Over the last few years I have made a number of forays into blogging and the ever-changing world of social media.  My first attempt was in collaboration with a wedding planning company I ran for a short time whilst in between full-time employment, and was back in the days before you could have-it-all - i.e. I actually taught myself how to use HTML.  It was both time consuming and frustrating to say the least.

The second was a dip-your-toes-in-the-pond kind of experience in that it lasted about 3 weeks before I realised I lacked the time and motivation to succeed.  I had too many other things going on in my life to make time for writing, and that was quite a sad realisation.  I have always tried to keep a journal in one form or another; often I have kept this up for a number of months, but the number of half-finished diaries that are festering on my bookshelves gives a more accurate indication of how long these periods of documenting my life actually lasted.

This time feels different.  Don't get me wrong, it's not as if I have that much more time; my mornings begin at 5.30am and I don't often get a moment to myself until I make myself sit down to eat dinner.  But I like to be busy.  I like to feel a sense of achievement at the end of my days, and I suppose that blogging about this way of life that I now seem to have carved out for myself is the logical next step.  It is with this motivation that I have forged this blog and the 'Creative Countryside' brand with the intention of sharing anything and everything I know and find interesting.  With a full-time job, a wedding to plan, and a house being built, I know it's going to be tough to keep motivated and prevent the writing becoming a chore, but at heart I am a writer. So this should be easy, right?

Please do share your experience of blogging - how do you find balancing everyday life and your online presence?

CC

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Simply beautiful.  Happy Friday!

CC

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Well the rhubarb in our garden hasn't grown enough yet for a spectacular spring-time pudding, but I can still look longingly out the window whilst baking this with rhubarb from our local farm shop.  It's such an easy recipe, and you can replace the rhubarb with apples, add sultanas or cinnamon, use pears instead... Once you've mastered the basics and found the right bowl, it's easy!

Rhubarb Pudding

Ingredients:

For the cake topping...

2 large eggs (duck eggs are best for baking if you can get them)

• 75g  butter or margarine
• 100g  caster sugar
• 100g self-raising flour
• 2 tbsp boiling water

For the filling...

• A few sticks of rhubarb
• A squeeze of lemon juice
• 20g butter
• 2 tbsp caster sugar
• Splash of water

Instructions:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180°C (356°F).
2. Wash, string and chop the rhubarb into small chunks.
3. Place the rhubarb, lemon juice and water into a pan and heat for a few minutes with a pan lid on.
4. Once the rhubarb is bubbling and starting to soften, add the butter and sugar and stir until melted.
5. Place the filling into an oven-proof dish - the size doesn't matter too much, as long as the fruit covers the base fully.
6. Cream together the sugar and butter for the cake topping.
7. Add a little egg and a little flour at a time to the mixture and carefully fold in.
8. Add the boiling water to the mixture and stir in.
9. Cover the fruit with the cake topping, making sure there are no gaps around the edges.
10. Bake for approximately 30 minutes or until the topping is golden brown.
11. Serve with yoghurt or cream.

This recipe was adapted from http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/evespudding_83911.

Perfect for using local and seasonal produce whilst still satisfying that craving for proper pudding we all seem to still retain at this time of year!

CC x

A rich, opulent, deep purple hellebore hangs in the late afternoon light.  It is a delightful addition to any winter garden, providing colour and interest in leaf-filled borders, and creating a distinctive contrast to the vibrancy of the sunny daffodils.

Wishing you a wonderful weekend!

CC

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I am a huge advocate of the grow-your-own philosophy that seems to have experienced a recent surge in popularity after interest waned post-'The Good Life' in the 1970s,  My family always owned an allotment, and recently my partner and I have been lucky enough to have a garden in which to experiment.  We have gained an immeasurable amount of pleasure from the vegetable plots, but even if you only have a few pots around the back door, there is a wealth of fresh produce that you could cultivate and enjoy.

 

If you're still not convinced, here are my top 5 reasons to grow-your-own...

1. The taste.  There's nothing like it.  If you haven't picked a pea pod straight from the plant and eaten the baby peas like sweets then you won't understand - they are infinitely tastier than any frozen pea, no matter how short the field-to-freezer time is.  Other heroes in the grow-your-own taste world are carrots and new potatoes.  Don't even get me started on meals in which all the veg comes from the garden - vegetable kebabs will never be the same again for our household!
2. The health benefits.  One of the joys in choosing your own seeds is that if you want to eat organic, it costs nowhere near as much extra as it does in the supermarkets and shops.  This means no additives, no chemicals, no rubbish.  Your body will thank you in the long run, believe me.  Recent research has also suggested that some food packaging contains chemicals that may affect the body; the question remains, if we buy our fruit and vegetables, how can we ever really know what we are feeding ourselves?
3. The joy of of gardening.  I know that many people say they lack the gardening gene, and I would have counted myself as one of them at one point in time.  A blank canvas of lawn and a few summer weeks later and I was a convert.  There is nothing better on a sunny spring day than checking the growth of your new produce; yesterday, for example, I checked on my radishes and already they are making rapid progress.  Remember too, that gardening counts as exercise: an hour in the gym or an afternoon tending my plot?  I know which I'd prefer.
4. Money.  Despite the fact that seeds can be a fairly expensive initial outlay, the financial benefits in the long run are tenfold.  For example, my partner and I bought 50 onion sets for less than £2 which will yield enough to last us for over 3 months.  If we bought onions from the supermarket, this could set us back around £16.  Although the difference may seem small, if you add up all the savings from all the veg grown, it can have a huge impact on our weekly spend.
5. Community or family spirit.  Whether you grow on an allotment and make new friends in the community, or join together with a spouse or your children to grow-you-own, it's certainly a social activity.  My partner and I can easily waste a summer's afternoon pottering around the garden, ending in a homemade dinner picked-to-plate in less than 15 minutes.

