The Lure Of A Bread And Butter Pudding.

A Saturday afternoon in culinary climes.

Bob and I went grocery shopping as one does on a Saturday morning and it seems half of Oberwart was at Merkur. For once both of us were more than peckish, almost bordering on hungry and overdid the " each of us can get a snack to go " thing. For some reason we've ended up with a weekend of snack lunches!

My personal downfall is and always will be the bread department and to this day I find it hard to walk past fresh bread without at least getting a small roll. Bob, ever the grown-up, got a baked pizza bread ( healthy indeed ) and as I was hovering, dithering and deciding he shouted across to me that there was a huge loaf of yesterday's bread at half price.

Surreptitiously I did the finger test and even through the paper bag I could tell that it had plenty of life left in it. Toast and brie, toast and butter or toast with avocado images were flitting through my mind. I put the bread into the trolley. Done and dusted.

At home I had a quick squiz at my Facebook and eerily, the recipe for bread and butter pudding was circling about. Don't you also find it spooky how they seem to know your wants, needs and desires almost before you do? Well, now that I Googled for a quicker recipe of it, my social media will be inundated with tips, photos and ideas about baking.

As we speak, the pudding is in the oven and soon the kitchen will be alive with baking aromas, memories of the past and two very content pudding tasters...

' All the proofe of th' pudding, is in the eating. ' ( William Camden 1605 )

Biggi

When Did This Culinary Laziness Creep In?

The joys of bread.

You know last Monday, the day after a Sunday spent grazing almost every morsel in our larder, something made me stop at our local Eisenberg shop and pick up a loaf of rye bread. Yum, it was freshly made and I knew we had butter galore. Anyway, I came home just before lunch and Bob had gotten home a few minutes before me.

As they say, great minds think alike and he too, had picked up a whole loaf of bread at the Deutsch Schützen shop. So, there we were, with two humongous loaves of bread. Almost biblical when you consider that each weighs about 1kg. Never mind the cost...a total of about 8 euros. Crazy.

Anyway, as we don't own a freezer and also didn't want to waste so terribly, ( who are we kidding? we both don't like stale bread! ) we decided to drop one loaf off at my folks as they have a huge freezer. Even that was rather funny...I had a late lesson and when I got to my parents house, the door was locked and knocking didn't help either.

Okay, they might have gone to bed early and so I left the loaf between the two doors and it having been cold outside, it wouldn't have mattered if they had only discovered it in the morning.

Mum phoned a bit later and knowing it was her, I answered the phone:

" Hello, this is the bread fairy's house. "

which floored her, as she had thought a friend had dropped a loaf off for them and they had already had some. Honestly, I was happy that the bread was being eaten.

Fast forward to this Monday, where we decided to make a loaf of bread and like good country dwellers, we had flour, yeast and everything needed. Bob, was deputized as the bread maker and honestly, his bread always taste divine, which he proved by making a most stunning creation with mere flour, water, yeast and precision.

It sounds complicated and full of culinary hurdles to make your own bread, but that is such a misconception. The hardest bit about baking is the waiting...one hour. But no, I lie, the really hard bit is the self control needed in order not to rip and tear into it like a pack of hungry wolves, the minute it emerges from the hot oven!

Biggi

Bacon & Eggs Need Homemade Bread.

Finding the perfect complement for fried eggs.

The old habit of eating a fry up breakfast on Sundays ( gosh, I could eat it most days ) is not so easy in a country that doesn't do fry ups. Honestly, even explaining what a fry up is garners me a few strange looks coupled with raised eyebrows.

As much as I used to complain about the bread we had in South Africa - white or brown toast bread mostly - I do miss it now. Not the pre packaged one but the one that we used to buy and put in the bread slicer ourselves. That rectangular box shaped loaf.

If it was freshly baked and still had that lovely gooey texture inside, it firmly begged to be covered with pats of butter and dollops of peanut butter and drizzled with syrup for better lubrication...

Anyway, toasted it was the perfect place mat for a fried egg. Plain and simple. Perhaps a bit of HP sauce and a speck of fried bacon and it morphed into a heavenly bit of a breakfast morsel.

So far the only toast bread we have bought here was a few years ago and tasted a bit processed and sweet. We got confirmation of how processed it was, when we once forgot it was in the bread container. After a two week stint of not being used, guess what...it still looked fresh and perky like the first day we opened the package. That did it for us. We threw away the toaster and with it the temptation to eat chemically enhanced bread.

We are now bread makers. Necessity taught us well. Buying a " Schwarzbrot " or as we would call it a Rye Bread is quite costly and a loaf can set you back almost 4 Euros. Bread rolls are also not cheap at +- 40 cents per roll and often they have no flavour at all. The processed ones that you can bake yourself are 40 cents for 6 and so full of chemicals that we'd go back to square one.

When we make our own bread, it costs us just under a Euro. Flour, yeast, salt and TLC is all that goes into our bread.

