A Messy, Hopeful Path / Ginger & Lemon Panna Cotta with Blueberries and Thyme

“Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.”
C.S. Lewis

This year’s been hugely challenging and revealing. I’ve had an unshakeable instinct that life’s been headed in the wrong direction and the quiet, steady voice deep inside’s been nudging me towards alternate routes I’ve been unwilling to walk.

The only outcome to battling myself in this way is heartache; and some days the pain of the struggle’s been immense. I’d love to be able to see things are headed into shaky emotional territory and sensibly guide myself back into grownup land. I’m just not. I fight and holler and stamp my feet until, eventually, I’m curled in a ball on the floor, begging for ease of mind and promising anything to the universe if it stops the pain.

After lots of searching, I’ve found that this path’s about authenticity; specifically to drop behaviours developed in childhood as a reaction to feeling unsafe and unprotected in the world. At a young age, I subconsciously took the hand of the small, scared child I was, placed her in the middle of my heart and started building walls around her to keep her safe from whatever was happening outside. Thick, heavy, impenetrable walls. And I’ve kept her there ever since.

I built a personality designed to keep her protected and ensure no one could ever hurt her again. I became tough, standoffish, controlling, funny, prickly. I chose a career that guaranteed no softness. I surrounded myself with emotionally distant people who also kept everyone at arm’s length, forming no real connections, making enough money that I didn’t have to rely on anyone, never allowing myself to fully love.

Now, having walked a gentler path these last ten years, having fallen utterly in love the day my son was born two years ago, and having continued to seek a path through this pain all year; the girl in the middle of my heart has found enough courage to poke her head above the ramparts and start asking for a place in the world. And it’s terrifying. I keep wondering who’s going to protect her if I can’t anymore (after all, she’s me and, no matter how multiple personality-esque this piece might sound, I don’t have a mind capable of being more than one person at once…) — she’s the writer, the introvert, the dreamer, the idealist, the one who loves without constantly looking for an exit. She’s also vulnerable, easily overwhelmed and very new to the world.

When I’m her, I’m clunky and awkward. I say clumsy things that replay in my head for hours. I talk to people I no longer want to keep at a distance and find myself ducking for cover mid-conversation. I’m writing, baking and photographing for a living even though I’m not making money and yet the thought of walking back into a big corporate leaves me feeling nauseous. I’m not the me of 3 years ago, but I’ve nothing to replace me with yet.

In short, life’s messy.

But I’m back on the path that brings ease and comfort. It’s muddled and awkward with more challenges to come, but it’s also full of the kind of hope I’ve struggled to find for a while.

On walking this new journey, I’ve already found an unexpectedly loving community in my area. This week, after an impromptu breakfast with a local friend, she went home to find ‘just because’ flowers from a neighbour on her doorstop; and I got home to find a book for my son’s current sleep troubles from a lovely friend in my mother’s group, propped against my front door. The most amazing part is how commonplace these acts of kindness are around here.

I’m also challenging myself to seek people who intrigue me, to see if honest and whole connection is possible; I’m particularly excited that those I’m drawn to are funny, smart and irreverent, with a passion for life and a hefty side-helping of quirkiness. This, in particular, remains a fragile area, but intimacy doesn’t seem like the distant planet it once was.

And if I can keep opening my heart and stay on this tangled path that still makes no sense at all; it’s possible those big, tough walls will be dismantled for good. And who knows which paths I’ll be walking then.

A path I’m entirely happy to walk is the one that ends with this delicious Lemon Panna Cotta and Gingerbread with Blueberries and Thyme from Alisa over at The Family Meal. I’ve been in serious sleep deprivation land again with my toddler’s night-time antics and have been pretty sick for the last few days (which is why this post is so late) so food of any sort is not high on my agenda. Luckily, Alisa writes one of my favourite food blogs and I’m happy to share any of her recipes anywhere, the main photo is hers as well so any kudos go straight to her! I made this about a week after she posted it onto her site and it is truly delicious.

Enjoy.

http://familymealblog.com/2014/07/17/lemon-panna-cotta-and-gingerbread-with-blueberries-and-thyme/

A Friendly Humiliation / Nutella & Pretzel Donuts

“There has been much tragedy in my life; at least half of it actually happened.” Mark Twain

My feelings recently took a tumble from a relatively new person in my life, who I thought was becoming a friend. They weren’t responding to texts and our earlier agreement to meet up had come and gone with a lonely whimper.

My self esteem promptly gives me a hard time

you’re such a loser 

you were a total idiot that time over coffee 

you pushed too hard

My ego jumps into resentment

they should have texted, even to decline 

how dare they not realise I’m lovely

I would never do that

Except I do. I do it all the time to people I like. I get caught up in my life, my cares and concerns and I let people down regularly. Most of the time I don’t even realise I’ve done it until I get a vague sense of guilt when I scroll past their name on my phone. It’s not that I don’t like them, it’s that I have so little time to do all the things in my life, I forget that others are looking forward to seeing me. That I matter to more than the necessary activities of my day.

This realisation wasn’t enough to move through the uncomfortable feelings though, so I spent some contemplation time on where my thinking had fallen in a ditch.

My first thought was that I don’t know them well. I don’t know if they’re struggling with too many things on their plate, have a vague sense of depression, they’ve needed a new pair of shoes for months and really hate shopping, or that they have a ferocious amount of people in their life already and I’m just one of a thousand new acquaintances clamouring for their affection.

The second thought (which really could have been my first, if my thinking wasn’t so self absorbed) and most likely, is that they’re not thinking about me at all. I’m sitting here wondering if them not responding to texts means something, and the whole time they’re thinking, “I’d bloody love England to win the World Cup this year”.

But there is another awful possibility… 

I may be a slight stalker of someone who doesn’t really like me.

My entire torso curls in on itself as I type those words. There’s a muttering at the edge of my consciousness, like my ego’s about to rebel and my esteem’s ready to throw in the towel. But it’s the possibility that’s been playing over and over in the back of my mind, a phrase on repeat and I can’t find the off-switch. I’ve written before that I have a lot of people in my life and I’m lucky that I generally like people; but it’s incredibly rare I meet someone and can feel the click through my subconscious as it rears up to say, “Well, don’t you just rock enormously?”

