Cake!

I love baking but I've been trying to cut down on making cakes, mainly because cakes = fatsy Emma. But every now and again I get to make one that won't be sat around for me to eat. Today was one of those times. For the retirement of one of my husband's co-workers he needed a cake, and this one I'd seen recently on the cover of GoodFood. I like using this sort of occasion to try new stuff, last time I made cake for his office it was chocolate raspberry brownies. So this time it was sticky ginger lemon drizzle cake.

Cake

• 140g butter , cut into cubes, plus extra for greasing
• 300g self-raising flour
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 4 tsp ground ginger
• 2 tsp mixed spice
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 140g dark muscovado sugar
• 140g black treacle
• 140g golden syrup
• 300ml whole milk
• 1 large egg 

 Rub flour, spices, and butter to bread crumbs. In a saucepan put the sugar, treacle, syrup and milk and slowly warm until everything is dissolved. When everything is dissolved heat it until nearly boiling. Beat into the flour mix (maybe do this slowly so it mixes properly) and then mix in the egg.

Pour into a greased and lined 20cm tin and cook for 50 minutes-1 hour at 160C/140C fan/gas 3.  Checked its done with a skewer and leave to cool completely in the tin. It's a good idea to leave it to mature for a few days in grease-proof paper wrapped in tin foil.

Lemony drizzle

• zest and juice 1 lemon
• 50g granulated sugar
• 50g preserving sugar or crushed sugar cubes

Lemon curd

• about ½ jar good lemon curd
• 2 balls stem ginger , diced

Ginger cream

• 4 tbsp syrup from the stem ginger jar
• 100g soft cheese
• 200ml double cream
• 3 tbsp icing sugar , sieved

When you're ready, cut the cake in half. For the drizzle, mix lemon juice, zest, and sugars and pour straight over the top half (I pierced it all over with the skewer first).

Mix the lemon curd and diced stem ginger and spread over the bottom half of the cake. To make the cream, whip the ginger syrup, cream, cheese and icing sugar until it holds its shape then put on top of the curd. Put the top layer on and then you have cake!

Mine was made in a 18cm tin because I don't seem to have a 20cm one, even though it seems to be the most common one used. I also only had one day to let it mature, I'd definitely do a couple of days next time, not that mine was bland, but I'd love to see how the flavour developed. As it was, it's like a really moist McVitie's Jamaican ginger cake. It seems quite dense (maybe because I used a smaller tin) but it didn't feel dense. And ginger and lemon, I'm sure it's a really common combination but I think this was the first time I'd tried it and it's *amazing*. I was stood eating some of the cream and curd I had spare in the kitchen (see, baking = fatsy Emma).  The sponge alone is freezable too, so this could be lurking ready made until you need it (although probably won't stay there for very long).

And, apart from my constant worry about heating sugar, it was really easy to put together, lemon and ginger well balanced (and I'm not a fan of too much ginger) and the drizzle makes it look really good without having to do too much work!

Tiny Hats!

I'm sure you've seen them in Sainsbury's, but just in case you haven't then these little guys won't make much sense. For the last couple of years Innocent Smoothies have asked members of the public to knit hats for their smoothie bottles and for every hat they receive they donate money to Age UK or Age Action. Now, I wasn't as organised as I would have liked to have been, and when the UK deadline came around I only have a couple of hats and didn't in fact have the time to post them, so this morning I sent his little lot off to Dublin.

I think it's really good for Innocent to help raise awareness for Age UK and Age Concern, charities that help the elderly, especially over winter where thousands suffer in the cold because they can't afford the heating bills, or even die because of it.  And in an ageing society I think it's important that we have these people to support and help. We can all do our little bit too, even if it's nothing more than checking on elderly neighbours.

Crabs

The kind you find in the sea, obviously. I know I've not written anything for ages, but I was on holiday, and I'm a very busy person. But through this I have come up with a seriously quick dinner, if it's not in one of Jamie Oliver's speed cooking books, it should be. But before that: sea food.

I love sea food, I love really nicely done fish, I like prawns, lobster and my favourite childhood sandwich filling was crab paste.

But I do have issues with cooking it. I'm so worried about ruining fish, or doing it badly so that it puts me off trying again. While on holiday my husband and I tried chowder, we both had the same and I thought it was lovely, but something in it upset my husbands stomach and from now I know he'll be reluctant to try it again.

The other issue I have with sea food is knowing what's ok to eat. I avoid Cod because it's decreasing in numbers, but I know that's only from one area and some is ok to eat. There are websites that can tell you what's good or not, but you can't really check this as you wander around the supermarket, although there is the Marine certified sustainable mark which is good to look out for. But what generally happens is I end up buying the same thing every week; battered pollock or occasionally basa (I love basa, but partly because there's no such thing, it's a PR name because no one wants to eat Vietnamese River Cobbler).

So, having found something sustainable and seasonal like crab, where the hell do you get it from, and what do you do with it? Well, catching crab is a fairly easy and cheap thing to do. This is me about 10 years ago crabbing off Padstow harbour wall in dire need of a shower. As it happens I didn't catch anything, but a couple of kids near us did. If you're really enthusiastic and live near the sea you can put out a pot, but I don't know much about them. Of course if you do actually catch something you have to kill it to eat it. As far as I'm aware there are two methods, the "stick it in cold water and slowly heat it up" way (which I don't think is as kind as advertised) and the "kill it quick by stabbing it" way described here.

There is of course another way, which is buying a crab. I was actually given mine, a nice dressed crab (all the gross bits like dead mans fingers, legs and lower carapace are removed). You can also buy the brown and white meat separately in a shop.

Anyway, having rambled on, Spicy crab linguine. Inspired by something I had on holiday last year but found so spicy I couldn't finish it. This takes as long as it takes the linguine takes to cook.

