Since we last spoke, I've mainly been painting the house. I loath painting and detest every minute doing it. My husband has developed sciatica and can't do much at the moment. I would much rather get someone in to do it, I'm sure they would get a better finish than me too.
We're also going to get new flooring throughout the ground floor. We've been waiting for months now what with one thing and another. Not looking forward to all the disruption, but it will be nice when its done.
Am gradually going round and painting all the downstairs as well, while I can splop on the floor and it doesn't matter!
YouTube
I am a member of UK Money Bloggers and we have an annual conference in the autumn. This year we couldn't meet in person, but we did manage a digital conference. It was great fun. Lots of people filmed a session that we watched and then discussed. As I do every year, I learned loads about blogging, SEO, YouTube and even TikTok!
I did a live cook along for our lunch. I'm still editing the video and when I'm happier with it, I'll upload it to YouTube. It's the first proper one I've done, so everything is still very new and I'm very slow doing any of it!
Vegan Mayonnaise
One of the things I filmed was making mayonnaise using the juice from a tin of chickpeas - aquafaba
I haven't yet written the post for it, so here's an exclusive preview of a recipe coming shortly.
You will need:-
3 tblsps of aquafaba, this can come from a tin, or from home cooked chickpeas. Make sure the liquid from home cooked is quite thick
250ml rapeseed oil
1 tblsp white wine vinegar
1 tsp mustard
0.5 tsp salt
big pinch ground pepper
any neutral oil will work, but olive oil won't as it makes a mayonnaise that is bitter
any vinegar except malt is fine
Put everything except the oil in a tall container, a measuring jug for instance. Whizz with a stick blender. Now add a few tblsps of the oil and whizz again. Repeat until all the oil is used.
Don't add all the oil at once, it won't thicken. Add it gradually and it will emulsify and become thick and creamy.
You can add more oil if you like.
This will keep for 2-3 weeks in the fridge
If you don't have a stick blender, a liquidiser will work
If you don't have that either, a big bowl, a large whisk and lots of patience will also give you mayonnaise
Add garlic for garlic mayonnaise, tomato puree or miso for different flavours
Apples
We have masses of apples from our little trees. The ones above are a variety called Lord Derby. They are good for both eating and sharp enough for cooking, so a useful type. Some of them even grow very large, like a Bramley.
I have been preserving some apples in jars using my big stock pot to water bath them. I can only use 500ml preserving jars. I have some bigger ones, but they are too tall to go in my pot and be covered with water
I used to use those to preserve using the oven, but it's no longer recommended
I've also been using jam jars, but I'm running out! The process is using up lots of apples, which is great and the whole idea of doing it. I'm still giving lots away as there are too many for us to use in a 12 month. I used to freeze some, but I've got absolutely no room at all left in the freezer!
French? Apple Jam
I also made some wonderful jam using 1.3kg of apples, a little pureed orange peel, about 2 tblsps, a bag of sugar, lots of lemon juice and what I thought was a lot of cardomom seeds (2 tsps). The cardomom is still quite a subtle flavour, even though there are so many seeds in there you get several on each slice of toast. The orange gives it a very slight marmalade taste, and next time, I'll use even more lemon.
I'm very pleased with it. It's very good for economy as apples are so cheap, can be foraged, and anyone who has a tree will probably let you have some. And of the apples that you use, you can put everything except the stalk in, so every scrap gets used.
The recipe that was the inspiration used cardomom and called it French Apple Jam. Is this a thing in France? I haven't heard of it before
BBQ Sauce
This is a new recipe on the blog and I'm going to write up a BBQ chicken pizza recipe where I used this BBQ sauce instead of tomato puree on the base. Worked really well. You could, of course, use any bought BBQ sauce instead on the pizza base
It's a vegan BBQ sauce recipe and is pretty simple, just bung everything in a saucepan and reduce it down a bit.
It's a very versatile and useful condiment to have around the place
With all best wishes, until next time
0 comments