Day off

It doesn't happen very often but dh and I had a day off work today and we really made the most of it. We started by taking the car in for a service. I say we but I stayed in bed whilst dh took the car to the local garage and then walked home. We really like to support local businesses. It was still early by the time we got home (and below freezing). We then dressed up warm for our walk as it was freezing outside. Every time we get the opportunity to go out walking in the countryside we always promise ourselves that we'll do it more often and this is why.....

How's that for a view. It just makes the soul sing. Beautiful weather and views and wonderful company. This walk had everything - tweeting birds, bare branches, dry leaves underfoot, squelchy mud, bright blue sky and ice crystals on the leaves and grasses.

Doesn't it just make you want to get out there and enjoy your local countryside.

We ended our walk by the church featured in the film The Holiday.

We then even had the luxury of going out for lunch before getting back home in time for the kids' return from school. A perfect day off (and I even managed to finish the heart pin cushions I've been making). I hope you all had a good day.

Homemade Presents

As you might have guessed I like to give some handmade gifts at this time of year. This year, it will be flavoured olives. I know it sounds like hard work but it's one of the easiest gifts to make. I bought plain olives from the supermarket. They were 99p for a jar of 454g.

To make the marinated olives, you need to decide what flavours you want. This time, I decided on rosemary, chilli and garlic. The rosemary was from the garden and I used chilli flakes and fresh, crushed garlic. During the summer I make the olives using marjoram, thyme or oregano but at this time of year, they have died back in the garden. I only make these when I can find reduced olive oil. This litre bottle was £3.25 rather than the usual price which makes this an economical present to make.

Drain the olives and place in a large bowl. Soak the jars and remove the labels. Sterilise the jars by filling three quarters with water and putting in the microwave for 5 minutes on high. Wash and dry the lids. Finely chop the rosemary and add it to the olives with the crushed dried chillies and crushed fresh garlic. I'm not sure of the exact amounts of the ingredients just add to taste.

Put the olives back in the sterilised jars and then pour olive oil in until all the olives are covered. I used most of the bottle of olive oil. This is the end result. They also taste as good as they look.

We even managed to find some time for a family walk this afternoon and came across this sculpture.

It amazes me what people are able to make out of wire. There was also a craft market that we had a wander around. Some beautiful items but all way beyond my budget. My ds decided that he could take photos that were as good as those for sale and I certainly agree with him. Maybe that's how he'll pay his way through university.

We're now back home after our fresh air and have found Carry on Teaching on the tv. I love the old classic movies. Such innocent humour. I hope you all have a lovely week.

Presents

I don't know where the year has gone. It just seems like yesterday that I was wrapping the presents for Chanukah and Christmas and the time has come round again. I'm afraid that I can't show you any new things I've been working on as I spent the day finishing off the present buying and wrapping everything. Apart from a break in the afternoon with my brother and his children which was a welcome distraction, the rest of the day has been spent cutting wrapping paper and folding and sticking. This year, I bought the wrapping paper from Tiger. I've recently found this store and I love the things they sell, some of them quite quirky. I've bought wooden beads from there which I used to make plaited bracelets in the summer. I bought two rolls of wrapping paper that are the same feel as plain brown wrapping paper but in bright pink and green. I think I paid £2 per roll and the presents look lovely. I've now finished all the present buying and wrapping which is always a great feeling.

Everything is ready for the actual giving which will start on 8 December which is the first night of Chanukah this year. I love this festival as we light the candles every night for eight nights and we even have an excuse for eating doughnuts (the tradition is to eat fried food so doughnuts and latkes, are a tradition). In our family, we give a small present every night. This is a tradition that we have always kept and it has meant that there is no expectation for big, expensive presents. My children know how lucky they are to live as they do and they are always grateful for the presents that they receive. I am very proud of the way they have grown up to be such amazing, compassionate young people.

How are your preparations coming along for the festive season? How do you celebrate in your household? I'd love to hear what you all do and how you cope when all about you is screaming buy me. Have a wonderful evening.

Crafting

After my trip away I'm now back in the swing of things. Focaccia was baked this evening and I had it with homemade humus and olives. I had frozen the humus and I was sceptical about this but I defrosted it in the microwave and it tastes great. The flapjack was also made (at the last minute as I had forgotten) and it has turned out well. I always find that things tend to go ring when I'm tired but this time it turned out ok. I didn't add any extra fruit as I still have some cranberry flapjack left from last week and it keeps very well. Here is the vegan cake that I made yesterday for the birthday tea.

This is the easiest cake recipe ever and even my dh agreed that it tastes great. I'll definitely be using the recipe again as I've now made it twice it it tasted great each time. Even though it has no eggs it tastes light and airy. It must be the combination of the bicarbonate of soda and the teaspoon of red wine vinegar.

