Tuesday 8 February 2011

peaceful productivity......................................

Yesterday seemed pretty hectic, yet it was one of those days when you never really get an awful lot done.  We awoke to a snow clad landscape which came as a bit of a surprise as it hadn't looked or felt at all like snow the night before.  The puppy was booked into the vet for his first vaccination  at 9am and I rather suspect that the roads people were caught on the hop too as there had been no ploughs out and there was a lot of snow building up on the roads.  However, our trusty Subaru soldiered on and we reached the vet (10 miles away) in good time. 



the snow returns.................

This morning I decided to bake some bread and cakes for the freezer as we're down to our last loaf.  The dogs had been racing around the garden for ages and were ready for a sleep in front of the woodburning stove.  The big dogs were comfortably ensconced on the sofa.............   



..................................while the puppy has just discovered the comfort of the kitchen armchair!


There is something very peaceful about being in a warm room with sleeping dogs and some lovely music on Radio 3.  Ideal baking conditions! 


I made two lots of soda bread.  One batch included pumpkin seeds, linseed and sunflower seeds  while the other batch was made with a mixture of oatmeal and flour to which I also added some malt. I made two date and walnut loaves as I had dates that were almost out of date!  Then I made some fruit loaves which always  freeze very well.  These loaves are usually made with sultanas and mixed peel but I had some dried apricots which were also almost out of date so I chopped them up and added them to the mixture.  It's a very flexible recipe and sometimes I incorporate some chopped stem ginger or the grated rind of an orange or lemon.

When I was out with the dogs later in the afternoon I spotted these brave little snowdrops peeping out through the leaves under one of the trees in the garden.  Some bloggers in milder places are already posting photographs of spring flowers that we probably  wont see here for ages yet, especially if we get even more snow!

1 comment:

  1. I can smell that delicious bread from here! I too did a bit of baking today but I still haven't got round to your soda bread recipe - will do tomorrow though.

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