Empanadas de Choclo

I mentioned these a few days back when I was reminiscing about childhood picnics, and to satisfy the craving that the mere mention of them brought on, I did actually make some last week.  Empanadas are South American pasties - if you've watched 'The Hairy Bikers' you may recall them making meat ones...

It's a shame they went all the way to La Boca and then committed the heinous crime of describing the empanadas as 'Argentinean'.  This word makes my Mum's blood boil (and she is otherwise very even tempered!) - 'It's Argentine - the country is not Argentinea!' she will say!

It's well worth watching this second part just to see how he crimps the edges, and for his explanation of how his Mum used to do it...

If you are lucky enough to visit Argentina, you can buy a huge selection of empanadas, savoury or sweet,  and, as the Hairy Biker said, each different filling is signalled by different crimping.  Some are fried, others baked.  But the best I've ever tasted are my Mum's sweetcorn ones, so here is the recipe.

First make a batch of pastry.  

500g plain flour

250g lard

2 egg yolks

1 tablespoon sugar (I used less)

salt

a glass of cold milk

These are the traditional ingredients, but I made two lots of pastry last week, one with the lard and one with Trex, to make them vegetarian.  

Miss U-t-B and I then did a blind tasting.  There was a bit of difference to both taste and texture - I preferred one and she the other, so use what you will!

Chill the pastry thoroughly before rolling and cutting into circles. I cut round a small side plate, but you could use a saucer for smaller emapanadas for nibbles.

Next the filling.

Fry 1 tablespoon of very finely chopped onion in a little butter.

Add in the chopped up flesh from 1 skinned and de-seeded tomato.  Then stir in 1 tablespoon of plain flour and cook for a couple of minutes, stirring all the time.

Add a tin of sweetcorn (I don't bother draining it) and enough milk to make a mixture with a bit of sauce, but not overly saucy.  Add 1 tablespoon sugar (I reduced this too - our sweetcorn is sweet enough these days!) and salt to taste, then stir in 1 egg yolk.  Cool before filling.

Dollop the filling onto the pastry circles.

Fold in half and crimp.  No false teeth here! (You need to watch the Hairy Bikers to understand that.)

I used a fork for the Trex ones and fingers for the lardy ones.

Bake at 180C/350F/Gas 4 till golden brown.   

For me they are best served warm (not keen on that McDonalds Apple Pie sensation of burnt mouth...) but for picnics, cold works too.

A Treat from the Oxfam Shop

I had to pop into Farnham the day before yesterday and as I was passing one of the two Oxfam shops, I couldn't help but notice a very quaint and attractively small dollshouse in the window.  I'd say it was from the 50s - it had cute metal windows that looked like leaded lights, a bright red roof and was painted in a really charming, naive way, in a sort of Tyrolean style.  It looked like something a vintage Heidi would live in.

I can't show you a photo! 

I managed to park nearby and hopped, skipped and jumped along to said Oxfam shop to look at the price. You could see the price tag from the window.  It was tantalisingly reasonable, so I walked in ready to seize the treasure. 

And then I saw the 'SOLD' sign on the back...

Harrumph!

So I crossed the road and went into the dedicated books and music Oxfam instead, to have a browse amongst the shelves of vintage books.  In amongst them was one that jumped out at me
as a consolation prize...

It is in near perfect condition, just like my Dad who was born the year it was published (well, his knees do cause him a bit of grief).

Edited by Harry Golding, its illustrators include Susan Beatrice Pearse and Grace Jones (whose work I am so far unaware of) and Margaret Tarrant.  It is jammed with charming pictures, and the stories I've read so far have been sweet.

I love the whole composition of this one...

I love the startled look on the elephant's face and the little Bohemian girl in the headscarf in this one...

I think this is by Anne Anderson

Now there's an interesting idea, a pretty little boat with a Viking-style prow and a patchwork sail! 

Another sweet boat!

This Red Riding Hood is passing through the most Art Deco of forests...