I honestly could not imagine a life without home-grown fruit and vegetables any more, and I urge you to consider doing the same.  Start out small with a few pots of fresh herbs or some salad leaves and I am certain you won't look back.

Happy planting!

CC

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A happy home should always have cake.  This, I feel, is an indisputable fact, and as such, my family are often the beneficiaries of my weekly baking.  My partner's favourite is coffee and walnut cake, and I use my mum's recipe with great success.  The quanties I use vary depending on whether I am using my epically-sized silicone cake tins, or the more modest and traditional metal tins.  The recipe I have included here is for the latter, although to make a larger cake, simply double the quantities of all ingredients.

Coffee and Walnut Cake

Ingredients:

• 170g (6oz) self-raising flour
• 170g (6oz) caster sugar
• 170g (6oz) margarine for the mixture
• 28g (1oz) margarine for the filling
• 110g (4oz) icing sugar
• 3 large eggs – beaten(duck eggs if you can get them)
• 4 heaped tsp strong coffee granules (e.g. Kenco Millicano)
• Handful of walnuts

Instructions:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180°C (356°F).
2. Grease 2 baking tins with margarine and line with greaseproof paper.
3. Cream together the margarine and sugar.
4. Add half of the egg mixture and stir with a wooden spoon.
5. Fold in half the flour mixture.
6. Add the rest of the egg mixture and the flour and fold.
7. Add a splash of boiling water to the coffee granules in a cup – just enough to make a sticky liquid.
8. Add half of this liquid to the cake mixture.
9. Bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes or until golden and spongy to touch.
10. Leave to cool on a wire rack.
11. Mix the margarine for the filling with the icing sugar.
12. Add a splash of the coffee liquid and spread over one of the cakes.
13. Place the other cake on top.
14. Mix the rest of the coffee liquid and icing sugar together for the topping.  Add more water/icing sugar if necessary.
15. Spread this on top of the cake and add walnuts.

N.B. I usually bake by hand because this is how I was taught, however steps 3-6 can be eliminated if you have a food mixer, in which case the margarine, sugar, eggs and flour can all be mixed together.

Happy baking!

CC

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Often in the desire for a perfect trip away, we neglect to consider peaceful pastimes, and instead are content to whirl through activities like an autumn gale, not taking time to breathe, to stop. On the way home from a recent (and hectic) trip to Leeds and York, we visited Castle Howard. I have been many times before, but only with the purpose of visiting the grand building; the grounds took second place as a mere after-thought. How wrong I was to relegate them to this position; visiting in the spring is a delight. The woodland walks were full of fresh green shoots protruding through the crisp piles of fallen leaves, and subtle scents of spring flowers wafted as we made our way through the boughs. The fallen heads of snowdrops danced in the breeze at every turn, and crocuses painted the hillsides with purple and ochre. Best of all, there was hardly anyone else there.

We arrived as it opened at 10am, and spent a morning getting lost in the woodland. Lunch was spent at the café – we indulged in locally produced pies and homemade chips, and it was worth every calorie and penny spent. By this point families and couples littered the main pathways, but there was always a hidden corner to escape the real world. Energised and renewed, we also made a visit to the garden centre, and purchased our fourth rose bush for the garden – at half price, it was impossible to resist. Better still, we called in at the farm shop and spent an inordinate amount of time coveting the tasty produce. We left with a select few finds and contended, peaceful minds.

The grounds at Castle Howard are open year round, with entry during the low season (23 December – 21 March) costing £6 for adults, £3 for children, and under 5s get in free. Visit http://www.castlehoward.co.uk/ for more information.

CC

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P.S. Enjoy your pancakes – I know I will!

I've been making variations of these cookies for some time now, but I do like to mix it up a bit when I get the chance.  Today I added orange juice and zest for a fruitier flavour, and I'm pretty happy with the results - they're also the easiest bake you can possibly imagine.  I urge you to give them a go...

Orange and Raisin Cookies

Ingredients:

3oz/85g self-raising flour

3oz/85g caster sugar

3oz/85g oats

3oz/85g butter or margarine

2 tbsp honey

2 tbsp orange juice

Zest from 1 orange

Handful of raisins

Instructions:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180°C / 356°F.
2. Cover a baking tray with greaseproof paper and lightly grease.
3. Add all the dry ingredients together in a bowl and mix.
4. Add the butter, honey and orange juice to a pan and slowly heat until melted.
5. Take the pan off the heat and add the dry mix.  Stir well.  At this point you can add more orange juice or more oats as necessary - you want a sticky consistency.
6. Add the raisins to the mix.
7. Spoon the mixture onto the baking tray - it should make approximately 9 cookies.
8. Cook for 10-12 minutes until golden.
9. Leave to cool on a wire rack.

I've tried these cookies with chocolate chips and with golden syrup instead of the honey, but I think this recipe is my favourite so far.  Let me know if you have any suggestions for alternative ideas!

CC

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I returned home after a hectic morning helping a friend move house to find that the air was still, the sun was glaring through the mists and the daffodils had erupted.  A sight to behold after such a miserable day yesterday, and oh so appropriate on St David's Day.

Wishing you all a Saturday full of love, happiness and daffodils.

CC

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