Fiction, Food, Faith and everything in-between

I think that bread or pastries that begin with 'Pain' are often a real pain to make. I have made Pain au Chocolat and that was a real pain to make, involving an entire day fussing and faffing over the pastry and then baking the pastries the next day. The results were good but the process was a pain.  Today I made Pain De Savoie. I expected it to be another painful process but it was actually quite easy.  This bread brings two of my favourite foods together. I have many favourite foods, of course, but cheese and bacon are at the top of my list especially when they are eaten together. Vkusno! They are brought together in this loaf and the results are delicious. The best things is this loaf actually makes a nice supper with a salad. Mmmmmm Not painful at all. This loaf is all pleasure. The layers of cheese are just so melt - in - the - mouth and the bacon provides a nice salty crunch. I am not sure why the recipe uses a mix of rye flour and whi...

They were supposed to be Baguettes; longer, thinner, and a nice sausage roll shape with slashes on top.  They actually look like Ciabatta. Obviously I need to practice. They still taste lovely though. 😃

It has been ages since I made a loaf of bread.  Just before Holy Week I decided to try my hand at Hot Cross Buns and they turned out hot, cross and rather hard. I did the best thing I could do and bought some from the shop!  When it comes to Hot Cross Buns, the supermarkets really outdo themselves with different flavours to suit every taste, so I indulged myself. As a result I had lots of Hot Cross Buns which took me through Holy Week and beyond. You can even buy Marmite hot Cross buns although I won't be trying those any time soon. In any case, my stack of Hot Cross buns have finally disappeared and I remembered that I can actually bake bread.  I am not a great baker. I have had mishaps with scones, biscuits and cake. This doesn't bother me because I live down the road from an excellent pattiserie and there is great cake everywhere for sale, but I do get immense satisfaction from baking my own bread and my bread always tastes good. So I decided to make a Bloo...

I decided to make Mary Berry's Chicken and Bacon Lattice Pie. Yummy All went well until it came to the lattice lid for the pie. The recipe uses ready made pastry but I just couldn't do the lattice work. So I settled for lines. 😅 Apologies Mary.💜💙💚❤ All hail Chicken and Bacon Lines pie!  👍😛😋

I made Wholemeal and Cheese Scones from one of my Paul Hollywood recipe books. They were ok but not as soft and fluffy as I wanted them. My son said that they were ok if you put them in the microwave first.  (Er thanks ?)🤣 Today I tried making Kanellangd which is a Swedish Cinnamon bread. It is very christmassy and is supposed to be decorated with syrup. I didn't do that but it seems to have  turned out ok.  I nibbled a bit and it seems to have turned out better than the scones.  Success! 😁💜❤💜

      Image from https://blog.creationlife.com/unity-in-diversity/ Life Together – Paul’s Challenge to Us. Gal 3:28 - There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. It goes without saying, that this is a very challenging verse. It would have challenged the early church and the people listening to Paul, but it also challenges us. Here we have a verse which is basically saying that there shouldn’t be any barriers between Christians, but there are all sorts of divisions in our society and in our world, and these divisions also have a way of affecting our church life. Paul is challenging the early church and he is challenging to us today to be different. So, what divides us and where are the barriers? A starting place that can help us understand these divisions is our equalities legislation.  The Equality Act 2010 aims to tackle disadvantage and discrimination in the UK. ...

  St Philips Sermon, Sunday 6 th March 2022 Deuteronomy 26: 1-11, Rom 10: 8b – 13, Luke 4: 1-13 In our Gospel reading this morning, Jesus faces temptation in the wilderness. We can relate to this because we have all experienced a kind of wilderness during the past two years. It has been a wilderness of Covid, of grief and loss. Things may have improved but the future of this virus is still uncertain. So, we are free in a sense, but cautious as we learn to live with Covid. During the pandemic, we still experienced the familiar difficulties of our world. Our world is always turbulent. Social injustice, war, civil unrest, and environmental challenges are not new, and sometimes the violence and the suffering of the world can feel relentless, and now we have war here in Europe on our doorstep. We learn to live with the difficulties of our world. It is part of the human experience, but this constant turbulence has a way of eroding wellbeing even when the troubles may not affect us d...