Musings and Madness from Pucegreen » Food

It’s Apple and Blackberry pie season

pucegreen — Sat, 14 Sep 2013 20:22:06 +0000

The weather decided that it wasn’t going to give us an Indian Summer after all and began to cool down just as Gary’s Dad delivered a large batch of Bramley apples from his tree.

No more encouragement was required to do some pie making.

But before that, our recent holiday in Normandy put me in the mood for some apple tart, Pâte Brisée style.

Pâte Brisée is a French sweet pastry which is rolled within a millimetre of it’s life to be as thin as possible. It was the first time that I had attempted Pâte Brisée and it wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be.

The recipe in the GBBO book offered great guidance.

After mastering the Pâte Brisée, next up was pie making time. My top tips for a good apple and blackberry pie are:

1) Use butter rich shortcrust pastry, chilled for at least an hour
2) Lightly cook chunky chopped apples in butter, cinnamon and brown sugar until the apples soften slightly around the edges
3) Add cinnamon to the pastry lid along with some sugar
4) Don’t forget to serve with double cream

What are your tips for a fabulous apple and blackberry pie?

Day 10/31 Janathon – Pushing the Senses

pucegreen — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 21:24:22 +0000

Can’t quite believe that it is day 10 of Janathon already – it’s really flying by.

It’s also Day 2 of my better eating promise. I don’t believe I’m dieting because my aim is too improve my fitness not lose weight (although I’m not going to argue with the scales if I do!!).

Anyway, I headed to the gym straight after work and managed 3km in 22.34 minutes and felt great.

I think that tonight’s soundtrack Pushing the Senses by Feeder may have helped. It’s a great album and fab for running to. The 3km was over before I’d realised!

So as a result of my improved eating and re-establishing that Feeder produces some great running music, I’ve asked my PT to up my run to 5km at a steady pace and I’ll see how I go with that tomorrow night.

Treadmill

Distance: 3km

Time: 22.34

Average: 7.31 mins/km

I still have 21 days to find my running mo-jo and I think I may be finally heading in the right direction!

Day 9/31 Janathon – Food for fuel

pucegreen — Sun, 09 Jan 2011 22:10:57 +0000

I knew that completing Janathon was potentially going to be a tough one for when I signed up. I tried to get some training in over the course of December so that it wouldn’t be a complete shock to my system.

I am really pleased with my efforts so far in addition to juggling work and a rather active son.

I’m injury free but I have to admit to being pretty tired.

So in addition to heading out to the park, playing Guitar Hero and Just Dance 2 with Deaghlan today, I’ve been reviewing what I eat and how that is impacting on this increase in my level of activity.

According to Gary, I eat like a sparrow and I’m a self confessed chocoholic. I think it’s fair to say that I have still been eating a fair amount of junk and I can’t use Christmas as an excuse any longer.

So I’ve spent some time looking though cookbooks and Zest magazines today so I can work out a decent menu plan to keep my energy levels up.

Today’s meal effort was a veggie curry with plenty of sweet potato, spinach and brown rice:

I also made some breakfast bars courtesy of Nigella Express which are full of oats and seeds but I did substitute nuts (none left in the cupboard!!) for some good old Green&Black’s dark chocolate. They taste delicious and are really easy to make.

So Week 2 of Janathon for me is about increasing my mileage and making more of an effort to ensure the food I eat is fuelling this increase in activity rather than hindering it.

Yoga

Time: 30 mins