Monday, Monday

A busy day today, to add to several Busy Days recently.  Yesterday, however, I was smitten with one of those annoying 24 hour bugs, and spent the afternoon on the sofa, having given up the unequal struggle to stay awake.  

However, on Saturday I thought I would try one of the recipes from the River Cottage "Light and Easy" cookbook I found in a Wotton charity shop the previous day.  The top photo shows:

Seedy Rye Soda Bread

20g Sunflower Seeds            20g Sesame Seeds
20g Poppy Seeds                  20g Linseeds (flaxseed)
250g light rye flour, plus extra to dust (I only had dark rye flour, so I measured it out 2/3 rye and 1/3 strong white bread flour).

1 1/2 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda                        100ml apple juice (I used Cranberry)         40g honey
1tablespoon rapeseed or sunflower oil
100ml water

Preheat the oven to 200 deg. C/Gas Mark 6.  Line a baking tray with baking parchment.

Combine all the seeds then set aside about 1 teaspoonful of them for finishing the loaf. In a large bowl, thoroughly combine the remaining seeds with the flour, salt and bicarbonate of soda.

In a jug, combine the apple juice, 100 ml water, the honey and oil.  Stir well so that the honey dissolves.  Pour into the dry ingredients and mix quickly but thoroughly to form a sticky dough.

Scrape the dough onto a floured surface and form into a round (it is a very soft dough, so flour your hands well.)  Transfer to the baking tray.  Sprinkle with the reserved seeds, then dust the dough with a little more rye flour.  Cut a deep cross in the dough, going at least halfway down into it.  Bake for about 30 mins, until a rich brown all over.

Transfer the loaf to a wire rack and tuck in as soon as it's cool (or even when it's not!)  This will keep well for up to 3 days.

'Tis yummy . . .

This vintage tablecloth (unused) also came my way in the same charity shop as the Laura Ashley curtains.  It has been washed and ironed, and will be on its way to the Vintage Fair I'm doing next weekend.

Anyway, today has been a combination of going shopping and moving a bed (heavy, even when in bit) and a very heavy solid oak drop leaf table home here from middle daughter's shared house in Swansea.  She has now moved to a furnished flat in Cardiff.  Anyway, she and my OH did the lifting of the heaviest bits down in Swansea and OH and I managed to get everything inside the house when we got back, although the bed is now in residence in the Master suite in the attic, so it was up 3 flights of stairs to get there!  

We admired the fabulous view of Swansea Bay from G's old house, then went to Sainsbury's for the grocery shopping. That would be my store of choice, but the nearest one is Swansea, so I rarely get a chance to shop there.

Hopefully tomorrow I can play catch up here, but we need to put the bed back together whilst we can still (hopefully) remember which bits go where!!