/Crock-pot)

Today, I made an ox-tail stew. Ox-tail is a wonderfully delicious, woefully underused piece of meat. I have always been of the opinion that most of us these days eat far too much meat, from too few areas of the animal. Go into a regular supermarket, and you're likely to find the same cuts of meat over and over - chicken breasts and thighs; beef brisket, sirloin, fillet; lamb chops, shoulder, leg; pork chops, medallions, streaky bacon, back bacon. Where are the rest of the animal? The livers, kidneys, hearts, tail, neck, cheeks? And good luck finding mutton anywhere, as it seems to have gone by the wayside in favour of younger lamb.

My parents grew up fairly poor on crofts in rural Scotland. Less desirable cuts of meat were not wasted or overlooked as it seems to be today.

I am lucky enough to have a wonderful butcher within 10-15 minutes walking distance of my house. They regularly stock less common cuts of meat, though it is not always on display as their counter, and shop in general, is fairly small. I have not yet asked if they stock mutton, or mutton bones, but they have had everything else I've asked for so far, including giving me what seemed like an entire knee joint with marrow for free when I asked if they had any beef bones. However, I went in yesterday to ask if they had any ox-tail, and they had some in the back, so I'm making a stew and thought I'd share my recipe. Ox-tail has a strong beefy flavour that many may not be accustomed to, but can be reduced and replaced with a larger quantity of the stewing beef if preferred to mellow the flavour of the overall stew.

Ingredients:

• approx 1kg ox-tail
• approx 250g stewing beef, cut into large cubes
• 1 very large onion (or 2-3 smaller ones), sliced
• 1 leek, halved lengthwise and sliced
• a few sticks of celery, sliced
• carrots (either as many fit in your slow-cooker/crock-pot, or as many as you want then top up with other seasonal veggies. I used about 500g), cut into chunks
• 1 litre beef stock
• a few springs rosemary + thyme
• seasoning
• flour/cornflour/bisto to thicken if desired
• A mushroom stock-cube (if you can find it - I get mine from the local polish shop, as they are much bigger on mushrooms than we seem to be in Britain)

Method:

1. Season both sides of the oxtail with salt and pepper, then place in a roasting tray and into a pre-heated oven at 180 C/gas mark 4. Roast for at least an hour, until well-coloured.
2. Place the sliced onions, leeks and celery in the bottom of a slow-cooker (Mine is a 3.5 litre model), and place the ox-tail pieces on top. Add the stewing beef on top.
3. Add as many carrots, or other seasonal veggies on top - as many as you want, or will fit in your slow cooker, but do not pack it down. Add some springs or rosemary and thyme to the top, and some seasoning.
4. A lot of fat will likely have come out into the roasting tray, and the ox-tail will continue to release more fat in the slow cooker. Juices and bone marrow will likely also have come out in the roasting tin. Tip the roasting tin so the fat and juices roll to one corner, and skim off the majority of the fat with a shallow spoon. Scrape the marrow off with a wooden spatula, or such like, and tip the juices and marrow into the slow-cooker. Pour the beef stock on top. Add water as required, but do not overfill - more liquid will come out of the veggies as they cook.
5. At this point, the inside ceramic bowl of the slow-cooker, with the contents can be placed into a fridge if you want to save it for the next day, or, since it was cold enough, I placed ours in our porch (it is uninsulated, with single-glazed glass and tiled floor, so gets pretty cold there in the night, and I can put it out there before the oxtail has completely cooled without worrying about the rest of the stuff in the fridge).
6. First thing in the morning, take it in from the porch, or out of the fridge. Put it straight in the slow-cooker, and turn it to high. After an hour or so, I turn it to low, and go about my day, leaving it for the better part of at least 8 hours. A few hours before we plan to eat, or when I get home, I turn the heat back up to high, and allow it to bubble away, and for the sauce to reduce. Give it a good stir, and test the meat for falling-apart-ness. 
7. Just before serving, you can give it a good stir, skim off the excess fat as needed, and try to remove the bones of the oxtail, which should be falling away from the meat by this point, and any large lumps of fat. It can be difficult to find all the bones, especially the smaller ones, in a big pot of stew. However, they're easy enough to spot when ladling onto plates. The gravy can be thickened if desired by mixing a little flour, cornflour, or bisto with cold water, adding to the pot, and stirring until thickened. Taste and season as necessary before serving.