On the few times it’s happened before, the other person seems to have felt the same click and are now lifelong friends, so it didn’t occur to me that this time I may have been the only one to feel it. I merrily swanned into this person’s life, planning our future awesomeness together, and the whole time they may have been increasingly thinking, “Umm. No, scary weird person. Just no.”

There’s no verbal way to explain how this feels. It sits somewhere between ick and gibbering humiliation. My subconscious offers up all the ways they’re clearly cooler, smarter and just better than me and then my conscious mind takes over and asks me what the hell I thought I was doing? A simpler way of describing my response to this line of thinking is a fervently whispered,  “Run. Run now. Run fast and far. Set up a new life deep in the woods where you never have to see them ever again.”

Once upon a time I would’ve done just that. Not literally, however tempting, but I would’ve immediately cut them from my life as the instinct for self-preservation became greater than my instinct to live lightly in the world. I may even have tried to show them how little they meant to me, in a misguided attempt to reassert my bruised ego. Which would, of course, merely add guilt to the hurt.

Today, I try to do things differently. I acknowledge the hurt and the particularly obsessive nature of my thinking, then I speak with someone I trust who can help me to laugh. I finally take some time to be still and focus my consciousness on the place I hurt, to allow the feelings without gripping onto them as reality. I treat the hurt as I would treat my child’s, as real but transitory. The feelings are not the story, they’re just the feelings.

Finally, I ask my better self to help me be kind, patient and tolerant of their humanity and of mine. That whatever the truth turns out to be, I can put my ego to one side and remain right sized. And finally, I back off from the friendship (quite quickly because, let’s be honest: ouch) and trust that more will be revealed in time.

Then I eat donuts. And maybe chocolate. But mostly donuts.

This ‘fix feelings with food’ recipe is a homage to an excellent local bakery, Candied, who offer this donut combination on a regular basis. For those not lucky enough to have their own Candied around the corner, the recipe is as close as I can get to their version.

Enjoy.

Donuts (adapted from www.taste.com.au) – makes 12

• 250ml milk
• 500g plain (all purpose) flour
• 60g caster (superfine) sugar
• 3 teaspoons dried yeast
• ¼ tsp salt
• 100g shortening, softened (known as Crisco in USA, Trex in UK and Copha in Australia. Failing those, replace with unsalted butter)
• 3 egg yolks
• Canola oil, for frying

Nutella & Pretzel Glaze

• 80g Nutella
• 30g thick (heavy) cream
• 25g pretzels, roughly crushed + 12 for decoration

Heat the milk until it starts to boil, then switch off the heat and leave it to cool

Combine flour, sugar, yeast and salt in a bowl

Make a well in the mix and stir in the cooled milk, shortening and egg until a sticky dough starts to come together

Knead on a well-floured surface until smooth

Place in a greased bowl, cover and leave to rise for about 90 minutes (the dough needs to at least double in size)

Punch down the dough to take out the air

Knead on a lightly floured surface again until smooth

Roll out dough until 1cm thick (flour your rolling pin, much easier!)

Either use a donut cutter or an 8cm round cutter to cut out discs and a 3.5cm round cutter to cut out the centres. Re-roll the dough to be able to make all 12 donuts

Place the donuts on a lined tray and set aside for another 30 minutes to rise again

Heat your oil to 180°C/350˚F (use a thermometer, the temperature matters) in a large, deep frying pan – I test the oil temperature using scraps left over from the dough

Fry each doughnut for 30-40 seconds each side or until puffed and golden and leave on a wire rack to cool

Very gently heat the Nutella and cream in a small pan, stirring constantly, until combined

Take off the heat and carefully stir in the crushed pretzels

Dip each donut in the Nutella glaze and place back on the wire rack

Complete your Nutella and Pretzel Donut look by adding a single, whole pretzel to each one

Eat all twelve. Go on. I dare you.

And It All Came Tumbling Down / Pistachio & Almond Nougat

“This is the story of a man falling from a 50-storey building. As he falls, for reassurance, he repeats: So far so good, so far so good, so far so good.
But what matters isn’t the fall… it’s the landing”
La Haine

I’ve written previously about the decision I’d made a few years ago to only focus on my behaviour and choices, regardless of how others behaved and the decisions they made. Well, I’m ashamed to say that recently I haven’t been living in that decision. Fear and its life-partner, passivity, have been making my choices and the idea that ‘it begins and ends with me’ has been a distant possibility for other people to focus on, as I’ve stopped challenging myself to walk the most honest path I can.

I inadvertently read two books this week that were heavily focused on actions being the only true indication of our character. In the first book, Man’s Search for Meaning, a classic text of one man’s experiences in concentration camps during the second world war, the author states that

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

The very next book I read was Skin Game, the latest in a series of books that I would argue (loudly) is one of the best in modern fantasy literature, about a wizard for hire in Chicago — so I think we can all agree it’s a different genre to the first… Now, get this

“You think your power is what shapes the world you walk in. But that is an illusion. Your choices shape your world. You think your power will protect you from the consequences of those choices. But you are wrong… one day you will receive what you have earned. Choose carefully.”

I wonder how long my subconscious has been gently nudging me into seeing my selfishness. To be honest it seems as if a large plank of etherial wood is smacking me about the head with the message to work on my attitude and behaviour, and to stop looking to others to make choices for me. Generally, if my subconscious is in ‘shouting at me’ mode it means I haven’t been listening for the loving taps that would have been proceeding this for quite some time.

Now I need to decide what to do about it. It’s all well and good for me to proclaim, “I shall be courageous, kind and loving from now on!” but it’s only in action that I’ll be able to see if I’m actually changing.

“Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and right conduct.” Man’s Search for Meaning

The first thing for me to do is acknowledge where this is happening. During contemplation this week on where I’m letting fear dominate my choices, I realise that it’s managed to trick me (once again) into thinking I’m being sensible by not acting rather than just hiding from actions I don’t want to take. Much like exercise, it’s a shock how quickly I lose my spiritual health when I stop working out.

