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July 15 2010
The Graduate!
When Johnny and Jane were wee, we sometimes went to the Stirling University campus to feed the ducks, coots and moorhens which inhabit the beautiful lochs there. (The other day, when I went there specially to take a photo for this blog, there were mostly swans in evidence…)
‘When you’re big, you’ll maybe come here to study!’ I told them, as I held their little hands and made sure they didn’t get too close to the water. But I just couldn’t imagine that far ahead. It’s difficult to picture your toddlers as grown-ups…
Well, two years ago Johnny graduated from the university; this year it was Jane’s turn and, after four years’ hard work, she graduated with a BA (Hons) in English Studies and History.
A proud moment for her adoring family! John, Johnny and I were there, of course!
As were Nana and Auntie Syl…
A very happy, and loving, mother and daughter…
The next day was the Graduation Ball. Our fairy tale princess didn’t have a fairy godmother, but she did have the PDSA charity shop, who, for the sum of 20 gold coins (well, they accepted a £20 note…) supplied her dress…
… and a mother who, using a crochet hook rather than a spinning wheel, magicked her a matching bag, just the right size for her camera and phone to sit side by side.
Jane had a great time at the Ball. She had a delicious vegan meal and danced a lot. Sadly, there was no Prince Charming to sweep her off her feet, but on the plus side, she didn’t have to be back by midnight (apparently she rolled in at about 3 am) and the next day she was able to lie in bed as late as she liked and didn’t have to do any housework at all!
And the day after that, it was off to the JobCentre…
The Stirling newspaper always shows photos of local graduates, naming the school each attended before university. Jane has never set foot in a school. Her photo will appear with the caption, ‘Jane Veitch from Dunblane, who was home educated, graduated from Stirling University with a BA (Hons.) in English Studies and History’.
Today’s title: The Graduate, film starring Anne Bancroft and Dustin Hofffman.
Today’s smoothie Today’s soup Today’s allotment haul: raspberries, strawberries, redcurrants, blackcurrants, red gooseberries, Swiss chard, peas, yellow courgettes and green courgettes. Lovely stuff! Courgette flan is definitely on the menu tonight and John and I have decided that we’re going to have to clear a space in one of our sheds and buy another freezer!
June 13 2010
Oh, what a beautiful day!
Well, I’ve been sitting here this past week, composing this blog entry, with the rain chucking down from heavy grey clouds, but last Saturday WAS beautiful, thank goodness. Why ‘Thank goodness?’ you may ask. I’ll tell you. It was the day of the Meadows Festival!!! Last year I blogged about this special event here. This year all four of us managed to go. We had planned to take packed lunches, as there’s rarely anything suitable for us to eat there, but this year we were just too pressed for time…
There are lots of stalls at the Meadows Festival.
John was thrilled to find a plant one right at the start. But that meant him lugging lots of plants around… Johnny and Jane enjoyed book and CD stalls and made a few purchases and I was looking for interesting things for the house, as well as books, of course. I was thrilled to find a wicker basket full of magazines including special treats for me: Country Homes and Gardens and Period Living magazines, which were selling at 6 for £1!
I bought 18, which John carried for me…
I also found a present for Sylvia’s birthday, which was VERY HEAVY. That’s all I can say at the moment, of course… I carried that…
I was NOT tempted to buy this book! Can you guess which one? Honestly! This was NOT going to be an addition to my recipe book shelves… ‘Almost vegetarian’, indeed! Oops, gave the game away there, didn’t I? Oh, well, I wasn’t offering any prizes for the correct answer…
I DID buy a bumblebee badge to add to the collection on my bag…
… but decided to give these a miss! I mean, revolting, or what?
We had high hopes of something to eat when we saw this place…
but although I loved the decor (very ‘me’!)…
… because of some misunderstanding between John and me, we both thought there was nothing suitable. This turned out for the best, though, as you will see, if you read on… (Are you excited? I like to keep the suspense going…)
Just past the cafe we met, and made friends with, this gorgeous wee fellow. His name’s Alfie and he was VERY ‘dog-nappable’! We could just see him fitting into our household nicely. Sadly, but understandably, his owner wanted to hang onto him, however…
A couple of days before, Trudi, from Scottish Vegans, had written to me on Facebook to ask if we were going to be at the Festival and had given me her mobile number. Of course, I forgot to take a note of it with me. (You’re not surprised?) I was wishing we could phone up Molly, the cleverest of our cats, to ask her to check Facebook for me, but she wouldn’t have been able to pick up the receiver. This lack of opposable thumbs can be a problem… However, after wandering around peering at the faces of total strangers I thought might be Trudi (I’d met her only once before) I suddenly remembered that Jane can go on-line with her fancy, new, 21st birthday phone! She logged onto my Facebook messages and there was Trudi’s number! I phoned her and we met up with her and her daughter and baby son. The wonders of modern technology!
By this time we were about to leave, as we all needed sustenance, but Trudi very kindly invited us round to her flat, which was only about five minutes walk away. There we had hummus and salad sandwiches, washed down with mugs of tea. Trudi said she couldn’t see vegans going hungry! Thank you, again, Trudi! It was very much appreciated!
