Soda bread

One of the things I love about having a flexible working day is that, on those occasions when I work from home, I can slot in little jobs around my work. Today, for example, rather than spending 15 minutes chatting to colleagues while making a cup of tea, I made a loaf of sundried tomato and chili soda bread.

A moody close-up.

I've made soda bread once or twice before, but this is the first time I've played with the recipe at all. The basic recipe is 250g plain wholemeal flour, 250g plain white flour, 1 teaspoon of salt, 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda and 420ml buttermilk. I've never really found a good source of buttermilk, so I just mix the juice of half a lemon into the milk to sour it, which seems to work well. Soda is probably the simplest bread to make because there's no kneeding or prooving or knocking back or faffing of any kind involved; essentially you just mix the wet ingredient into the dry, cut a cross in the top and throw it in the oven for half an hour.

I varied the recipe by adding about a quarter teaspoon of chili powder, half a teaspoon of smoked paprika and about a teaspoon of oregano to the dry ingredients before I sieved them and then finely chopping five sundried tomatoes and one red chili to add at the same time as the faux buttermilk. Once I'd mixed the dough, turned it onto a floured board, shaped it briefly and transferred it to an oven tray, I cut a deep cross in the top of the loaf (this is the traditional look, but it also helps what is really quite a soggy dough to cook all the way through). I finished the loaf by sprinkling some grated cheddar on top (because, let's face it, most things taste better with cheese on top!) and into the oven it went. Within fifteen minutes of getting the flour out of the cupboard, I was back at my desk with my cuppa and the loaf was baking.

Half an hour later, when the oven timer sounded, all I needed to do was pull the loaf out of the oven and slide the hot loaf onto a cooling rack.

Gratuitous ingredienting.

The loaf will keep for up to three days in an airtight container (always assuming we don't finish it before then!), should still feel fresh tomorrow and will toast nicely at any time.

Chunks of sundried tomato and chili are nicely spread through the loaf.

For those who prefer their recipes in the standard format, here you go:

Ingredients:

• 250g plain white flour
• 250g plain wholemeal flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• ¼ chili powder (more or less, to taste)
• ½ smoked paprika
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 420ml buttermilk (or milk soured with the juice of half a lemon)
• 5 sundried tomatoes, drained and finely chopped
• 1 red chilli, seeded and finely chopped
• grated cheddar for the topping

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 200°C
2. Sieve the flours, salt, bicarbonate, chili powder and paprika together then mix in the oregano.
3. Add the chopped tomatoes and chili at the same time as the buttermilk and bring together to form a very sticky dough.
4. Turn the dough onto a floured board, bring in the sides of the dough, folding and turning it to shape it, but do not kneed it.
5. Move the shaped loaf to a baking tray lined with baking paper.
6. Cut a deep cross into the top of the loaf.
7. Sprinkle some finely grated cheddar.
8. Bake at 200°C for 30 minutes.

Dream a little dream

Yesterday morning I woke from an incredibly vivid dream of flying over a lush rainforest, towards a gorge. I flew over and into the gorge, under a natural bridge formation created by the collapse of a cave and down to land on the bank of the river below. But the bank was crowded with totem poles and huge wooden hands, the fingers of each having been carved and decorated like the totem poles. I clearly remember the feeling of being dwarfed as I sank down between the monumental wooden fingers and amazed by their scale and decoration. I also very clearly remember that there was a haziness and humidity down amongst all that carved wood; between evaporating river and a nearby waterfall, it was hard to see and hard to breathe.

The dream was so clear to me that I wanted to draw an image from it straight away, This was the result.

Image from a dream: Caran D'ache and pencil on cartridge paper.

The dream is still quite clear in my mind so I hope that there will be more sketches to come.

What's for dinner?

We had a load of veg in which needed using. Living with an Italian, a minestrone was an obvious (and healthy) choice. We had half a head of sweetheart cabbage, a handful of new potatoes, some bedraggled french beans and plenty of shallots and mushrooms. We've pretty much always got carrots and celery in the fridge and peas and baby broad beans in the freezer. Add to that little lot, a packet of pancetta, a few bay leaves, a squeeze of tomato puree, a splash of white wine and a load of water, boil it for an hour or so and Bob's your uncle.

