Lentil burgers

I've been keeping up with my aim of cooking one vegetarian meal a week; in fact this week I extended to two! For the last two weeks I have made lentil burgers from a recipe by Frugal in Derbyshire, kindly pointed out to me by Shara at Mama's Mission II. The beauty of these is that you can add your own flavours, so last week we had spicy cumin and coriander and this week we had paprika and parsley (alliteration unintentional!). 

It is quite a simple recipe. Last week I thought that the mixture was very wet, and ended up squeezing the patties to get rid of the excess. It wasn't until long after they had been eaten that I realised that I hadn't added the oats! Doh! This week's batch were much more successful. I served them with (shop-bought) rolls and home made potato wedges.

The other vegetarian meal this week was a Greek salad with halloumi cheese from this Sophie Grigson book which I borrowed from the library:

Image from mykitchentable.co.uk

There are some lovely recipes in here. Some of them are printed on the "My Kitchen Table" website, although unfortunately not the whole book! I suspect the library may want it back at some point so I may have to find my own copy. The Greek salad tasted great. It used quails' eggs, which are not cheap and incredibly fiddly. I bought them this time as I wasn't shelling out for any meat, but next time I will just use hens' eggs. DD, my vegetable-avoider, had sensibly gone out to a friend's for tea when I made this, but I will definitely be doing it again so it will be interesting to see her reaction.

40 acts: Round up

Back in February I signed up for the 40 acts Lent challenge. This involved daily activities to encourage me to live a more generous life. It seemed like a brilliant idea, and for the first few weeks it went really well. Every morning I logged on to the website and considered the daily challenge. Was it something I could do that day or did it need more thought? 

Some of the activities were part of my daily life anyway. I have frequent no car days, I regularly buy Fairtrade and I try and build some creativity into my daily life. On those days I would close the computer with a smug expression. Other days, however, were much harder. "Organise a social event and invite a new person?" Social events? It is much as I can do to stay awake after 8pm! "Plant a tree"? Pardon? On which ground? Unfortunately the number of unconquered challenges grew too high and for the last few weeks of Lent I guiltily avoided the website.

However I have now gone back and read through the challenges again, and there are some which I will be doing, but at my own pace:

• Clear out my wardrobe. I badly need to do this! There is a good article on how to get started here.
• Say no to plastic. I already use reusable plastic "bags for life", but it turns out that "life" is about 5 years, and my bags are disintegrating. Rather than buying replacements I am thinking about making my own with my very basic sewing machine skills. It can't be that hard!
• Donate blood. They actually use my church for this, so I have no excuse whatsoever. Must get onto it.
• Live on a fiver a day. Actually, to do this properly I would need to do it for at least a week, and include the rest of the family, so this will need some discussion and negotiation. This may require yet more thought...

So all in all it was a worthwhile experience, and it did make me think more about my faith and the way I live in society.

A Fenland parcel

The postman often knocks at our door, as DH works from home and has a fair few deliveries, but today the parcel was for me! Morgan at "Growing in the Fens" has just reached 100,000 page views and held a giveaway to celebrate. (100,000! I am in awe!) I was fortunate enough to win!

The first thing I unearthed was this beautiful ball of wool. It is a lovely heather and green mix. Morgan also included the pattern she uses for hats which go into Operation Christmas Child boxes. My church also supports OCC, so I will knit a few up myself, just as soon as I've finished DD's cushion cover. (I'm about half way through now, and speeding up slightly as I get the hang of rippling.)

This cute little notebook is excellent timing. Being of a forgetful nature, I carry a notebook around in my handbook, and my current one is just about full up. As, presumably, is my brain!

These will be great for when we travel. 

I have read a few Philippa Gregory books, and normally find that I can't put them down, so I am looking forward to reading this one! I will probably save it for a holiday, or else nothing else will get done!

So, thank you very much Morgan for the lovely parcel. Thank you too for an excellent and useful blog, which I personally find very inspiring. Here's to your next 100,000 page views!

Raspberry and White Chocolate Muffins

A few weeks ago T*sco were kind enough to give me a free white chocolate Easter egg, presumably in recognition of the fact that I spend far too much time and money there. This morning they were also generous to discount some raspberries. So what could I do except bake some muffins? This is based on a recipe given to me by a good friend a fair few years ago.