Johnny then set off for a demo, against real fur sporrans, with Ethical Voice for Animals (EVA) and John, Jane and I, heavily laden, staggered off for the train home to Dunblane.
After a VERY warm welcome from the pooches, John and I settled down in the garden. He had a new gardening magazine (do you see Molly in the background? Apparently she’d been out all day anyway, so wouldn’t have been in to answer the phone even if she’d HAD opposable thumbs)…
…the sun was blazing down and I relaxed on the swing seat and browsed in my new housey mags. Bliss!
When Johnny came home, I made one of our favourite meals: Italian marinated tofu (from Vegan With a Vengeance) with potatoes, broccoli, green beans, peas and gravy made from the marinade. Mmmmm…..
Yup! It was a beautiful day!
Today’s smoothie: orange juice, apples, apricots, half a bag of mixed green leafies, lettuce, alfalfa and a wee piece of kombu. Delicious!
Today’s title: from ‘Oh, what a beautiful mornin’!’, Oklahoma, Rogers and Hammerstein
May 28 2010
Beauty and the Feast
Here’s the beauty…
…and here’s one of the items that featured in the feast…
You’ll have worked out what the occasion was? Our baby girl’s 21st birthday!
What can I say about our wee girl? Well, at about 4ft 10ins, she IS wee! That, added to her sweet young face, has people thinking she is much younger than she is. She is not pleased about this! I tell her it’s hereditary!!!
She is, and has always been, the much loved wee sister of her big brother, Johnny,
(though the occasional spat is not unknown!) and they share many interests. She is very shy with strangers, but feisty and funny with people she knows well. Added to that, with her family she is very, very loving, kind and caring. She was, of course, home educated until she started university. It’s hard to believe that she’ll graduate in just over a month!
Johnny calls her a ‘geek chick’! In her last year at university she became involved in doing the lighting at the uni drama group, which she taught herself; she can work out how anything technical works without recourse to a manual; and she loves science fiction and fantasy. She also writes fantasy adventure books, which, now that her studies are over, she hopes to get ready for an agent. She is rarely seen without her iPod plugged into her ears. She has always loved reading and never goes anywhere without a few books in her bag…
Jane (or Jenny, as she’s known to family and old friends) has always been a very girly girl. Here’s a memory book page I made when she was younger:
When she was tiny, she loved dolls and pink clothes and cute wee animals. Now she squeaks over babies and, after a period when she would wear nothing but black, despite not actually being a Goth, still loves pink clothes and cute wee animals!
She is my darling daughter and I love her more than words can say!
So, on to the feast! Jane had asked for a strawberry birthday cake and who was I to deny her that? However, in my usual dotty way, I forgot that the syrup from the tinned strawberries would add a lot of sweetness and so I added the normal amount of sugar. (I tell a lie. I actually added a wee bit extra sugar because of a dotty mistake that would take too long to explain…). So when the birthday girl licked the bowl, she declared that it was very sweet indeed and suggested that I might make lemon icing to counteract this. So I did. Boy was that icing lemony! It brought tears to my eyes when I tested it! But it turned out to be a great combination and the sweetness and the watery-eye-ness complemented each other very nicely.
Yes, I did remember the candles this time, but our local shop didn’t have any ‘twos’, so it was back to the old-fashioned kind and ‘tens and units’.
Jane had her final exams at university on the two days following her birthday, so there were no high jinks with similarly harassed uni friends. Instead we had a family birthday lunch the day before with her Nana and her Auntie Syl …
I had ordered Sosmix, at Jane’s request, but it didn’t arrive in time, so we had chilli en croute instead, with potato salad made with Plamil mayonnaise; chopped salad (John’s special: spring onion, celery, red pepper and cucumber chopped up small); green leafy salad; tomato and basil rolls; trifle and the aforementioned cake…
… and on the day itself, she and I went to Glasgow and had lunch at Stereo, a vegan restaurant. Then we went to see Meet Me in St Louis at the cinema. It was so great seeing it on the big screen! My only problem was worrying about the lights coming on when there were still tears dripping off my chin!
OK! Let’s get down to recipes! What would you like? Will we start with the strawberry cake? And then follow that with the chilli en croute? And maybe the trifle? OK, then… But you’re a bit demanding, aren’t you? Sheesh!
Strawberrry Cake
Ingredients:
250g self raising flour
125g sugar
1 tin of strawberries
1½ teaspoons egg replacer
125g margarine
¾ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
¾ teaspoon salt
Water
Method:
Set oven to Gas Mark 5/375F/190C
Mix egg replacer with the juice/syrup from the tin, made up, with water, to 200g. Put aside.
Mix together all the other ingredients and the egg replacer mixture.
Divide between two round cake tins.
Bake for 35 minutes.
When cool, sandwich with icing and ice the top. I used stacks of icing sugar, a large dollop of margarine and enough lemon juice to choke a whale. But I’m afraid that’s the most accurate measurements you’re ever going to get with my icing. I’m an instinctive icing maker!
Chilli en croute
Ingredients:
1 large onion
1 red pepper
250g mushrooms
500g passata
1 carton organic kidney beans
1 teaspoon Very Lazy Chilli
1 teaspoon molasses
Method:
Fry the onion, mushrooms and pepper together. I like to do them with the gas on full, stirring constantly until they’re getting nice and soft. Smells good, too!
