I am currently based on the sofa, wrapped up in a fleece coat with hot water bottle and dog nearby (except to write this - I don’t have a laptop!), avoiding being pulled into sleep by this overwhelming feeling of tiredness. In other words, I’ve got an infection. It has been there for a while, sat on my chest, but it has taken a turn for the worse and, gulp, I’ve actually got a doctors appointment tomorrow. Actually, I’ve had it for quite a while, and in complete denial of symptoms, I just put it down to a cold or something and continued on. But feeling sufficiently crappy, I made an appointment. That’s what denial gets you (I’m leaving jokes about rivers in Egypt to you guys…).

There is an upside to this tale of woe - sitting in a dimly-lit living room gives one ideas, in the long, dark evenings we’ve been having. It got me thinking about what I’ve seen on blogs recently - TTV or ‘through the viewfinder’. The premise being you take a modern digital camera and take photos through the lens of another camera. The older the camera is, the better, scratchier, lovlier photos you come up with. I used my wonderful new digital camera and my old 1970’s SLR, and took some very basic photos of the standard lamp in our living room. Because there was no other light in there, they have come out with a beautiful ambiance.

You guys might not hear from me for a while, as I’ve been asked to work on Saturday as well as Sunday - and assuming I’ve not got SARS or TB, then I’ll be working two very long days. Which is good, because it’s all extra in the kitty. But it also means I won’t get to spend time with the hubby. However, I can get the xmas decorations down now and have a look-see to make sure all of the bulbs work, the tinsel is, well, tinsel-ish and the baubles are all sparkling. Think I can do that from the comfort of my fleecy sofa-cocoon? I do.

I had to break away, and leave the house for a walk. To breathe in the ozone, see the sea and feel the wild grasses brush past my legs.

I left the house earlier than usual - not waiting for the sunset, the sun was getting low in the sky, but it was still bright outside. Brighter than it has been for a while. The sky was blue, pure azure blue as I walked through the fields of burnished gold. The moon, high and bright in the sky was always at my shoulder, barely moving.

A few clouds were visible, some on the horizon and cirrus wisps in the air. I saw a spectacular eagle in one, and a billowing hillside in another.

Walking up another hill, and I come to the forrested part, where the sun doesn’t reach, barely even in summer. The wind whistled around my ears and I was glad to be wrapped up warm in my jumper. Through the clay-mud, up another hill and I was on top of the world. From this vantage point I could see the sea, hear the crows and see fields of green-manure or winter fodder growing in neat, orderly rows below me.

I come to more pines, this is what we grow around here. Their big, study bodies able to withstand whatever is thrown at them. Going closer I lift a branch with two pine cones firmly attached but both open, their seeds dispersed. What do I find taking refuge? A hibernating ladybird. This is Nature at work.

I know the path well, it is walked often, ruts in the soil and clay tell me where footsteps have been before. Up two hills, past the windy corridor of pines, through the grasses and down onto gravel, before leaving one hill and finding my path home. My chosen walk takes me in a figure-of-eight, the symbol of infinity. I think about that alot when I’m walking.

As I come to the end of my walk around infinity, I see that the sun, who was at the beginning of the walk high in the sky, has lowered and now hides beneath the pine trees that hem the land. I wend my way down the hill and begin the walk home, back to happy dog, warm house and music.

• Radio4 programmes especially Crossing Continents (click to listen again) and a very strange afternoon play, which I can’t find the link to, about a Scottish pregnant woman having bizarre conversations with her very wise, unborn child. Especially relating to shop-lifting and reincarnation. Very strange but hilarious.
• Taking photos of stunning sunsets and sunrises (see below) - there are few things so sublime.
• Making festive flapjacks in a warm kitchen, dog begging for any edibles that might be going spare. And managing to feed, warm and converse with my tired husband after a long, cold and dark commute home.
• Love My Way, a quirky Australian drama, as dark as it is funny. It has become required watching on Sundays and Fridays.
• Getting my husband to take a day off yesterday, and spending the day in Alnwick, behaving like giddy teenagers in love (except we didn’t smoke, swear or drink…). Then coming home to a snuggly house, to spend the afternoon crafting (he’s got the crafty gene too) various oddments, including xmas cards and decorations.
• Cold, bright mornings. The sun is often so low it’s completely blinding, but it is wonderful to see the first signs of frost on the fields, and how warming the sun really is.
• Getting ready for xmas. That means getting the decorations down from the loft, testing all the lights, burning Yankee Candle Mistletoe candles all over the house and baking seasonal scrummies.
• Playing Scrabble in the evening and managing to put “runic” down on a triple word score, which ensured I won, although I did have an awful selection of letters all evening!