I also cut out a new felt pattern today. I decided to have a look through my cookie cutter collection and found a number that I think would be great for patterns. What do you think?

As you can see, as well as the flower and tree, I thought I'd have a go at a Star of David and a dreidel, the traditional game played at Chanukah which starts on 8 December this year. I'm starting to panic a bit as this is less than a month away and I haven't finished buying all the presents yet. I think I'll be writing some lists out this week so I start to feel a bit more in control. As well as cutting out the shapes, I also made a new heart shaped pattern. It's a bit larger than my other hanging decorations but I'm really pleased with it.

I've filled it with stuffing and the lavender that we harvested from my parents' garden. I think they could also be used as pin cushions if I left put the ribbon. Let me know what you think.

As well as all the baking and crafting, I found time to watch Jerusalem with Yotam Ottalengi. It was on BBC4 on Tuesday night but I caught up with it on I-player this evening. It was well worth the effort. Beautiful shots of the city of Jerusalem, lovely stories about individual cooks and amazing recipes. I visited in 1992 and it brought back lots of lovely memories. It's a beautiful city filled with amazing people of different backgrounds. My wish is that they would all be able to live together in peace and harmony. A particular poignant thought at this time.

Enjoy the rest of your evening.

Back Home

It's always nice returning home after a trip away. It's not all the washing that needs to be done (in my case very little) but all the home comforts that I've missed. Which is why I just pottered around the house yesterday, taking in all I'd learnt over the two days I spent in Ypres and the Somme and doing a bit of baking. Some of the things I saw were so awe inspiring that they will stay with me for a lifetime. We visited so many cemeteries over the two days and there were stories at each one. We visited the grave of a 15 year old boy who died on the front. Of course, he never should have been there but was desperate to fight for his king and country. His name was rifleman Strudwick and as you can see has been remembered by many people.

His grave stone is in the Essex Fields cemetery in Flanders. This was the first cemetery we visited and there were a lot of tears shed as we listened to these young men's stories.

Essex Fields

As we stood and listened, the leaves were gently falling off the leaves in the mild wind. It was a very poignant moment as it brought to mind all those lives cut short. Of course it was much more peaceful than it would have been on the battlefield.

On the last day we visited the site of the Lochnagar mine explosion. In peacetime it just looks like a large crater in the middle of the countryside but it has an amazing story behind it.

Here it is in the mist. On the 1 July 1916, the date which marked the start of the Battle of the Somme, tunnellers set off an explosion with 60,000 pounds of explosives underground. They had tunnelled from the allied front line underneath no mans land and set the explosives underground. The end result is a crater 90m across and 30m deep. Today it is peaceful standing on the lip of the crater but I can just imagine the noise at the time. This was the largest man made explosion before the atomic bomb. When we visited a wreath had been laid in the bottom of the crater. This happens twice a year on 1 July and 11 November, armistice day.

By the way, this is the picture of the chocolate shop we visited in Ypres before the last post ceremony.

We had a chocolate from the box yesterday and it tasted luscious.

Talking of chocolate, I made another vegan chocolate cake yesterday. I think it is the easiest cake I have ever made. This time I made double the recipe so that I could make a layered cake for a 95th birthday tea which we went to yesterday afternoon. I sandwiched it with chocolate buttercream (made with pure margarine so the cake was still totally vegan). I had a lot of positive comments about the cake although my ds still thinks it's not as good as his granny's chocolate cake. I'm not sure I'm ever going to meet that high standard.

I'm off to teach at synagogue this morning so I'll have to leave all my making and baking until this afternoon. I'm planning on baking the focaccia (I made the dough yesterday) and flapjacks which are our weekly staple. I'll see what inspiration strikes when I'm back home.

Hope you all have a lovely day.

Rememberance

The reason I haven't been around this week is because I was in Belgium and France (I just got back last night). It's amazing how much can be packed into 2 days. I feel like I've been away for at least a week. I was accompanying the school Battlefields trip. The students were amazing and I learnt so much about the Great War. It was humbling to see all the graves at the sites we visited and to hear their stories. At each grave we stood in front of, we read the names and said thank you for everything they had done for us. As we drove around northern France and Belgium, we came across commonwealth cemeteries in so many different locations. In industrial estates, in the middle of large farms, in sparse woodland. The tears started when we read 'In Flanders Fields'.

This was the first cemetery we visited. The majority of headstones had crosses on them but I found three with a Star of David on them - I placed a stone on each one to say thank you. I really like this Jewish tradition as stones remain on the grave whereas flowers wither and die. A stone is a continuous reminder that people have visited, remembered and said thank you.

