Baklava - not for the faint-hearted

We have a friend of C's staying for the weekend. On Thursday I decided to make a big tray of Baklava - turned out to be a good thing as by Thursday evening I knew I was coming down with a bad head-cold, and it was great to have something already done for weekend treats. We had some very disappointing baklava in Paris, bought at the market on Rue de Rennes/ bvd Raspail. Then we had some very nice Kataifi when we happened to find a little Greek deli near the Sacre Coeur - and got to pull out some rusty Greek, too.
For some reason the Asian and Indian shops don't seem to have the regular cinnamon quills at the moment, just what is very definitely bark. Slightly different taste, but not bad...

Baklava
3/4 lb mixed nuts - I use about 4 oz each pistachios (unsalted), pecans and almonds. It's really a matter of personal preference.
1 oz granulated sugar
1/2 - 1 tsp cinnamon (more is my preference)
1/2 lb butter
1 lb filo pastry. ( I use 2 packs of Jus-Rol, 6 sheets in each pack.
1 lb granulated sugar
3/4 pt water
2 large strips of lemon rind
1 cinnamon stick
6 tblsp honey - use a good one, the flavour will be noticeable.
I have a large turkey roasting tin I got when I was catering for an outdoor activity weekend. It's the same width as the filo sheets, but not as long, so I lay one down and then fold it back about a third of the way.
Chop the nuts finely, leaving a few more coarsely chopped for texture. Add the single ounce of sugar and cinnamon and stir together.
Melt the butter.
Spread about 5 layers of pastry in the roasting tin, brushing each layer lightly with butter. Continue for another 4 layers or so, alternating nuts with each layer, and continuing to brush with butter. Finish off with another 5 or 6 layers of pastry, keeping the top layer as perfect as possible. With a very sharp knife, mark into diamond shapes (about 2" each side). Pour any remaining butter over, and cook in a preheated oven at 170C for half an hour. Reduce the heat to about 150, and continue cooking for another half hour or so, till a good golden brown colour.
While it is cooking, make a syrup by combining the water, sugar, lemon rind and cinnamon stick together in a large pan. Bring to the boil, boil (not simmer) for 5 minutes and remove from the heat. Remove the cinnamon stick and lemon peel, and stir in the honey.
Remove the baklava from the oven when it's ready, and while it's still hot, pour over the syrup. Allow to cool before serving.
To go with this, here are a couple of photos from Corfu last year.

City photos

Today we had training in work - and as it seemed set to be a fine sunny day I stuck my long lense in my bag. Shame the windows don't open very far, but even taken through the glass these pictures didn't seem to turn out too badly.

More Flowers

Still some more photos from the Botanic Gardens. It was lovely weather today, and as I was off work I'd thought about going to Farmleigh for a walk - but stayed home and tidied my craft room instead.
Some more photos from the Botanic Gardens, instead. Got to check out my Gazania, though - to my surprise the tub has survived both lack of water and snow, and the first one flowered yesterday when the sun finally came out in the afternoon.
My own irises are nearly at an end - the frail little white ones have been the most prolific and there are still a couple of buds left.

Some ATCs

For the last week or so I have been making some ATCs for an Animal A-Z swap on SCS.
Time now to pack them up and post them off...



















It bothers me a bit that the jaguar (cheetah masquerading as a jaguar - have you ever tried to find a jaguar stamp small enough to use on an ATC?) doesn't have eyes, but there was no way I was going to try to draw one on that I was happy with once, let alone thirteen times. I had fun making the Serendipity Scraps backgrounds for the jellyfish - it was something that I could do outdoors and enjoy the sun.

Recipe Time

I was just writing out this recipe to send my sister - it's the parmesan and rosemary focaccia that I made the weekend before last when we had such hot weather. The recipe originally came from one of Anna Thomas' books - From Anna's Kitchen. I reduced the parmesan by about half, and had to adjust the size as European ovens tend to be smaller than American ones. The first time I made this it was with the tail end of some Parmesan which I have a feeling came from Italy via London. Since, unfortunately, it was finished, I stretched to a lovely fresh, but expensive, wedge from M&S. It seems to be a bit saltier, and without the lovely granules, but still pretty good.
Parmesan and Rosemary Focaccia.
1/2 sachet instant yeast
1 lb strong flour
3/4 tsp salt
2 tbsp fruity olive oil ( I used Greek for this)
1 tbsp chopped FRESH rosemary
2 oz freshly grated Parmesan
1/2 tsp salt crystals or flakes.
Mix yeast, flour salt, 1 tbsp of the oil, the rosemary and 11/2 oz of the Parmesan together in a large bowl. Add 1/2 pt lukewarm water, and knead or beat with dough hooks. It should be a soft dough. When it's smooth and elastic, put in a clean oiled bowl, cover and leave in a warm place for an hour or so, till doubled in size.
Oil a large baking sheet - mine was about 13" square - and gently pat the dough to fit out to the edges. (Original recipe says a 16 x 12 oval, but our oven isn't that big.)
Cover with a tea-towel and leave for another half hour. The oven should be heated to 200C so that it's hot at the end of the half hour.
Brush the bread gently with the remaining oil, and press your fingers into it to dimple the surface. Sprinkle with the salt and remaining half ounce of Parmesan.
Bake for about half an hour or so till golden brown.

