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Posts Tagged ‘Vicarage’

Vicarage Recipes: Choc chip (or Pecan) Banana Loaf

Posted in Food, tagged , , , , , , , , , on 20 October, 2010| 3 Comments »

Wednesdays is my baking day and since the recipe for lemonies seemed to go down pretty well the other week, today I’m going to share another Vicarage favourite bake. I’ve adapted the recipe from one in an Aussie cookbook sent to me by my oldest friend, who now lives in Sydney.

Wildwoman is a big foodie and thought I should would enjoy Bill’s food, which I did, very much. This cake has become a staple in our house, where we always seem to have some overripe bananas attracting fruit flies in the corner of the kitchen.

If you have a kitchen mixer, like a Kenwood chef, this is extra easy, but it should be just as simple with an electric mixer, or even to do by hand. Both versions are great. The pecans seem to almost caramelise as they bake, so I think it’s my favourite. But there’s also something about chocolate and bananas…

Choc Chip or Pecan Banana Loaf

Ingredients

250g/8oz self raising flour
250g/8oz caster sugar
125g/4oz soft margarine
4 ripe bananas
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
150-200g/4-6oz chocolate chips or 100-150g/3-5oz chopped pecans

Plop everything in your mixer, or a bowl, and mix together. The batter doesn’t need to look too smooth – mine always look pretty lumpy. If your bananas are not very ripe at all, you should probably mush them up separately with a fork first. Then pop the mix into a lined (I use a nifty pre-cut reusable silicone liner) 2lb loaf tin.

Bake for 1hr-1hr15mins in your oven at 180ºC (Gas 4, Fan 170ºC). When it’s done, it will be firm to the touch and a skewer should come out pretty clean. Leave it to cool in the tin. This cake keeps really well, if you can manage not to eat it.

Here’s last week’s Pecan Banana loaf, which was popular with both the family and the gang at Cake and Chat.

I really hope you're not here for the quality of the photography

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This Week’s Crime: Coping Stones

Posted in Garden, Vicarage, tagged , , , , , , on 16 October, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Well, that’s made for a great Saturday. The Vicar was outside chatting with a kind neighbour who has been repairing our Victorian garden wall. The neighbour remarked that he’d have to get on with putting the coping stones back on the top. He’d seen that the stones had disappeared a couple of days ago and had assumed that the Vicar had taken them off since they were loose. Alas not. Someone has been and taken them! So now about half our wall looks strangely naked.

So if anyone offers you a load of cheap Staffordshire blue coping stones, let me know. At £40/m, we reckon they’ve stolen about a thousand pounds worth.

Just a small section of our poor wall

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Vicarage Recipes: Lemonies

Posted in Food, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on 7 October, 2010| 6 Comments »

As anyone who follows me on Twitter (or is a friend on Facebook) knows, I spend a lot of time in the kitchen. My kitchen time is especially intense on Wednesdays, which is my baking day in preparation for the weekly coffee morning I organise which  is mainly attended by school gate mums.

Every week I bake at least two cakes or biscuity or bready type things. Others often bring toast or crumpets, and we eat together and talk about how to solve the problems of the week. This morning it was improving working memory in dyslexic and ADHD affected kids.

This morning’s Cake & Chat delicacies from the Vicarage Kitchen were malt loaf, apple turnovers and lemonies. When I mentioned the lemonies on Facebook, my friend Snap asked for the recipe. Neatnik at Cake and Chat was also very keen on them, so this recipe is also for her.

I’ve decided that the only way to blog recipes is to give up the exalted aim of photographing step-by-step cooking, but to be content with a finished product pic. My photography skills are just not up to those of the Pioneer Woman, whose recipes always look so easy as she shows the whole procedure from cast of ingredients through to half-eaten plateful.

 

Just the finished product, I'm afraid. Delicious though.

 

The original recipe book name for lemonies is Bahama meltaways. I renamed them lemonies, as they are like a lemon brownie, with a shortbread base.  Also I have no idea what the Bahamas have to do with a traybake. The topping is sweet and chewy like a brownie, but with a great lemon kick. The recipe was originally in a Royal Scottish Country Dance Society cookbook given to me by my most excellent mother-in-law, who knows a thing or two about baking.

Lemonies

Shortbread: 3oz butter, 5oz plain flour, 2oz icing sugar

Topping: 8oz granulated sugar, 2 eggs, 2tbspns lemon juice, 2 tbspns plain flour, 1/2 tspn baking powder

I make this the quick way, using my food processor to blitz the flour and butter for the shortbread base before pulsing in the icing sugar. But if you don’t have a processor, just rub the butter into the flour until you have a fine sandy mixture. Then mix in the icing sugar.

Scatter the mixture in a tin (9×11″/23x28cm) which you have lined with baking paper or greased well. I have reusable liners cut to fit the tin, which saves lots of hassle when baking but is a bit of a faff for washing up. Flatten the mix down with your hand and put it to bake at 180ºC (Gas 4, Fan 170ºC) for 15 minutes.