Add the rest of the ingredients, bring to a simmer and leave to cook for about half an hour. Preferably make it the day before you’re going to eat it to let the flavours develop.
Unfold some ready-roll puff pastry and cut it into two strips. Spoon some chilli down the centre of each, cut slits all the way down each side, and then cross the strips over on the top.
Bake at Gas Mark 8/450F/230C for about half an hour.
Trifle
The day before you want it, bake a chocolate cake, using the recipe I’ve already given you in my blog post about John (Penny has a Darling Lamb). Cut half off one of the layers and put it aside. Enjoy what’s left…
The next day, using your fingers, break up the piece of chocolate cake until it’s like bread-crumbs and then make up one of these
with the liquid from a tin of summer fruits made up to three quarters of a pint and brought to the boil in a saucepan. Mix in the jelly and stir. Leave to set.
Then make up another jelly, as before, but stirring in the two tins of drained summer fruits. Pour it over the solidified bottom layer. Leave to set.
Spoon most of a tub of Swedish Glace vanilla ice-cream over the top and grate some chocolate over it. I used Organica rice milk chocolate. Mmmm….
As you can see, I also made up a separate custard. You know all about that… And if you don’t, you haven’t been following my blog properly!
And that’s it! Jane is now catching up with all the books she’s been wanting to read and the films she’s been wanting to see, but couldn’t because of her studying. And it’s off to the job centre in a couple of days!
So that’s the last of my birthday blogs! From now on it’ll be back to ordinary musings again… I’ll try to be more diligent! OU essays allowing…
Well, for goodness sake! That boy will hijack anybody’s blog post! I do apologise!
Today’s title: Beauty and the Beast – traditional folk tale
Today’s fruit salad: orange juice; apples; kiwi fruit; bananas; grapes.
April 13 2010
Penny has a darling Lamb
No, unlike my sister, Sylvia, I DON’T have a rescue male sheep. Here’s my Lamb here (in sleepy mood!):
John, my husband, known to me as Lambie!
John celebrated his 50th birthday last month,
so what better time to immortalise him in a blog entry? (Well, a better time would have been earlier than this, but I’ve been writing essays… And acting as his secretary… Something’s gotta give! But he wanted me to get on with it as he said it was a strain being on his best behaviour for so long, in case I said something nasty about him! So, here we go…)
You’ll have noticed the candles? Yes, true to form, I forgot to check the candle situation beforehand…
When John and I first got together, I was part of the junior management in the Civil Service office where we both worked and he was (and still is!) 13 years younger than me and a member of the clerical staff. Although he was very clever, he hadn’t gone to university, as his father had been ill and the family needed John’s income. I knew he was very shy… What I didn’t know was that he fancied me! (Yes, dear readers, I was slim but curvy and quite fanciable in those days. Luckily he thinks I’m now curvier and even more fanciable, a piece of rose-tinted-bespectacled-ness, but I’m not complaining!)
One evening, at an office ‘do’ for some people who were leaving, we found ourselves sitting next to each other. I was recently separated and in no rush to get home, so when he told me that he hadn’t brought his car, had missed the last train home and didn’t have enough money for a taxi (!!!), I offered him a lift. We talked for hours, both on the journey and after I stopped near his house. We liked the same books and films and most of the same music. He loved the 60s and was very impressed that I’d seen the Beatles live! We supported the same causes. We had the same sense of humour. I was a Quaker at that time and he knew Quakers were pacifists, not just pictures on a cereal box! This time I was the one who was impressed! A couple of days later we walked my dog, Sammy, together. A couple of days after that I took him to an Amnesty International meeting. Soon after that he moved in with me!
Earlier that year, John had seen an advert for the Open University in the Radio Times and had started studying. He had also given up smoking, thank goodness, or this love story wouldn’t have happened! Since then he has completed his BA honours degree with the OU, a Masters degree in Education at Stirling University and a diploma in Philosophy at Glasgow University. He was promoted in the Civil Service and then, a few years later, decided to change career and become a teacher. He has become head of his department, a lecturer with the Open University and, one day a week, he trains student teachers at Stirling University. And he’s the principal exam setter and marker in Scotland for one of his subjects. He’s done all his studying while working fulltime and looking after me and our babies. In fact, he sat his first Open University exam the day before Johnny was due to make his appearance. He expected to be called out of the exam room at any moment, but our boy waited!
He is an adoring husband and father, which is nice, because we’re pretty fond of him, t
oo!
John loves his allotment where he grows lots of vegan-organic fruit and vegetables but so that he could bring stuff on nearer to home, the extended family clubbed together to buy him a greenhouse for the garden. John is NOT handy, but here he is, pleased as Punch, after having built it up all by himself! He says it’s the best 50th Birthday present he’s ever had!
He is and has been devoted to all our cats and dogs, past and present, but his favourite companion animal of all time is … Bobby!
John is a thoroughly modern male, but feels that it’s his duty to be the main bread winner, since I’ve raised and home educated the offspring and looked after our home. He works very hard for us all and is loving, kind and considerate. He’s also great company and VERY funny! He makes us all laugh A LOT!
