
My friend keeps sending me photos of bread he has made in his airfryer… I’m sure he’s proud of it, but I’m not quite sure why he’s sent me eight??? Pictures of it.. It’s getting to be like manna from heaven. Maybe I should get the recipe?
New paintings and regular art updates.

My friend keeps sending me photos of bread he has made in his airfryer… I’m sure he’s proud of it, but I’m not quite sure why he’s sent me eight??? Pictures of it.. It’s getting to be like manna from heaven. Maybe I should get the recipe?

Dough used by the soprano, Rosie (playing Alice) who was in the Alice Beech scene in Who is Molly Leigh? On the scene she pretends to make penny loaves for the widows and orphans of Burslem. When she passes away she bequeaths her cottage to Alice. The scene shows Alice baking and donating penny loaves to the poor.
One of the props every performance was some dough so she had something to represent the work at baking she did while she was singing her part. This was left over at the end of the Opera so I decided to make it into a Cottage loaf shape! No yeast involved and not cooked.

If all the bees were gone
There’d be no flowers
So no fruit, no vegetables
No more blossom.
We could still have wind blown pollen
So grain would be possible?
Maybe….
Not much choice
Porridge or bread?
Let’s save our bees
And pollinating insects
We need them.

With a cup of tea.
Just back from Llandudno in Wales where my sister bought me a Welsh fruit loaf for a treat. I just had a couple of slices with some butter and a cup of tea. Very nice. Apparently it’s lost favour with younger people but I’d urge you to try it.
Wikipedia says :
History:
Bara Brith derived its name from the Welsh language, bara meaning bread and brith translating as speckled. It was traditionally made in farmhouses by adding fruit, sugar and spices to the basic bread dough to make a sweet treat for special occasions. It has subsequently been used as a colloquialism—to “over spice the Bara Brith” means to do something to excess.
We got two loaves from a little tea and cake shop in Llandudno.

The silver blue water of Westport Lake in Stoke on Trent today. This Swan was one of many that were searching for food. It had cygnets in tow, almost free of the pale brown plumage. The swans got out of the lake later as visitors were feeding them bread (not an ideal diet) but in this weather they need sustenance. They even tried a swift peck at my friends arm!
We only walked a couple of miles but that was enough for today. I was chilled by a cold breeze and glad to get back to the car. I will do more walks.

Lashings of toast
Slurping of tea
Having a snack
Just for me
Butter on bread
Melted and soft
Strong cuppa to go
With hot toast you see.

Thursdays #bandofsketchers prompt was chopped. I could have drawn a can of chopped tomatoes, or a tree chopped down. But I wanted to play with ideas so I sketched a loaf chopped in half, I was using the various digital drawing apps that I have on my phone. Seeing if I could import the image between each of them!

I just made a vegetarian stew for dinner. I could have made Staffordshire Lobby which is a beef based stew, lobbing all sorts of things into the pot. But I used a meat substitute, Quorn pieces.
Basically I put two small chopped potatoes, two small sliced carrots and half a sweet potato, peeled and sliced, into a pan and covered them in boiling water. I let them simmer for a few minutes, then chopped up a small red onion, chopped some slices off a cabbage (about a sixth of it) and two sticks of celery sliced up. Then I added half a pack of Quorn and a couple of teaspoons of Lazy Garlic. I let everything simmer for about twenty minutes. Then I added a couple of vegetable stock cubes. Let it cook for a few more minutes before serving with a hunk of brown bread and vegetable spread. I didn’t add salt, but if you do add it on top of the stew when you serve, that way it sits on the food and doesn’t get absorbed into it. That means you don’t eat too much salt. You can also add pepper at the end.

Today’s prompt for Esther Chiltons limerick challenge is Bread this week. I wrote this poem to be humorous and although I hate marmite I wouldn’t try and stop anyone else eating it.
Limericks have two rhyming lines at the start, then two lines with a different rhyme and then one single, final line, that rhymes with the first two.
Maybe it’s time to get your pen out…?
Play with the words, it’s fun, no doubt!
Rhyme and couplet
Words you can bet
You can be a real limerick lout!

My loaf has a smile ! It’s crusty on the outside, soft and springy on the inside. I had a slice with a bit of butter and honey. I’m really pleased as my loaves usually turn out a bit dry and heavy. I tried to balance the liquid content and the stickiness and this time I tried to knead it a bit more.
Tasty!