Then mix all the topping ingredients together in a medium bowl or a jug, and then, when the 15 minutes are up, pour over the partly cooked base. Return to the oven for another 20-25 minutes until the topping is golden and set.

Leave to cool for 5-10 minutes and then cut into squares. These are quite sweet, but have a wonderful crisp and chewy texture.

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Lighting the Fire: Autumn in the Vicarage

Posted in Vicarage, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on 22 September, 2010| 8 Comments »

The Vicar's Wife likes to have warm ankles

So it’s been getting a bit chilly here and we’ve fired up the wood-burning stove 3 or 4 times in the last week. So today I’m sharing a few thoughts about surviving Vicarage cold…

Slippers

We have new slippers in the Vicarage, both me and the Vicar. Warm feet make a huge difference to happiness in a cold house. The slippers of happiness are made by The North Face. Mine are of the bootie variety, and the Vicar has mules.

Warmwear

Let's hope these are long enough...

I am also seriously considering investing in some Marks and Spencer Warmwear. M&S claim that these ‘layering pieces’…’generate heat’ and ‘act as insulation’. I’m a wee bit concerned that they might be a bit short and not tuck into my low rise jeans, thus ensuring  that I have cold kidneys and monumentally failing to keep me properly warm. Too-short t-shirts are the bane of my life in cold weather. I will try them, however, and report back. Unless any of you have tried them already…? I’m 5’10” btw, so my back is quite long. [HT Cassie]

Scarves

Scarves are essential for warmth and I’m especially pleased with the gorgeous Black Ruffled Skinny one that Icklesis bought me for my birthday this year. Don’t be without one. But you knew that, anyway, didn’t you?

Cats

And finally… work out where the cat is and join her. She knows the warmest place in the house for certain. As you can see, it’s usually in front of the fire.

Ahhh. Toasty.

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What is the Church there for?

Posted in Church, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on 13 September, 2010| 8 Comments »

Do come in, but perhaps you won't find what you're expecting...

Not everyone knows the real answer to this question. And sometimes it’s tempting for us to do something worthy but low down on our priority list in order to help people who think the church is really a sort of extension of social services.

That was my temptation earlier today, when local social services telephoned us. The lady calling didn’t introduce herself, but asked if we had a room available for a parent to have contact with their children. They needed two hours, twice a week. I answered that our church hall was available to hire if they were looking for space.

But that wasn’t what this lady wanted. She was after space that was free. Or was there somewhere else? Perhaps the Vicarage? ‘Because churches want to support families staying together.’

Well, obviously, that is something the church wants to support. But we are a small congregation in a deprived area. So we can’t afford to let people use our rooms for free. And you all know that the Vicarage already has plenty of people in need passing through its doors. And, when we consider what we’re really about, our mission is not social service, to keep families together (for example), just because that is a good thing. Our mission is to help bring people out of the dominion of darkness and into the kingdom of the Son. And stronger families are a result of that, not an end in itself. We need to keep the main thing the main thing, otherwise we could spend all our time in worthy, but ultimately fruitless, activities.

I was interested that they thought the church would help (which we might have been able to do I guess, if we were a wealthier church with a church hall that was open anyway). There is still a perception that churches care about people and their troubles. I can’t imagine Richard Dawkins gets many calls asking him to make his living room available for use by families in crisis.

Incidentally, I wonder if this is part of a new plan for councils to reduce their spending? Perhaps they are looking to the church to provide free facilities for all their other activities as well. Will we be getting a call from their finance department asking if we’ve got space for a few of their accountants? Is this an initiative that Grant Shapps has launched?

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Home from Abroad: Return to the Vicarage

Posted in Inner city, Uncategorized, Vicarage, tagged , , , , , on 30 August, 2010| 2 Comments »

Home from Abroad is that lovely poem by Laurie Lee that I learnt by heart for O Level Eng Lit. And here I am, skin not so much ‘well oiled by wines of the Levant’ as lightly tanned by Brittany sun… and rain.

I didn’t advertise my absence, though the more eagle eyed of you may have noticed a reduction in tweeting. I was a little concerned about alerting people on the internet to an empty(ish) Vicarage. As it happens, the internet was not what people were looking at.

Ha! He didn't get in.

It seems that some dodgy characters were observing a car with a roof box disappearing from our drive. And hadn’t noticed that our Ministry Trainee/lodger Happy was late back the day we left and out early the next. He had church folk over to dinner that evening and as they were leaving, there was a loud banging noise at our family room window.

Happy went into the room and was able to see at close hand a man with a hammer and chisel attempting to get in through the sash windows. When he saw Happy he seemed rather surprised. He had an accomplice with him in the garden and they both bolted off immediately.

