Monthly Archives: February 2010

Flapjacks

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Flapjacks

6 oz butter or marg.
6oz demerara sugar
8oz porridge oats

Melt the butter in a large pan with the sugar. Then add the oats and mix together well.

Tip the mixture into a greased Swiss roll tin and level out with a palette knife or fork.

Bake in the centre of the oven at gas mark 4, 180C or 350F for about 30 minutes.

Remove from the oven and after a few minutes cut into squares or rectangles. Leave in the tin until cold.

Flapjacks are great for packed lunches as they travel well and what with all the oats in them they are at least a bit healthy. The so called healthy cereal bars which you can buy in supermarkets are unbelievably expensive – about £2.50 for 5 very small bars and I doubt if they do you any good.

Obviously this is a very basic flapjack recipe but you can have fun playing around with it. Try out different kinds of sugar or substitute some sugar with golden syrup or honey.

Add some spices like cinnamon or ginger for a change, or add dried fruit or nuts.

If you don’t mind being naughtier try mini marshmallows or chopped chocolate.

Darker Flapjacks

As you can see from my photographs I have done one batch with white sugar and another with dark brown, which gives a nice toffyish flavour.

Scottish words: Dreich

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Dreich (dreech) has been popping up fairly regularly recently on the BBC weather reports and I’m sure by now it must be quite well understood by people in England. It means really grey, dull and dismal weather but I suppose you can use it to describe anything grey and depressing.

I’ve been quite impressed by the pronunciation of the forecasters, they are managing the ‘ch’ sound well, as in loch. It would be terrible if they said dreek.

Here are a couple of dreich photographs of the coast at Kirkcaldy. As it is like this and even worse most of the time, it is a mystery to me why anyone would want a sea view.

Kirkcaldy rollers

More Kirkcaldy dreich

There are always a few ships about but to me the most interesting thing is that this is the exact piece of the coast which the famous economist Adam Smith (1723-1790) looked out on from his home. Then the area was packed with sailing ships and it was the coming and going of the ships which set him thinking about economics, and led him to write The Wealth of Nations.

Magimix Le Glacier Ice Cream Maker

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We were lucky enough to be given vouchers for Lakeland Plastics at Christmas. As the weather has been so bad, we haven’t managed to use them until this week.

So we headed north to Perth and had a mooch around the Lakeland shop there. I’ve always fancied being able to make my own ice-cream so that is what we ended up buying and we’ve been trying it out this week-end.

We started off with the vanilla and then branched out to mint with crushed up Aero mint chocolate added to it. They were both really lovely and I’m looking forward to experimenting with lots of different flavours.

You get a basic recipe book with the machine but I think you can be really adventurous and make it up as you go along. There is a great Italian ice cream shop in St Andrews which has dozens and dozens of different flavours, I think my favourite is the Scottish Tablet one and that should be really easy to replicate.

I’ve got Turkish Delight left over from Christmas too and I think I’ll chop it up and add it to the basic vanilla with some rose-water, that should be lovely.

I hate cheap commercially made ice-cream. To me it is just like sweetened margarine and at least if you make it yourself, you know exactly what is in it.

The bowl of the ice-cream maker has to be in your freezer for about 12 hours before you can use it, but after that it only takes about 20 minutes to make the ice-cream.

So the ice-cream maker has been a great success and I would recommend it to anyone who is thinking about buying one.

The Sacred Art of Stealing by Christopher Brookmyre

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This is another book which I read during the Christmas holidays and I’ve been swithering about reviewing it ever since.

It’s definitely not one for the prudish as it is a wee bit over the top in a couple of places. Having said that, I did enjoy reading it. It starts off in Mexico but the action soon switches to the lovely city of Glasgow, which is always nice especially if you are homesick for the streets. I enjoyed being in Buchanan Street and Gordon Street and the Kelvingrove Gallery anyway.

Angelique de Xavia has grown up in Glasgow and gone to a Roman Catholic school where she had rather a hard time of it due to the fact that her skin colour didn’t fit in as her parents had been amongst the Ugandan Asians deported by Idi Amin in the 1970s. She becomes a Rangers supporter mainly because all of the hateful pupils are Celtic supporters but being a Rangers fan is the big secret in her life. The rivalry between the two teams is really well observed and funny.

When she joins the police she becomes an expert in judo and has a reputation for being a bit of a maverick so when there is a robbery at a bank and hostages are taken, Angelique abseils into the building. It’s a robbery with a difference and Angelique ends up finding one of the robbers more than a bit interesting, which is where it became a bit unlikely.

There are loads of twists and turns in the plot and I think that anyone who is into suspense/mystery novels would probably enjoy it. Even if they don’t have the added dimension of imagining themselves at the Mitchell Library or in Partick.

One thing did annoy me though and that was the spelling of Glesca Polis. Apparently Brookmyre was born in Glasgow, as I was, but I have never heard any Glaswegian pronounce Glasgow in that way. It is always Glesga. Only teuchters (highlanders) pronounce it with a ‘c’.

I reviewed this book as part of the Thriller and Suspense Challenge.

Happy Birthday

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Pining for the West is one year old today, and I’ve been given the amazing news that it came fifth in the culture category of the Scotblog awards.

I was unaware that the awards existed and I’m really chuffed to be number five. I’ve got something to aim for next year now and I hope to do even better.

Congratulations to A Son of the Rock who came first.

I’m just hoping that people continue to find some things of interest in my blog. Thank-you to everyone who voted for me.

Make Do and Mend

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I’ve noticed that a lot of people are looking for make do and mend articles at the moment. I haven’t got around to doing any sewing recently, but when I do, I’ve always found the Burdastyle website to be really helpful.

It has lots of tips and ‘how to’ videos which make everything seem really simple and you’ll find that it is useful whether you are a beginner or an expert at sewing.

This recession seems to have awakened a new enthusiasm in people to fix and re-make things rather than just chuck them out.
At least it keeps fabric out of landfill sites, which had apparently been causing problems before.