Blueberry, Polenta and connections

It's been so long since I've updated this blog, and yet lots of music and cooking has happened. I've even taken the pictures to use for this blog. 

Morello Cherries for a cheesecake

I've returned to this blog simply because I was talking to an old friend I haven't seen for years who runs, with her partners, a community project which includes a cafe -The Bank @ Eye

This lovely lady reminded me of the joy of sharing my recipes and of baking for others to enjoy. I've been reading many blogs and many new recipe books and cooking up a great deal, and talking to old and new friends and realizing the great connections that come into being when positivity and love are projected. 

 I have been reading David Spangler's book - Apprenticed to Spirit - " It was like sitting on a dock with my legs dangling in the water, experiencing two different environments at the same time. I had the sense of being in two places at once, of being two different yet related kinds of consciousness."


I have always loved to explore strange, complex or downright weird alliances, connections and pairings - and reading Smitten Kitchen's Blog which I enjoyed so much I bought the cookbook. Theoretically I could just print off the recipe, but sometimes it is holding the book and checking the recipe that helps when getting creative. That's why e-books dont' really appeal, because the physical connection of hand to page and book is not something I wish to give up. 

So I've already cooked 4 recipes from the book within a week of receiving it, but the blueberry recipe has been made several times simply because when I am inspired to bake, the ingredients I have match the following recipe.

Of course there are the times when I suddenly remember that 6 handbell ringers are turning up the next morning and a cake will be required. The old faves still apply because there is always chocolate in the cupboard - and then the idea of blueberries bursting their goodness in a buttery, crumbly cake always pulls me towards a relatively quick bake.

Today was one of those days when the blueberries were calling me to the kitchen and the recipe came to mind along with the music of inspiration.

Ingredients

115g unsalted butter at room temperature plus more for pan (I use salted and still add the salt)
200g Sugar (I use a mix of soft brown and natural caster sugar)
60g Polenta ( I use the fine one - but  not masa harina cos you need the crunch)
125g plain flour, plus extra for dusting pan (I used white spelt)
2 teaspoons baking powder (If you are using spelt, then add an extra teaspoon)
1/2 Teaspoon table salt
2 large eggs
1/4 Teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 Teaspoon freshly grated lemon zest (I use orange zest)
200g blueberries, rinsed and patted dry
80g soured cream (I used creme fraiche and yoghurt mixed with a little milk)

Topping
100 g sugar ( I use a little less cos otherwise too sweet)
6 tablespoons plain flour
2 tablespoons polenta
1/4 teaspoon ground cinammon
pinch table salt
30g butter, cut into small pieces

Dry Ingredients whisked together

Pre-heat your oven to 180C/ fan 160C/ Gas Mark 4. Line bottom of a 20 cm pan with parchment, and then butter and dust with flour. You can use non stick spray (olive oil in a can). The tin doesn't have to be square as I have baked in an round tin, but it does come out better in the square tin.

Creme Fraiche (Soured Cream)

1. Put flour, polenta, baking powder, & salt in a bowl and whisk together by hand until it is all mixed. There is nothing worse than a mouthful of baking powder.

Butter and Sugar

2. Using an electric mixer (handheld if you wish)beat the butter and sugar together until pale & fluffy - which will take at least 2 -3 minutes. This helps the lift so it is important to make sure it is really pale. 

Prepared Cake Pan

3 Add each egg separately and beat thoroughly to combine after each addition. Scrape down mixture from the side of the bowl too.

4. Add the vanilla extract and zest and whisk to combine.

halfway through the mix

5. Add a third of the flour and beat until combined, add all of the soured cream  and another third of the flour and beat again until combined. Add blueberries to remaining third of flour and add this to cake batter and fold in gently with spatula or wooden spoon.

6. Spread cake batter into prepared cake tin, and then prepare your streusal/crumble topping.

7. You can use yoru dry ingredients bowl again. Put the dry ingredients in and then use your fingertips to rub the butter into the flour. Sprinkle this mixture across the top of the cake batter and then put into the oven.