I then make a sincere commitment that I’d like to change. And what always happens next is I’m presented with opportunities to change, to put some action into my life and to put my trust into something other than my, not-nearly-as-awesome-as-I-like-to-believe, mind.

I realise that I’m making it sound easy, but the simplicity of the choice hides the enormous challenge posed by healthy living, that it so often goes against my fiercely held desires and fears. Which can, unless tempered, be the driving force of my decisions, and the self-built dramas that unfold as a result. I have some probable actions coming up in the future that feel so terrifying and overwhelming it’s like I’m preparing to leap off a tall building, with the possibility there’s no net before I hit the ground. But, I know that if I continue to live so passively I’m going to slip off the building before I’m ready to deal with the consequences that may come with the fall. Like it or not, if I want to live with courage and honour, I have to keep taking the next indicated step.

And just as I’m writing these very words of my recommitment, my phone chimes with a text message from a friend who I know I can speak with honestly and openly. That’s how fast this stuff works when I commit to something. I’m immediately given the chance to stand by the decision I’ve made to live better. Or not.

Today’s recipe comes from a lovely baking book I bought recently called Paris Pastry Club. I’ve made a number of their delicious recipes and this nougat’s been an absolute stand out from the start. I’m not going to lie, it’s a challenging recipe. And I wouldn’t even start if you don’t have a stand alone mixer, or arms of steel. But cooking’s one place I don’t allow my fear to prevent me from action. And, more often than not, I end up with something I’m happy with.

Enjoy.

• Icing sugar (confectioner’s sugar), for lining the baking tray, plus extra for dusting
• 1 egg white
• 260g (9oz) caster (superfine) sugar
• 125g (4½ oz) honey
• 100g (3½ oz) water
• 50g (2¾ oz) glucose syrup
• 150g (5oz) pistachio and almond mix, roughly chopped (or 150g of a dried fruit and nut mix of your choice)

Line a baking tray with baking paper and sprinkle it with a generous amount of icing sugar

Place the egg white in a stand-mixer and whisk on a slow speed until soft peaks form

Add 30g (1oz) of the sugar and whisk until stiff

Keep whisking on a slow speed while you make the syrups

In a small pan, heat the honey to 130˚C (265˚F)

In another pan, place the remaining sugar, water and glucose syrup and cook to 155˚C (310˚F)

With the mixer still on slow, pour the boiling honey down the sides of the bowl to mix with the egg white, increase the speed a bit and whisk for a minute or two

When the sugar syrup reaches the correct temperature, pour it down the sides of the bowl and crank up the speed to the maximum

Whisk until the bowl feels slightly warm to the touch

Remove the whisk and add the nuts (or whichever combination you’re using)

Mix in gently, using a wooden spoon

Scrape the nougat onto the prepared baking tray, dust with more icing sugar and top with a sheet of baking paper before rolling into a 2cm slab

Allow to cool at room temperature for at least 12 hours, then slice as you like and serve

Unfulfilled by Unicorn Rides and Jazzy Hands / Caramel Chocolate Ganache Tart

I wrote last week about finding a reconnection with helpless laughter by singing and dancing to cheesy music. This week, I’ve been thinking a lot, after reading a thought provoking post from Kelly over at This Mom Gig, about the change that’s come over me in the last ten years that I was able to unselfconsciously sing and dance terribly, let alone write openly about it.

I then saw that Jon Richardson (a wonderful, occasionally vulnerable British comedian) is going to start filming a show where he travels around England to find how to grow into a ‘happy adult’. I ended up reading a little further and it looks like he’s not mindlessly jumping on the happy bandwagon, but for a moment I felt an insensible rage at this insistence of constant happiness, like a drug that’s only owned by a lucky few and we all have to scrabble for the best dealer we can possibly find.

I spent so many years knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that something was wrong with me. That I had already failed as a human because I didn’t have a cloak of happiness always swept around me. That those who appeared in magazines, on television, in self help books and on the posters that adorned my walls had cracked the secret to eternal happiness and that, if I could just watch and follow them closely enough, then the constant fear and occasional emptiness and therefore obvious failure of my existence would be swept up into a sparkly mass of unicorn rides and jazzy hands.

What seems to have been at the base of my happiness misunderstanding was a belief that negative feelings were unacceptable and something to be feared. I’d spent years pushing down my feelings of depression, rage, ineptitude and failure to the point that I didn’t even know where to start being happy, other than hide everything I felt was the real me and only ever leave the house with an emotional mask in the contorted shape of happiness.

Lots of gurus promise eternal happiness, but I cast-iron guarantee you that the only reason you believe them is because you don’t know them. You haven’t had the opportunity to see the darkness that always pairs with light. They’re as imperfect as you and me and just as prone to the emptiness that they promise you can beat if you just buy their books and sign up to their podcasts and do a month of healing at the low, introductory price of $99.

They’re lying, or they’re insensibly stupid. I suspect the former, as they’re smart enough to make a business out of happiness. They have to lie to make a living and I feel sorry for them that that’s their life. But they’re making our lives more miserable by insisting that we’re doing something wrong and for that I don’t like them very much at all.

The truth is that life is frequently hard for everyone, and often full of things like washing the dishes, sorting out whites from coloureds for the washing machine and eyeing the fly that’s currently close enough to you that you feel uncomfortable, but not quite close enough to swat away.

Challenges are mostly there to be lost, especially when we’re young. Exams and friendships are to be failed horribly. And relationships are to be screwed up so badly you don’t even want to walk in the same country as that person for the 5 years it takes to stop wanting to hide under the floor every time you think about that last, dramatically pathetic, begging conversation (totally happened to me. Twice). It’s what makes life and people interesting. It’s what makes us relatable. It’s what makes us funny as hell.

Because here’s the rub about perennially happy people — I really don’t like them, and I’ll bet you don’t either. They’re annoying; like a really needy puppy — it looks like something you want in your life on first smitten glance, but after a short amount of time you will want to give it back. And they’re hopelessly unrealistic and unsympathetic; there are a couple of people I know who, no matter what’s happened, breathily utter something like, “You’re so lucky that you have the opportunity to walk through this.” I want to slap them when it’s about a parking ticket, but I know that one of them once said it to a mutual friend whose partner had just committed suicide. They’re not better than other people for their Pollyanna approach to life, they’re just more irritating and boring.