So, what goes with soup? Why, bread of course! I cheat a little when I make bread. I've a bread maker so I tend to let it make the dough for me. Today I made sesame and caraway rolls and pesto, sundried tomato and olive tear-and-share.

Grub's up!

How can a day off work mean I've no time for creativity?!

Yesterday was a bit frustrating. I'd taken the day off work because I had a few little jobs I wanted to get done. I had hoped that it would also allow me a little time to do some more crafty or creative stuff. But my failure to see exactly how many "little jobs" I had to do and how long they would take meant that I didn't get any time to do creative things at all!

So, this morning I was determined to get the creativity in good and early! I wanted to do a more permanent version of the Dessy Weather sketch I drew the other day. On opening my sketch book, I found a couple of cartoons I'd done a few months ago.

This first was an idea which came to me and I sketched very quickly, but never really developed (I really should one day).

And this one is another cat-themed one. (Um... I like cats quite a lot. In fact, I'm probably borderline crazy-cat-lady.)

And finally, here's the developed Dessy Weather cartoon.

Sketchy

Yesterday I bought myself an A5 sketching notepad and a mechanical pencil that I hope will be reasonably robust. The intention is to keep them with me at all times so that when inspiration hits, I can be ready to sketch. I've always wanted to do this, but for some reason never have. Incidentally, the pencil is very cool - the lead turns just a fraction each time you touch it to the paper so that it wears evenly to remain sharp; technology, huh?

Ryman A6 sketch book (80 pages) and Uni Kuru Toga 0.5 mechanical pencil

I had fun with my new purchases straight away yesterday lunchtime, starting off with some inspiration from the tree at the junction of London Wall and Moorgate.

Number 9 - The Larch

Then very quickly I reprised some old friends from many years ago, the Inskip cow and sheep (the pig was added later and I've not drawn a pig before, hence it being a less well developed drawing).

The crazy-eyed cow and grass-munching sheep were originally from a card I sent to friends many years ago when I stayed (very briefly) in an extremely small village in rural Lancashire

After work, I went into town and while waiting for a friend, I took some inspiration from the flowers in windowboxes and borders.

Flowery

Later, on the tube home from a night out, I decided to develop yesterday's ice cream idea further, making the ice creams more individual.

I Scream. Again.

Even this morning I've been busy. A toad on BBC Breakfast made me draw him.

Toad out of the hole

And then my Gosh!, one of our cats, came and sat on the back of the sofa with her back to me. The sheen of her coat and the shape of her shoulders and hips really called to me. I'm particularly proud of this sketch (although if I were to be critical, I'd say that her top lip is just a little too long in this sketch and her tail a little floofier than IRL).

Gosh! pretending she isn't keeping an eye on me

Oh summer, where art thou?

I'm feeling the need for summery designs at the moment. So on the train into work this morning I doodled this.

It might end up as a linocut print; maybe even on a t-shirt!

I Scream

The fabric of creativity

I'm inordinately excited to have found out about the existence of fabric painting media. Until yesterday, I had thought that painting on fabric required specialist fabric paints or crayons like those I had as a kid. They did the trick, but they really gave quite a basic result.

As a result of the lino printing workshop yesterday, I have discovered, however, that it's possible to buy media that you mix with standard acrylic paint which allows you to paint or print onto fabric to provide a result which will resist washing even in a washing machine. I've always liked using acrylic paint, not least because it's affordable and quite easy to find even in the most basic arts and crafts shops.

Today's research has also enlightened me to products which you can use to create screen printing stencils. Again, I did a bit of screen printing when I was a kid, but it involved cutting a stencil out of paper which had a great many limitations (not least that it would apply ink to the thickness of the paper used).

I sense a whole world of fabric printing opportunities opening up in front of me. My life may never be quite the same ever again!