Crumble mix

8. Bake for 30-35 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean.

9. Cool in the tin for 5 minutes, and then run spatula or knife around the edge of the pan and flip out onto a cooling rack.

cooked cake

10. You can eat this with coffee, or serve as a dessert as I did with a creme fraiche, 0% fat greek yoghurt mix.

Blueberry Polenta crumble cake - my version

And of course below is apparently what it should look like - because although I coated the bluerries in the flour, they did all sink to the bottom.

The music of cooking and inspiration was of course an eclectic mix of flamenco and old school Jimi Hendrix

Miguel Poveda - Flamenco 

Foxy Lady - Jimi Hendrix 

Change is gonna Come - Otis Redding

 

 
 
 
 
 

 

Recipes, Inspiration, Planetary shifts

Recently a good friend, a soul sister, asked me where I get my recipes from and I actually sat down and wrote a list of the cookbooks that I read, re-read both for pleasure and for the recipes. 

This led me to reflect on a recent cleansing and clearing experience that happened after a good few weeks of doing very little creative inventive cooking after a loss of a good friend, I went through all my books looking for inspiration and found none - a tried and tested method of shifting and raising my vibrations.

I resorted to a new fangled way of seeking inspiration to create and shift my energies into a better flowing space. At a friends I used an iPad and searched on a website for images of cakes. I scrolled through until something piqued my interest; the inner creative faerie that lives inside woke up and my faerie guide Griselda - she of laughs, gigles and the occasional hammer blow to my head - stamped her foot and shouted in my ear 'THAT ONE!!!"

http://www.delsole.co.uk/2009/04/21/ricotta-and-almond-cake-with-vanilla-honey-and-very-berry-syrup/

A recipe seen on a website, found at random, visually triggered into a creative flow and allowing  myself to shift energies, raising my vibration to move into union with the universe. 

The recipe - Ricotta and Almond cheesecake with honey berry vanilla syrup. - something new to try. As is often the way the only ingredient missing from my stock was Ricotta, which after a trek through 3 shops I acquired and hurried home to create.

This recipe, which will eventually follow, was a departure for me - a new way of being in this world. Normally I trawl through my cookbooks or the blogs that inspire me, and of course I am visually triggered by beautiful images, and yet this was a purer form of the process where the usual habitual old and out dated methods of triggering creation were left behind as I took off the blinkers and looked in a new way for inspiration. In these times of back to back planetary alignments and movements we are all being pushed by the energies into a period of accelerated clearing and growth -whether we like it or not.  

Everything is happening on such a deep, intense level that we can be depleted very easily and shifting our energies is much harder while we cling to old habits and processes. This process of cleansing is faster and deeper than anything ever before and moving into automatic mode of dealing with such intense energies will no longer be useful or even valid.  The current energy transformations as they impact upon us will no longer require us to take pages and pages of journalling to integrate the changes, nor will running off to the nearest healer help - because whether we are conscious of this or not, the changes are occurring right down to DNA level; within each cell of our physical body, within our energy bodies.  We are all being cleared of the debris and detrius of old patterns and institutions which are being brought up into our face for us all to see. 

My old tried and tested method of triggering my creative flow is no longer valid to the being I am becoming, the intuitive process or tapping into the guidance of my Higher Self leads me to a more random process that is not mired in tradition or habit, I have been well and truly kicked out of the safe rut of cooking old favourites.

So with that in mind I am going to list the cookery books I have used a lot in the past and may use again in the future, but only while in the moment  - a time to release and move forward methinks.

A relatively recent buy is The Popina Book of Baking - Isidora Popovic. This is the blog of the lady in question -

http://www.popina.co.uk/new.php?id=20

– the lady with a stall on Portobello Market.
Really good recipes, great pics and inspirational ideas for tarts, muffins and cakes, and I often do the strawberry, nectarine and white choc muffins as a quickie bake for a morning event.

Popina book of Baking

  A recipe here - http://leitesculinaria.com/36359/recipes-butternut-squash-tart.html

 A Recipe book I have used mostly for great pictures and wonderful recipes, rather than reading and absorbing is the Ottolenghi book - the original one which has an oft used recipe for Granola bars, or the cinammon & hazelnut meringues, or even the sumac and za'tar chicken dish I frequently cook.

