*French for Fun and Practise*

J'ai une soeur. Elle s'appelle Esmeralda. Elle a 26 ans. Elle est avocate. Elle parle anglais et francais. Elle est mariée. Son mari s'appelle Jimmy. Il a 27 ans. Il est un professeur. Il parle anglais et allemand. Ils ont deux enfants. Le fils a trois ans. La fille a cinq ans. Ils ont un chien. Il s'appelle Fred. Le chien a sept ans. Il a faim, bien sur. Tres faim. Quelquefois il mange escargots dans le jardin. Pardon, escargots! 

I have a sister. Her name is Esmeralda. She is 26 years old. She is a lawyer. She speaks English and French. She is married. Her husband's name is Jimmy. He is 27 years old. He is a teacher. He speaks English and German. They have two children. The son is three years old. The daughter is five years old. They have a dog. His name is Fred. The dog is seven years old. He's hungry, of course. Very hungry. Sometimes he eats snails in the garden. Sorry, snails!

*Inspiration...*

*...I need me some of that!*

With a Chaucer assignment due soon,

and a whole bunch of new German/French to learn,

all I *really* feel like doing is

looking at pretty pictures.

Here are a few of my favourites.
(Hover over captions for links).

And P.S. -

Middle English is actually a foreign language -

don't let anyone convince you otherwise!

Rob Ryan Umbrella from In Good Company

Wooden Letter Rack from Papa Stour

Little Black Sheep Clutch Purse from Misala

All The Buzz Wallet from Mod Cloth

Birds Nest Bell Jar from In Good Company

DIY Chocolate & Coconut Milk Ice-Cream from Vittles and Bits

Tea Cup and Saucer ("January") from Portmeirion's Botanic Garden Collection

Cavallini Paris Rubber Stamps from In Good Company

*Breakfast*

Rooibos Tea and (Gluten-Free) Toast 

with Peanut Butter

Rooibos tea - a South African favourite!

One of the pleasures of childhood was waking up on a Summery Saturday with the entire day stretched before you like a treasure chest waiting to be discovered. No school. Zero responsibilities. Ample sunshine.

But first, breakfast.

And in South Africa, at my parents' house, that usually meant hot white toast with Black Cat peanut butter.

Oh, the simple joy to be found in biting into a slice of crunchy hot toasted bread smeared with (melting) peanut butter that was so gooey it glued your gums together! Paired with a frosty glass of cold milk to make swallowing easier (or possible), it was decadence.

A decadence I have, however, been sorely missing for some years (because, let's face it...sometimes rice cakes just don't cut it!)

So I set about baking some fresh gluten-free bread on Friday afternoon in order to ensure that there would be toast on (this leisurely) Saturday morning.

My Homebaked Gluten-Free Bread Recipe

My bread flour mix:

• 1 kilogram of Entice Rice rice flour
• 550 grams of Nature's Choice potato starch

Mix flours together well and store in an air tight container.

Ingredients for bread:

• 1 kilogram of my bread flour mix
• 10 grams (1 sachet) of instant yeast granules
• 20 millilitres (4 teaspoons) of white sugar
• 100 millilitres (20 teaspoons) of olive oil (or another vegetable oil)
• 500 - 1000 millilitres (0.5 - 1 litre) of tepid/lukewarm water
• 1 teaspoon of sea salt chrystals

Method:

1. Put 250 millilitres (1 cup) of tepid/lukewarm (approximately 37 degrees Celsius, which is body temperature) in a bowl and stir in 20 millilitres (4 teaspoons) of sugar. Allow the sugar to dissolve slightly, then sprinkle the 10 gram sachet of instant dried yeast granules over the water/sugar mixture and stir through briefly. Allow this to sit on the counter for about ten minutes. The yeast will start frothing happily.
2. While the yeast is having a party in a bowl, get out a much bigger bowl. Measure out your 1 kilogram of my bread flour mix and add it to this big bowl.
3. Keep approximately 750 millilitres of tepid/lukewarm water at the ready. Take 250 millilitres (1 cup of that) and stir in 1 teaspoon (5 millilitres) of salt chrystals. Stir until the salt chrystals have dissolved.
4. Make a well in the centre of your flour. Add the 250 millilitres (1 cup) of salty water, the 100 millilitres of olive oil (or another vegetable oil) and the happy frothing yeasty liquid into the flour and stir through.
5. Next, continue adding tepid/lukewarm water to the mixture and stirring it through until the dough resembles something between a scone dough and a cake batter. There is definitely no kneading involved in gluten-free bread making as there is no gluten to make the dough stretchy!
6. Allow the dough to sit on your counter for about 30 minutes while it rises. In the meantime, grease three loaf tins. I would suggest you use those silicone non-stick loaf tins, as the softer dough and use of rice flour can make the end product a little difficult to get out of regular tin loaf pans.
7. Once the 30 minutes has passed, divide the dough into the three loaf pans and allow it to rise for another 20 to 30 minutes. While this is happening, pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius (356 Fahrenheit) and shift the oven rack to the middle of the oven.
8. Drizzle some vegetable oil over the top of each loaf, and use your (clean) fingers to spread it (gently and evenly) on the surface of each loaf.
9. Bake the bread (there's nothing quite like the smell of freshly baking yeasty bread), one to two loaves at a time (I would definitely not recommend baking three at a time unless you have a fancy convection oven that distributes the hot air evenly throughout the oven) for 30 - 40 minutes. From 30 minutes, insert a cake skewer or kebab stick into the loaf every 5 minutes till it comes out clean.
10. Leave the loaves in their silicone loaf mould/loaf tin for 10 minutes after baking before turning out.
11. Slice with a sharp bread knife. 
12. Best eaten fresh if sandwiches are what you're after. If not, then keep it wrapped in wax paper/tin foil once cool and keep it in the fridge. It goes quite hard but makes for excellent toast over the next couple of days.
13. Although I have never tried, I suspect it could be frozen and thawed (for toasting) as well.
14. Serve with the topping of your choice and, above all, enjoy the pleasures of eating homebaked bread!

Woolworths sells a great organic, sugar-free peanut butter.

The only ingredients are tasty, organic roasted peanuts!

This magnificent tea cosy was purchased for me by my darling husband from "Out of Alex" for R165. Not only is it handcrafted, but it works like a dream, keeping one's tea nice and hot for over an hour. Plus it's really easy to wash and supports an excellent cause. For a list of stockists, see their website. Simeon bought it for me from the Bryanston Organic Market (where the company has a stall) which makes for a wonderful Saturday morning outing.