What amazed me about the whole day was the number of names we saw of the missing soldiers. Tens of thousands of names in so many different locations. In the German cemetery we visited, 24,000 unnamed soldiers buried in one location. A mass grave in a cemetery. I've never seen anything on this scale before. The students that we took with us were as shocked as I was. Anyone who says that teenagers don't care needs to spend some time with them and actually talk to them. They'll soon find different.

One of the highlights of the trip was the last post at Ypres. This has happened ever day at 8pm since 1927 (except for a break for the Second World War) and is extremely moving. Three of our students laid a wreath as part of the ceremony. There are people watching the ceremony from all corners of the globe who travel to this area to remember ancestors who fought for their freedom.

All around the gate, the names of the missing soldiers have been inscribed. Thousands of them. I'm still trying to get my head around the numbers of young men that lost their lives in the First World War and the conditions that they had to live in. Also, the impact that this had back in their countries of origin. Whole generations of men just wiped out and the women left behind who lost their sweethearts. What an impact on everyone and everything.

After all the seriousness, we also visited the local chocolate shops of Ypres. After tastings at two of the shops, it was time to part with some hard earned euros. You wouldn't know that all these chocolate shops stay open so late when all the other shops are closed. The chocolates are now home safe and sound and waiting to be eaten (I'm hoping over a long period of time as I bought a 1kg box!).

After a night in a Belgian hotel with a great continental breakfast, it was off for our second day of learning. The most thought provoking thing of the day was a visit to the Newfoundland War Memorial. The weather was really foggy through out the day which added a hint of eeriness to all the sites we visited. This was particularly the case at this war memorial where you could see where the original trenches would have been and look out over what would have been no mans land with all the shell holes.

This is a picture of the war memorial itself with a Canadian caribou on the top. From the top we were able to look out over the surrounding landscape and see things like this...

You can clearly see where the original trenches would have been.


If you ever get the chance to visit the First World War cemeteries I highly recommend it. It's thought provoking and makes me thankful for the sacrifice of all those young men. I will remember.

Cookery Books

I thought I'd show you my collection of cookery books. I sometimes read them instead of novels as I love to look at the pictures and think about how I would follow the recipes. Some of them are full of so many ingredients that I wouldn't know where to start. I love simple recipes that are full of flavour. Here are some pictures of my collection.

My favourite type of cooking is baking but that doesn't feed the family every night of the week which is why I have a selection of baking and everyday cooking books. I love Delia Smith for her basic recipes that never go wrong. I always use her recipe for meringues and toad in the hole batter. Her recipe uses meat sausages but I just replace with Linda McCartney veggie sausages. It certainly goes down well in our house. I love Nigel Slater kitchen diaries as it's a cross between a diary and cookery book so if I don't fancy making anything it's still a good read. Rachel Allen is anther favourite cook of mine as her recipes are quite simple (have you spotted a theme here?). Even though I have so many cookery books, I'm always on the look out for more. I particularly love visiting Waterstones as I'm able to leaf through the new books in a comfy chair. I came across Ottolenghi's new book Jerusalem as I had time for a five minute visit while shopping a couple of weekends ago. It's a book that is full of beautiful photographs and recipes. I've been to Jerusalem once over 20 years ago and it brought back a lot of memories. It's certainly one for the wish list.

We cook vegetarian in our house and as you can see I have a few cookery books that are specifically for vegetarian cooking. Particular favourites include my books by Rose Elliot which always have lots of basic recipes in them. I'm also loving the Veg everyday book by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall which is where my dukka recipe came from and Paul McCartney's Meatless Mondays - there is a great recipe in here for potato and pea samosas. Easy to make and quite spicy. I think you could even have the filling as a side dish when serving up a curry. Another lovely book for its ideas is Plenty by Yotam Ottolenghi. It makes me want to visit his restaurant's in London. A real favourite of mine is Terre a Terre which includes many of the recipes for the meals served at the restaurant of the same name in Brighton. This restaurant is a real favourite of ours, particularly their 'better batter' which is halloumi soaked in buttermilk, covered in batter and deep fried. I doesn't sound much but it's divine. Unfortunately, they had a fire in their kitchens a month ago and so won't be open for business for a while. I highly recommend this restaurant (obviously once the fire damage has been sorted) as it has vegetarian food with flair. Check it put if you ever visit Brighton. Remember to ask for the wasabi cashew nuts. I'll have to remember to post the recipe on here because they are tasty although I can't get mine to taste exactly as they do in the restaurant.

Let me know if you have any recommendations for cookery books - I always love to read more.

Have a great evening.