A bleak old day in Hawera, I lit the fire so I could keep the new doors open and embarked on my first cleaning project, the shelves under the sink. I think it took an hour, disturbing. I can feel Wayno shuddering at the thought of me “heating the world” with my fire. I found a mysterious spray bottle of cleaner that clearly I had not purchased, so that augmented my preferred cleaning substance which is neat Janola, which turns any object, item or surface white-ish fast, irrespective of its original colour.
Today’s Learning: 20 ml of glass cleaner found at the back of the shelf can clean eight windows in order that the bottle be thrown out. My tolerance for cleaning windows is three.
It seems like the only constant in life is the official updates on Radio NZ. At 1pm each day our mate Norm who many of you will know as Sarah Stuart-Black and her sidekick Dr Ashley Bloomfield give us the lowdown. Today someone let slip and called her Norm, clearly they are exhausted. You also get the pretty funny police commissioner Mike Bush, the other day when quizzed on what the Police would do if they caught repeat offenders his response was “We will pick them up and take them to our place and put them somewhere where they can contemplate their actions”…..gold! At 3pm each day our esteemed leader Jacinda gives an update on the situation. Anyway I am pretty thrilled we have two top ladies running the show.
Today's Feedback: I just asked someone who’s opinion I value for some notes on this blog, he described it as “self indulgent trivia”, so I will consider desisting on this project and just document the recipes for my own use.
This is not a recipe but I will share anyway as this is still one of my all-time favourite breakfasts that I knocked up this morning, tomato & onion sautéed in butter on toast, I put too much pepper in is as I decided I needed to empty the pepper grinder to clean it??!! It was homemade bread of course so here is the recipe which is adapted from a recipe I was given a few years ago by a friend of a friend Jo Kuta. This makes 2 loaves or one big one.
A variation on Jo’s Bread
2 ½ cups of warm water
1
sachet dried yeast, or 8g loose
2 large
t honey
4 cups
of white flour
1.5 cup
wholemeal flour
½ cup sesame seeds
½ cup other seeds of choice
2 t
salt
A good splash
of oil
Dissolve
the honey in the warm water and sprinkle the yeast in to, give a quick stir and
leave for 10-15 minute until the yeast has activated. Add the other
ingredients, the flour is a bit of a moving target, I like to get it to a consistency
where you could mix it with your hand but it would still stick. I mix it with a
knife and push it around a bit with my hands. If you want to knead it you can
add more flour and do so but I am too busy. Cover and leave in a warm place
until it has risen. Know back and transfer to 2 standard bread tins or a large
tin you can also put on an oven tray for a foccaccia style and cover (at this
point you can refrigerate it for later or tomorrow). Prove again and then cook
at 180 for about 40 minutes, WAIT before
you slice it, but not very long.
150 g
castor sugar
500ml water
3 cups of
tightly packed, picked basil leaves
1 T lemon juice
In a small
saucepan, combine sugar and water over low heat, stirring until sugar has
dissolved. Increase heat and bring to boil, without stirring. Turn heat to
medium-high and simmer, without stirring, for 3 minutes. Remove and cool completely.
In a
blender, combine the cooled sugar syrup with the basil leaves and lime or lemon
juice, and whiz to a smooth liquid.
Pass
through a sieve and freeze once the edges start to set, whip it out and give it
a stern stir or give it a blast in the food processor and freeze again,
continue to stir every hour for 5-6 hours to stop it getting too frosty.
My feedback, which you better value, is that the blog is very entetaining, and I look forward to the next installment! So you better keep it up!! xx
ReplyDeleteNeat Janola is also great applied to an itchy fungi infested little toe (common if you wear wet dive boots all day long in the sun). A few seconds of stinging is a small price to pay. Funnily dad taught me that one. Quick tip - does not work on jock itch..
ReplyDelete