Good cookery

This weekend I bought a husband-beater. Also known in the cullinary trade as a rolling-pin. We discussed where I could hit him with it so that he wouldn't show it to the people he works with.

Why did I buy it? Because I wanted to bake a quiche.

I remember baking with Little Nana mostly. I used to walk to her house after school and wait for my mum to come and pick me up after she finished work. Sometimes I had dinner with Little Nana and Grandad and if I ate all my meat I was allowed to go and visit Mrs Newton, the lady who lived across the road and a few doors down. She was really old and more like an old lady than my granma was. She left me permanently fearful of grape pips and chewing gum after telling me the things that they do to your intestines. Funny how back then the emphasis was on eating your meat - not your vegetables.

I didn't think I was actually allowed to do any of the baking at nanas. At least I don't remember it. I just remember the good stuff like licking the bowl and kneeding the dough.

This weekend I found that in the archives of my brain I remembered how to patch pastry by sticking bits on with water. It's a good job because one tin was slightly bigger than the other - or one lump of dough was slightly smaller than the other. I know it was my little nana that taught me this because they didn't teach us anything nearly so useful in Home Ec classes at school.

I was working the magic on my quiche from a Wholefoods cookbook I bought in 2000 whilst living on my own. This was the first recipe I made from it. I thought it was a good book...

Me - "It says, 'roll out the pastry and use it to line a 9' flan tin. Chill for 10 minutes.' How nice"
Other me - "I think it means put the pastry in the fridge, not pour yourself a glass of wine and watch TV".
Me - "oh".

I was very tired on Sunday so I did my baking at 2pm before I crashed-out too badly. Problem with this is, the quiche was ready to go at 3pm and I was itching to put it in the oven. Then I got inspired to cook a snack - something to use up the Golden Syrup instead of just eating it out of the jar (a la Lucy Bennell) so I went to make flapjacks. But the oats weren't rolled they were oatmeal... I went for it anyway. I found the mixture still bubbling and starting to look like a cake after the prescribed 15 minutes cooking time so I looked up the recipe for Oatcakes that I'd seen in the book and decided oatmeal takes 1 hour to cook so I turned down the heat and turned up the timer.

One hour later I didn't have flapjacks but something resembling one inch thick brandy snaps!

MY They're GOOD.
but who can blame little nana for not letting me near the oven!