Little House by the Railway Line

2010 Goals

Concrete goals

Cook and eat liver
Learn to make soft cheese
Grow potatoes
Grow and can paste tomatoes
Learn to make puff pastry
Swim 20 miles
Do an online food hygiene course
Knit a pair of socks

Less concrete goals

Work on my prayer life
Make bread more often
All yoghurt homemade
Make some progress on cardigan
Flowers and candles at home

Preserved in 2010

January: Marmalade, 7 1/2 standard jars, 4 tiny jars

Projects in Progress/ Planned

Navy and pink lap quilt
Hidden stars bed quilt
Sampler cardigan
Amish Alphabet Cross-Stitch
Knitted scrap blanket
Planned: summer blouse and skirt

Root Vegetable Crisps

15:58, Thursday 20 November 2008 .. Posted in In the Kitchen .. 0 comments .. Link

On Monday night I decided to try to make some root vegetable crisps at home. I really love these when I've had them in the past (sometimes from the supermarket, and also from the Christmas market in Durham once when I was a student), but they cost far too much money to buy them and I thought maybe I could do them at home. Root vegetables aren't very expensive, and they're in season now.

I found a recipe online, which I followed extremely loosely. I used potato, swede and beetroot, because that's what we had in the house, and sliced them with a potato peeler (I was hoping that would make things quicker). Because beetroot stains like crazy I put them on three separate trays.

As they cooked and shrank up I moved them onto one tray. Partly because my oven only has two shelves and getting three trays in was rather a balancing act, and partly because they were greasy because I'd used too much oil.

When I decided they were definitely at least cooked (if not a little over-cooked) I put them in a box with lots of kitchen paper to soak up the excess oil.

I think I may actually have over-done the cooking because I was hoping the grease would evaporate (not sure why, as that's totally illogical, but I was probably rather tired and not thinking straight). Some bits tasted a little burnt. But the beetroot ones were absolutely delicious, definitely the best. I think beetroot are generally sweeter, so that's probably why. Next time I may try and do this with carrots, as they're quite sweet. Or possibly parsnips, but it seems a shame to do an experiment like this on my favourite vegetable when I could turn it into dinner instead.

The other thing I think would really have improved this is if I'd managed to use less oil. The recipe said to use cooking spray, but I don't have any, and used vegetable oil smeared on with kitchen paper. I wonder if putting the sliced vegetables in a bowl and mixing with a teaspoon of oil would have solved the problem? I think I'll try that next time, and if that doesn't work I'll have to find a way to do cooking spray. I read somewhere that you can use any old spray bottle but you have to mix the oil with lecithin, and I've no idea where I'd get that.
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About Me

Hello! I'm Jo, I'm 27 and I live in a small house in England with my husband. I work full time in an office, and in my spare time I help out with Sunday school and the church youth group. When I have time, I enjoy reading, cookery and crafts, and a bit of gardening. We don't have any kids, but would really love to have some one day. Thanks for visiting me here!

Some words are different in England and America, so if you're American and I use an unfamiliar word, it might be in my little dictionary

Links

The Cotton Patch
Sew and So
The World's Healthiest Foods
Daily Bread
Bible Gateway
E-Sword
The National Trust