The Bread Ensemble (With Congo bars and Chocolate Fudge Cupcakes on the side)

More detail of the Red Wine Walnut bread (the brown hedgehog looking one) and the Cheddar Onion Rolls – ok, so they’re more triangles than rolls but I’m allowed a little poetic licence…

Our pallet crisp-breads made with our sourdough yeast, rye and honey, just right for using as an edible cheeseboard or put a ramekin of humus in the, umm, ramekin shaped hole.  The hole is actually there so we can hand them up to air dry once they are out of the oven.

Sausage rolls with caramelised onion and sage from our garden

Mostly cake – Meringues (white and rose scented), White Chocolate Cookies, previously mentioned Congos, Chocolate Fudge AND the thing beginning to run off the plate is Millionaire’s Shortbread.

And next month, Friday 30th March 9am – 12pm there will definitely also be homemade (from scratch) almond croissants, sausage rolls AND Pork Pie.  Promise.

St Margaret’s Nursery Monthly Village Market at St Margaret’s Village Hall – the last Friday of every month 9am – 12pm.

So for those that missed it here are the naked pancakes…

The glues, aka warm golden syrup, lemon juice and sugar (there was ice-cream as well but it melted before I could take a snap)

And the decorating materials

All in all it was a great afternoon, fun was had, pancakes consumed, squash imbibed, prizes awarded and most of all, no-one was sick.  Which was, considering the amount of pancakes eaten, quite surprising.

Obviously, the next pancake day will be Feb 2013, but if you can’t wait that long we’ve an Ice Cream Structural Engineering event on Wednesday April 18th between 3pm – 6pm.  Booking is essential on this one as we’re going to need a fair amount of room….  £5.00 per child of any age 0 – 160 including unlimited squash (but sorry, not Rioja)

Everyone that makes a vague attempt at eating a savoury pancake and salad, will get swift delivery of pancakes and assorted decorating materials to make their own edible artwork.  Syrup, sweeties, sprinkles, jam, chocolate…. and we get to wash up the mess.  £5 per head including unlimited squash, milk, water, no upper age limit and that’s pancake day sorted for another year. 

The second event has a little more notice and a bit more space.  On Wednesday April 18th we will be having an ice-cream structural engineering afternoon tea.  Homemade fish finger sandwiches with or without ketchup (vegi/non fishy alternative available – just ask!) and some of your 5 a day, followed by ice cream.  A lot of ice-cream, plus wafers, biscuits, fruit, sprinkles, chocolate and other fine building materials to make the biggest, quirkiest Knickerbocker Glory of all time.  Prizes for the most decorative and/or stable construction.  Again, £5.00 per head, unlimited squash and no upper age limit.  All in all, a great fun afterschool treat with the added bonus of no washing up. 

We do of course have more adult events, some of which I’m sure I’ll get round to blogging.  Admittedly, my track record is normally to write about it after the event so if telepathy isn’t your strongest point or you’d like a little more notice, please do join our email list through the ‘contact us’ bit of the main website.

In fact, I didn’t actually have the correct ingredients entirely, which, considering that there are only three items in the recipe was a bit of a problem.  The instructions, which I’d nicked from Denis Cotter’s ‘For the love of Food’ book (possibly my most favourite vegetarian cookery writer and also chef/patron of ‘Cafe Paradiso’, the only strictly vegi restaurant on my ‘must try before I die’ list) called for fine maize flour, salt and snow.  The latter two I had in abundance.  The maize flour was a tricky one; however, I did have a box of polenta and a Thermomix (the only other member of kitchen staff that made it in).  The Thermo is basically a very useful bit of kit that can whizz stuff up very fast, very finely. 

A flick of a switch later and I had maize flour in a lovely misty-buff coloured bowl with a couple of pinches of salt.  

Braving the elements yet again, daughter no1 and I gathered enough snow to fold into the flour to just bind itFrom there it was ever so gently plonked into a greased muffin tin, brought back in from the cold and baked in a hot oven for 15 minutes. 

Out came these little yellow cakes, light as a feather and three times as delicate.  Most of all, they were indeed edible.  Possibly a bit on the crunchy side (I blamed the snow), but topped with a little melted butter and some jam, definitely edible. 