Happiness is a momentary feeling, sometimes of a few days or weeks, but more often it’s a fleeting moment when you finally learn all the words to the Frozen theme song, or your child’s singing Old MacDonald Had a Farm on his own for the first time. The reason it doesn’t last for longer is because it’s not meant to. It’s just one feeling out of many, and we’re evolved and capable of feeling them all.

Now, please don’t take the above to read that I’m saying there’s something wrong with being happy. I love feeling happy. But it’s only by fully engaging with all my emotions that my happiness has become completely free from the hangups that come from pretending it’s the only worthwhile emotion. I’ve quoted this passage before on my blog, but it seems relevant to quote it again

“But if in your fear you would seek only love’s peace and love’s pleasure,
Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love’s threshing floor.
Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.”

He’s saying you’re going to be really boring if you only allow for the good bits. Don’t do it. There’s far too much life to be had in living a full, painful, messy, fun-filled life.

Speaking of full lives, I made a chocolate caramel ganache tart this week. The filling’s another one from the very talented head pastry chef, Chloë Thomas, at Stokehouse restaurant. I was going to save this one for later in the year, but I made these during the week and they were so delicious I just couldn’t resist.

Enjoy.

Puff Pastry

• 250g strong plain flour
• 1 tsp fine sea salt
• 250g butter, at room temperature, but not soft
• about 150ml cold water

Sift the flour and salt into a large bowl. Roughly break the butter in small chunks, add them to the bowl and rub them in loosely. You need to see bits of butter

Make a well in the bowl and pour in about two-thirds of the cold water, mixing until you have a firm rough dough adding extra water if needed. Cover with cling film and leave to rest for 20 mins in the fridge

Turn out onto a lightly floured board, knead gently and form into a smooth rectangle. Roll the dough in one direction only, until 3 times the width, about 20 x 50cm. Keep edges straight and even. Don’t overwork the butter streaks; you should have a marbled effect

Fold the top third down to the centre, then the bottom third up and over that. Give the dough a quarter turn (to the left or right) and roll out again to three times the length. Fold as before, cover with cling film and chill for at least 20 mins before rolling to use (you only need half for this recipe so save the rest for up to 3 months in the freezer for other recipes – like the delicious Imperfect Kitchen roasted garlic and pumpkin recipe!)

Lightly dust your rolling surface and roll out to about 3cm thickness

Spray olive oil on four 12cm tart tins with loose bottoms (or use melted butter)

Using a the tart cases as a guide, cut 4 rough circles, slightly bigger than the tins

Line each tart case with a pastry circle, ensuring you press into the edges along the bottom of the ring, before pricking the base of the pastry a couple of times with a fork

Freeze for at least 30 minutes

Preheat oven to 180˚C / 350˚F

Blind bake the pastry cases for 10-15 minutes until the cases are dry. Remove the baking beans (or rice, coins, or whatever you’re using) and continue to bake for another 10-15 minutes until the pastry is a satisfying golden brown

Remove from the oven and set aside to cool

Chocolate Caramel Filling

• 500g single (pouring) cream
• 600g dark chocolate
• 400g milk chocolate
• 400g caster sugar
• 100g unsalted butter
• ½ tsp salt

Heat the cream and salt in a small saucepan until it reaches the boil and then set aside to cool

Mix dark and milk chocolate in a mixing bowl

Heat a heavy-based saucepan over a medium heat

Once hot enough (you will know when this is reached as a small sprinkle of sugar will melt almost instantly) add handfuls of sugar at a time, stirring with a wooden spoon until melted and caramelised before adding the next handful

Once all the sugar has been completely melted and caramelised, add the butter and stir until melted

Slowly whisk in the hot cream

Pour the caramel mix over the chocolates and whisk until all chocolates are fully melted and everything is completely combined

Pour the chocolate caramel mix into the four tart cases and refrigerate for about 4 hours, until set

Letting It Go To Disco / Chocolate & Peanut Brittle Truffles

How often do you sing out loud? I was listening to my son belting out a classic last weekend, Old MacDonald Had a Farm, and found myself hollering along. My son thinks Mr MacDonald farms a fair number of dinosaurs and trucks, so we experimented with gusto.

By the time we finished we were both grinning all the way through the house and I realised I couldn’t remember when I’d stopped playing the kind of music that inspired singing along loudly, but it was probably time I started up again.

Consequently, Stevie Wonder, Earth Wind & Fire, Queen, the Pitch Perfect soundtrack and all the cheesy music my lungs can handle have been cranked all the way up to 11 this week. And it feels great. I now also know all the words to the Frozen theme song, Let It Go. The proper way to learn those words is to sing the song 16 times in a row — just so you know the level of dedication you’re going to need to achieve the same Disney singing skills I now exhibit.

It began with singing but didn’t stop there. The next step started with some arm flinging, Elsa-style, during my Let It Go marathon, but rapidly crescendoed (or diminuendoed, depending on your attitude towards these things) into pretty fabulous boogying. Not dancing, you understand, nothing as simple and tame as mere dancing. In my mind I was a So You Think You Can Dance finalist — as long as the mirror was well hidden. No need to be reminded that I really look more like a mid-sized orangutan suffering from epilepsy.

By the time I went to a chocolate masterclass later in the week, I was in a fine mood — and had been for a few days. I can’t believe that I’d forgotten the simple joy of being silly, and I was loving rediscovering gasps of laughter during faux-serious dance routines.

It later came to me that we live in a world filled to the brim with potential worries. Work, family, politics, religion, science, climate, self help, war; the fabric of modern life threatens to be lonely and frightening. Existence seems lopsided at times, imperfect and overwhelming. The choices we need to make grow as our world gets smaller. We’re no longer guaranteed jobs for life, or marriages for life, or even that we get to live in one town, state or country. Education is increasingly a luxury, certainly in Australia this week as the government announced a budget that left everyone who doesn’t own a coal mine reeling.

