Thinking warm thoughts
Things to do on cold days:
1) Go for a nice brisk walk in the sunny snow.
Take photos as you go to show what's become of our Rushmere. It's a fairly substantial pond, but freezes easily at it's shallow and not spring-fed. Last year, in a much briefer cold snap, it froze solid overnight, and looked like a vast sulky ice cube.
This year, it's been much more adventurous, obviously melting-refreezing-getting snowed on-snow gets scuffed up-bit more melting etc. An ex-Christmas tree dragged here for some reason gives it a festive look:
Also, some vast snowballs have been deposited on it, and with the melt-freeze cycle are slowly, slowly sinking. They look slightly like drowning snowmen:
The snowman picture looks as though it's melting right now, but it's actually solid - as you can tell from the wide views. Virtually all the ground surface in these pictures is ex-pond, but it's bearing the weight of two people and a dog with no trouble:
2. Write fic. still_grrr is prompting Classic Literature this month, and to begin with, picking a work pre-1660 for inspiration. Mine is turning out to be a literary jigsaw more than a fic, as I've got stuck on how fabulous the Jacobean play titles are and am refusing to pick only one when I can make lots into a story. Educational and enjoyable; also warm and indoors.
3. Make stew. I was bonding with gillo over pickled walnuts only a week ago, and have followed it up by making the only recipe I have that cooks with the walnuts instead of just having them on the side. Sometimes, I think pickled walnuts are overlooked as one of the high points of fine cuisine, possibly because they look slightly like blackened eyeballs (and are pickled in *horror* cheapo malt vinegar). But this is a proper old English stew, and deserves to be remembered.
It's from one of the universal Seventies English cookbooks (Good Food on a Budget, possibly? One of Mum's staples anyway), so you may well know it, but if not, recipe for Gertrude Goslin's Brown Stew is behind the cut.
It's basically just a beef and onion stew, so I won't give proper details for getting it started - just soften onions and brown meat as per usual. It's traditionally thickened with breadcrumbs later in cooking, but flouring the meat before browning works perfectly well if you prefer.
The key thing is the spicing and flavourings. Quantities are for a fairly small stew (4 servings or so), so multiply as needed.
First, find a jar of pickled walnuts; Opies are a trusted old friend and easy to find.
Add stock to the meat and onions in a good solid pan. Then add a minimum of 4 tbsps liquid from the pickled walnut jar. This works like any beer/vinegar added to a stew, and tenderises/enriches while cooking off the initially harsh smell. Also add several chopped up walnuts. Nummy.
I don't have the recipe to hand so I can't check the original's spicing precisely. Mine has a bay leaf, a couple of cloves, lots of powdered ginger, a blade or so of mace and some ground allspice (which I don't think is canonical but won't hurt). It smells pretty good, so you should be safe with that combination! Very traditional English spices, actually. I wonder how old the recipe might be - preserved walnuts were around in the middle ages.
(If you're using breadcrumbs, they go in for the final 30 minutes or so. I think.)
Cook long and slow; an hour on the stove top will be edible, two will be delicious. If you've got proper stewing meat that can take it, longer is great, or do it in the oven for ages. It tastes fabulous on day two. Brilliant with a jacket potato, or anything else to soak up juice.
ETA 4. Cuddle up with some Anglo Saxon poetry. For some reason (possibly because I used it in my Yuletide story based on Stephen Fry's The Liar), I signed up for an evening class on Old English this term. Violently different to my usual work-based courses, or indeed my frivolous art-history-because-its-pretty courses. So far, I'm pleased I did.
1) Go for a nice brisk walk in the sunny snow.
Take photos as you go to show what's become of our Rushmere. It's a fairly substantial pond, but freezes easily at it's shallow and not spring-fed. Last year, in a much briefer cold snap, it froze solid overnight, and looked like a vast sulky ice cube.
This year, it's been much more adventurous, obviously melting-refreezing-getting snowed on-snow gets scuffed up-bit more melting etc. An ex-Christmas tree dragged here for some reason gives it a festive look:
Also, some vast snowballs have been deposited on it, and with the melt-freeze cycle are slowly, slowly sinking. They look slightly like drowning snowmen:
The snowman picture looks as though it's melting right now, but it's actually solid - as you can tell from the wide views. Virtually all the ground surface in these pictures is ex-pond, but it's bearing the weight of two people and a dog with no trouble:
2. Write fic. still_grrr is prompting Classic Literature this month, and to begin with, picking a work pre-1660 for inspiration. Mine is turning out to be a literary jigsaw more than a fic, as I've got stuck on how fabulous the Jacobean play titles are and am refusing to pick only one when I can make lots into a story. Educational and enjoyable; also warm and indoors.
3. Make stew. I was bonding with gillo over pickled walnuts only a week ago, and have followed it up by making the only recipe I have that cooks with the walnuts instead of just having them on the side. Sometimes, I think pickled walnuts are overlooked as one of the high points of fine cuisine, possibly because they look slightly like blackened eyeballs (and are pickled in *horror* cheapo malt vinegar). But this is a proper old English stew, and deserves to be remembered.
It's from one of the universal Seventies English cookbooks (Good Food on a Budget, possibly? One of Mum's staples anyway), so you may well know it, but if not, recipe for Gertrude Goslin's Brown Stew is behind the cut.
It's basically just a beef and onion stew, so I won't give proper details for getting it started - just soften onions and brown meat as per usual. It's traditionally thickened with breadcrumbs later in cooking, but flouring the meat before browning works perfectly well if you prefer.
The key thing is the spicing and flavourings. Quantities are for a fairly small stew (4 servings or so), so multiply as needed.
First, find a jar of pickled walnuts; Opies are a trusted old friend and easy to find.
Add stock to the meat and onions in a good solid pan. Then add a minimum of 4 tbsps liquid from the pickled walnut jar. This works like any beer/vinegar added to a stew, and tenderises/enriches while cooking off the initially harsh smell. Also add several chopped up walnuts. Nummy.
I don't have the recipe to hand so I can't check the original's spicing precisely. Mine has a bay leaf, a couple of cloves, lots of powdered ginger, a blade or so of mace and some ground allspice (which I don't think is canonical but won't hurt). It smells pretty good, so you should be safe with that combination! Very traditional English spices, actually. I wonder how old the recipe might be - preserved walnuts were around in the middle ages.
(If you're using breadcrumbs, they go in for the final 30 minutes or so. I think.)
Cook long and slow; an hour on the stove top will be edible, two will be delicious. If you've got proper stewing meat that can take it, longer is great, or do it in the oven for ages. It tastes fabulous on day two. Brilliant with a jacket potato, or anything else to soak up juice.
ETA 4. Cuddle up with some Anglo Saxon poetry. For some reason (possibly because I used it in my Yuletide story based on Stephen Fry's The Liar), I signed up for an evening class on Old English this term. Violently different to my usual work-based courses, or indeed my frivolous art-history-because-its-pretty courses. So far, I'm pleased I did.