Tea, Scones and a Film

So, back to normal (except for Scotland where they're still in Hogmanay holiday). Most people are working, but we took advantage of the reinstated "Golden Days" showing at the Gala Cinema in Durham. Since the cinema is run by the County Council, after taking over from a dead useless entertainment company, OAPs are supported in their recreational needs. (OAP stands for Old Age Pensioner – meaning anyone over 60, a politically impolite appellation if I ever saw one.)

Golden Days showings are Tuesdays at 11.30am; this week was "Mission Impossible", just what OAPs want: to be reminded that they are no longer so young and active. But the real draw is, in addition to cheap tickets, free tea or coffee and a scone (sweet or cheese) beforehand.

Sweet scone with raisins on left, cheese scone on right

Scones were unknown to me before coming to England, but we do have baking powder biscuits in America. So what's the difference? Well, I finally found two recipes to compare:

SCONES
3 cups of flour
3 tsp baking powder (or more)
1/2 tsp salt
1~2 TBSP butter
milk to mix
AND THEN add raisins (optional) and 1/4 cup sugar for sweet scones
OR 4~6 TBSP grated cheddar and 1/4 tsp cayenne for cheese scones

BAKING POWDER BISCUITS
3 cups of flour
4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
6 TBSP shortening
1 cup of milk

So, scones are just baking powder biscuits with additions to make them sweet or cheesy. The biscuits themselves are savoury, to be eaten with dinner, while scones are a snack. I don't think anyone would eat a baking powder biscuit as a snack unless they were really hard up; they are dinner items.

In any case, it's pretty nice of the Durham County Council to supply scones rather than biscuits – that is British 'biscuits', i.e. 'cookies'. Are you confused now?

Tinned pumpkin at Waitrose!!!

Look what I have found at Waitrose in London: tinned (canned) pumpkin for pie filling! I bought both existing cans off the shelf, and their "best before" date is October 2014, which means I can make pumpkin pies for Thanksgiving for the next two years!

Libby's is a Nestlé brand, sold throughout the United States and imported and distributed to England by GFT Retail (UK) Ltd. Their address is PO Box 477, Walton on Thames, KT12 5XE, but if you want to "correspond", they guide you to Nestlé's Consumer Services at PO Box 207, York YO91 1XY. Perhaps if the tinned pumpkin isn't sold in your area, you could convince one of these companies to send you a care package.

Since the English traditionally eat turkey at Christmas (not having anything to be thankful for in November), perhaps pumpkin pie could be instituted as a third choice dessert alongside the cloying Christmas pudding and Christmas cake (heavy with dried fruit, icing or sauce and liquor). For those who don't like fruitcake, the pie might be a light option.

The can label has the pie recipe modified for English measures and oven temperatures. Inside the label are three more recipes: for pecan pumpkin sauce, good morning pumpkin pancakes, and pumpkin apple streusel muffins. Perhaps worth experimenting...but only if you have a good supply of pumpkin! See http://gleeb-livinginengland.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/make-pumpkin-pie.html

Make a Pumpkin Pie!

What to do with that old Halloween pumpkin? Make pumpkin pie, of course! It’s one of the seasonal, sentimental foods that Americans really miss in England. And since they don’t routinely sell tinned (canned) pumpkin pie filling in the supermarkets, that means you have to make your own filling.

This was a cooking pumpkin: walls 3" thick!

Hardest part is actually cutting up the pumpkin. I used a whole pumpkin (not with a funny face) that is particularly bred for pie – like Bramley apples are specifically cooking apples that are great in apple pie. It was really a tough pumpkin, three inches thick in places. I had to use a hatchet to break it open. And you can see from the picture that I made two half-hearted attempts with the hatchet that only sliced off conchoidal disks from the surface. The third try went straight in.

After cutting up the pumpkin and scooping out the seeds, separate the seeds as much as possible from the fibers. Spread the seeds for roasting on a flat baking tray and coat with salad oil. Bake the pumpkin pieces in the oven at 350° for 1.5 hours. The seeds can be started with the pumpkin, but they must be stirred occasionally and not allowed to burn, taking much less time to roast than the pumpkin.

Once baked, the pulp can easily be scooped from the skin (peeling a pumpkin beforehand with a vegetable peeler is a thankless and usually unsuccessful task). Use at least an 8-inch diameter pumpkin for 1.5 to 2 8-oz cups of pulp. The following recipe is in American measures:

Take 2 cups baked pumpkin pulp and mash with a potato masher; if it's stringy, then puree it in a blender or food processor. Put the puree in a strainer and squeeze out most of the moisture or stir it in saucepan at medium heat to evaporate as much liquid as possible.

Combine and blend dry ingredients:

½ cup sugar

¼ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
¼ teaspoon ground cloves

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground ginger powder

Add to the dry ingredients:

3 eggs, well beaten

The reduced pumpkin pulp

1 cup milk

Pour mixture into an unbaked pie shell and

Bake at 350°F for about 40–50 minutes

Top with whipped cream before serving, or serve with vanilla ice cream!

Make Applesauce!!

If the UK has so many apple varieties that they want to save but are not supermarketable, then why not make applesauce out of them? I’ve never understood why applesauce is sold in such tiny jars in England. In the States, a typical jar of applesauce (pictured) is 25 ounces / 1 lb 9 oz / 708 grams or about 1 quart’s worth (that’s not imperial quarts, mind). The large jar weighs 50 oz / 3 bl 2 oz / 1.41 kg. And it’s not eaten by the spoonful as a condiment but by the bowl full like real fruit.

So in England, if you want to eat applesauce by the bowlful, then make your own. You don’t have to use Bramley apples but any kind will do, and it’s dead easy. And if you want all the healthy stuff in them (eating an apple a day is now scientifically proven to be healthwise), leave the skins on.

• core and cut up four larger apples into bitesize pieces

• boil them in an inch of water in a saucepan until soft, about 10 minutes (or longer if quite runny in order to boil off some of the fluid)

• remove from heat and mash up with a potato masher

• stir in ¼ cup of sugar and cinnamon to taste

Voila! You have made applesauce! Now, if everyone used UK apples in all their knobbly, blemished varieties to make applesauce, we would really be helping to keep our apple diversity alive. Then if the companies would follow suit and made larger jars of UK applesauce, we would really be on a roll.