Happy (very belated!) birthday, Lambie!
Oh, sorry, did you want the chocolate cake recipe? OK! Here it is! I adapted it many years ago from a muffin recipe sent to me by an American omni friend. It has graced most of our birthday celebrations since then!
Penny’s chocolate cake:
Ingredients:
130g margarine
130g sugar
1 ½ teaspoons egg replacer
26g cocoa powder
224g self raising flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
¾ teaspoon salt
166ml soya milk
Method:
Set oven to Gas mark 5/375F/190C
Whisk the egg replacer into the soya milk and put to one side. Mix together all the other ingredients and then add the liquid last.
Because this recipe uses margarine instead of oil, the mixture is stiff, so I prefer to start it off in the mixer, as I get a very sore arm otherwise – but it can all be done by hand.
Once everything’s mixed through, I get a silicone spatula and wallop it about in the bowl a goodish bit, to get plenty of air in there, to make the cake nice and light.
Divide the mixture between two round cake tins, lined with baking parchment (I use round cake tin liners from Lakeland) and bake for 35 minutes, until the top is cracked and a skewer comes out clean.
Cool in the cakes in the liners.
Once they’re cold, spread jam on the bottom one (blackcurrant jam is nice and sharp and contrasts well with the sweetness of the cake) and then sandwich the cakes together with ‘butter’ icing. Slather more icing on top.
Now, I’m afraid you’re on your own with the ‘butter’ icing, but you know how to make it, don’t you? I never measure it; I just chuck together margarine, icing sugar and cocoa in vast quantities and blend them together. I’m sure you’ll manage…
Well, for goodness’ sake! How on earth did that picture slip in here? Sorry about that….
Today’s smoothie (Yes! It’s smoothie time again, folks!): orange juice; kale; rocket; lettuce; apricots; apples; broccoli stalk; celery. Mmmmmm……
Todays’ title: I won’t insult your intelligence!
February 18 2010
Sundae Wednesday! Happy (Birth)day!
You remember Rhona, don’t you? My rescue roasting tin? Well Rhona’s talents don’t stop at granola baking.
Here she is filled with a yummy mixture of the following: a sprinkling of olive oil; chopped onions; some cloves of garlic, left whole; chunks of carrots, sweet potato, butternut squash, red and yellow pepper; some mangetout, broken in half; a mixture of half and half olive oil and maple syrup, with a wee spot of salt. She’s about to do duty in the oven at Gas Mark 8/450F/230C for an hour.
When the hour was almost up, we heated some tortilla wraps and smothered them in hummus or Tofutti Cream Cheese, according to taste (Jane had one of each) and then we filled them with the roasted vegetables and rolled them up.
Oh!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So good!!!!!!!!!!!!! I’m planning on making these OFTEN!
‘But wait!’ I hear you say. ‘What’s that got to do with Sundae Wednesday Happy (Birth)day?’ And the answer is, ‘Nothing at all! That bit comes next.’
Read on…
It was my birthday last Wednesday (10th February) and I had forgotten to buy the jellies for the trifle. This trifle is the standard pudding for birthday teas in our family. Here’s how I make it…
In a trifle bowl I make up one-and-a-half strength jelly with half a (usually chocolate) sandwich cake layer crumbled into it and leave it to set. I then mix up another one-and-a-half strength jelly with some tinned ‘fruits of the forest’ mixed in. Then I top it all with a huge mound of vanilla Swedish Glace ice cream. And I sometimes grate some chocolate over it. Recently I’ve also been making a big bowl of vanilla custard. Here’s how I make the custard…
First, I heat up most of a pint of soya milk with about a tablespoon of margarine and two tablespoons of sugar. In the measuring jug, I mix together the rest of the milk and two tablespoons of custard powder. Then I stir the custard mix into the pan and whisk as fast as my aching muscles will allow until it’s all thick and bubbly. It’s then put in a bowl and allowed to cool.
I’m sorry. I was SURE I had a photo of a trifle I made before, but just can’t find it anywhere. I must organise my photos SOON!
I would actually like to have the custard on top of the jelly as part of the trifle, but Jane, who’s a creature of habit, loves the trifle the way I traditionally made it, without the custard, so she doesn’t want me to change a winning formula. She does sometimes have some custard with it, though…
Also, a note on tablespoons… We’re not talking wee measuring spoons here. This is the type of chap you want for this recipe.
Available at any charity shop near you… (If you live in Scotland, that is. I can’t speak for other parts of the world…)
Anyway, back to 10th February 2010, 63 years since my birth on a cold, snowy day in Glasgow… And no jelly… As far as trifle was concerned, I was snookered…
So, first I thought of just having the custard and ice cream.
Then I thought of my favourite pudding in the whole, wide world: chocolate custard and ice cream. I could eat bucket-loads of this, with or without a sliced banana on top, if my weight weren’t such a problem. I make the custard as above, but with two tablespoons of cocoa powder added to the custard powder mix. OK, so there are probably several days’ calories in a small bowlful…
Then, however, I had such a good idea that if I’d been a cartoon drawing a wee light-bulb would have appeared over my head. CHOCOLATE NUT SUNDAES!!! Now, I’d never made these before, but necessity is the mother of invention. Here’s what I did.
