Beer and Bread

 Lately I've taken up baking and gardening. I did a whole bunch of weeding over the weekend and I made two loaves of stout bread with a recipe I frankensteined together from the one on the side of the bag of flour, one online and the instructions on my yeast.

 I got active dry yeast, and that's the kind you need to activate with warm water and sugar before putting it in with the flour. You can get the kind that you only need to throw in, but I kind of like this kind. It makes me feel old fashioned. Besides, I like the smell of yeast. and seeing it post proving is cool, it's so foamy.

 The kind of stout I used in my bread is Sadler's Mud City Stout. It's a lovely beer by itself, and it's so good in this bread,

 Here's the recipe:

 Ingredients:

 500 grammes strong white bread flour
 150 ml warm water
 150 ml Sadler's Mud City Stout (other stouts are available, just make sure it's nice.)
 30 grammes butter
 1 tablespoon dry active yeast
 1 and a quarter teaspoons salt
 1 teaspoon sugar

 Mix the flour and the salt and rub the butter in.

 Dissolve the sugar into the warm water and sprinkle the yeast in. Stir it together and stash in a wamr place for 10-15 minutes.

 After that, warm the stout up (I did this in a pan) to the point where you can comfortably stick your finger in, but it still feels warm. Mix into the now frothy yeast mixture and add to the flour.

 Get it all combined and either knead on a flour surface for around ten minutes or stick it in a kitchen aid and watch in mild terror for about five. Whichever you feel more comfortable with. I've done both and they both work well, I just prefer hand kneading. Either way, make sure the dough does the window pane thing, and once it gets to that point, put in a bowl (oiled or not, up to you) cover in clingfilm and stash in a warm place for an hour.

 Get it out, put the dough on a well floured surface and knock it back. I like to gently press on it with my knuckles (not the base ones, it's not a boxing opponent), shape and stick on a baking tray (or in a loaf tin, again, your choice) gently cover with clingfilm and leave to rise again for an hour.

 Pre heat the oven to gas mark 7/8 (I have a slightly wonky oven, so go for seven if yours is fine) a couple of minutes before the second rise is done. Then stick in for about half an hour.

The finished article

 You'll know when it's done if you pick it up (with an oven glove, obv) and tap the bottom, if it sounds hollow, then it's done. If it's in a tin, uh... I don't know... I never bake bread in tins. Ask Paul Hollywood, he'd know.

 Also, if you're worried that the bottom isn't baking right on a free standing loaf, stick it upside down in there for a few minutes, it'll dry out.

 Stick it on a cooling rack and wait for it to cool. maybe an hour or so.

 Then enjoy with whatever you like. I recommend it with soup, cheese and branston, or even kimchi.

 If you want to use a different kind of yeast, follow the manufacturer's instructions, but keep the liquid amounts the same.

 You can experiment with more stout, or less, but I recommend starting with this, because it's a good midpoint.

 So go and bake some tasty stout bread.

Kimchi Fried Beans

  So, I finally got my hands on some more kimchi, so it's finally time to give you the recipe for one of my favourite meals.

Yum.

 It's quick, easy, pretty damn healthy and super delicious.

 It contains at least two of your five a day, and since kimchi is a fermented food it has extra health benefits.

 Here is what you'll need:

 Serves one.

• Cannelini beans- half a 400 gram can
• Mat kimchi- this is down to personal preference
• Spinach- a couple of handfuls
• Spring onions- two or three decently thick stalks chopped
• Sesame oil for frying

 Now, you can use another kind of oil if you want, I just love the way sesame oil smells when I cook with it, and it does impart a good amount of flavour.

 Also, if you have an extractor fan, turn it on.

 First things first, heat the beans.

 Empty half of the can in there and heat it through. Once hot, drain.

 Now, turn on the big scary hob.

Disclaimer: Yours does not need to look
like the fires of Hell. In fact, it's better if it doesn't.

 Heat up a large frying pan and pour in a small amount of oil. You really don't need much, about a teaspoon should do it, if not less.

 Chuck the beans into the pan until they look something like this:

 Then shimmy them off to the sides and dump the spring onion in the middle and cook that for a couple of seconds until little bits of it start to get brown from the heat.

 After this, it's time for our star ingredient; kimchi.

 Dig a couple of pieces and chuck them into the pan. You can put in as much as you want, but you want to get a decent amount in there so you can have kimchi deliciousness in a good number of mouthfuls.

This is a good amount

 Stir that around a bit and pour some of the juice onto the beans and stir. You don't need much, a teaspoon or so, maybe. I just guess, and I'm not sure it even adds up to a teaspoon.

 Once you've got the beans cover, dump in the spinach and turn off the heat. Use the residual heat in the pan to wilt the spinach down, and be careful when stirring as the spinach can and will go everywhere.

 When the spinach is wilted to taste, put onto a plate and serve next to a glass of mango Aloe Vera King.