Ottolenghi The Cookbook 

 A wonderful book for Middle Eastern cooking by an amazing writer - something to read as well as use - Claudia Roden's book Arabesque

Arabesque - a taste of Morroco, Turkey and Lebanon 

 The use of pomegranates is always intriguing and mysterious. Each time I see or use a pomegranate I think of Persephone and the voyage into the underworld, of fertility, richness and abundance.

Each country has a chapter, some writing and tips and the recipes of course. Evocative writing that impels you towards the kitchen and perhaps the internet too for some of the ingredients. Great and lipsmackingly good!

THE MORO COOKBOOK - Spanish and arabic deliciousness

 

In London there is a restaurant called Moro’s where they serve Spanish and Arabic Mediterranean food that is stunning. The Moro refers to the Moors occupation of Spain and the influences that had over the cuisine. The recipes can take time but they are not complicated. 

Plenty - Yotam Ottolenghi - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Plenty-Yotam-Ottolenghi/dp/0091933684/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1339616566&sr=8-1

This book is on my wish list as it is a comprehensive vegetarian recipe book by a wonderful chef.

Recipe from the Plenty book

 Another writer I read a lot is Tessa Kiros who has an eclectic background of various nationalities and this finds its way into her recipe books which can contain a mix of Swedish, Canadian, Georgian, Russian, and Italian recipes. It is fascinating to read and the recipes are uncomplicated and relatively easy, altho' you may have to hunt for some ingredients. It rather depends on how well stock your pantry or kitchen cupboard is. 

Falling Cloudberries - Tessa Kiros 

  I  use this and her other book quite a bit - the other book is 

Apples for Jam - Tessa Kiros 

which has recipes like Rosehip semolina puddings; Pomegranate Sorbet; Green Bean Souffle loaf; Orange Juice and Olive oil cake with pine nuts.

I bought another of her books called Venezia - Tessa Kiros 

While it has a beautiful cover and some amazing photographs, I rarely use it.

A book I received as  a present last year was after my browsing the food blogs - 

Ready for Dessert, My Best Recipes - David Lebovitz 

 He has some great recipes that are relatively easy to make. His sorbet  and ice cream recipes are especially good. I have made the Blood Orange surprise sorbet (the surprise being vodka/brandy), and while some of his cakes are basics that I can always do, some are new and different and a challenge to be taken on and completed. The photographs are truly amazing, vibrant and make me want to lick the page. 

I rarely buy a newspaper, but during one of my forays into the news world I read Diana Henry in the Telegraph who is an amazing writer, evocative, simple and inspirational. Her 2 books Crazy Water, Pickled Lemons

Roast Figs, Sugar Snow

are my winter and summer guides. She writes so well especially about cheese, and all the ingredients she uses as a basis for the sections of the book. Her Roast figs book is to my mind a book for winter, and her Crazy water book is one for summer with a wealth of recipes from the mediterranean and all over the middle east. 

Russian Curd cheese pancakes - a great one for Pancake Tuesday (Shrove)

Peasant girls in the mist - what a glorious title for an apple dish

Russian smoked fish pie - yum, yum, yum

Pumpkin tarts with spinach and Gorgonzola - I used Roquefort because that's what I had.

Morrocan Chicken with Tomatoes and Saffron Honey jam

Morrocan Lamb and Quince tagine

Breast of Duck with pomegrante and walnut sauce

Violet liquer truffles

Middle Eastern Orange Confit

And a final book for now - Red Velvet, Chocolate Heartache - Harry Eastwood

This is a great idea from the 'cook yourself thin' programme. All the cakes look amazing, her humour in writing and her homage to Agatha Christie and quirky photography is delightful - and strange to say irritating to some - but most fun of all is the ingredients. All the array of cakes using grated potatoes, or beetroot, or butternut squash or courgette. The fat replaced by grated vegetables. The brownies made with beetroot are amazing, as is the apricot almond cakes. The book is mostly low fat, always wheat free and a delight to cook from.

And finally a picture of how my Ricotta Almond cake with honey vanilla berry's turned out - I did of course tweak it and added my current fave 'Creme de Mur' to the syrup.