And in this midst of overwhelming choices and underwhelming options, it feels more important than ever before to hold onto the ability to be a little foolish, to clown for no other reason than it makes you smile. And then to carry that smile with you, deep in your stomach and at the base of your throat, so that you can pass it on for the next person to discover. A reminder that we really are all together on this small, spinning ball; so we may as well have a good laugh about it.

I carried my smiles to a small group of passionate chocoholics and one fabulous pastry chef. Chloë Thomas, head pastry chef at a top Melbourne restaurant, The Stokehouse, showed us chocolate techniques and recipes for hours, during which her humour and talent filled the room with laughter and the best kind of greed. This truffle recipe was one of my favourites and when I remade it at home, it turned out just as beautifully as hers. It turns out that good company + truffles + singing + dancing is really the best recipe of all.

Enjoy.

Peanut Praline

• 300g raw peanuts
• 300g sugar
• 100g water

Preheat oven to 160˚C/320˚F

Line a baking tray with baking paper and roast the peanuts until they’re golden brown and you can smell that lovely peanutty aroma

Set aside to cool slightly

Meanwhile, heat the sugar and water over a medium heat until the sugar starts to colour

Swish the sugar around the pan (don’t use a spoon, it will crystallise the sugar and make your caramel grainy)

Continue heating and swirling until the sugar is dissolved and the mix is a dark amber colour

It’s super hot now, so be very careful as you add the peanuts and stir gently with a wooden spoon

Once the nuts are coated, pour back onto the tray covered with baking paper and set aside to cool

Once cool, break into small chunks and blitz in a food processor until the mix resembles large breadcrumbs

Truffles

• 20g glucose
• A pinch of salt
• 300g double cream (heavy cream) make sure it’s just cream without any thickeners or other additives
• 200g good quality milk chocolate, roughly chopped (I used Valrhona 40%. Just use the best you can afford)
• 50g good quality dark chocolate, roughly chopped (I used Valrhona 66%. Again, use the best you can afford)
• 100g crunchy peanut butter
• 25g unsalted butter, softened
• 150g peanut praline (from the recipe above)

Heat glucose, salt and cream in a small pot until it reaches a rolling boil (meaning the bubbles don’t disappear when you stir the mix)

Meanwhile, mix 150g of the milk chocolate with the dark chocolate, peanut butter and butter in a medium mixing bowl

Pour half the hot cream mix over the chocolates and whisk

Pour the remainder of the cream mix over the chocolate and whisk until all the chocolate and butter is melted

Stir in 100g of the peanut praline, pour into a container about 5cm deep and place in the fridge overnight

Once it’s reached rolling consistency (overnight will be long enough); prepare a tray with baking paper before using a tablespoon to spoon out balls and roll between your hands into truffles

Place each truffle on the baking paper and return to the fridge to set, about an hour

Melt the remaining 50g of milk chocolate and place in a bowl

Place the remaining 50g of peanut praline in a separate bowl

Roll each truffle in the melted milk chocolate followed by the praline crumbs and place back in the fridge until you’ve devoured them all.

On the Scent of a Citrus Tree / Rugbrød (Danish Dark Rye Bread)

I am the west.

I am the drive-through over the home cooked. The shorthand email that replaced the hand-written letter. I work when I could rest. I dance instead of sleep.

I grew up in a central suburb of London, a city almost defined by its pace – heady, rushed, fun and powerful. It’s a magnificent drug this living fast business, it feels productive and successful even if nothing gets done.

And it no longer works for me.

I wish it did. That I was still someone who could fill a day with furiously productive activity and then seek a challenge the moment I awaken the next. I can struggle with my worth sometimes, when I compare my life to peers who are successful, wealthy and seem to manage multiple lives in every day.

But I live at my best – at my kindest and most useful, when I live life slowly.

Running late this morning, I dashed out of the house with my squirming, giggling toddler firmly tucked under one arm, and was unexpectedly captured for a moment by a breeze of beautiful scent from our flowering cumquat trees.

When I returned home, my head spinning with plans to clean the house so I could hide my familial chaos from a friend who was on her way over, I remembered the near-perfect smell and paused for a longer time beside our trees. Standing there, gratitude soaring for the life that’s brought me such moments of easy peace, I decided my friend would see the reality of my house. That, to challenge my fear of being judged, I was going to practise trust, vulnerability and imperfection.

It was hard to act on my decision, but I texted her to let her know what to expect and she responded almost immediately, “So is mine – I’ll fit right in.”

We had tea with handfuls of macadamias and hazelnuts. By letting go of my need to achieve an invisible line, I could simply enjoy her wonderful company as silence and words both skipped happily around the room. I wasn’t perfect at it, apologising more than once for the state of the house, but I’m new to this type of vulnerability and I find that the decision to act differently doesn’t remove my fear, it just takes away fear’s control and offers it to hope.

When I live a filled-up life I’m never able to see this side of people, or of myself. I spent a long time living with beliefs about myself that just weren’t true, but the certainty and power of them helped me feel safe. Like I wanted to have great prestige and power, and that financial gain was worth all the time in my day. It would have been unthinkable to do something frivolous like stopping to smell flowers when I was already running late.

I’m so glad that I’ve stopped trying to be what I’m not and am slowly building a trust in who I am, jumbled house and all.

Food today is a dedication to slower living. My husband loves the Danish rugbrød, or dark rye bread, and I found this recipe on a lovely TV show called Food Safari. The only change I’ve made is to remove their insistence on organic produce – although I try to only use organic foods myself, I’m never a fan of dictating any behaviour onto others, choose as suits you best.

It takes around a week the first time you make this, but once you have the bread starter sitting in your fridge it only takes about a day. I believe it’s worth every moment. For the more health aware it’s very low in fat, contains no oil or processed sugar and is rich in whole grains and dietary fibre. The taste is dark and complex, slightly sour and smokily sweet. This bread is also the base for the Danish smørrebrød – the open sandwiches which can be glorious works of art all on their own. However, as you can see in my main photo and in the sneaky toddler shot below, we often just spread a thick layer of best quality butter (I love Pepe Saya butter at the moment) and an amazing honey (this one is from the brilliant J. Friend & Co) for our gorging!

