After swearing to write more frequently, I then managed to find somewhere new to live, and have spent the last 3 weeks packing my stuff up and moving house and settling in, during which time I have baked quite a lot, but with no internet connection at my new house for another couple of weeks, I haven’t written about it. Yet.
The day before I moved, I received my third Foodie Pen Pal parcel. I can see that this process will never get old, because already I’ve received such diverse things from each person who has been my FPP so far. Anna was my pen pal this month, and filled my box with so many wonderful goodies. I told Anna that I was a baker, but I really wanted some savoury stuff, having only received sweet items before, and she truly delivered on that! The first thing was loads of homemade shortbread, which was delicious and buttery and I enjoyed enormously.
Next, a small sourdough loaf, which Anna recommended I eat as toast with the beautiful Scottish Chanterelle mushrooms she sent (and I did).
Anna had recently been in Devon, and visited the South Devon Chili Farm, where she bought me some orange chili chocolate – which is fantastic, and has a real kick to it! She also gave me some tiny tiny chill peppers from her chili plant (much less spicy than the chocolate!). 
Finally there was a dried sausage made in a local smokehouse (yay for local food!) which I have been working my way through, putting on pizza and eating with bread. I love charcuterie meats, and this was great. Thank you so much Anna!!
I had a housewarming party on Saturday, and as a result spent the day in the kitchen preparing plentiful amounts of food for my guests. I made lemon and rosemary chicken, potato wedges, broccoli and stilton quiche, spelt bread, sugar saucer cookies (which I had sent to my Foodie Pen Pal, Nick), and salted caramel tart. I wrote about the salted caramel tart on my other (now abandoned) baking blog, here. It’s one of my favourite things both to make and to consume, and I think everyone else felt the same (on the consumption part). Having my own kitchen is wonderful and inspiring and makes me want to bake all the time (which is great except it means I never want to come to work anymore).
My friend Seb has resolved to start making all his own bread, and I think I am going to join him on this – tomorrow is going to be a bread baking afternoon. The spelt loaf I made for the party tasted great but looked awful, so I’m going to work on that a bit… as well as returning to the safe white bread recipe in Nigel Slater’s Appetite. More updates soon.
