Let snail this!

Hokay, it's been over a month since I posted anything here...sorry. I've been engrossed in so many distractions. Darn Stuff! Actually, Darn Stuff has not been the culprit at all, unfortunately. It's been more like a host of incredible edibles and crochety little things that have been consuming my passions for the past month.

I've been sharing photos of my little veggie garden on Facebook since May when sowing started (I know... should've started in February or March. But you know what it's like...oh, plennty of time *flippant hand* and before I know it, it's nearly October and I haven't gone on a single mushroom forage yet *SOBBB* Ah..guess I'm a bit slow to jump on the bandwagon. Maybe retailers have a point, stocking Christmas gifts and winter wear when it's not even cold yet! Ugh.) More to the topic, I've started writing about my veggie garden for UK Handmade. All the articles I write for them will be compiled on a new blog called Middle-Aged Kingdom, so they'll all be in one place, together with recipes and a number of other articles not featured on their website for whatever reason - probably because they're too norty. Y'know I can't help a little innuendo sometimes...

Hmm. Inn-u-end-OH!    Coincidence...? I wonder...

Speaking of incredible edibles and crochety things, my tiny seedlings were being demolished by a hungry little critter during the sowing period. And they didn't go quietly when Andy brought out the pest control...

I woke up the next morning to see this little fella perched high up on a plant stick, campaigning for its rights to eat our lettuce. Let SNAIL?

'Lettuce eat lettuce!', the snail protested, waving his feelers in the air.

Luckily for this little chap, Andy liked his spirit and rescued him. His friends weren't quite so fortunate...

The Earlsdon Slug Pellet Massacre

I know quite a few of my readers are Singaporean, so if anyone's thinking escargot, yup, that's it. The brown and orange ones, at least. (No, I know escargot is French, but Singaporeans love food and will eat anything. Trust me, I know what I'm talking about here) I briefly considered it too, but you have to catch the snails live and feed them on cornmeal for about two weeks to cleanse their insides before you can kill, cook and eat them. Plus, Andy's not into chewy textures, so that plan (along with the snails) fizzled out.

Snails are actually really cute, but if they'd been less impatient and waited till the seedlings got a bit bigger, we would've left them alone and shared our abundant crops with them. But, munching the seedlings leaves us nothing for later, so they had to go. However, here's a little tribute to them:

This is Whirligig the snail.
His diet of cotton socks and polyfibre stuffing lettuce clean him in a washing machine easily.
None of this fiddly cornmeal nonsense.

I've also been making some other crochety little things, inspired by the veggie garden. Check out this peapod!

I love peas! Peas in a pod are the most beautiful sight in the world to me. Even interjections by my mad friend, Dannie Cho, that I obviously haven't seen his wife naked yet, haven't managed to ruin this image. 

Actually, he's very wrong. I have seen her naked, and you can too, should you wish. Yi Lin is lovely, but Dan's harassment of the wife to say that he, naked is the 2nd most beautiful sight in the world has kept my mind steadfastly focused on that peapod. Hehe.

Click to enlarge, ok? 

I'd been dying to knit peas in a pod for years, but didn't know how, until I started going to the Knit, Stitch and Crochet Club at The Mead Gallery, Warwick Arts Centre. I met someone who taught me how to hold the hook and yarn, and to follow patterns. The one for the peas is from Amigurumi Two! by Ana Paula Rimoli, and it's crocheted. I've decided for now that I'm not so into knitting, I have limited coordination with any activity that involves more than my own body. Sewing and crochet is just about ok, but coordinating two sticks, yarn and fingers all over the place is just too much to handle. I nearly had a fit when I saw the others at Knit Club making socks with four needles...*faint*

I also finished something super cute last week -  a radish lariat scarf! It's my pride and joy and I wear it everywhere when it's not boiling hot. This one's from Crochet Goodies for Fashion Foodies by Twinkie Chan. 

Unfortunately I got the pattern a bit wrong, so there're a few holes in the leaves. I managed to hide them a little by weaving in the ends, but, welllll, that's au naturel, right? I mean, in real gardens, you get crochety little snails munching on the radish leaves, so I decided to make one of those too!

Right, let'snail this crochetyness!

The snail pattern came from the same Ana Paula Rimoli book, but I changed the colours to look like our brown garden snails. He's got a pin that allows him to crawl on my holey leaves, cling to clothing or perch on a headband so he can be a scarf accessory, brooch or fascinator. Knowing these crochety little things, they'd most like to be fascinators. Well, at least this snail is free to roam, even if the others weren't.

Why you should have me around on (or after) your birthday

It's going to take me a while to get round to proving that my post today has ANYTHING to do with socks, but how's about sticking around for some yummy pictures?