Enjoy.

stage 1 (approximately 5 days)

sourdough starter

• 250 ml (1 cup) buttermilk
• 65 g (½ cup) rye flour
• ½ tsp salt

stage 2 (12–36 hours)

sponge

• 100–200 g sourdough starter
• 750 ml (3 cups) cold water
• 100 g (⅔ cup) wholemeal wheat flour
• 50 g rye flour
• 100 g (⅔ cup) plain flour
• 75 g (½ cup) linseeds
• 75 g (½ cup) raw sunflower seeds
• 175 g (1 cup) cracked rye grains
• 200 g (1 ¼ cups) cracked wheat grains
• 2 tsp kosher or sea salt

stage 3 (3–12 hours)

• 1 tbsp malt powder
• 1 tbsp treacle / molasses
• 150g cooked barley grains
• 500 g (3 cups) cracked rye grains, soaked overnight
• extra virgin olive oil, for greasing
• melted butter, for brushing

To make the sourdough starter, mix all ingredients in a bowl. Stand, uncovered, at room temperature. Amounts given are approximate; mixture should be quite fluid. Add more buttermilk or water if starter thickens too much. You can also use good plain yoghurt instead of buttermilk, but add water if you do. Stir with a spoon at least once a day. Keep it loosely covered with paper or foil from the second day. Don’t refrigerate.

From the second or third day, little air bubbles will form in the starter, and it will probably have a more greyish colour than it did at first. It should also begin to smell slightly sour, but the smell disappears upon stirring. Usually the starter takes about 5 days to make. It’s ready when it has swollen somewhat in volume and the air bubbles are plentiful after resting for about 6 hours. The quality of the starter is not terribly crucial; rugbrød doesn’t (and shouldn’t) rise very much during baking, especially not the no-knead type. With many grains and very little flour, high-yeast activity would produce too-crumbly a result.

If you can remember, discard a little of the sourdough and feed it with water and rye flour a couple of times per month. Make sure it is fairly thick, though, to inhibit yeast activity and make it less vulnerable to forgetfulness. (see note)

To make the sponge, mix 100–200g of the sourdough starter and the remaining ingredients in a large bowl. Cover with a wet towel and stand in a warm place until the next day, or for at least 12 hours, but up to 36 hours is fine. Sourness increases with standing, but won’t be very predominant in the final result anyway. Dampen the towel when dry to prevent moisture loss from the sponge, which could affect the final result.

The sponge is very thin and liquid when just mixed, but will quickly become quite thick from the grains absorbing liquid.

To make the dough, add the malt powder, molasses, cooked barley and soaked rye to the sponge and combine well. Pour into a lightly greased 2-litre capacity loaf tin. If you think you’d like to make this bread again, save 1 cup of dough to use as a starter next time. Put this in a jar, sprinkle with 2 teaspoons coarse salt, cover tightly and refrigerate. The dough should be wet and just barely liquid, like a very thick porridge.

Stand bread to rise in loaf tin, covered with a damp towel, for at least 3 hours, or a day, at room temperature (or warmer if you use the shorter rising time.) The longer the proof, the more sour the taste. The bread won’t rise very much, perhaps only an inch or so.

Paint the top of the bread with melted butter or cold water. At this point you can liberally sprinkle poppy sand sesame seeds over the top, as I have done in the photo, but this is purely optional. Put it in a cold oven and set the temperature at 190˚C. From the time the oven is warm, the baking time is about 90 minutes. If the top looks like it’s blackening, cover with foil.

It can be difficult to tell when the bread’s done. Take it out of tin and knock the base with your fist. If it doesn’t resonate hollowly, it certainly isn’t done. If it sounds hollow, insert a bamboo skewer into the centre. If the tip comes out clean, it’s probably done. The crust should feel quite hard. If in doubt, leave the bread in the oven as the oven cools.

Place the bread on a rack and cover with a towel (unless you are leaving it in the oven). Stand overnight.

From the day after it is baked, store the rugbrød in a bread box or plastic bag at cool room temperature. It freezes quite well, but tends to become a little crumbly after thawing. Rugbrød stays fresh for about a week.

Note

If you use an old starter to make this bread, it’s a good idea to take it out of the refrigerator a day before making the sponge. Stir it up with water to a wet dough and let it rest covered at room temperature. This will revive the yeast activity and give you a better rise in the final bread.

If you don’t plan to use a freshly made starter immediately, cover tightly and refrigerate. It keeps for about a week. If you want to keep it longer, feed it with rye flour to make a somewhat thicker dough. That will keep for several weeks. When making this a second time, omit the salt since it has already been sprinkled on your starter.

If the bread seems very wet inside upon slicing, try putting it back in the oven to be warmed through at a fairly low temperature, about 30 minutes at 100˚C. Even a perfectly baked loaf will be a little sticky the day after it is baked, but it improves over another day or two.

If the crust stays extremely hard on the second day, try lowering the oven temperature a little and extending the baking time the next time you attempt it. Much depends on the shape of your loaf pan (wide and flat or short and tall makes a world of difference) and on the actual moistness of the dough. I can only recommend that you make careful notes about what you are doing so you know what to adjust a second or third time.

Fighting Back / Lemon Marshmallow Fluff filled Chocolate Gingerbread Muffins

There are times, like this morning, when I wake up thinking, “Is this it? Really? This is the life I’ve got? This is what I wake up for?”

This morning I followed that feeling with reading about people online, and ferociously judging my insides by their outsides. The actors, musicians, writers, comedians and entrepreneurs, whose heavily airbrushed bodies, words and lives seem so perfect, so interesting and brilliant.

And I, by comparison, am currently having a really hard time sleep-training my son. Oh, and I write, but I don’t know if I’m any good because there’s no PR agency airbrushing me to awesomeness – humph.

And then I really started seeing the bleakness of my life…

I ended up in a spiral of restless discontentedness where the only solution seems to be crawling back into bed, pulling the covers over my head, and staying there for the day.

On other days I might furiously try to achieve everything I think will make me worthwhile in a single day. Leading to further misery when it’s not possible.

Down and down and down.