For the pâté sucrée, or sweet pastry:

4oz plain flour, seived
2oz butter, cold, cubed
2 or 3 heaped tablespoons light brown soft sugar
tiny pinch of salt
Enough cold water to make a dough

Method:

As for making pastry, rub the fat into the flour until a very fine breadcrumb consistency is achieved. This usually takes me at least 10 minutes and is very enjoyable ~ don’t use a machine, it ruins good pastry (I know, I’ve tried). Once that’s done, add the sugar and salt, stirring until incorporated. Add the water, slowly, and mix. You should have a good, firm dough, but with some ‘give’ in it to avoid it being like a rock. Wrap in greaseproof paper, or coat in a thin layer of flour and refigerate for 30 mins (or in a freezer for 10 mins).

Once chilled, roll out into a circle and line an 8″ dish (I use an enamel pie dish). Prod holes in the bottom with a fork, not too many, and then cover with a circle of baking parchment, adding baking beans or beads (I use trusty re-useable marrowfat peas) and bake in a medium oven (170ºC gs. mk. 3) until the pastry is cooked through at the bottom. Remove parchment and beans, leave to cool.

Now, this bit is up to you. You can either use pre-made supermarket-bought custard (I have tried it and it does work) or you can make a crême patissierre (French vanilla custard). Crême Anglaise works well too. Of course the best tasting, healthiest (ha!) and most satisfying is the crême patissierre/ crême Anglaise, but if you’re time-strapped, feel free to use shop-bought. The crême patissierre ingredient quantities I’m giving here is one found on the internet, as I’m not absolutely sure about the quantities I used as I do almost everything by eye. This is the one that looks the most similar to that which I use.

For the Custardy-inner:

150ml milk
2 egg yolks
30g caster sugar
1 vanilla pod (or real vanilla extract), halved and the seeds put into the milk. add the pod as well, however remove this before filling the pie dish.
1 level tablespoon cornflour, made into a paste with some milk
{1oz ground almonds}
{1 handful mixed fruit}

Method:

Boil milk with vanilla seeds and pod. When the milk is heating, in a bowl whisk the egg yolks, caster sugar and the cornflour-milk paste. Once the milk has boiled, remove from the heat and remove the vanilla pod. Whilst whisking voraciously, add the milk slowly, ensuring that it doesn’t curdle. If it does, you have a chance of saving it by having a bowl of ice-cold water nearby, and plunging the bowl into that and whisking harder. Or use a blender to blend it back together. When the milk is incorporated it should thicken. Put it back into the pan and place over a low heat to make sure it thickens thoroughly. Keep stirring. Remove from heat and leave to cool. Add almonds and mixed fruit when cool.

For the apple topping:

1 oz butter, cut into smallish cubes
1 tbsp light brown soft sugar
4 approx. apples. Either russets, golden delicious, spartans or jonagold.

Method:
In the blind-baked pastry case add the crême patissierre/almond/fruit mix and spoon evenly around the base. With the apples in pretty slices, arrange in continuous circles, filling any gaps that appear. Pop some little knobs of butter on top, along with the sugar, sprinkling evenly. Bake in a low oven, gas mk. 2 to 3 or 160ºC to 170ºC, on a high shelf, watching carefully. It should take around 30 mins.

Perfect on a cold winter’s day, in bed with your beloved, or wrapped up on the sofa all to yourself! Enjoy!

It’s getting to be really, really cold around here. Gusty winds, ice and a bit of sleet yesterday all trigger my “comfort-food” reflex ~ excellent for my husband, not so good for my, ahem, curvaceous body! But that aside, not only have I been making some wonderful culinary creations (blowing my own trumpet much?), I’ve been inventing some new ones along the way, and rather surprisingly, they have come out very well indeed.

My first cake is an old faithful recipe that has never let me down. Even if I’ve had to make it in the worst of circumstances (this one was concocted whilst a beast played the bongos in my right eye), it still comes out wonderfully. It’s from a book by the Chocolate-guru Helge Rubinstein called, invitingly, The Chocolate Book. If you can find a copy, I very much recommend a read of it. There are usually good stocks of it in charity shops up and down the country. I took liberties with this cake, and added ground almonds, which made it more voluptuous and more melt-in-the-mouth. I took it out earlier than usual, to ensure complete gooey-ness. Served with cream as more of a dessert than a cake, it hit the right spot when in need of some chocolate therapy.

Those cupcakes are carrot-cake cupcakes, altering an already-tested recipe from the CupcakeBakeshop blog. The incredibly swirly icing was because, at the very last moment, my icing bag split. I could’ve done it manually, but I used an unused (and sterile, I hasten to add!) syringe from the dog’s medicine cabinet. See, necessity is the mother of invention!

Then comes my pièce de résistance, an apple tart. This is completely my own recipe, although they are all pretty in style. You have three parts: pastry, custardy-inner and apple slices on top. My pâté sucrée, or sweet pastry was of my own invention as well (not that it’s a secret or anything). I wing things, and they either work out or not. But I have now been cooking long enough to know by rote when things look like they’ll work or they wont! I’m posting the recipe separately because it’s just a bit too long (and a bit too special) to be lumped in with this post as well, so it’ll get posted tomorrow!

I haven’t even mentioned the Festive Flapjacks yet. My own concoction which I’ll also post the recipe to, they are my new favourite sweet-thing (diets be damned), and will be made often, especially in the run up to xmas!