 So you now know what to do if you ever find yourself starving, stuck in the snow and within easy reach of an Italian deli, hot oven and high speed mixer…..

It may have escaped your notice but it snowed overnight on Saturday.  It was however, impossible not to notice the snowy stillness being rudely interrupted by our 4 children screaming in delight at the sight of a thick white blanket of snow where once there had been a beer garden, car park and beach. 

Even so, come lunchtime, excitement was beginning to wane and new things needed to be invented.  Long, long ago, I remembered reading Little House on the Prairie or some such, where the children made sugar snow. This sort of thing appeals to me, not only as a big kid myself, but also in the glossy magazine image of motherhood kind of way. 

A wee trawl of the Internet came up with recipes using maple syrup which sadly, wasn’t part of my ‘in case of snow’ emergency ingredient kit.  Harboring the thought that Laura, Mary, Ma and Pa (or whoever it was) were possibly a bit hard up for maple syrup, decided to substitute golden syrup and guess what dear reader, it jolly well works…..  Here is the recipe.  Well, list really.  Actually, it’s best done in photographic form  All you need is golden syrup (or maple), butter and a table full of freshly fallen snow (the fluffy stuff)

Weigh out 100g of golden syrup into a pan with 25g of butter.  Melt it down over a medium heat, stiring from time to time making sure it doesn’t catch and start to burn.  After about 5 minutes check the mix by dropping a little off a teaspoon onto a cold plate.  If it stiffens, it’s ready.  If it’s still a touch runny cook it on abit and try again.  If it turns black and breaks your teeth, start again…

Once you have your runny toffee, venture outside. 

Let the molten mixture fall from your spoon onto the snow, allow to cool for a second and then devour, snow and all. 

I’d like to add, this is the one and only time you should encourage your children to eat the yellow snow….. 

 Hmm.  For a start the Cornish Pasty has been recently PDO’d so I’m going to quickly point out we made Pasties in the style of a West Country lass, which, seeing as I’m from Dorset, isn’t far from the truth.  Plus they were smaller.  Much smaller, almost canapé sized not unlike an Empanada.  Sadly, I don’t have a photo of these as they consumed the lot before I could focus….. 

However I do have the following:- 

Chinese chop suey in little carton style pots

and falafel with tahini dressed salad on miniature pitas with garlic sauce (for the kebab type element). 

Chicken ‘Ruby Murray’ on tiny little roti; they’re espresso sized plates…

Couldn’t leave out good old fish and chips in little seaside buckets

 and miniature ‘Beville’ type cheese and onion toasties for added ‘naff but nice cafe’ authenticity

The only thing I forgot was mini pizza and it would have made a superb students breakfast this morning, had there been so much of a scrap left over….

I was armed with three types of our home-grown sour-dough yeast bread, including onion and potato plus a couple of ‘normal’ yeast loaves flavoured with cherry tomato or red onion and cheddar.  Chocolate fridge cake, coffee and walnut  cake and Abernathy biscuits also featured heavily!

Oh, and of course there were Kentish apple and pork sausage rolls, from scratch almond croissants, not forgetting pineapple upside down and muesli biscuits for the semi sort of health conscious.

Bet you wished you’d gone now. 

The Village Market, held the last Friday in every month at St Margaret’s Village Hall from 9 am.  In aid of St Margaret’s Nursery and After School Club.  See you there next on Friday 24th February.  Come early or you’ll miss the pork pie.

 Trouble is, on two occasions last night, not to mention a couple of snidey comments this morning, it’s been suggested I didn’t tell anyone about the event in advance.  Well clearly this wasn’t the case as it was very well attended but even so, if people are going to moan at me perhaps a 2ft by 3ft blackboard isn’t notice enough.

 Therefore, to avoid any further accusations of furtiveness I’d like to bring everyone’s attention to the following….

So that’s a Pudding Night, 9th February, here at The Coastguard and yes it does mention Baked Alaska (try squinting a little).  Clearer details on the events page, email and, of course, the blackboard.  Just don’t tell anyone else I told you…..

