Purple Realm

Food. A necessity of life. You have to eat to live... And some live to eat. Whatever your personal philosophy on food, you cannot deny the importance it has in our lives.
Whether you a little or a lot, it's good to enjoy what you do eat. A good dish feeds not only our bellies, but our souls. It warms our smiles and our stomachs.
I've taken it upon myself to detail one particular cuisine that has been apparent to me, once every month.
Why?
Because I need something to fucking post about, now don't I?

October's Cuisine:

I was sick of using so much stuff for a traditional English Bread And Butter pudding.
Bread and butter pudding is a very British thing - it's not overly sweet, and it's very filling. I never liked it as a child, but now it brings a full stomach and comfort to a budget and cold weather. Designed to feed a lot, way too much for just Mik and I. Too big portions, a lot of waste. So, I invented:

Individual bread and butter puddings.

(Makes 2 individual puddings)

You will need:
1 and a half slices of thick white bread
1 tablespoon butter or margarine
One egg
250ml milk
4 teaspoons raisins
2 teaspoons white sugar
2 teaspoons brown sugar
A sprinkling of cinnamon (optional)

You'll need two large muffin moulds for this, or something similar, like large souffle dishes. I use silicone muffin things but I'll refer to them as "dishes".

First, crack the egg into a jug. Add the milk and the white sugar and whisk thoroughly. Set the jug aside.

Now butter your bread on both sides, and cut up into a few chunks and strips.

It's not exact, you'll need to tear and sort of jigsaw it together later.

Now put one layer of bread into each of your dishes. One big square and a few little chunks around the sides is good - you do need to leave some gaps.


Sprinkle one teaspoon of raisins over the first layer of each pudding.


Now put another layer of bread straight on top of each, remembering to fill, yet leave, some gaps...


And another teaspoon of raisins on top of that layer, too...


Now take your jug of milk/egg/white sugar, and carefully pour half of the mixture over one pudding, half over the other. Depending on the size of the dishes you'll need more or less milk - that's okay. Wait a minute for the bread to soak up the mixture a little first before you discard any leftover though.

Once you've done that, sprinkle a teaspoon of brown sugar on each one... (And add your cinnamon if you want it)


And bake for around 35 minutes at 160 degrees celsius. They'll rise a lot, and may spill a little, but don't worry!


Now, the best way to eat these is upside down - the top is crisp and sweet, and many people like that part the most. You can only really do this easily with silicone dishes though, you simply turn it upside down onto a plate and it comes straight out.

First, the boots. You'll have to excuse the weird leg angle - the 3-inch heels bring my height to 5"11 and I had to bend to take the pictures myself . Here're the best ones I could take:


I haven't worn them outside yet, but I'm now confident I can walk well in them after wearing them around the house .

Now for Kimmie's Blueberry Muffins!

You will need:
1 cup (120g-150g) fresh blueberries (if frozen, defrost and dry them on kitchen paper)
1 and a half cups (200g) plain flour
Half a cup (100g) sugar
Half a cup (100g) butter or margarine (I use Flora Light)
Half a cup (125ml) semi-skimmed milk
One large egg
Half a teaspoon of salt
Half a teaspoon of vanilla essence (or flavouring, doesn't matter much)
One and a half teaspoons of baking powder

I have made the big-ass muffins for this example. So, you need to figure out whether you want the big-ass muffins or the standard ones so you know your oven instructions:

For Fan-assisted ovens
Big muffins : 170 celsius
Standard: 180 celsius
For Normal ovens
Big muffins : 190 celsius
Standard : 200 celsius

The standard make a dozen, the big-ass are six. Now you've figured out which temperature you need, preheat the oven.

Sift your flour, baking powder and salt together into a bowl.

Now take about a third, and only a third of your blueberries, and with a sharp knife, cut them in half, and chuck them into the flour mixture.

(This is optional, but a good idea if you're making standard muffins, as it helps make sure you get some berries in each muffin.)

Put your flour mixture aside and put your sugar and butter into a new bowl. Whisk together thoroughly until light and fluffy.

Then add your vanilla and egg, and whisk thoroughly again until it is mixed fully, and a little frothy.

Add the flour mixture to the sugar mixture, then, without mixing it, add the rest of your blueberries on top of the flour, and pour the milk over it all.

Now it's time to mix. Carefully fold the mixture, gently and slowly, until everything has just blended together. Don't overmix!

Divide the mixture equally into your muffin cases,
and put onto the middle shelf of your oven.
Big-ass muffins take twenty minutes.
Standard muffins take fifteen minutes.

They should look a little like this:
Don't worry if the muffins don't seem "quite" done when you take them out - as they cool in their cases they'll finish cooking themselves, as you can see: This way they don't taste dry.

The muffins freeze well, and taste best just a little warm, but defrost before reheating, as they'll go a bit chewy if you warm from frozen in the microwave.

I apologise for the crappy picture quality - took them with my phone camera.

Made this for myself yesterday as a pick-me-up, I've not been eating properly recently, so I decided to toast two already-made scotch pancakes (I know, it's cheating) under the grill, and heated up three tablespoons of fresh blueberries in a saucepan with a little water, squashed them a little into a kind of compote. I then put half of the blueberries on top of one pancake, topped with a teaspoon of frozen yoghurt, then placed the second pancake on top, with the other half of the hot blueberries, and a tablespoon of frozen yoghurt on top again to finish.

It looked excellent (although the pictures do not tell us this very well) and tasted even better - the pancakes were a little sweet, the blueberries nice and tart and the frozen yoghurt just the right amount of sweetness to really bring out the whole symphony of flavour.

What else? Oh yeah, it's pretty damn good for you! It weighs in at around 200kcal and only 4g of fat, which is pretty good for such a big treat, no?

I think I'm gonna concoct some other stuff involving blueberries - I'm really into them at the moment, and they're a superfood, don'tcha know.