On Friday it was our anniversary. Easy to cook meal was steak, onions, Russian Hill potatoes and sugar snaps, with a very nice Italian wine - a 2004 Barolo. Chocolate mousse to follow;
Chocolate Mousse.
4 ounces dark, good quality chocolate.
1 ounce butter - unsalted if possible but not necessary
4 eggs, separated
Finely grated zest from one orange.
Gently melt chocolate and butter over hot water and cool.
Beat the egg yolks at high speed till thick and creamy - at least 5 minutes. Fold in the chocolate.
Beat the whites till stiff but not dry.
Fold a quarter of the whites into the yolk and chocolate mix, and then fold this into the remaining whites.
It's meant to serve six - I made 4, because I was using some little teacups that I'd bought in a Japanese shop in Paris.

Shoes

The photo challenge on SCS this week was shoes.
Since the weather took a sudden unexpected turn for the better after the torrential rains of yesterday, and is expected to get worse again during the week, I thought I'd take advantage of the sunshine and take a picture this evening.
(I am not a shoe person - I am happiest in my bare feet. My days of running barefoot in the woods or up in the hills are probably long gone, (any running these days is just when I know that if I jog all the way to the bus stop from work I have a good chance of making the early bus), but I still kick my shoes off as soon as I am in the front door. In all the time that I did run barefoot, I only ever hurt my feet twice - I am sure that when you run barefoot you compensate much more for the ground than you do in shoes. After all, the time I really hurt them was when they got too cold to feel the groound as I ran. Well - who'd expect a major hailstorm at the end of April when it had been a fine spring day !! Before the storm, I'd been sitting on a tree trunk watching a vixen and her cubs playing in the clearing.)

However, I do have some favourite shoes. This pair was a lucky find, and cost more than I would have spent if they hadn't gone so perfectly with the dress. The dress itself was expensive fabric when I made it eighteen or nineteen years ago - but as I still wear it every summer, it would have been cheap at half the price.


And here's an old photo from 1991. Not wearing those shoes in it, though!

Wet Wet Wet

My goodness, from heatwave to floods. We were lucky; no major flooding on the roads we were on, just heavy rain almost non-stop. It was unfortunate that the knob for adjusting the heating in the car had got stuck with all the hot air being directed at our faces, but luckily we have a portable fan for the dashboard which we could direct at the window to keep it fairly clear.
These pictures were taken along the seafront in Greystones. As we had seen a northbound train just as we were driving under the bridge at the North Beach, I knew we had time to spare before my aunt and uncle would arrive on their southbound train.
I can remember as a child that often in the winter storms seaweed would be blown right across the road, and sometimes the wind would be so strong that you could lean back on it.
There was so much spray yesterday that I had to take the pictures in a hurry - if I could taste salt spray on my face, I sure didn't want it on the camera! It wasn't even meant to be all that windy of a day - I think it's just that I miss living by the sea.

Bridges 3

Last night I was meeting C in town after work for a kebab, and snapped a couple more pictures. Just with my pocket camera; I was travelling light as I was taking a lift home on the back of the bike.
The Ha'penny Bridge - so called because it was first built in 1816 to replace a fleet of ferry boats; the builder was allowed to charge a halfpenny toll for each person crossing. My recollections are that it used to be a dark green - must look in some old books!

























Also Grattan Bridge - built in the 1750s and remodelled in 1872.

Bridges 2

Here are a couple of better pictures of James Joyce Bridge - you can see an overall view in yesteday's post. I tried for a picture of the next bridge up, but really I think I need to get off at the next bus stop and have the sun behind me, instead of shooting into it. Watch this space, I'll keep trying!
The first of these is taken from the north bank of the river, the second from the south bank.

Bridges

The photo challenge this week on SCS was bridges.
I checked the tide tables (the river is still quite tidal where I cross it on the way to work) and reckoned it was worth sticking the wide-angle lens on my camera and a quick jog to catch the early bus and see what I could get before work.
The first photo, of the James Joyce bridge, isn't the best. It's the one I most often cross on the way to work and I have a lot of better pictures on my pocket camera, but this is today's photo. This bridge was built in 2003


The second bridge is the Rory O'More Bridge - I never knew that till today as I've never found a name on it, and I just think of it as the St. Helen's Foundry Bridge. The current bridge was erected in 1871, with the first bridge having been built in 1670. Apparently it's also known as Queen Victoria Bridge and Victoria and Albert Bridge. Those make sense, as that stretch of the quays is Victoria Quay. With no name I've ever seen till I looked it up tonight, I think of it as the St. Helen's Foundry bridge.














I skipped Frank Sherwin bridge - not very attractive.
The last one is Sean Heuston bridge, which is just across from the mainline rail station. The tram runs over it on the way to the city centre. It was built in 1821.