 It's pretty easy to double up with this recipe, but you'll be wanting a bigger pan.

 If you've got access to mat kimchi, you should definitely think about giving this a go.

The name's Chi. Kim Chi. (see? it's a pun)

 For the last week or so, I've been eating much more healthily than I have done previously.

 I attribute my success to this:

What the gods go to when they grow tired of
nectar and ambrosia

 I have recently become a convert to kimchi. Mat kimchi specifically, but I'm going to buy another kind the next time I head into town to stock up.

 The thing is, the fact that I'll happily eat this stuff is something of a miracle, because I've got a really sensitive mouth when it comes to spicy things. I like spicy food just fine, but it hurts to such an extent that I simply cannot eat most spicy foods.

 In fact, the last time I tried kimchi I couldn't eat it because of the pain.

 But I think that's because I wasn't cooking with it.

 This time I've had far more luck, partly because I've been persevering, and partly because I've been cooking it with other things.

 It's true, the more you eat spicy food, the greater tolerance you have for it.

 So, what have I been enjoying my kimchi in?

 All kinds of things, I've had it with miso soup, cooked it with beans and tofu, used the juice in a lentil soup I threw together and cut it up small to put into an omelette for a filling evening meal.

 If you've never tried kimchi, you really should. It's a great thing to have in the kitchen, especially if you keep around fresh spinach and spring onions.

 Though you really should have those around anyway, they're great to throw into things to get your veggies in.

 (I like to put them in ramen when I'm feeling too lazy to cook, so I'm still getting some of my five a day even if it is in processed food)

 I'll make sure to post recipes for all these tasty kimchi meals when I've collected some good photos, so you can try them too.

 Of course, if you want kimchi recipes from someone who actually knows what they're doing, you should totally check out Maangchi on youtube. She's the one who inspired me to try kimchi in the first place, and so many of her recipes look really tasty.

 See? It looks so good, but the hot pepper paste might make it too much for me.

 So make sure if you see kimchi, you pick it up and give it a go sometime, it'll totally be worth your while.

 Oh! By the way, my new schedule doesn't include Sunday posts, but I'm going to make an exception for tomorrow. Tonight is Eurovision, so I'll be sure to make a post about that tomorrow.

Better homity pie under Churchill... (plus progress)

 As you can probably tell from my paraphrasing of a World War II propaganda poster, homity pie is a relic of World War II.

 It was originally comprised of potatoes, onions and leeks, but was probably often made with whatever the Land Girls could find.

 We follow this tradition to this day, and I'm going to outline the basics of what you need to make a homity pie so that you guys can try this leftovers magnet for yourselves.

 The basics are:

 A pastry case (you can make your own, or buy one pre-made. If you bake it yourself, make sure to blind bake it)
 Potatoes to fit in the case (floury or sticky work best. New potatoes are not your friend)
 Onions
 Lots of cheese (any cheese you want. Mum's friend Jayne uses mature cheddar. Mum uses a variety of the stuff that's in our fridge. We really like cheese. Mmm, cheese)

 You'll want to cook the potatoes first, in my family, we boil them so that they're soft and mix up well. There's no reason that mashed potatoes can't also work, but I wouldn't recommend using smash or similar, it'll probably be too insubstantial.

 Let them cool a bit as you chop and fry the onions. You'll want these translucent as opposed to caramelised, as they'll cook more in the pie itself. You can cook up some garlic too, which is what we do.

 Once that's done, you mix the potatoes and onions with plenty of cheese. It's better to have too much cheese than too little in this case, as it sticks the potatoes and onions together. You can add double cream and/or beaten egg at this stage, if you like to help it stick better.

 Now you put it in the pastry case and cook in a pre-heated oven at gas mark 4/5 for about 20-30 minutes, or until golden brown. We put sliced tomatoes on before baking, because Mum likes tomatoes.

 It won't look appetising at this stage, but trust me, once it's golden brown, it's a welcome sight.

 Here are some other things you can put in too:

 Double Cream
 Egg(s)
 Courgettes
 Bacon
 Mushrooms
 Pepper
 Tomato slices on top

 You may be able to substitute the potatoes for another root vegetable. Go wild, the sky is the comfort food limit.

 However, if you want a proper recipe to try first, there's a good one in the Crank's Bible by Nadine Abensur. It's full of vegetarian recipes, and fellow carnivores, there's no reason that they have to stay veggie, so give it a shot!

 So now my brief foray into food blogging is over, here's today's progress!

 I decided to try and add a shimmer to the pink using gold ink, but I'm sceptical of how well it worked. However, I like the mix of pinks I got in the process, so I'm happy.

 I also used impasto gel to add texture to the white figure, and I think it looks pretty good. Tomorrow I'll do the same with the black figure so that the white one looks less odd. I'm also planning to add gloss varnish, but I'm yet to decide whether to varnish the whole painting or just a section like I did on Cleopatra Skies.

 That decision will wait until after the black section is finished tomorrow.