This time it was preparations for a dinner.
We were having Crawford and Nancy over for dinner tonight and that means we were cooking and baking almost all day. It certainly felt that way, anyway.
Scamp had the difficult job of preparing the starter, main and dessert. I had the fairly easy job of baking a loaf. Both Scamp and I were working in the kitchen at the same time. Sometimes that works out well, but at other times it’s a disaster with one of us (me) stomping off in a strunt. This was one of the better days. Scamp’s soup had been made the day before, so the starter was sorted, but the main which was Prawn and Pea Risotto was to be made when the visitors arrived to maintain the freshness this meal deserved. The pudding, like the starter, had been partly made the day before and been kept in the fridge overnight.
It was really a relaxed start, and we even had time for lunch and an attempt at the NY Times puzzles, before the real work would begin.
I started the bread early, because the last couple of loaves hadn’t been a great success, I was being ultra-careful this time. I measured out the flour, yeast, salt, butter and water carefully and kneaded the resulting dough for the required ten minutes until it was smooth and ready to be set aside for an hour to rise. That left me with very little to do, so with Scamp’s permission, I went for a walk in St Mo’s and although I found some possibilities, I couldn’t find anything worthwhile. I’d left St Mo’s almost empty-handed and walked down to the shops for some odds and ends and was coming back when a lovely sunset was starting to build. Three of four shots later I had my PoD.
Back home Scamp was putting the finishing touches to the trifle which would be tonight’s dessert. It did look nice … tempting too, but I restrained myself. She had also started the main course and was totally control as only Scamp can be. My bread was rising nicely and was ready for the second stage of Knocking Back where you punch all the air out of the dough, dust it with flour and put it into a special wicker basket to do its second prove.
I left the loaf for an hour before I baked it at about 35minutes at Gas Mark 7 (that’s just to remind me because otherwise I’d forget) and basically it came out perfectly.
An hour later the visitors arrived and Scamp completed her main course and we sat down to a late dinner.
Everything turned out as planned for once and after a lot of talking and laughter, Crawford and Nancy drove home and I realised I hadn’t offered Crawford a ‘wee dram’ since Nancy was driving. I hope he wasn’t too upset. I’ll make it up to him.
We basically shovelled everything into the dishwasher then and went to bed.
Tomorrow we’ll do the rest of the tidying up, because we’re driving over to Larkhall for Scamp to get her eyes tested, while I go for a drive.
I’m sure you know this was a catch-up blog post!