They wouldn’t have had much luck getting in, as the windows are securely locked, so they’d have had to dismantle the structure of the window to fit through. But obviously it was pretty alarming for Happy. Thankfully, church family have been brilliant – our thoughtful Lay Reader parked her car in the drive for the remainder of our absence, and lots of folk have been phoning and calling in.

Although Happy got a good look at the chap at the window, he didn’t recognise him from our locality, and the police said the information would just remain on file.

Happy has also had Gone on the doorstep singing loudly at 6am, although he left and hasn’t returned. Not as bad as when we were on hols last year and Polly was confronted by a very nasty mess left by Gone on the doorstep, two days in a row. Our poor lodgers seem to really have a rough time when we go away.

We are grateful to God that the burglars didn’t get in, and that Happy was okay. We are also praying for our neighbourhood as crime levels seem to be increasing – this week a lady in our congregation was burgled by men who came to the door pretending to be from the council. We are hearing more and more about this type of crime. We are praying that people would be made new and stop stealing. Do pray with us.

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Vicarage Taxi?

Posted in Inner city, Vicar's wife job description, Vicarage, tagged , , , , , , on 26 August, 2010| Leave a Comment »

A short tale from a recent Sunday at the Vicarage:

The Vicar was in the kitchen, talking to a weeping parishioner who was in some emotional turmoil. We were waiting for our pal Nerd to come and join us for lunch. I guess it was about 1.30pm.

I had a text from my local friend Peacock, who told me that two men were coming over to my house. Hmm. Not sure why she texted me that, I thought. Then the doorbell rang.

Need a lift? Call the Vicar!

There was an obviously drunk chap at the door. He’s been round before, asking for food or train fares. Swaying a little, he asked me if the Vicar was available. ‘No, he’s in a meeting,’ I replied. ‘Can he give us a lift to Birmingham?’ he said.

‘Errrr. Well, we’re about to have lunch, so I don’t think so.’ And off he toddled. The things people expect vicars to do…

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Indian Christianity

Posted in Fun, tagged , , , , , on 16 August, 2010| 2 Comments »

One of our favourite tv programmes used to be Goodness Gracious Me. This clip is one I only came across fairly recently –  a very appropriate Vicarage theme.

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Gone Again

Posted in Alcohol, Inner city, tagged , , , , , , on 4 August, 2010| 8 Comments »

Oh dear. A loud ring on the doorbell at quarter to eight this morning. The Vicar went down to greet the postman. And alongside him, on the Vicarage doorstep, was Gone. Just like he was this time last year.

If you’ve started reading since last summer, you’ll not know that Gone is homeless man, an alcoholic, who spent six weeks or so living on our doorstep last summer. His presence was rather all-consuming at the time, so we’re a little wary of his reappearance.

He’s been in prison for ten months and is out on licence. So he only lasted a couple more months on the street after we firmly told him we were only going to help him to help himself by going to Betel. We didn’t have the strength to supply any more cheese on toast. And the Queen needed her sleep (he had a propensity to sing loudly and drunkenly under her window at 5am).

Since he left, though, Betel have opened a shop in our town, so the Vicar has gone down there with him now to see if Gone can overcome his anxieties enough to get himself onto Betel’s excellent programme. Watch this space for more news… (and if you want to read the rest of Gone’s story, there’s a box  on the right hand side of the blog, with all my previous posts from last summer).

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Ten Great Things About Being a Vicar’s Wife

Posted in vicar, Vicar's wife job description, tagged , , , , , , on 7 July, 2010| 44 Comments »

I only wear my pinny for special occasions

Inspired by Steve Tilley’s list of reasons to be married to a priest I thought I’d add a Vicar’s wife’s perspective. We’ve not watched the offending episode of Rev yet – we were interrupted before viewing on iPlayer by the Vicar’s diocesan golf team partner arriving to stay over so that he and the Vicar could get an early start off to their tournament today.

Anyway, I love being a Vicar’s wife, and here are some of the reasons why:

  1. I have a husband who is serious about loving me as Christ loved the church (Ephesians 5v25).
  2. We get to work as a team in all sorts of ways (hospitality, church strategy, cleaning the churchyard…)
  3. My husband is around to take kids to and from school, take them swimming and eat with the family most nights.
  4. He’s involved with the kids’ primary school and knows their teachers better than I do.
  5. I love it that he has lunch with me most days.
  6. He has to chop logs outside my kitchen window to get the fuel we need to heat our Vicarage. This is a very good view when I am washing up.
  7. He reads parenting books and works hard to help our children to grow up as believers and not to be wild and disobedient.
  8. His job comes with a huge home which is great for hospitality, even if it is a deep freeze come January.
  9. Parish life is never, ever dull.
  10. And finally, as I was told in a seminar on a Vicar’s wives conference once: ‘The advantages of midweek daytime sex cannot be overstated’.

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