This is delicious served with all kinds of mash, and green vegetables, such as Kale, brocolli, cabbage or brussel sprouts. Here, I served it with celeriac mash, and tender-stem broccoli. My partner says he wants to try it with pasta. This also freezes really well, so long as no turnips or parsnips are added in place of the carrots (parsnips and turnips can be added, but in my experience tend to take on a not-so-pleasant flavour after cooking then freezing). If the liquid in your stew has reduced significantly over the cooking time, it may become slightly jellied as it cools due to the high amounts of gelatine in the oxtail.

Musings of a wet March day

As I sit down to start this blog, it is pouring rain outside. We had a few days of warm temperatures and cloudless skies that felt utterly wrong to be getting in February, which I presume had much to do with the splitting of the polar vortex earlier in the year, and global warming more generally. The culmination of a week of warmth was being hit by a sudden cold frost the winter storm that is currently raging outside.

However, despite the harshness of being hit by the frost after the bout of warm sunshine, The crocuses are popping their brightly-coloured blooms above the ground, bringing joy and a sign of spring to come.

I enjoy my walks, and I am fairly close to the outskirts of town, and so it only takes 15 minutes of walkng, or a short bike ride to get out into fields and forest. I love to pick wild fruits, seeds and leaves, but also just smell the scents of the flowers and the mud and the general outdoors. I work indoors, in a room with no windows to the outside, so these walks make a big difference to my overall mood. I went out this weekend in the hopes I may come across some violets, as I have never yet seen them in the wild. Alas, I did not find any, whether that be because I am simply looking in the wrong places, or that they are perhaps rare in this part of Yorkshire, or because they are merely not currently blooming. It is a shame, as I adore the scent of violets. Perhaps I should plant some this year to enjoy the aroma in my own garden

I enjoy a little bit of gardening, though wish I could plant things in the ground, but neither the space, nor the neccessities of renting a home will allow for that, so pots it is. Most of my garden herbs have welcomed the muted temperatures and water that the storm provided. However, my wild strawberry plants do not seem to have coped well with the sudden change in temperature. I still have seeds stored away from some wild strawberries I found earlier last year that I kept, so perhaps I will start some seedlings from them if they are still viable.

I have plans to grow a few new plants for me this year. Most notably, spinach, but I'm hoping to perhaps grow some sweet peppers in my porch. I do not have the space for a greenhouse, though I would adore to have one. I hope to one day be able to buy my own home, and have the outdoor space for not just a greenhouse, but also to plant fruit trees in the ground, but unfortunately I still have a long way to go. For now, I make do with what I can fit in pots. I have not yet figured out how I am going to protect the spinach from slugs or caterpillars. Last year, cabbage butterfly caterpillars infiltrated our strawberries and our brussels sprouts.. However, though we managed to save the strawberries, the brussels sprouts sadly did not survive the summer. Likewise, there is a problem with slugs around the drain for the downpipe from the guttering of the house. In a night, they can make their way around the whole garden, and probably also reside in nearby homes. When we first moved into our current home, there was a problem with slugs in the actual house itself. We got rid of them by sealing up any gaps and cracks between the floors and walls due to the house moving over the years, and also by keeping the house warm and dry inside. However, the garden is harder to treat - there are no holes that can be sealed up, it is usually cool and damp in the nights when the slugs come out. We cannot use slug pellets, as we do not wish to harm our cats, any other cats which come into our garden, or other local wildlife which may be attracted to them. I just wish to find a way to keep the slugs out of my plant pots. Perhaps there is something I can put on the water trays that would deter them. We also had a greenfly issue that attacked the cultivated strawberries, mint, the lemon balm (aka. balm, melissa) and the miniature roses that my partner was hoping to grow into a bonsai. Though I saved the mint, the strawberries and the lemon balm with the good old soapy water trick, the miniature rose was very small, and quickly succumbed. Sadly I saw very few ladybirds last year, so I think the greenfly population went out of control seemingly for everybody in the local area.

One of my jobs this month will be to remove the ground ivy (aka. creeping charlie) from the cracks in the garden walls. Being a member of the mint family, it grows voraciously, even through winter, and especially into places it shouldn't be. It has been infiltrating our garden from our neighbours through the cracks in the wall that were caused by an ash tree falling on it a year or so ago. It has always been my rule to keep plants of the mint family pot-bound so as not to overtake everything in the vicinity of it.
The only exception to this rule, for me, would be rosemary - though I currently keep mine in a pot, I would adore to have a rosemary hedge around my garden in the future. I came across one a few years ago when visiting the south of Italy, and fell in love with the idea, as I have never been a fan of the Leylandii hedge so common here in England. Perhaps when I own my own home later in life, I can plant a rosemary hedge, with violets in the shade beneath.

That's my musings for today. Hopefully the weather becomes a bit more stable for the sake of our plants