Two little cooks

My little girl had one of her favourite friends over to play recently and they had great, messy fun together cooking bread. It got me thinking about friendships and cooking, and remembering some of the lovely times I have had preparing food and eating with friends and family. There is something about making food with someone that bonds you, especially if it is a new aquaintance - and being roped in to help prepare something can often make someone feel welcome.

 I worked on a Kibbutz whilst I was at University, and had to prepare breakfast for hundreds of hungry workers. There was a woman of 80 who still worked in the kitchens. The Kibbutz ideology means that people work until they drop, which considering the amount of very able older people there were on my Kibbutz, is probably a sound one. This old lady couldn't speak a word of English, and my Hebrew didn't stretch much further, but somehow, sharing the experience of boiling hundreds of eggs and cutting up countless red peppers (yes, for breakfast!) gave us a bond and somehow let me enter her world a little bit.

She had a tattoo on her arm that she had gained in a concentration camp, and had been one of the early immigrant settlers in dusty, difficult Israel - our worlds could not have been further apart in so many ways, but I will never forget her (perhaps also because she almost burnt down the dining hall down by spraying an electric toaster with a hosepipe, but that, as they say, is another story!)

Anyhow, this is the 'after' picture  - lots of fun, flour and bonding!

Quick bread

This isn't so much a bread as a giant scone. Its so easy and quick, a perfect wet afternoon activity.

Ingredients for 2 'loaves'

225g self raising flour

50g cold butter, cut into pieces

150ml milk

25g  dried fruit - apricots, raisins, currants, blueberries,

A handful of seeds - pumpkin, sunflower, poppy, sesame or linseed

 

1. Preheat the oven to 200C / 400f and tell your child that it is hot.

2. Weigh out 225g flour into a bowl.

3. Weigh out 50g butter together and cut into small pieces.

4. Show your child how to gently 'squeeze' the butter and flour together until it resembles breadcrumbs.

5. Weigh out 25g mixed fruit and add to the mixture.

6. Let your child pour 150ml milk into the mixture, then stir. If its dry, add a little more.

 7. Show your child how to make a ball from the dough and let them have a play with it.

8.  Break the dough into 2 pieces and then make into 'footballs'

9. Put the balls on a baking tray.

10. Give your child a pastry or paint brush and a little milk, let them paint the top of the balls.

11. Now let your child decorate the balls with the seeds

12. Bake in the oven for 15 - 20 minutes.