I made half a pint of chocolate custard, but as I didn’t have custard powder I used vanilla rice milk and cornflour. I also made some chocolate sauce thus:
84g margarine
90g golden syrup
About 30g cocoa powder (more or less, depending on how strong you want it)
I melted the margarine and sugar together and then added the cocoa, all over a low heat.
Then, in our two sundae dishes plus two tall mugs and a pint beer mug, I layered ice cream, chocolate custard, chopped nuts, ice cream, chocolate sauce, chopped nuts and so on to the top.
It was SO GOOD! Unfortunately the camera didn’t like photographing it with flash and it was too dark to get a good picture without the flash, so you’ll just have to make do with this one and imagine its chocolate-y goodness, because I’m afraid that not even for you was I going to keep it till the next day, to take a photo in daylight!
So, what could have been a disappointment on the pudding front was turned to unmitigated delight! I’ll be making these again! But not too often… Just for birthdays…
I must tell you about the wonderful home-made birthday card I received from the offspring. Last year they themed my card around my new Vita-Mix; this year it was themed around my new studies and it featured a cartoon bear, created by Johnny, who stars in most of his home-made cards. There was a chart showing grades for ‘sweetness’; ‘compassion’; ‘inspirational qualities’; ‘sense of humour’; ‘chef skills’ and ‘devotion to family’ and I was awarded the top grade of ‘excellent’ for all of them! I’ll be honest with you. The tears were streaming down my cheeks, sentimental old fool that I am! There was a lot more sweet and loving stuff in it, too… (sniff)
And here, just to finish with a nice picture, are two people who also tick all the boxes (though not exactly the same ones as me!): Tom and Mimi… (What do you mean, ‘Oh, not HIM again!’???)
Today’s title: Sunday, Monday, Happy Days – theme song from the series Happy Days. John suggested Sundae Girl by Blondie, but I’m not going to pander to his adolescent fantasies about Debbie Harry…
Today’s soup: onions; red lentils; chunks of carrot, turnip (Swede/rutabaga), leeks, celery; passata and water all pressure cooked together, with some salt added at the end. Mmmm… Perfect for a cold winter’s day!
January 31 2010
10
I’ve been nominated by the lovely Vegan Fox for an Honest Scrap award. Thank you Vegan Fox! Now I have to thank her, which I’ve just done, list ten honest things about myself ,which I’m about to do, and link to ten blogs I feel embody the spirit of Honest Scrap and which I find brilliant in design and/or concept. That last one is the trickiest. Apart from the fact that I’m not too sure what the first bit means, I love lots of blogs and would hate to hurt anyone’s feelings by missing them out… So if you’re not listed here it doesn’t mean I don’t love your blog, OK?
Right… Here’s the list…
1. I’m terrified of daddy-long-legs (also known as crane flies), even though I know they can’t hurt me. When John and I first lived together, daddy-long-legs used to often get into our bedroom. I would cower under the quilt screaming, ‘Get rid of it! Don’t kill it! Get rid of it! Don’t kill it!’ and My Hero would catch them in his hands and put them outside. (He still does this with the enormous spiders that scare the s**t out of Jane and me.) To be honest (and that’s what this list is all about!), I’m not a big fan of insects in general. (It’s OK. I know spiders aren’t insects!) Even though we have a wildlife-friendly garden, I’d really rather not see them appreciating it.
2. I’ve been vegan for nearly 21 years, since just before Jane was born, and was vegetarian for 19 years before that.
3. John is 13 years younger than me. We met properly when I gave him a lift home from an office ‘do’. He was 23 and I was 36. He was single and I was separated. We’ve been together for twenty-six and a half years and will celebrate 25 years of happy marriage this December. Johnny was the guest of honour at our wedding!
4. I’m paranoid about travelling anywhere. It didn’t bother me until I had my babies, but I totally and utterly adore my offspring, and it’s reciprocated, so I always dread anything happening to me.
5. Although I love all the cats, Tom is my favourite. He’s the perfect combination of monstrosity and lovingness! 
6. I’m a (probably rather annoying) stickler for correct grammar and punctuation and regularly shout at people on the TV and radio. I proofread everything I write myself about four times and am mortified if I let a mistake slip through the net.
7. My family complains that I bake more for stalls than for them. (So yesterday, at their request, I made spicy muffins. The recipe is below.)
8. When friends send me e-mails that I’m supposed to ‘pass on to ten strong women I love’ etc., I never, EVER, do… I don’t want ten of my friends to feel obliged to do the same. This is different, though, somehow…
9. I can’t deal with the concept of ‘moderation’ and could eat a whole tub of chocolate Swedish Glace ice cream in one sitting. Since I need to lose weight, I daren’t even have a taste of it.
10. I get very annoyed when I hold the door open for people and they just sail through, often without even looking at me. I say, ‘THANK YOU!’ very loudly and glare at them.
Here are my favourite blogs. I love lots of others, though, and found it very hard to stick to ten…
I know! I cheated! That’s eleven! But I couldn’t leave any of them out!