Love the expressive face on this little chap...

And the dress on this princess, if not her petulant-looking face...

Some of the stories are illustrated with silhouettes.  Very clever to portray so much just by this means.

Whilst the writer of each story is named both in the contents and at the end of their story, no credit is given to any of the illustrators anywhere in the book! It was only by trawling the internet that I was able to find out the names of three of them.  Yet the illustrations are so much part of the enduring appeal of these books - what a shame the talented illustrators may have felt that their work was valued less than that of the writers...

{Later:  Just having another read, this time with specs on.  My goodness - I didn't realise how much I need those glasses these days - of course there are some signatures on some of the illustrations, so not completely uncredited!}

Spring Cleaning

Sometimes, no inspiration is a blessing.  

With no creative 'get-up-and-go', I have instead done some spring cleaning and sorting.  

The kitchen was awash with china that had been on top of the cupboards.  Ideally it would be in the cupboards, but there's no more room.

 Looks a bit precarious, some of that, but it was all well balanced! 

No china was harmed in the taking of this photograph!

I then had fun laying it all out to inspect.

Johnson Brothers 'Greydawn' - with two different styles of handle. 

 I love this because  it reminds me of helping with the cricket teas when I was young.  My Mum did them for a long while (her tuna and tomato sandwiches were legendary in the cricketing circuit, I believe) and then when I was about ten, and my sister eleven, we took over (but only for the second eleven!)  

On Saturday morning we'd go to the baker's and buy the bread and big boxes of assorted cakes.  There would always be some French Fancies in amongst the cakes, and we'd secretly pray that the players would not eat these, so that we might get a chance when the clearing up was being done.  But needless to say, the French Fancies always got eaten, and this left me with an (almost) insatiable appetite for them! 

(Almost, because years later at university, a friend and I decided to have what we loosely termed a picnic (as we were going to eat it on the lawn in front of our halls of residence) one miserable weekend day when most people had gone home. We went to the local shop and bought what they had that we fancied - a tin of pineapple slices, a tin of rice pudding, a bar of chocolate and a box of French Fancies.  The ensuing 'picnic' made both of feel quite ill and put me off French Fancies for years!)

A 'Gainsborough Pink' jug by Johnson Brothers and a 'Rosedawn' one (I think) plus more 'Greydawn' and a Grindley 'Peach Petal' dessert set that would be perfect for tinned pineapple and rice pudding!

These are Johnson Brothers too - I don't specifically look for it, but it sort of finds me.  They are a bit chipped, but lovely for a bowl of homemade soup (or Heinz Tomato).

This is 'Rosedawn' too, but prettily decorated instead of plain.

In amongst the china were a few old pressed glass vases and this lovely jug...

And then this set of French canisters which I got from a car boot sale last year...

 

As well as a nice old Colman's Mustard tin...

A chintz butter dish (Royal Winton) and a dish (James Kent)...

A Japanes honey pot, which I got in France last year...

And finally, a sweet little lidded pot, which is German.

It's all gone back on top of the cupboard now, but with a promise to get it all out for some slap-up tea parties this summer!

Scrumptious fabrics, great combinations...and not an idea in my head!

A couple of weeks ago, I got completely carried away on the fantastic FabricRehab website and bought a little (okay, not so little) stack of fat quarters.  I was planning on being filled with ideas for new projects once I got the two fairs of last weekend out of the way.

The fabrics arrived quickly and they are as scrummy as I imagined, 

but I have a head empty of new ideas.  

In fact, empty of any ideas!  

So, until the creative juices begin to flow again, I will just content myself with looking at the pile and giving it an occasional stroke, and I let you have a peek too! 