Monday was Andy's birthday, so our kitchen was a flurry of cake-making and putting together. Actually, I was also assembling a birthday present for my friend Sarah. Her birthday was months ago but her pressie was in the pipeline for so long because I had to pick my moment to give it to her. We often meet in town, but it wouldn't do to have to carry it round, plus it's perishable! Sort of. You'll see anyway.


Andy's a hardcore chocolate boy so I made the most gigantinormous cake ever! I'm not much of a chocolate or sugar fiend, but judging by what I made, you'd think I were a major shareholder at Green & Black's or Tate & Lyle. Sorry Pandy, I'm not quadruple-timing you...I just needed a good dose of the sweet stuff that day! It makes me a better wife, honest! *wide-eyed innocence*

Chocolate KABOOM!

The verdict so far has been excellent! This recipe was recommended by my sis, the elusive SesMuphs, but I've had plenty requests for it too. It's a great throw-everything-in-and-stir cake, which is even easier if you have a set of measuring cups and spoons - my favouritest type of cooking! Recipe from allrecipes.com

Ingredients

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 cups white sugar
• 6 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 2/3 cup vegetable oil
• 2 cups water
• 2 tablespoons distilled white vinegar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Directions

1. In a large bowl, combine all the dry ingredients together.
2. Combine all the wet ingredients together in another bowl.
3. Pour the liquid ingredients all at once into the dry ingredients, and beat until smooth.
4. Pour batter into a greased 9 x 13 inch pan.
5. Bake in a preheated 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) oven for 20-25 minutes. Let cool in pan. When cool sprinkle with confectioners' sugar.

I don't think you can go wrong with this, but I've added some salt to the recipe as it helps to bring out the flavour of the cake. I also used olive oil because I ran out of veggie oil, then decided to go all out Mediterranean and try balsamic vinegar instead of the plain white. I don't think it made any difference at all, so feel free to experiment a little.

Thwarted by the empty veggie oil bottle...thank goodness for olive oil!

I find greaseproof paper v. fiddly, so these paper clips are most helpful!

I worked out this trick for getting a cake tin to stay lined. Put your tin in the middle of the paper, cut it inwards to mimic the rays of a Japanese flag, use the longest rays to hold the other pieces against the tin and clip over the edge.

Pour in the goo stuff

See? No leakage and the paper doesn't flop everywhere and dent your pretty cake. I made a chocolate orange icing with the following:

Zest and juice of 1 orange

Squirt of lemon juice

Small piece of butter

Tablespoon or two of unsweetened cocoa

As much icing sugar as it takes to make a thick but spreadable icing

Mix everything together and spread it on the middle, top and sides of your cakey! (or all over yourself, if you're messy like me). Lick your fingers, and the bowl =P~

Variations: You could also add a few drops of orange extract to the cake mix, or more orange juice and zest. Just reduce the water to make sure the proportions of dry and wet ingredients are about the same as the recipe.

Or try an orange drizzle topping? Mix orange juice and zest to granulated sugar (without dissolving it), then spoon it over the top of your cake.

Birthday boy gets to lick the whisk too, lucky thing!

I decorated it with a few jellies and borage flowers from our garden.

I was promptly forgiven for spending the whole afternoon with the said Green & Black and Tate & Lyle

We're gonna eat you, li'l cakey!

I also made some grapefruit creams for Sarah, since she really enjoyed them and maaaaybe dropped a tiny subtle hint about her birthday when I offered them round at my party months ago. My longtime friend, Roz, also loves orange creams, so I've saved her some of these too. Grapefruit creams are just a variation on orange creams that I decided to try. 

This is all it involves:

Juice and zest of a grapefruit

Squirt of lemon juice to reduce sweetness

As much icing sugar as it takes to form a kneadable dough

Large bar of chocolate (I used plain dark)

Mix the fruit and sugar together to form a dough that unsticks from the bowl. It takes a while, so keep going and don't worry that you've made a mess of it.

This is too liquidy, so keep going...

Make little balls with the juicy sugary dough and line them up on greased paper. Dust a fork with more icing sugar and flatten the balls. Chill in the fridge until they're firm, a few hours or overnight is great, but you can get away with an hour or so.

Creamed, balled and flattened

Melt some chocolate in a bowl over a pan of water and dip each cream in. Leave to firm up in the fridge, the longer the better, but again, I only had an hour or two and it still worked!

They closed in fast, their serrated jaws dripping with black goo...guess this is what happens when you cream, ball and flatten someone.

Pack them in between layers of greased paper and give to a thrilled recipient, or eat them off the tray by yourself if you don't want to share (or have no friends)! Hehe.

Okay, and here's what all this has to do with socks. I learnt how to crochet about 2 weeks ago & made a wee trinket so Sarah had something to keep after all the creams were gone. Socks are knitted, or crocheted...and so's this! Wheeee!

Tum tum TA-DAAAAH!!!

This is not just Sock 'N' Soul...this is Sock 'N' Soul Food!!! Pardon the corniness...geddit geddit? Heehee xxx