Beginning of new season
Well, it’s been a long, long time since I wrote on the blog, but I think my next blogs will be more life based and less ponderous. Trying to share key facts and learnings about what I am doing and trying.
So, what’s going on, I hear nobody ask (since nobody yet reads this blog). Well, despite having a full time – in fact more than ‘full time’ – job and two children under 5, I am continuing to try my hand at growing my own veg, baking bread and making my own pasta.
I’ve tried making pasta on various occasions, with varying success. Actually for varying, read limited. Making pasta has gone seriously wrong in all previous attempts, but I think I might have cracked it. Why make pasta? Its so cheap and good quality dry pasta is easy to come by and doesn’t cost the earth, what’s the point in spending time making your own pasta? Well, I have a few reasons. One is just for my own cooking. I want to be able to change the richness of the pasta if and when I want to. More egg, less egg, etc. On top of this I want to be able to make different pasta like chili, or garlic, pasta. Or add some fillings into my own ravioli. Other reasons? To teach the kids how the basics work and remove any mystique. I want them to understand the core ingredients and enable them to be able to turn their hands to these jobs if there was ever a need to.
So, pasta, how? What’s the secret to making good pasta. Well, I’m not quite there yet, since I’ve hurt my finger recently, and that has put the kybosh on any subsequent progress – but one of the main reasons of writing this blog is to try to impact some knowledge, and stop people getting despairing, and making the same mistakes that I’ve made. The key thing about trying these sorts of hobbies out is learning from your own mistakes. But the problem is (well, for me, anyways) identifying what those mistakes are…! It’s not always easy. So, how easy is pasta? Basically it’s all in the flour. I tried using “pasta flour” – which I clearly thought would do the job just fine. But no, apparently not. So, just make sure you get Tipo OO flour, no matter what. And then it’s just 1 egg per 100g and add a lug of olive oil. Give it a good ole pummeling for a bit, and then, when it’s nice and smooth – whack it in the fridge for 30-60mins. Then, cut it into a few pieces and roll it through the pasta machine. It really was quite simple once I worked out the flour error. Can’t believe I was stupid enough to use pasta flour – what an idiot…! Also, next thing I want to try is to get eggs as fresh as possible, with lovely yellow yolks for my pasta making, and use two yolks rather than one egg, to try to get a really rich-tasting pasta. My missus isn’t yet convinced that buying some battery hens and bringing them ‘back to life’ is the best idea for us right now. But I’m slowly working on that one… very slowly.
And then, we go onto breadmaking – where am I on that. Well, Richard Bertinet’s Dough book is a revelation, that’s for sure. First class. So easy and so gratifying. Made a wicked batch of olive rolls and chili con carne the other day, and it went down an absolute treat. I really think my chili is practically perfected now. Let me know if you need any tips/ingredients, etc. It’s so easy to make, with all the component parts, and just a real joy to eat – if you like that sort of thing. Sorry, I digress, back to break. Richard Bertinet’s book is good because the breadmaking doesn’t involve kneading, so it’s a lot easier than how one would imagine it to be. And quite honestly, having only made bread a few times, I’m already getting the hang of it so well, that it really isn’t taking me that long. Of course, there’s all the resting and proving, which takes time, but that’s not MY time – which is important. Very basic dough recipes, and excellent results. Highly recommended.
And the garden – went onto ‘Real Seed’ website the other day, and ordered some chillies, tomatoes, parsnips, carrots, courgettes, sweetcorn, leeks, beetroots, beans…. Think that’s it. Going to try and get the chillies and toms in tomorrow into pots, and see how they go. That’s if I can convince my little girl to pot up with me. Attention span at 4 isn’t so good, but I’m hoping that we can do it together. Let’s see. I’ve never used seeds from this website before, but they’ve all turned up in these little plastic sealable bags – so cute, and full of life and promise. It’s exciting. They also come with descriptions on how to take your own seed from each plant, which is pretty exciting if I can do it. So hopefully a £20 outlay will result in never having to buy these veg again… (ok, that’s unlikely, but you take my point!). I’m not doing this for self sufficiency, I’m doing this for the love of cooking and the love of having such fresh flavours enhance my cooking. As I’m sure I’ve said before, and I will say again – cooking is 80% ingredients, 20% skill.
Anything else going on? Well, I’ll be trying to convince the wife to buy me (or someone to buy me) and sort of lean-to small greenhouse to put against my wall such that I can grow the tomatoes in it. Nice big juicy tomatoes this year. Need to ensure the water is regular so that the skins don’t split – that’s what I need to do. Irregular water/irrigation is normally why the skins split.
And when it comes to tech – very often a fav topic of mine – my next toy will be a HTC Desire. And I can’t wait…customisable, multi-tasking, multi-touch, quick, responsive – it will be mine. Oh yes.
