weekend 18/19 sept 2010

On Saturday, we decided to cycle up to Skidby Mill, a working windmill restored with Lottery funding (what isn’t these days?), with a Museum of Rural Life attached.

It’s not that far – about 6 miles, maybe – but there was a vicious headwind most of the way there, and the last bit is decidedly Up. To my shame, I couldn’t quite manage it, and had to push. And my calves ache like mad!

The museum is beautifully done out, with photographs of and quotations from people who worked the land in the 1930s and 1940s, and some “hands on” exhibits for people to try grinding grain between stones again. I was quite taken aback to be charged £1.75 entrance, as I thought museums were free these days, but it was well worth the money. You can climb right up to the top and see the miller milling (though I didn’t, as I’d never have got down again). You can buy the flour they mill, so we did, and we had a cup of tea and a very nice scone in the tearoom before heading home.

It was glowering a bit when we left, but the rain held off. We came back via Morrisons (so just over 12.5 miles all told)  and bought some bits, which I stowed in my nice new rear bike basket – I’m very  pleased with that, as it means we can go a bit further afield for shopping without the car. Pete is very hardy, and carries heaps of stuff in a rucksack, but my back doesn’t like that. I picked up some greengages for 50p, marked as exotic fruit (really? greengages?), and some white pudding, which I love – you hardly ever see it down south.

In the afternoon, I made a couple of banana and coconut cakes as an experiment, as we had a kilo of desiccated coconut in the larder. I have no idea why we bought such a huge bag, and working through it is going to take some time.

Sunday dawned grey and cold and rainy, and it stayed like that all day, which was irritating as I’d wanted to pop into town. Instead, we had a small but beautifully formed fry up for breakfast (1 rasher, 1 sasuage, 1 egg, 2 slices of white pudding, some fried potatoes). Then we turned a half shoulder of lamb into slow cooked lamb and lentils, and put up with the smell all afternoon. I watched Gosford Park in the afternoon, and the day was, generally, slumpage. First weekend day we’ve spent completely at home since last winter, I think, but was quite nice nonetheless.

Mirrored from kestrel.org.

coconut and banana cake

We found a kilogram of desiccated coconut in the larder box – no idea why we bought such a huge amount, but it must be used up! There were four small, brown bananas in a box in the fridge  - I read somewhere that they will keep for ages like that, so was experimenting; seems to work!  So I did a bit of  Googling for ideas, and adapted a few recipes, and this is what I did:

4 brown bananas, peeled
2 medium eggs
120g margarine, melted
120g wholemeal flour
75g cane sugar
1.5 tsp. baking powder
125g dessicated coconut

Some dried cranberries as a last minute addition.

(I doubled this lot up to make two cakes. I also added some cream of tartar, but I don’t think it was needed, and it would have benefited from some vanilla extract).

I put the bananas in the food processor and blitzed them up. Then I just bunged in everything else and whizzed that up!

Put the mix in a loaf tin lined with a cake liner (I love these – so easy, no greasing, no sticking!), baked at gas 4 for 1 hour.  They’ve come out lovely – quite a heavy consistency, but none the worse for that. Might try dates in them next time.

And the coconut mountain is very slowly decreasing :)

Edited to add: best estimate of carbs per cake is about 250g, so about 20g per slice. I can live with that on an occasional basis!

Mirrored from Reactive Cooking.