1 crab
1 chilli
2 cloves garlic
3 or 4 spring onions
3 or 4 tablespoons crème fraiche
spices like paprika, cayenne pepper and chilli flakes
enough linguine for two (I used my spaghetti measurer) 

• Put a sauce pan of water to boil (boiling it in the kettle first saves time waiting for it to heat up on the hob)
• Chuck in the linguine when the water is boiling, and put the spring onion, garlic and chilli on to fry.
• As the garlic colours add the brown crab meat. Fry for a minute or two and add the white meat.
• After another minute or two add the creme fraiche and what spices you want (mind the chilli flakes, they're spicier than you think).
• *Check the taste* If its a bit spicy you can add more creme fraiche, but best to add in small amounts because you can always add but it's difficult to take away.
• When pasta is cooked, drain it and add to crab mix. Give it a good stir and serve. It'll look about as appetising as the picture but tastes pretty good.

 So apart from obsessing about food, I've recently been knitting tiny things, some hats for the Innocent Big Knit (although I'm now sending them to Ireland so that's a post for a different day) and some mochimochi for a friends wedding. I made them for the fridge, they kindly put them on their wedding cake. 

I've also learnt my camera does some pretty good close ups, so maybe expect to see more pictures of bugs as you don't want to see them.

Hats and hats.

I have a bit of a thing for hats. I always have. I have quite a collection of hats; glastonbury hats (a type of brimmed hat), ski hats, even a rabbit head hat (it even has big floppy ears)(and isn't made of rabbit). One Christmas I heard on the radio about a company which made unique beanies, you went to their website, picked the colours you wanted your hat, and bam, one of their army of grannies made it for you. The thing is, the hats are very expensive. At about £30 a hat, that seemed a bit much to buy on a whim.

So this is where my urge to learn knitting came from. My nans always knitted, my mum can knit, and my Little Nan used to try and teach me when I was little, so I knew I could do it. So I bought a book and started with the basics. I've made a scarf, wrist warmers, socks with no toes, one regular sock (I will get around to doing the matching one soon), baby bits and then I got addicted to making tiny toys. So, nearly two years after learning to knit and a conversation with a friend, I remembered why I wanted to knit.

Hat 1 - Etta

This was a fairly easy hat, it's got a really nice lacy sort of pattern, which once blocked opens up and  looks really good. I was just going to do it in the red, but as I was using an open ball of wool I didn't think I would have enough to do the whole hat in the single colour, but I think the red looks better next to the orange, especially as the orange isn't exactly solid, it's slightly variegated. I had a bit of trouble when  I started it because I've never been bothered to make tension squares before, so after a telling off from a knitting friend, I upped the needle size and it started to be the right size.

Hat 2 - Star crossed beret

I'd had this hat on my 'to do' list for a long time. It's got cables working their way around it, which give it a really nice, natural, organic feel. I'd not made anything with cables before, and one of the reasons I wanted to make this hat was that so many people that had made it recommended for beginners. This was also the first time I'd knitted on a circular needle (needles connected with a wire) rather than working on 3-4 short needles in a circle. I think it went really well, I was a bit worried there were holes by the cables, but they seem to have sorted themselves out during blocking.

I'm very pleased with my hats, I picked slouchy ones thinking they might be a bit more forgiving if I made a mess, but also I don't have any hats like that. And as they say in "A song of Ice and Fire": Winter is coming. So hopefully I won't have to wait too long to wear them out.

Not actually a blog about shit.

Ok, so you may wonder why my blog has such an odd name, but it's because I knit, crochet, paint tiny men, cook and do other bits and pieces that tend to fill my house with shit.

So, I thought if I'm going to keep doing all these things I might as well share them so it's not just me enjoying them.  But for my first blog post I'm not actually sharing something that's going to clog up my house, but something I'm making for the first time. I try and make something new once a month so I'm not just eating the same thing all the time, to learn new skills, and just try new things. So this is probably this months.

Stuffed Marrow

So I get a veg box every fortnight and this week contained a marrow. Not the monster you see at country fairs, but an awkward size to do something with. Luckily Abel and Cole have a recipe section and Stuffed marrow was in there.

Not happy with just following some instructions I've messed about with it. Normally it would feed 4-6, but as there's just me and my husband, this is useless, so I feel I added enough so that half the marrow would be dinner enough without needing any sides.

Ingredients:
1 marrow
250g beef mince
1 diced onion (or I used 3 very small ones)
3 cloves of garlic
2 grated carrots
some veg (I used spring onions and mushrooms, but use what you like or what's in the fridge)
1 tin of chopped tomatoes
1tbsp mixed herbs (I used fresh sage, rosemary and thyme out of the garden)
1 cup of couscous, cooked

• Cut the marrow in half lengthwise and scoop out seeds.  
• Cook couscous. Normally it's 1 part couscous, 2 parts boiling water. I also like to add saffron, herbs, salt and pepper.
• Fry the mince until cooked.
• Add the onion and garlic to the frying mince.
• Add grated carrots, herbs, tin tomatoes and any veg you're using. Season!
• Let the meat mix simmer for 5 minutes. Turn on oven at about 180C.
• Put marrows in a roasting tray, top with meat mix and cooked couscous on top of that. I had a bit left over so that's now lunch for tomorrow. Cover with tinfoil and bake for 30 mins.
• Remove tin foil, turn oven up to 220C and cook for another 10 mins until the marrow is tender.
• Eat!

You could easily split the marrows to make it feed 4, but I'm not sure what side you'd want. I think you could maybe replace the couscous with some cheese melted on at the end and serve it with potatoes, or make it veggie by replacing the mince with chickpeas or quorn, although I'm not a fan of quorn, it's like fluff, it has no bite and I think with the marrow it needs a bit of solidity.