Making Winter : toast

The smell of that buttered toast simply talked to Toad, and with no uncertain voice; talked of warm kitchens, of breakfasts on bright frosty mornings, of cosy parlour firesides on winter evenings, when one's ramble was over and slippered feet were propped on the fender; of the purring of contented cats, and the twitter of sleepy canaries.

Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows

It would have to be the twitter of Twitter for me, and I don't have a fender or a fireside unfortunately, but I do like a bit of toast.

This post is mostly because I was reading The Wind in the Willows to my son last night and got to the bit above in the chapter about the annoying Mr Toad's escape from prison. I can't stand Toad, the book would be so much better without him. Ratty and Mole pottering about in boats and bumping into demigods - what could be nicer? I do like that description of toast though, and it occurred to me as I read it how appropriate it is for Making Winter, finding pleasure in the small things in winter. Toast is all very well in summer but in winter it's an indulgence. All the better if it's made with nice bread, rather than the cheap brown bread I got in a hurry yesterday, but even cheap-bread-toast is nice on a cold day. My Beloved occasionally makes bread with our breadmaker (mostly used for pizza dough) and has recently branched out into making the most delicious oat-rich rolls. Honestly they'd make you drool...

Making Winter : baking

Aaah, it's all so idyllic - pottering round with the ingredients, happily sifting flour*, enjoying the warm smell of baking drifting through the house. So cosy, so familiar..


.. so disastrous.

I do like baking but sometimes it Just Goes Wrong, and that's what happened today. The recipe was for banana bread, which I'm not that keen on really, but I had some bananas going mushy and I thought the kids might like it. I'm not sure what happened - it was looking fine on the top, and the skewer came out clean but when I took it out of the tin the middle was mushy and the bottom third was glued to the tin. I bunged it back in the oven for a bit longer on the off-chance, but it didn't really work out. I'm not too worried - at least it wasn't my Christmas cake! I'm planning on doing that next week and I would cry if that went wrong! I'm not sure I can be bothered trying the banana bread again, though I think that was what my brother baked a lot of last year and his was fine. Maybe I should get his recipe.

Still, the house is full of baking smells, could be worse!

* Apparently some people hate sifting flour and icing sugar and begrudge the time it takes - it's my favourite bit of the whole process! I sift even when I don't have to just because I like it!

Making Monday and Making Winter - neeps and knives

This is a combined Making Monday and Making Winter post. Making Monday is, I suppose, slightly on hiatus because our glorious leader, Natalie of the Yarn Yard who started it, is away on holiday, snowed-in in Boston last I heard, but it's a good blogging habit now. Making Winter is silverpebble's and thriftyhousehold's idea for this winter, in an attempt to embrace the winter. I don't really have a problem with the winter, which is probably just as well, and Hallowe'en is the first episode of winter fun for me. Anything involving fire is pretty much a good thing in the winter - neepie lanterns at Hallowe'en, bonfires and fireworks on Guy Fawkes night, candles at Christmas, and then the most incandescent of the lot, Up Helly Aa, enjoyed vicariously by webcam!

Yesterday afternoon was spent doing one of my favourite things - making neepie lanterns. I pushed the boat out that this year (at 50p a neep I think I can manage it just this once) and made two. One was for putting in the living-room window and one to take out with us when we went out guising.


A neep is much harder work than a pumpkin and I always have skinned knuckles or blisters or both to show for it, but it's really worth the effort. Hallowe'en isn't Hallowe'en without the smell of singed neep!

This is my preferred method - slice the top off and cross-hatch the flesh with a sharp knife. This makes it easier to start gouging it out.

After that it's a bit of a free-for-all - knife, spoon, swear-words, all have their place. These two didn't actually take all that long to do.

This year I managed to convince the Boy to come out guising with us - it's not usually his cup of tea but I pointed out that he only gets few years to do this as a kid so he should enjoy it while he can. And actually he got quite into the spirit of it once we'd cobbled together a hobbit costume for him (brown Jedi robe that My Beloved had made for him from a bit of scrap brown material ages ago, One Ring on a bit of leather, wooden sword). We were going out with my friend and her kids and we all dressed up. I was a pirate, nicking the waistcoat and velvet jacket my husband wore at our wedding and the Jacobite shirt he wears with his kilt. Miss Mouse was a fairy, my friend was a rather slinky red devil and my husband dug out his re-enactment kit and was a mediaeval knight. Last year it was a beautiful night - clear, not too cold, dry and not windy but this year unfortunately it was bucketing down, so Frodo and the fairy had to wear raincoats on top of their costumes. We had a great time though! Much silliness..


The one on the left, with the handle, is the one that came out with us, though unfortunately it was so rainy I couldn't keep the candle alight, even with the neep's 'lid' on. I like his cheery expression - I don't like to make them too scarey!