A Year of Learning - Breadmaking

Making bread is something I always wish I had more time to do. This month I'm going to make the time to bake bread hopefully around 3-4 times a week because I feel like I need more practise. This month the learning is going to be mostly hands-on rather than reading articles. I do have some articles and videos saved but it's more about the doing this time. I've previously used a breadmaker to make bread and it went well but I'd like to be better at making bread by hand.

My first attempt went well. I decided to start with dinner rolls. We eat bread rolls like these often for tea, usually with soups or stews or maybe sausage sandwiches. It was great to have made them myself. I got lots of compliments on them at the dinner table so I'm encouraged to keep going!

Next I made a baguette but it didn't quite work out. The crust was chewy rather than crusty but it still got eaten. It didn't seem like a baguette but rather like a long thin bread loaf. Still, it was bread and I made it so onwards and upwards.

Later in the month I made Focaccia. We had it toasted with baked beans for a hearty breakfast and then lunch the next day with ham and cheese as sandwiches. I'm really impressed with myself for this one, it looks great!

The problem for me with making bread is having the patience to wait both for proving and rising the bread. I enjoy the mixing and kneading parts and I'm developing some good strong arm muscles from kneading for 5-10 minutes at a time. It's so pleasing when dough reacts to the yeast how it should and rises but then so disappointing when it doesn't.

I've had some really mixed results over the month with bread working out well and not so well. I've made cobs of bread where I've steamed water in the bottom of the oven for a nice crust, white loaves with shiny glazes, I've made hot dog buns, I've made garlic bread and Swiss Kopf.

It's been a month of trying over and over to make bread and I think I've definitely made some progress. Kneading bread has become a really enjoyable time when before I used to pass the kneading over to JD or Erin. I've even become more patient with the proving of bread. I mostly just try to start the bread making earlier in the day so there's plenty of time for it.

I'm glad I had a month of making bread even though I'm still not perfect at it. I've learned a lot and my family have eaten a lot of bread. Time to move on to learning something else!

Previously on A Year of Learning:

Smartphone Photography

Pancake Maker Review

It's almost that most wonderful of days, Pancake Day!

A couple of years ago we got a pancake maker from Aldi. It was £14.99 and we love it. It lets you make pancakes at the table (as long as you have a spare extension cable) which I much prefer to being stood in the kitchen. Sure you miss out on tossing the pancakes but it's easily made up for by the comfort of sitting down to make pancakes.

It's made Pancake Day much more enjoyable for us as we can leisurely make pancakes after tea at the dinner table. It also makes really nice pancakes and comes with a tool to easily smooth out the mixture if you like very thin crepes. We don't usually bother with that though and go with whatever weird shape gets poured out of the mixing jug.

Here's a picture of my first pancake. It has crushed cookies, nutella and whipped cream on it. Yum!

The pancake maker is great to use. Just a quick spray of oil and you're good to go with the pancakes cooking quite quickly. Just a wipe down when you're finished to clean it. Such a simple piece of equipment but does the job perfectly. I'd definitely recommend giving one a try if you love pancakes!

Family Game Review - Monopoly Deal

This one needs a bit of backstory. I LOVE Monopoly, it's one of my favourite all time board games. My sister Caroline and I used to play it (what felt like) constantly as kids. In our shared bedroom we'd often have a game on the go set up on the floor. I don't advise this, too much chance of someone (most likely me) slipping money onto their pile while the other person is absent. We'd even role play as rich women (Alexis and Krystal from Dynasty) while we bought and sold property!

JD on the other hand hates Monopoly and can seldom be cajoled into playing it with me. He doesn't like that it takes ages to play and there's often a slow painful losing for one player. I can't deny that fact but it doesn't detract from my enjoyment as I'm usually winning. :D

Anyway, as a compromise JD bought me Monopoly Deal for Christmas and it combines my two game loves, Monopoly and Card games. It only takes about 10 minutes per game and it's all Monopoly-ly so we're both happy.

You start off with 5 cards each. When it's your turn you pick up 2 cards from the pile and can play 3 cards. Playing cards is usually taking a money card from your hand and playing it into your cash pile, playing a property card into your property area or playing an action card next to the pile. The object of the game is to collect 3 full sets of property (and to stop your opponents doing so).

Some of the action cards. Pass Go lets you draw 2 extra cards. Rent lets you charge rent to a matching coloured property. Debt Collector lets you collect money from anyone playing.

Here is my layout. Cash on the left. Orange properties with a house added increases the rent you can collect. Property wild cards can be used on any colour property. Which means I've got 3 sets of property. Hurrah I win!

The worst card of the game is Deal Breaker, it lets you steal an entire property set from another player. The best card is Just Say No, it lets you say 'naff off' to anyone trying to steal your properties.

It's a really fun game and we play it often. Even the kids will play it sometimes after tea because it doesn't last too long. It still gives me the Monopoly feeling to play so it definitely gets a thumbs up from me.