Ingredients

9oz/255g plain flour

3 tsp baking powder

4oz/110g granulated sugar

1 egg

8 fl oz/240ml milk

3 fl oz/90ml vegetable oil

2.5oz/65g white chocolate (or 1 small Easter egg!)

4.4oz/125g raspberries

Method

1. Grease or put muffin cases into a 12-hole muffin tin.

2. Chop the chocolate into small chunks.

3. Sift the sugar, flour and baking powder into a mixing bowl.

4. Beat the egg in a different bowl, and mix in the milk and oil.

5. Add the liquid ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix gently. The strange thing about muffins is that the batter is supposed to be lumpy; as soon as you can't see any dry flour you are done. Mix in the raspberries and chocolate with the last few stirs.

6. Fill the muffin cups so they are three-quarters full and bake at Gas Mark 5/190 C/375 F for about 25 minutes. They are done when the tops spring back when pressed lightly.

These are lovely when eaten while still warm from the oven, although they will keep for a few days in an airtight container. This is never an issue in our house...

"At home" days

Although we enjoy getting out and about, the children and I are quite happy to spend time pottering around at home. The last few days have definitely been stay-at-home, happy, creating days.

DD has been working hard on her Baden-Powell badge at Guides. I never even graduated from Brownies, so I am amazed at the amount of work that she has put into it. For one of her challenges she has decided to organize a birthday party for a friend's small daughter.

Every party needs bunting!

Pin the wand on the fairy, anyone? DD's general creativity infected the rest of us.

You are never too old for a rubber duck, so DS decided to paint his own.

Of course we had to do some baking. DS made a chocolate cake with very little help from me, and DD produced the icing. This bodes well for the future!

DS has two obsessions in life; scooters and film-making, so he combined the two to produce a stop-frame animation. Watch out, Nick Park!

And me? Well, not at all coincidentally with the advent of "The Great British Sewing Bee", I finally got out my Mother-in-Law's sewing machine. It has been lurking in the corner of my bedroom for 15 months, instilling fear and guilt in equal measure. I have been meaning to conquer it since I spent hours sewing a waistcoat for DS last year, and today was the day I faced my fear. It took an hour or two, a broken needle and a fair bit of huffing and puffing, but I did get it threaded and producing something resembling a line of stitching.

Yay! So what to do now? I need a few more "at home" days for inspiration to strike!

Standen

We were surprised by good weather on Easter Monday. It has been cold and wintry for so long that we'd given up looking at the forecast, convinced that the White Queen had come to Britain once she'd been kicked out of Narnia! Even DD, who occasionally takes a little persuading, was happy to venture out for a Proper Walk. We settled on Standen, which is one of four National Trust properties within a short drive of home. I am not quite sure what the attraction of Sussex is, but 19th Century landscape gardeners seemed to love it!

Standen is a Victorian family country house, which was designed by an architect friend of William Morris, a leading light in the Arts and Crafts movement. It isn't as grand as a lot of NT properties and feels a lot friendlier. My camera was playing up, so I didn't get any pictures of the house, but I did manage a few in the garden.

We really enjoyed our walk; there were definite signs of Spring!

I'm not sure what this flower is, but it is very beautiful.

 

This, of course, is the current owner of the garden!

This bench is very clever. Made from stones and covered in metal, it is designed to retain warmth. It really works; it was pleasantly warm to sit on even though the air temperature was cold.

It was a lovely respite from a bitterly cold few weeks. (For England, I know there are much hardier souls than me out there!) When summer does come, we shall really appreciate it, and there shall be lots more Proper Walks!

Carrot and Coriander Falafels

Having started my quest to introduce vegetarian food into our diet, last week I attempted falafels. I have never eaten these before, and I don't even know how to say it! But feeling smug after my successful lentil curry I decided to have a go. I used a recipe from "A Girl Called Jack" which I have only just discovered. It is a brilliant blog which is a fascinating mixture of social action and recipes. Until recently Jack only had £10 a week to feed herself and her son, so her blog is full of seriously frugal recipes. These falafels work out at around 23p per portion.

The recipe was easy to follow, although my arms had a good workout with all the mashing of chickpeas. Next time I might just get out the food processor! The mixture didn't quite come together - in retrospect I should have added an egg to bind it. However, the falafels were very tasty and we had clear plates all round.

I am loving experimenting with vegetarian ingredients, and trying out lots of new flavours. I am sure it has to be doing us some good!