And now here’s the recipe for those spicy muffins. I adapted it from a lacto-ovo one I got from an American friend many years ago and it’s a big favourite here. It’s not the most beautiful muffin, so I didn’t bother to take a photo, but it tastes wonderful!
Ingredients:
125g margarine + 50g margarine
125g sugar
1 ½ teaspoons egg replacer
255g self raising flour
85g sultanas
¼ teaspoon nutmeg
2 teaspoons baking powder
¾ teaspoon salt
260 ml rice milk (or preferred non-dairy milk)
Method
Preheat oven to Gas Mark 5/375F/190C
Line 12 muffin cases.
Whisk egg replacer into milk with a fork.
Mix together all the ingredients (using the 125g of marg)
Distribute among the muffin cases. I use an ice-cream scoop for this, the kind with a wee lever thingy that sweeps across.
Bake for 30 minutes.
Melt the 50g marg in a saucepan. Take your jar of cinnamon sugar off the shelf. (Wait a minute! You do have a jar of cinnamon sugar, don’t you? If not, you’ll want to prepare one now! I keep one filled with ground cinnamon and sugar to the ratio of 1:2. It’s great for when you get the urge for cinnamon toast…)
Where were we? Oh, yes…
Brush the melted margarine lavishly over the tops of the muffins and then sprinkle them with the cinnamon sugar. You don’t have to wait till they’re cool. You won’t want to. Eat them while still warm, by a roaring fire. In fact, I don’t think it’s actually legal to eat them any other way!
Today’s title: 10 – film starring Dudley Moore and Bo Derek
Today’s smoothie: I know! I said it would be soups in the winter, but in my attempts to lose weight (see above) I’m having a fruit smoothie for breakfast every day, so… Banana, orange juice, kiwi fruit. Oh! That wasn’t very interesting was it? OK, I’ll return to soups next time…
January 22 2010
Walking (and trying not to fall over!) in a winter wonderland…
It was so lovely to see the first snowfall! Our only worry was that it would disappear too soon and deprive us of our first White Christmas for years… But it stayed, and more snow fell, and it was so beautiful! Walking with the family after a delicious Christmas dinner… Taking photographs in the transformed Laighills…
And it was fine having a white New Year. Even more snow fell,
everything looked even more beautiful and we were almost snowed in, with the street outside the house almost impassable, lots of books, music, films, cosy fires and good food… It was a great holiday!
But then…… John had to go back to work and couldn’t get the key into the car because the lock was frozen. And so he had to walk to the station; get a train to Stirling; get a bus to Alloa; walk down to his school. His normal time for the journey was multiplied three times.
And we couldn’t walk the dogs very far because of the thick snow and icy pavements…
And one of our down pipes became detached from the rhone because of the weight of snow…
And, while out walking the dogs and just after taking this photograph of the burn (stream/ creek) which is frozen over in parts,
I got stuck on the narrow path above it because I couldn’t get a footing without my feet slipping from under me! I couldn’t move and spent a long time standing moaning softly to myself (and, I have to admit, whimpering every now and then), thinking I’d be there until the thaw came…
So, we’ve had enough of the snow now, thank you very much!
But, after being out in the cold, it IS nice to come home to a brightly burning fire and a big bowl of the kind of soup that kept my ancestors going through the long Scottish winters: Scotch Broth!
(Note that I said ‘the kind of soup’. This is different from the original Scotch Broth in that it doesn’t have bits of dead sheep in it. So a big improvement, from our point of view and the sheep’s!)
Here’s how I make it:
Soak and cook some marrowfat peas and some butter beans. Soak some barley.
Into a pressure cooker throw some chopped onions; chopped carrots; chopped turnip (Swede/rutabaga); sliced leeks and the barley. Add water and yeast extract. Pressure cook for about 20 minutes. Stir in the peas and butter beans. Enjoy! (I’ve always just winged this and wouldn’t know where to start with measurements for it, I’m afraid. But I’m sure you’ll manage!)
It’s a tasty and filling soup and even nicer if you can get your hands on some parsley to chop over the top after it’s cooked. I make a huge pot and we eat it for three days.
The snow has gone at last, thank goodness! But here are some more photos of Dunblane under several inches of the stuff. Pretty, isn’t it?
But, please, no more! Not till next Christmas, anyway!
Today’s title: You really don’t need me to tell you, do you???
Today’s soup (winter version of ‘Today’s smoothie’!): Lentil, onion, celery and bouillon, all preessure cooked together: easy, tasty, cheap and nutritious!
December 21 2009
Deck the walls…
… and the ceiling and the tables and the shelves and the furniture and the stove…. People are surprised to hear that we don’t have a Christmas box to bring out at this time of year… No! We have a Christmas CUPBOARD! That’s how Christmassy we are in this family! And that cupboard is full of not just Christmas decorations, but Christmas books, old Christmas issues of magazines, Christmas CDs, Christmas DVDs, Christmas cushion covers…
But, let’s start at the very beginning. (It’s a very good place to start!) When the offspring were w
ee, Christmas, for us, started in November. This was because we made our own Christmas cards and so November was filled with a flurry of folding card, rubber stamping the chosen Christmas designs onto paper, sprinkling them with embossing powder, wielding the hot air gun, colouring in the pictures and then sticking them onto the cards. We had quite a production line going and, of course, being a home educating family, this led to discussions about factory conditions past and present etc.!