When I started actively seeking a better life about ten years ago, it was partly as a result of a spectacularly bad patch of this kind of thinking. It had become so ingrained it was burnt into my subconscious and prevented me from ever starting anything because I’d already failed in my mind.

The great lie I can still believe is that I need to think about this stuff. That somehow if I think about it for long enough I’m going to fix it. Or if I act on it in a flurry of desperation I can stop the inevitable from happening.

I often jokingly liken it to sitting on a chair with a paper bag over my head, miserably thinking about how awful it is to have a paper bag over my head, and forgetting that I have arms. Or running around in a dark, claustrophobic world, wondering why I’m crashing into everything.

I am the bruised, armless lady with a paper bag over her head…

I’ve found that what I really need to do in these times is pause, breathe, and take stock of the reality of my day. Ultimately, what I need to work on is trusting that I’m not important enough to the universe to be the worst, the most horrible, or the emptiest. A strangely freeing reality.

It helps me be more gentle with myself on the bad days, when my son hasn’t slept for the 10th (or is that the 100th?) night in a row. It helps me to chuckle at the melodramatically terrible future I catastrophise about.

My other reality, one I fought for years, is that a healthy diet and lifestyle are essential for the chemical balance of my brain and body. Too much sugar, caffeine and chemically enhanced foods might help in the short-term, but they’re damming to my mental and physical health in the long-term. Again, I look at people who can lead lifestyles that seem so free of restriction and think

“Why me?”

but the question that might be better to ask is,

“Why not me?”

These days I am someone who, by necessity, lives life in moderation. Although I have, on occasion, been known to bastardise the lyrics of ‘Something Stupid’ to sing,

“And then I go and spoil it all, by eating lots of muffins cos I loooove them…”

I can’t eat too much, sleep too much, exercise too much, work too much or party too much (and I can’t do any of those too little either). It can rub me the wrong way sometimes, as I always had a soft spot for the wild life, the heady life, the fully lived life. I can feel hemmed in and unsatisfied in a life without excess. And yet, I’ve learned I need to live simply in order to live contentedly. And I’m incredibly lucky to have that option.

I try to placate my inner rebel by finding raucous laughter. And rioting with words on a blank page. I occasionally find an empty space to scream at all the gods we’ve managed to come up with. On especially bad days I put on my running shoes and try to outrun my mind, or crawl into television for a few hours of blankness.

In essence, I allow myself to be human, when what I want is nauseatingly airbrushed perfection.

So today, when the fizzing of frustration has filled my torso and the clench of my jaw hurts my head, I’m writing and writing (it soothes the riot). And I’ll go for a long run or swim (it clears my mind and internal claustrophobia). And I’ll meditate with near-constant guidance from someone else (it steadies my thoughts and feelings). And I’ll phone someone who also knows a mind that ultimately seeks only destruction (it draws me back into the fold of a loving humanity). And I’ll force myself to have an early night, no matter who’s on ITAS (so I have a chance of living easier tomorrow).

Any short-term loss in this lifestyle harbours many long-term gains. A life that’s gentle and simple. Whole and mostly joyful. And a discovery of peace by treading gently on the ground I seek.

And, above all, I continually remind myself that it’s just for today. That tomorrow is new and fresh. That it doesn’t mean I’m lost, or finished, or failed. That it’s just today. Just today.

Posh muffins today, and not just because I thought, “Mmmmmmm, muffins…” when I wrote the line about singing my greed. I’ve been making Nigella Lawson’s chocolate gingerbread cake since the day I bought her ‘Feast’ book – it’s a winner every time. I had wanted to adapt the recipe into muffins for a while – and my modifications to a marshmallow fluff recipe from The Bright Eyed Baker gave me just the excuse I needed. I’m also looking for ways to focus on others rather than myself and when my husband told me that some of his work colleagues had mentioned they hadn’t yet been fed by my blog, I thought it was a perfect opportunity to be thoughtful – and if I had to try one, just to make sure it was of good enough quality to share with you and them? Well. That’s just a bonus of altruism…

Enjoy.

lemon marshmallow fluff

Fresh out of the oven

Two baby muffins

Deliciously, gooey goodness…

Chocolate Gingerbread Muffins (adapted from Nigella Lawson’s ‘Feast’)

• 85g unsalted butter
• 65g dark muscovado sugar
• 1 tbl sp caster sugar
• 100g golden syrup
• 100g black treacle or molasses
• 1/4 tsp ground cloves
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• 3/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1 tbl sp warm water
• 1 egg
• 125ml milk
• 150g plain flour
• 20g cocoa

Pre heat oven to 180˚C

Grease a 24 cup mini muffin tin, or use mini muffin paper cases

In a saucepan, melt the butter along with the sugars, golden syrup, treacle, cloves, cinnamon and ground ginger

In a cup dissolve the bicarbonate of soda in the water

Take the saucepan off the heat and beat in the egg, milk and bicarb

Stir in the flour and cocoa and beat with a wooden spoon to mix

Pour to the rim of the cups of the muffin tin and bake for about 15 minutes, or until risen and firm

Remove to a wire rack and let cool in the tin

Lemon Marshmallow Fluff (adapted from www.brighteyedbaker.com)

• 3 egg whites
• 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
• 1/3 cup water
• 150g granulated sugar
• 3/4 cup golden syrup
• Finely grated rind from 2 lemons
• Juice from 1/2 lemon

Place the egg whites in the bowl of a stand mixer and sprinkle the cream of tartar on top

Beat, increasing the speed to medium-high, until the eggs start to get light, airy, and frothy

With the mixer running, slowly pour in 2 tablespoons of the granulated sugar

Continue to beat until firm (but not stiff) peaks form. Set aside

Fit a small saucepan with a candy thermometer, or have a reliable digital thermometer ready nearby

Combine water, sugar, and golden syrup in the saucepan and stir together

Bring to a boil over medium heat and then, using a heat-safe spatula, stir very frequently as you cook the syrup mixture to 115˚C / 240°F, maintaining a consistent boil

Once at 115˚C / 240°F remove from the heat immediately

Start the mixer on a slower speed and slowly pour the syrup in as it mixes, until all of the syrup has been added

Stop the mixer and scrape down the bowl if needed, then increase speed to medium-high and beat for another 4 minutes

The mixture should have expanded and you should now have a butterscotch coloured creme that’s able to hold some shape

Add the lemon zest and juice, wipe down the bowl and beater, and beat for about 30 more seconds, until the lemon has all been incorporated

Any extra keeps in the fridge for up to a month

For the Finished Muffin

Using a small, sharp knife, split the cooled muffin tops from their bottoms

Spoon a heaped teaspoon of the marshmallow fluff onto the bottom part of the muffin

Gently rest the top of the muffin on top of the fluff

Eat in dainty bites, or follow my family and fit a whole mini muffin in your mouth in one go!