Ratings: JD - 4, Emma - 5, Val - 3, Erin -3


Other Game Reviews:

Battleblock Theater

Cluedo

Guts of Glory

Spelunky

Mint Tin Mini Apocalypse

Escape: Curse of the Temple

Exit: The Polar Station

Dungeons & Dragons

Keep Talking & Nobody Explodes

Harrogate Cheap Eats: Burgers & More

Burgers & More is situated on Station Parade where The Damn Yankee used to be. We'd been to DY numerous times but this was our first time at Burgers & More. We'd seen they had an offer on where you can get a burger for £5 if you went during the week at lunch time. We love a bargain so we decided to give them a try.

Burgers & More are usually out of our Cheap Eats range but at £5 a burger and add £2 if you want fries, it's perfect. There are a few different burger options to choose from. You can have simple, simple with cheese, chicken and there's even a vegan option with jackfruit.

We had water to drink as usual then JD ordered a Plain & Simple beef burger with cheese and I decided to try the BBQ Jackfruit burger, both with fries. It came to £14 which fits our £15 budget. The guy that took our order was very enthusiastic about the food telling us that it's cooked fresh to order from meat sourced locally in Harrogate.

JD and I both liked the restaurant. It was warm inside with low comfortable lighting. The food was good and it was nice to know it was from local butchers. The menu looked interesting with lots of burger varieties with intriguing names (There's a Trump burger served with custard and an Elvis Mark II burger served with ice cream!). I think we'll definitely go back to try a full sized burger in the future. The £5 burgers are perfectly sized for lunch though so if you're looking for a handy place in town for lunch, give Burgers & More a try!


Previously on Harrogate Cheap Eats:

Little Breads

Santar Deli

Cafe M

Harrogate Grill & Pizza

Nutrition Joe's

Tak Yan

Drakes Fish & Chips

I Am Doner

Cafe Rita

Palm Court Cafe

A Year of Learning - Smartphone Photography

One of my goals this year is to find out more about the subjects I've been meaning to learn about for ages. Certain things have been in the back of my mind for years. This year I want to spend a month each on 12 different subjects and learn as much as I can in that time. I don't expect to become an expert in just a month but I do hope I'll feel more knowledgeable on the subjects I choose.

I picked Smartphone Photography first because it's something I enjoy but have never made an effort to improve. I take food pictures a lot for this blog and Around The World In 196 Recipes plus I enjoy taking pictures when I'm out and about walking.

I've never really composed a photo properly, edited pictures or used filters. I'm keen to learn more and put it to use. I've decided on Smartphone Photography because they say that the best camera is the one you have with you. I wouldn't enjoy carrying a big DSLR camera around with me so I want to make the most of the camera I do have.

To prepare for the month I enrolled in a free online short course in smartphone photography and spent some time making a collection of articles and YouTube videos on photography tips and hints plus anything that looked interesting in the relevant topic.

I'm about 20 days in and it's going great! I've really enjoyed having easily accessible reading/watching material for on my bus to and from work, waiting at appointments and whenever I have a spare 10 minutes on my phone. I've watched loads of videos about framing, composition, food styling, editing and much more. It's felt good to feel like I'm using my spare time wisely and towards something I'm interested in.

I've developed a new thing of wanting to take pictures of doorways I see when I'm out and I've really enjoyed being able to edit them on my phone using the app Snapseed. The above doorway picture was a bit dark, slightly off kilter and had a yellow hose running across the picture. I fixed all those in Snapseed and I think it looks much better.

This doorway near where I live was too set back for me to photograph without trespassing on their drive so I took the shot from further back and used the Crop tool on Snapseed to zoom in. I then lightened the shot and gave it more contrast so the colours seem brighter. I really like how it turned out. It's really fun to play with the settings when editing and see how each tool changes how the picture looks.

Another improvement I've noticed is when taking pictures of food. I used to snap and run (usually to go eat the food I'd made). But I try to take more time getting a nice shot. I haven't got quite as far as using props and a studio/lighting set-up but I'm thinking about it. What I have been doing is waiting to take the picture until the focus has properly adjusted and taking the time to alter the screen lighting. I also make sure to take multiple shots so I have a few to choose from, I often only took one and then lamented that it wasn't very good but had to use it.

I'm also trying out some different angles as suggested by lots of articles I've read. I mostly only took food pictures from the 45 degree looking down at the food angle but it's been fun to try taking pictures from all angles and seeing which looks best. This side view of a burger is a classic shot which I'm pretty sure I've never done before! It's still a little out of focus but still definitely an improvement on previous burger pictures I've taken.

It's really great how much information there is out there to learn from. I often read an article about a subject I was interested in which linked to more articles or more videos, it's like a rabbit hole! Obviously in just a month I haven't even scratched the surface of information available but I have lots of ideas for things to do to improve my pictures from now on. It's been really interesting and I'm really glad I did it.

In February I'm going to try learn as much as I can about Breadmaking! Watch this space :)