Petits Pain

My sweetheart likes white bread, so I try to make different types, varying them as I can. I found a recipe for French petits pain and adapted it to our tastes. This recipe makes 8-10 rolls, but it’s easily doubled, or you can make one large loaf.

 

You can also add herbs or seeds. And you can glaze it with an egg wash if you want a glossier finish.

 

Ingredients:

1 tsp dried yeast

175 ml warm water

1 tbsp sugar or honey

250 g strong white bread flour

1 tbsp oil

1 tsp salt

 

Instructions:

1. Mix the yeast, water, and sugar together and set aside for 10-15 minutes.

2. Add in the other ingredients and knead or mix for 5-10 minutes. Leave in an oiled bowl to rise for an hour or so.

3. Shape into rolls or a loaf and leave to rise for another 30 minutes.

4. Bake at 180 C for 15-20 minutes.

Bulgur Salad

This salad is easily varied according to what vegetables you have on hand. It would be good with carrots, celery, or watercress/other greens, and can be topped with pumpkin or sunflower seeds and/or fresh herbs.

 

Ingredients:

100 g bulgur (or another grain, such as buckwheat)

water

1 fennel

5-7 cherry tomatoes or 2 plum tomatoes

approximately 10 black olives

1 tin sweet corn

1 garlic clove

1-2 tsp mustard

3 tbsp olive oil

1-2 tsp maple syrup or honey

 

Instructions:

1. Cook the bulgur in the water according to directions. Then set it to cool.

2. Wash and dice the fennel and tomatoes. Chop the tomatoes and the olives. Mix all the vegetables with the bulgur.

3. Mince the garlic clove and mix it with the mustard, oil, and maple syrup. Mix the dressing in with the salad.

Vegan Brownies

Ingredients:

180-200 ml coconut oil (about 10 tbsp)

250 ml coffee or water

250 g flour

150-200 g sugar (depending on how sweet you like it)

65 g cocoa

1 tsp salt

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1 tsp baking powder

2 tsp vanilla

50-100 g chocolate, optional

50-100 g nuts, optional

 

Instructions:

1. Melt the coconut oil. Make the coffee or heat the water.

2. Mix the flour, sugar, cocoa, salt, bicarbonate of soda, baking powder, and vanilla together.

3. Mix in the liquids.

4. Grate or chop the chocolate, if using, and add it and the nuts, if using, to the mixture.

5. Smooth into a greased pan and bake for 15-25 minutes at 180 C, until it is your preferred level of moisture (some people like cakey brownies, some prefer moist; I’m in the latter camp).

Here Come the Girls

We had heard that the short films that comprise Here Come the Girls were good, so we eagerly anticipated some viewing pleasure on a Friday night. Alas, we were stunned by how relentlessly negative and trading in stereotypes these films were, so I definitely wouldn’t recommend them.

 The first of the films had acting so bad that we almost turned off the DVD. We persevered and the second film, Private Life, which is set in 1950s Yorkshire, was the star of the series. The production values were higher here and the story was more interesting. Also, it had a happy ending.

The other films were mostly desperately unhappy (a mother trying to force her lesbian daughter to be feminine; a young lesbian killed by a falling horseshoe (see the significance of that “lucky” object); an older, sick lesbian hampered with a mentally ill or perhaps demented partner; domestic violence, where a femme woman didn’t want to go to the police about her supposedly “butch” girlfriend), or they were based on stereotypes so old-fashioned as to be embarrassing (a butch narrator talking about how she’s “stone” and wants to treat her “femme” woman right; a femme wanting to use a dildo on her unwilling partner, who thinks butches don’t do that kind of thing).

Happy Birthday, which was the strap-on film just mentioned, was so ridiculous that I could only hope it was tongue-in-cheek. If it was serious, then I feel sad that so many young lesbians apparently still think they have to be either butch or femme and that there are such clear-cut roles.

In short, so to speak, I felt that I wasted an evening on these films. I hope someone will starting making some more challenging, positive, up-to-date LGBTQ films.

Quotes on Vegetarianism

“Pleasure from pain is uniquely human. No other animal willingly easts such foods when there are alternatives. Philosophers have often looked for the defining feature of humans—language, rationality, culture, and so on. I’d stick with this: Man is the only animal that likes Tabasco sauce.”

Paul Bloom in How Pleasure Works.

My Friend From Faro

This is a German film about a twenty-something lesbian stuck in a small town, working in a factory, unable to be her true self. I didn’t quite get how Mel’s family was so blind to who she really was, nor how Jenny, the girl she had a relationship with, didn’t see past what Mel told her. Still, Mel was a strong character and the actor who played her did a good job at portraying what she was going through.

 M wasn’t so keen on this film, but I thought it was rather sweet. There was the expected revelation and related bullying/violence and it wasn’t a surprising or new story in any way, but it was nice to see that things ended up fairly okay for Mel despite everything. As M pointed out, it’s tiring to see LGBTQ films that have the typical problems in them, and this one wasn’t an exception, but it did end on a positive note for Mel.

 

Improved Focaccia

I’ve been playing around with my focaccia recipe and I’ve come up with an even better one than I’ve posted before. This one really gets the texture right.

 

Ingredients:

450 g strong white bread flour

1 sachet yeast (7 g)

2 tsp salt

5 tbsp olive oil, plus extra

about 350 ml lukewarm water

rosemary or other herbs, as desired

olives or sundried tomatoes, as desired

sea salt

 

Instructions:

1. Mix the flour, yeast, salt, oil, and water together well. Either knead on a lightly oiled surface or mix in a stand mixer for 5-10 minutes. Leave to rise somewhere warm for about an hour.

2. Knead again and leave to rise another 30 or so minutes.

3. Chop the herbs, olives, tomatoes, or other ingredients.

4. Roll or press out the bread into the desired shape, top with the herbs, olives, tomatoes, or other ingredients, sprinkle with sea salt, and pour more olive oil on top.

5. Bake at 220 C for about 20 minutes.