Remix Dots Spring/Little Fawn Pink

Folklore Dala Horse Natural/Folklore Garland Red

Lecien Dot Green Mist/Tiny Flower Green

Lecien Dot Green Mist/Little Quirky Cottage Multi

Little Quirky Cottage Multi/Tiny Flower Green

Tea Blooms/Strawberry Tea

Hideaway Tiny Gingham Sky/Hideaway Folk Art Sky

Hoopla Garden Cobalt

Hoopla Garden Cobalt/Vintage Basics Dots Ruby Red

If you liked the talking dog, you may like these too.  First, the cats talk as you'd expect...

And here's the translation into English...

If you missed the dog, do scroll down to find it.  It's still making me smile thirty-six hours after I first saw it!

We Was Robbed!

Well, we didn't win Eurovision (in spite of the 'omen' which I mentioned in my Eurovision post that seems to have disappeared for good in the Blogger crash) so there may be people out there needing a reason to smile again.  And here it is...

Spring Hedgerow Harvest

Yesterday I went for a walk with my friend Jane and her two bouncy cockapoos, Daisy and Dolly...

...who are never still long enough to take a decent photo!

We went to a place Mr U-t-B and I discovered last year close to the Basingstoke Canal.  It's a secret hideaway of a place, with roads that peter out into fords of pond-sized proportions,  'Unsuitable for Motor Vehicle' signs and a wooden swing bridge over the canal that I wouldn't want to trust with your car.  This quiet backwater makes you feel like you have stepped back in time.  There are some beautiful houses to gawp at, from the entirely grand...

 ...to the slightly more manageable...

...to the quaint.

But this one is the one I probably like the best!

To add to the 'Step Back in Time' feel, look what will be taking place on May 30th at the local pub...

Love the idea of a Bread Pudding Competition!

This lamp-post in the middle of nowhere is rather Narnia-esque...

The canal was looking rather murky, but the swans and cygnets seemed happy. 

There were lots of bright yellow irises at the margins of the water...

  
And pretty meadows full of buttercups and cowparsley...

Anyway, the purpose of this walk (not that there needed to be one) was to do a bit of hunting in the hedgerows.

But what was I hunting for?

I was hunting for some blossom. 

But not this pretty honeysuckle on the unreachable-other-side of the canal...

  Nor these magnificent pom-poms...

 ...with their delicately tinged with palest pink petals...

Snowball viburnum or Vibrnum opulus var. opulus (I think)

Not this deep pink hawthorn...

Nor this pretty white stuff...

Viburnum opulus or Guelder Rose (again, I  think!)

No.

What I was looking for was this...

Elderflower!   

For the past few years I have honed my elderflower spotting skills

and I can now spot it at a hundred paces! 

Its particular shade of white is like no other and once I've spotted it I get 

all kind of drool-y at the thought of the concocting to come.

Because elderflower means Elderflower Cordial, 
the essential (non-alcoholic) taste of summer 
(Pimms being the other one).  

So as we walked we gathered a few heads of fully-open elderflower blossom.  Once we were back in the car, their aroma overpowered even the scent of damp dogs!

Back home I assembled the ingredients needed for a Sophie Grigson recipe:

• 20 heads of elderflower
• 1.8 kg granulated sugar, or caster sugar
• 1.2 litres water
• 2 unwaxed lemons
• 75 g citric acid 
• 
  
• NB: Citric acid can be hard to get - I got mine from a home brewing shop, but chemists and Asian supermarkets should have it too.
• 
  

It then goes together very quickly - pare the rind off the lemons (I use the potato peeler for this), slice up the lemons (discarding the ends), shake any bugs out of the blossom and place it all in a bowl.

Then make a sugar syrup and pour the boiling hot liquid over the contents of the bowl, then stir in the citric acid.

Leave for twenty-four hours before pouring into sterile bottles.


Liquid sunshine!


We'd picked a few more heads than needed so I remembered the effervescent Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall making Elderflower Champagne last year and decided to give his recipe a spin!


There are all sorts of dire warnings about this on t'internet, so if I end up with my utility room splattered with sweetly scented sticky stuff I may rue the day!


I'll let you know how it goes!