I’ve never been partial to dried herbs, the sachets of dried dust you buy on your holidays in Provence are the usually the herb equivalent of Retsina.  Taste and smell amazing whilst languishing on some pine scented Island in the Med yet somehow mysteriously transform into household detergent and ashes the minute you touch down back in Blighty.  Despite all of my misgivings, I just couldn’t stand the thought of the last few herbs going to waste, so I dragged out our drying machine and began filling the trays with fennel fronds, rosemary sticks, oregano, chives and mint.

We’ve had a really good year for amazingly sweet cherry tomatoes and most nights the smell of the lightly seasoned fruit has wafted out to sea in the wee hours with me waking to find trays of dark dark red shrunken discs of chewy densely flavoured tomato.  Depending on the size, our dryer (which is a bit like a cross between a vegetable stack steamer and a hairdryer) takes about 12 hours to dry the life out of a tomato wedge or 6 to reduce a baby plum tomato down to half size.

With herbs it’s a different story.  Within about 10 minutes, the whole kitchen smelt like a edible pot-pourri and an hour later I had the most amazing looking branches of feathery fennel with stems just like curry flavoured crisps. The chives were the best deep-fried leeks I’d ever tasted – crisp, oniony and without the usual slightly oily overtones nor the inevitable burnt black bits.  The mint screamed to be added to the last leaves of fresh to make an exceptionally pungent peppermint tea and the oregano was just pizza flavour personified!   The rosemary stems made it onto the menu as the pungent skewer for halloumi and sweet pepper kebabs.

All in all, I’m now beginning to see the point of dried herbs. Admittedly, I’m not sure how long the flavours will last or when they’ll all suddenly realise that they’re not in the Med and turn to dust.  Yet somehow I feel a bit like ancient man who, just when he though bread couldn’t get any better, invented toast.

For those of you that missed our one tweet (Twitter – the source of all secrets..) and my hasty scribble on the welcome blackboard on Saturday morning (well, you don’t want to advertise these things too much just in case anyone actually turns up!),  below is our current breakfast/brunch menu…..

 Brunch at The Coastguard

From 9.15am – 11.45am

Gypsy Eggs – Heuvos a la Flamenca – £5.00

Local free range eggs baked in a nest of spicy salami, ham, tomatoes and paprika studded with jewel-like peas and potatoes to soak up the juices – a delicious if not exactly classic combination for breakie BUT boy is this cure or cure if you’ve indulged just a tad too much the night before……

Kedgeree – £5.00

You’re by the sea.  What better excuse for the old Anglo Indian favourite of Smoked haddock, butter, curry spices, rice, eggs and did I mention butter. Eat with copious amounts of sea air and a mug of char.

Celtic Breakfast – £6.50

Well, we’re as far south as we can be so it’s your very last chance to indulge in homemade Lorne sausage, tattie scones, black pudding, bacon and free-range eggs with not a single pony nod to healthiness in sight so NO it doesn’t come with mushrooms, tomatoes, beans or anything green…….

Eggs ‘Casino’ Royale – £6.00

A covert salute to our old next door neighbour Mr Bond (well at least, his creator Mr Flemming…) we’ve taken the classic free-range eggs smothered with hollandaise and spinach on a freshly baked muffin and topped it off with Scottish smoked salmon  giving that added edge of luxury….. 

Seaside Spa Sundae – £2.50

Breathe in the sea air and feel virtuous as you tuck into a breakfast ‘Sundae’ of our own fruit and nut muesli mix, Greek yoghurt and runny honey

Vive St Margaret’s Bay – £3.50

A platter of pastries and bread made from scratch with our own fair hands – yes even the croissants….. Unequalled until you get a good few miles the other side of the Channel! 

The Butties – £3.00

Rashers of crispy streaky bacon in doorstops of white bloomer bread

Vine roast tomatoes, garlic mushrooms and herbs on toasted homemade ‘wild’ sourdough bread

For those of you that weren’t paying attention and missed out, never fear.  You can always pop in next Sunday, or the one after, or the one after that….  as whilst it might take me a while to put something into action, once it’s running,  it takes forever to stop doing it!  Super tankers and turning manoeuvres come to mind – fairly apt considering our location.  

 Breakfast and Brunch at The Coastguard, every Sunday from 9.15 until 11.45.  Wake up and smell the coffee sea air!