The children also, for a few years, produced a Christmas scrapbook followed by a magazine, which they distributed to home-educating friends, and the Christmas edition was very special, with themed puzzles, stories, pictures, reviews etc.
And every year, they made their own advent calendar. Here’s how… Firstly we would mark off 23 2cm by 2cm squares and one 4cm by 2cm oblong. Each year they’d take either the odd or the even numbers and secretly draw a Christmas picture in each box. Then, after designing and executing the front of the calendar, they’d give their pictures to me to stick onto another piece of card. I’d also cut out the slits on the cover. Then, in December, they’d each open the other’s picture. This gave us HUGE enjoyment over the years. (Sentimental sigh…)
Now we buy our cards from charities, the magazine remains only as back issues, and we don’t have Advent calendars any more….
So now Christmas begins for us on the first Sunday in Advent. Perhaps I should explain something here… We’re not religious, so our Christmas is a secular one, though we use the usual Christian terminology, as most people do, and we love Christmas carols… OK… Where was I? Ah, yes! The first Sunday in Advent… We’re a food-loving family. There’s no point in trying to deny it! And Christmas dinner, we reckon, is far too delicious to be confined to Christmas Day alone. So we eat it on the four preceding Sundays as well! And what do we eat? Well, nut roast, roast potatoes, Brussels sprouts, carrots, sage and onion stuffing, bread sauce (recipe on request) and cranberry sauce. Mmmmmm….
The next stage is the first day in December when we start listening to Christmas music. When my sister, Sylvia, and I were young, our family owned one Christmas record: Mantovani’s Christmas. Now, every 1st December, it’s the first Christmas music we put on. My mother, sister and I phone each other in the morning to play it over the phone and in our house, whoever of us has been out at work or university hears it playing on the CD player as s/he comes in the door! We also start decorating the house apart from the tree.
After that, we read Christmas books and magazines, listen to our other Christmas music and, whenever we can be together, we watch Christmas films. And about a fortnight before Christmas Day, we put up the tree and decorate it with mostly home-made decorations. Now we can watch White Christmas.
We also make Christmas biscuits and mincemeat pies… And we eat tangerines by the dozen and put the skins on top of the stove. It makes a lovely smell added to the one emanating from the red saucepan filled with hot water infused with cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves… (Sorry, a photo can’t demonstrate that, so you’ll just have to use your imaginations or, better still, do the same, if possible!)
Over the years my Christmas crafts have included patchwork and quilting 
cross-stitch
and, of course, memory booking.
This year was The Year of the Bunting, which I made for the sitting room and the dining room. Thank goodness for rotary cutters!
Also, this year has been the third that we’ve hosted the Scottish Vegans Yahoo Group Christmas potluck, a feast of vegan tastiness and congenial company. Here’s the sweet stuff we had this year…
When the kids were wee, another thing we did was go out one evening before Christmas and admire all the pretty Christmas trees in people’s windows. Now we’re a tad more cynical and, instead, we go out to the expensive housing estates nearby and mock the over-the-top decorations on roofs and in gardens!
On Christmas Eve, there is no sign of that very brief burst of cynicism, as we settle down together to watch It’s A Wonderful Life, our all-time favourite film in the whole… wide… world. Of course, we cry all the way through, apart from Johnny, whose eyes, nonetheless, grow a bit misty. The rest of us sob unashamedly and, in fact, as soon as the first scene hits the screen, one or other of us will mutter, ‘Well, I’ve started…’ and the others will agree that so have they…
When Sylvia and I were children, we always had bridge rolls made up with butter and corned beef mixed with tomato sauce on Christmas morning. I wanted to replicate this, but without the dead animal parts, obviously, and one year I hit on how to do it. So, on Christmas Eve, we make up bean paste, which is fried onion, equal quantities of kidney beans and chickpeas with tomato ketchup to taste. We love it!
Then, after the offspring have gone to bed, John and I lay a treasure hunt. We’ve had these at birthdays for many years and although Johnny hasn’t bothered with one for the last few years, they both enjoy a Christmas treasure hunt. Unlike the birthday clues, the Christmas ones, traditionally, have to rhyme, which requires a bit more ingenuity (though I do sometimes recycle old favourites!)
Jane insists that 6.30 is quite late enough for Christmas morning, and nothing will budge her, so John and I are pretty bleary-eyed when they both come through to open their stockings and receive the first clue! And after that it’s presents and hugs and kisses and enjoying our presents!
Sometimes my mother is at home and we pick her up and bring her over to our place to spend the day. The last couple of years, though, Sylvia has come through on Christmas Eve, stayed for lunch, and then taken her away to her cottage in Ayrshire. We have Christmas lunch and then, in the afternoon, we all watch The Muppets’ Christmas Carol: Michael Caine’s finest hour, in my opinion! And who would have thought that we could cry over the death of a wee frog puppet? (Anyone who knows us, actually!)
