The Sneaky Magpie

This weekend was great. Having a friend for breakfast on Saturday morning made me clean my house and do grocery shopping early. After my friend was gone about midday I was left with a tidy house, full fridge and a whole weekend to enjoy myself without any chores.

I did a small trip to one of my favorite cooking and baking shops in London – La Cuisiniere.  Unfortunately they didn’t have the things I needed and as I was in the area I popped to the local charity shop instead. I always head for the book section, they sell paperbacks for 50 pence and I usually find some of the classics I am meaning to read. This week I got:

Tom Jones by Henry Fielding

Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte, a novel I wanted to read for some time as I am a huge Bronte sisters fan

The Diary of a Nobody by George and Weedon Grossmith which I never heard of before but it looks very interesting and funny

Hotel Babylon by Imogen Edwards-Jones – I though Fashion Babylon was not that silly after all, the plot is very basic but there is a lot of little insights of how the industry really works, I hope to fish out those bits from this book about hotels, and at 50 pence it can go back to the shop anyway. I thought it was serendipity having just finished her other book.

Even though I haven’t bought any bake ware I did manage to make some tarts. I hate making pastry but I like the idea of pretty tarts. So I decided to face my demon and make some. I figured the only way to learn how to make pastry is to do it frequently. Sweet pastry is way easier to make than savoury one, though.

The treats this week were hazelnut tarts from Skye’s recipe and super rich chocolate tarts from Jamie’s recipe. The hazelnut filling is like hazelnut frangipane, delicious with a hint of lemon rind. I added one whisked egg white unlike Skye, I can never stick to a recipe!

I also learned that I should trim the pastry before baking for a neat look, doing so after it’s baked ended up in a disaster, the pastry just chipped and large chunks fell off.

I popped to the Battersea car boot sale and got some granny cups, love them!

Watched Milk at last and thought it was fantastic.

Also watched Everyone says I love you and thought it was not that fantastic, I haven’t been lucky with Woody Allen lately.

I also guest blogged about my olfactory adventures on Signature Scent which was fun.

I must say it felt a little bit like spring on Saturday but I don’t want to get too excited as it’s not even the middle of February.  Felt tempted to buy some daffodils but restrained myself and settled for small pink carnations, I should enjoy spring when it comes!

I got up on Sunday morning wanting to bake with hazelnuts. I have got a large jar of hazelnuts and am eager to use them up before they go off. I flipped through a number of cook books desperately trying to find a good nut recipe but didn’t quite feel satisfied with anything. There was either pastry to make, billion of eggs or tons of butter to use. I had a clear idea of fruit, hazelnuts and yogurt.

Looking through My Favorite Ingredients by Skye Gyngell cherry clafoutis caught my eye and after reading the recipe carefully I decided that I can replace cherries with plums, almonds with hazelnuts and cream with yogurt.

First things first, I had to prepare the nuts. Step 1. blanching. Step 2. roasting for 10 minutes. Step 3. rolling in a tea towel to get rid of bitter skins. Step 4. grinding. And there you go – ground hazelnuts aka hazelnut flour.

I got some ridiculously cheap plums rescued from the supermarket’s shameful rack of things passed the sale by date. The plums were not even entirely ripe let along not suitable for retail. They would be in the skip the next day while absolutely fine to eat.

First step is to stone and cut the plums into chunks, melt 40g of butter till bubbly but not brown, add the plums, 100g of sugar, tsp of ground cinnamon or 1 cinnamon stick and rind of 1 unwaxed lemon and let it cook for 10-15 minutes till the juices thicken.

Place 1/3 of the fruit at a bottom of a low round baking dish and save the rest of fruit and juice for serving. This is super delicious on its own or on porridge.

To make the batter you need to cream 2 egg yolks with 5 tbsp of sugar (Skye says 3 spoons but it was not sweet enough). Combine it with 75g of ground hazelnuts, 75g of sifted flour, 1 stick of ground vanilla. Beat the eggs whites with a pinch of salt and add it to the mixture carefully.

Pour the batter over the fruit and bake in 200 degrees Celsius for 20-30 minutes. Let it cool for few minutes and serve with the plum sauce.

I will definitely make the proper cherry version this summer.

Now to books. I haven’t read a lot this past week due to going out a lot. So I promise to make up this week. I am actually reading a number of books at the moment, I am wondering how I am even able to do it. I am still going through Chekhov’s stories as I don’t like to read them all at once, I read one story in between books. At the moment it’s Three Years, as everything by Anton it’s very good.

I am re-reading The Golden Age of Couture. Drooling over the beautiful pictures and soaking up all the details about making couture clothes. There is a fair bit about rationing as well and the transition from poor post war years in to the opulence of New Look. This leads to another book on rationing, Utility Furniture and Fashion, which describes the rationing years not only in furniture making but other areas too. This little book is my breakfast read.

I am also enjoying the very silly Fashion Babylon by Imogen Edward-Jones which can tell you one or two interesting things about the true face of the fashion industry. Last but not least is the gripping biography of the Marquess of Bath – Strictly Private – one of Britain’s biggest eccentrics is not afraid to say it all. I am now yearning to visit Longleat. Vogue has arrived as well and it is a very fat issue, M is out climbing tonight, I will be having a night in with my magazine.

Oh, and films. I have seen a couple of films.

Do you remember Dolly Bell? Emir Kusturica’s early film full of human drama, politics, love, suffering and generous dose of the usual music and animal antics.

A woman under the influence by John Cassavetes. Brilliant performance by Gena Rowlands (p.s. her early 70s dresses were to die for) portraying a housewife going through a nervous breakdown, her husband trying to keep the family together in a very dysfunctional manner and committing his wife to an institution. Her suffering is almost tangible, a woman so desperate to please her family she forgets about herself, having no creative outlet she focuses on being a housewife so much she becomes self destructive.

And there was also a bit of music, well kind of. It was experimental avant-garde hosted by Resonance FM in the depths of Hackney. It was interesting. The two first performers were good but the third was not so good, noises that were very unpleasant to the ear. We didn’t stay for the fourth performer. Good experience all together and a very nice cafe, if you are ever in Dalston you must visit. It’s called Cafe Oto. It serves cakes, snacks, Montmouth coffee and the whole place is furnished with vintage Ercol chairs and tables. I loved it.