Nothing is constant in life and our homemade bread is no exception. Sometimes it tastes out of this world and other times it tastes and looks like a stone. But we are trying and like Gary Player used to say:" The more I practice the luckier I get..."

Once you've made homemade bread, there is no end to what you can make yourself:

• Jam
• Pasta
• Pizza

Perhaps, making certain foods ourselves is a mini-protest against the huge food producing conglomerates that sell us their wares as if it's the best thing since sliced bread...

Biggi

Bob Made Bread Rolls For Our Sunday Fry-up.

Necessity is the mother of all inventions.

Sundays for us are always started off with a nice English style breakfast or at least part thereof, such as fried eggs on toast or bread of sorts.

At the moment, the Alpine Skiing World Cup is being held in Colorado. This World Cup is as important to us fans, as the Soccer World cup is to football fans.

However,there are several flies in the soup, starting with the time difference from Colorado and ending with the mistaken viewing times of the repeat races printed in the TV program. The Rocky Mountains in Colorado are simply stunning to see but frankly, when the races are so late in the evening ( last night was at 10 pm ), it is only with extreme effort that I stay awake for even the first 5 skiers.

On Saturday evening we were at the AGM of our Fire Department and fair enough, it was important and worth missing the Men's Downhill race for. But I knew that there was a repeat broadcast on Sunday morning. Goody. With determined dexterity, which did involve the manual covering of my ears when someone blabbed the results, I managed to avoid any and all news of the results and planned my morning to coincide with the 9.15 am start of the program.

At 8.35 I was ready to go to our local shop for a few bread rolls and which would still leave enough time to make breakfast on my return. For some reason, I switched on the channel to have it ready and set.

I nearly fainted when I saw that the third skier was already hurtling down the Raptor piste. Oh, steam was coming out of my nostrils and it took me a skier or two to relax and enjoy the event.

...if I hadn't listened to my inner voice, I would have missed it. Nice one indeed, Eurosport or
Die Ganze Woche. One of you needs to check your schedules!

But back to the breakfast scenario. Bob saw with one glance that there was no way I was going to fetch any bread rolls. With a second glance he realized that snow was falling in alarming proportions and made the decision to make our rolls.

While his wife was focused and unmovable in front of the television, he quietly but with determination made his first ever batch of bread rolls. Wow, isn't he great? The best part of it was that all I had to do, was show up at the breakfast table and sample the delicious rolls.

Biggi

Sorry Ladies...this man's spoken for!!!

Oh yes, it looks so scrumptious but tasted even better when a lashing of butter was added...

The Culinary Thrill Of Devouring A Freshly Baked Bread Roll While Sitting In Your Car.

Driving with bread crumbs or living on the edge?

Truthfully I cannot tell you that I don't initiate shopping trips purely for the fresh bread rolls that can be had at the various Supermarkets. Do you think there might be a need for a reference guide?

Biggi's guide to the best fresh baked goods to be devoured on route. Judged by the ripping test & amount of breadcrumbs had.

Sometimes Bob saves me the trouble to nudge him. Friday he had a bee in his bonnet to make pumpkin soup. Pumpkin soup means a trip through to Hungary for us.

Why Hungary you might ask? Well, they sell divine tasting pumpkins and a lot more reasonably priced too. Before you start to question our sanity, you must know that it's the same distance to drive to a big city in Hungary than to the nearest town in Burgenland. When in Europe, do the European thing...

On top of everything else, we were looking for a DVD. Well, first shopping outlet...nada. Next outlet was Tesco's. While Bob was doing his thing, I managed to hone in on their bakery isle. Good golly gosh, they don't disappoint. At least 8 baskets of freshly baked rolls, muffins and similar delectable items to tempt even the most diligent dieter.

Either they sprayed a scent in the air, or maybe it is just the baker opening the oven but the aroma wafting about was too much for me to resist. There is always one major drawback of course. Everything is labeled in Hungarian and I have to choose by looks alone. Whether it is sweet or savoury only gets discovered once we are in the car.

Bob has the discipline to wait until we are out of the car park ( he is driving the chariot after all ) which I don't have. Opening that paper bag with our spoils is the best feeling in the world. The golden freshly baked aroma coupled with that ripping sound of crust being torn apart is almost ethereal.

Of course, Bob being Bob, he knows exactly what and how much of the doughy stuff was purchased and he demands his equal share of the bounty. Once, years ago I tried to hoodwink him...Goodness, have you ever withheld freshly baked bread from your man? Never again!

I sincerely hope there are no Big Brother affairs trained on our car, because seeing us rip and devour a freshly baked bread roll or croissant or loaf of bread ( oh yes, I dare you to resist a fresh out the oven loaf of bread! ) might have been the video that launched a thousand likes.

When we had the first lot of bread crumbs all over us and the car seat, Bob let out a loud : " Oh no! " and started to laugh...it turns out we forgot to buy pumpkin and the shopping trip to Hungary turned into a mere culinary outing after all. Ah, isn't life grande?

Biggi