After Christmas Day, we go through to Sylvia’s for her Christmas Dinner and we all exchange wee extra presents, the ones from us including my famous (in the family!), home-made, vegan (obviously!) tablet! And then that’s Christmas over, for us, for another year…
So yes, we’re a very Christmassy family and I just hope that whichever partners Johnny and Jane end up with will be just as Christmassy!
Now all that remains in this Christmassy blog is for me to hope, dear readers, that you have the kind of mid-winter festival YOU like best and that 2010 is filled with love, happiness and the fulfilment of at least some of your dreams…
Title: Deck the halls – traditional carol
Our favourite Christmas films: It’s a Wonderful Life; The Muppets’ Christmas Carol; The Cheaters; White Christmas; Trapped in Paradise; The Bishop’s Wife; The Preacher’s Wife; Miracle on 34th Street (both versions); National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation; Scrooge (Alastair Sim); Scrooged; Silent Night; While You Were Sleeping…
November 22 2009
It’s Johnny’s Birthday!
Well, no. I’m lying. It was his birthday last month. But I didn’t want to rush this, just to get it out on time, so I’ve waited till now. His early development is inextricably tied up with our ‘journey’ to veganism and home education and I wanted to do it all justice. Anyway, on we go…
It was 24 years ago last month that my baby boy was born! From the moment I knew for sure I was pregnant, I morphed from a woman who had no interest at all in human babies (kittens, puppies, piglets, etc. were much more interesting!) to someone who read every available book on pregnancy and childbirth. I plotted his development in my womb so that I knew at any given point when his nails had developed, when he could suck his thumb, what size he was, etc. However, nothing could have prepared me for the overwhelming love I felt for him once he was born.
Johnny was a very bright wee boy and by the age of two he was desperate to be able to read. From his buggy (stroller) he would point to every sign and poster we passed. ‘Words! Words!’ he would say and I had to read them all out to him. So I decided to see if he could learn to read for himself. I used a mixture of phonics (letter sounds) and whole words, using his favourite topic of steam trains to make a picture book with captions dictated by him. I also covered the doors of a cupboard with blackboard paint and every night I would write his ‘new word’ for him to discover in the morning. He LOVED this! In fact, any misdemeanour on his part could be halted in its tracks by a sad shake of my head and the sorrowful words, ‘I’m afraid there won’t be a new word tomorrow for a naughty boy…’ By the time he was about three and a half he was a fluent reader and got enormous pleasure from this.
I know some people say that children shouldn’t be taught to read before the age of seven, but not allowing Johnny to read would have been like not allowing a baby to crawl or a toddler to speak in complete sentences.
When I became pregnant with Jane, Johnny was ecstatic! He would put his face on my tummy every day and say, ‘I love you, Jenny*! I can’t wait for you to pop out!’ John and I had been trying for some time to go vegan, but we kept back-sliding. Just before Jane was born, we decided to attempt it again. This time I explained to Johnny what we were trying to do. I reminded him that I had breast-fed him and told him I intended to do the same with Jenny. Then I asked how he’d feel if someone said, ‘Wait a minute! Jenny can’t have that milk! WE want it!’ and stole it from me. He didn’t like that idea at all! ‘Well, that’s what they do to mummy cows and baby calves,’ I said. He was horrified, and, from that moment, there was no way we could have backslid. We were committed to veganism!
I’d read that your older child’s first sight of his/her new sibling shouldn’t be of the baby in the mother’s arms, in case it causes jealousy, so when Johnny was due to arrive at the hospital to see us, I made sure his new wee sister was in a cot on the far side of my bed. I needn’t have worried! Johnny couldn’t understand why I wasn’t holding her. ‘Where’s Jenny?’ were his first words to me and he rushed over to gaze into the cot. He has remained an very loving, kind and protective big brother and their relationship has always delighted John and me.
They have fierce arguments on occasion, but they have mostly the same interests (in the films, books and music they enjoy) and ideals (veganism and pacifism) and are devoted to each other.
When it was time for Johnny to go to school, he was very excited, but it just didn’t work out. He was expected to ‘learn’ stuff he’d been doing since he was a toddler. He was reprimanded for putting his arm round the wee boy sitting next to him. (We’re a very demonstrative family and he didn’t understand it when the teacher said, ‘No cuddling in school!’) He missed Jenny and me and our cats and dogs. The list could go on… In the end, after six weeks of misery, John and I decided we should give home education a try. We never looked back! Johnny continued to follow his interests and, as Jenny grew out of babyhood, they learned together.
From my memory book...
Johnny is now doing a post graduate degree, at Glasgow University, in Museum Philosophy and Practice, as well as working part-time as a museum assistant, to fund his studies. He’s also a volunteer at the Citizen’s Advice Bureau and the museum. The latter often involves taking round school groups!
He is an extremely loving, kind, caring and considerate young man. He would no more hurt anyone’s feelings than pull the wings off a fly. He is also very funny and, as well as his own-brand humour, he can find a suitable Simpsons’ quote for almost all of life’s experiences!
*‘Jenny’ is a Scottish pet-name for ‘Jane’ and is what our sweet daughter is called by family and very old friends…
Today’s smoothie: We didn’t have one… Sorry….
Today’s title: ‘It’s Johnny’s birthday’, recorded by George Harrison for John Lennon’s birthday.
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