Teen Spirit / Spiced Apple Granola with Lemon Panna Cotta & Rosewater Raspberries

I remember hiding in a room with my parents’ record player when I was a young teenager, their huge bucket headphones precariously perched on my too small head, a twirling plastic wire winging it’s way back to the socket so I could dial the volume high and sink into the pounding, evicerating sounds of the 70s pouring like a deluge into my 90s-filled mind.

I was struggling at school, I was struggling at home. I was 14 years old and deep in the throws of teenage-hell. It felt as if my body couldn’t possibly contain all the confusion and rage and passion and terror that coursed through me. Reality was rapidly becoming a horror show and I wanted to get off the ride others had plotted.

It was in that room, sunk deep into a chocolate brown, corduroy bucket chair – the only remains of my father’s misspent twenties – that I discovered Pink Floyd.

The opening lines of Comfortably Numb, wailed in B minor, was a far cry from the upbeat, major key ditties of Kylie Minogue and NKOTB, the music I knew at 11 and 12. It siren-called to the chrysalis of my mind, tearing into the safety of my childhood and promising a fluidity I rapidly came to crave.

I became cradled by breath-stealing chords and hammered by lyrics of the greats: Floyd, Reed, Cohen, Marley, Hendrix. They spoke of war and passion and hate. They crooned of Them and Us. They turned me inside out and stuck themselves deep inside my teenage soul.

In the meantime I was being taught English and Physics and French and Maths in a very private school in central London. I would sit in a hard, wooden chair – the type that seem perennially destined for classrooms – staring at a blackboard that espoused the values of X and wondering how I could get to the end of class without screaming. It felt as if adults spoke about subjects that couldn’t possibly matter while my mind was splitting in two – representing both the me I was and the me I might become. Both sides indistinct, awkward and crying in pain. I didn’t want someone to teach me to understand the periodic table. I wanted someone to teach me to understand the periodic insanity.

It’s no wonder Comfortably Numb sounded like a promise to me. A promise I subsequently worked on for more years than I would now like to count, before I realised that comfort in numbness can only happen in moments. Moments that need to be surrounded by large doses of life. My life based on being numb was nothing but a lonely void.

The truth for me, is that I can only move through life’s obstacles – I tried over, and under, and running in the opposite direction, and numbing myself for years. It never worked, in fact it eventually hurt a lot more than reality ever could.

Finally, the relentless pursuit of fantasy broke and twisted me to the point that I would give anything for a quiet dose of reality. I started travelling the path of living gentler, I began to seek reality in tentative, fear-filled steps. I sought to merge Them and Us into a unity that centuries of seekers from all walks of thought-life assured me led to peace. And gradually, falteringly, I found the ease and joy that permeates my world most of the time today.

I’ve added the likes of Stevie Wonder to my music repertoire. I’m a pretty good head and shoulders bopper in the car. I brain-boogy to Earth, Wind & Fire (anyone who’s read my Versatile Blogger Award post knows that it needn’t go any further). I recently downloaded Pitch Perfect to my laptop. It sits alongside my laptop’s only other film, The Fog of War, and I think they secretly quite like each other. I’ve skipped to the last Barden Bella’s song quite a few times now and grinned in sheer delight – I think I might even be picking up on some of the moves…

To speak to both the torn teenager I was and the mostly content adult I’ve become, I’ve been playing around with granola – a dish I found far too grown up for years. The addition of a breakfast panna cotta, less sweet than the dessert version, is still rebellious enough to satisfy. My mother-in-law brought down some beautiful home-grown organic raspberries this week from her garden so I’ve soaked them in rosewater and added them as well – it turns out they were the balance I needed. Enjoy…

Granola (from Nigella Lawson’s Feast)

• 450g rolled oats
• 120g pumpkin seeds (pepitas)
• 120g sesame seeds
• 175g apple compote or apple sauce
• 2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• 120g brown rice syrup (or golden syrup)
• 4 tbl sp runny honey
• 100g light brown sugar
• 250g whole natural almonds
• 1 tsp sea salt
• 2 tbl sp sunflower oil

Preheat oven to 170˚C

Mix everything together very well in a large mixing bowl

Spread the mixture onto two baking tins and bake, turning over about half way through – the idea is to get the granola evenly golden without letting any part cook too much

After about 40 minutes to an hour, when everything is nicely coloured allow to cool and store in an airtight container

Lemon Panna Cotta

• 185ml double cream (heavy cream, if you’re American)
• 55g caster sugar
• zest from 1 lemon
• 1.5 gelatine leaves
• 250g greek yoghurt

Place the cream and sugar in a saucepan over a medium heat
Add the lemon zest
Stir until the sugar is dissolved, then just bring to the boil before removing from the heat
Soak the gelatine in cold water until soft
Squeeze out the excess water and drop the gelatine into the hot cream mixture and whisk until dissolved
Add the yoghurt and whisk until smooth
Strain the mixture through a fine sieve
Divide between four 125 ml (1/2 cup) ramekins, cover with plastic wrap and chill for at least 3 hours, or until just set

Rosewater Raspberries

• 125g raspberries
• 1 tbl sp icing sugar sifted
• 1/2 tsp rose-water

Place half the raspberries in a glass bowl and crush with a fork.

Stir in the icing sugar
Fold in the remaining raspberries and the rosewater
Chill until ready to serve

Upend the panna cotta into a bowl, scoop a good size amount of granola around the pannacotta and spoon the raspberries on top.

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