I had to work on Monday, and as Naomi had had her 12^th operation post accident, Yvonne came up with me on Sunday to stay with her for a while. When we got there I got my birthday presents from my daughters and a HUGE curry plus Millionaires Shortbread cheesecake type dessert. Filled me up so much I couldn’t face breakfast on Monday.

I had a relatively quiet watch at work, just two ships, but I got a couple of nice pictures of the sunset over Tilbury,

and before going to get Yvonne back on Tuesday morning I managed to fit in a hearty Fry-up.

£ 5.30 with coffee! The place to go is J’s Diner in Queen Street, Gravesend.

Back home on Wednesday, I got started at 6am with a polish for beer bread, this needs about 2 hours to develop before you add the rest of the ingredients. I have been giving my dough a 20 minute autolyse before adding salt and the texture and flavour are better for it.

Poolish

Poolish after 1 hour

Dough

Dough after 2 hours

After a further 2 hours 30 minutes the loaves were ready for the oven, I used my new lame (Thanks Amy) to slash them and the result was a better finish than with my old knife. I still need a bit of practice, but I'm getting there.

My new Couche

Slashed Baguette

Ready for the Oven

Meanwhile I was preparing a Pork Roast for dinner, I had cooked a large joint a while ago and frozen the spare meat, now the challenge is to reheat it without it drying out and losing flavour.

I line a casserole with apple,

place my pork pieces on top

 and cover with sage and onion stuffing, made slightly wetter than usual.

When heated, this keeps the meat moist and adds to the taste.

 I also picked my first chilli of the year