Thursday 10 February 2011

Naked whippet

 

Naked whippet running with treasure (found dead tennis ball).
This was not the weather today.
Today we had coated whippet running in the rain with treasure (freshly killed rabbit...)

In other news:

Regime Change
Breakfast at 7.30 failed on the third day due to slack parenting.
However, using a timer for music practice has stuck, and is working exceedingly well.
Mission accomplished.
 No-Knead-Bread-in-a-Tin
Think I've cracked this one now.
450g or 3 cups flour, ¼ tsp yeast, 1 heaped tsp salt in a bowl. Use a knife to mix the flour with 360ml or 1½ cups water to make a shaggy dough. Leave at room temperature for 12 plus hours - yes, twelve, or even more. Scrape the dough onto a floured worksurface and flip it about a few times to make a parcel - you will need well-floured hands, and the dough will be floppy but beautiful. Flip the parcel into a large loaf tin (I am currently using a Silverwood 2lb tin from diverse collection of loaf tins- it is bigger than a standard 2lb tin).
Cover and leave for 2 hours room temp.
After 2 hours, put tin in cold oven and turn on to MAX and set timer for 30 minutes.
Then turn oven down to 200C and bake for another 25 minutes.
Beautiful.
Probably not as wonderful as the first ever loaf, but a darn sight easier than flopping it all about in teatowels and trying to get it to land on a scorching hot baking tray and not the floor.
And this is now our bread of choice.
Other foodstuffs
Thanks to Good Food magazine and Nigel Slater we have conquered pastry and made a lot of tarts.
We also know what to do next time there's a pound of cavelo nero or bunch of chard lurking in the fridge.

(half a tart, precariously balanced)

and finally,

Teaching
I've been officially graded as "good"!! I'm not "outstanding", but neither am I merely "satisfactory". I think to be outstanding I have to show the students stuff on the overhead computer projector, and use role-play as a teaching technique...
Nevertheless, they all got the hang of whip stitch in a jiffy yesterday.
Breathe a sigh of relief, I was more nervous than them.
And one lady is still refusing to change her bobbin tension, but I'll beat her into submission by half-term.

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