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Gooseberry Fool

25/7/2022

1 Comment

 
There are few more lovely things about the summer than the fruits that the season brings and the gorgeous puddings they lend themselves to. Gooseberries are wonderful - they have sweetness which comes with a sharp edge so, although there are recipes which use them raw, I think a little cooking brings out their character best in this classic, and very easy, dish.

The “foole”has been around for a while - it’s first mentioned as a dessert in Tudor times. Custard was originally the base for the dish but the richness of cream and the lush texture of Greek yoghurt make them perfect for this confection.

Gooseberries come with a little stalk at one end and a withered blossom at the other - their tops and tails. You need to remove these from your fruit. And if you’re not a gooseberry fan substitute raspberries - they work equally well, as do several other soft fruits.

So pour yourself a drink, put some on some music and prepare to have some fun.
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Ingredients

Serves 4

250g gooseberries, washed, topped and tailed
200g Greek yogurt - use the full fat stuff - it works best
200ml double or heavy cream
3 tbsp caster sugar
1-2 tbsp icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
​

How to make your Fool

Put the caster sugar and gooseberries in a heavy pan with 2 tablespoons of water.


Gently bring to a simmer. When the fruit starts to burst open remove the pan from the heat.


With a fork mash the gooseberries until you have a pulp. Transfer to a bowl and then chill in the fridge for about 20 minutes or until cold.
​

Using a hand or electric whisk, gently beat together the yoghurt, icing sugar and vanilla in bowl until smooth. Then add the cream and continue to whisk. The mixture will begin to thicken.


Place the gooseberry pulp on the thick, creamy mixture and,  with a small spoon or a skewer, run the fruit through the mix. Don’t overdo it - you want to create a swirl, rather than mix everything together completely. Decant into glasses and serve.
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1 Comment

Yoga

25/7/2022

0 Comments

 
My body has a few miles on the clock now. It’s been lifting, walking, running, eating, dancing, snoring and playing for 69 years and remarkably, it seems good for another 69 (though that might be a tad optimistic!). I put a lot of this down to what happens in the first minutes of every day when I unroll a mat, turn on some quiet music and lose myself in a sequence of muscle-stretching, mind-relaxing positions. It wasn’t always so.


I was a mercurial child, one minute running, jumping and  riding my bike and the next flat out on the sofa, my little lungs wheezing like leaky harmonium bellows. I was stuck in this cycle until a blue inhaler was put in my hand for the first time and I was no longer in thrall to the chest-clutching, throat-strangling grasp of asthma. But I knew from then on that my body needed looking after.


When I was a student in Durham a peculiar change took place over my generation. We somehow went from competitive drinking, heavy smoking, bacon butty munchers to whole food scoffing, earth befriending pseudo Buddhists. I suppose it was inevitable after the heroes of our teenage years, the holy Beatles, had embraced mysticism, that it would come our way in time.


And so yoga entered my life. As someone who always struggled with sitting cross legged as a child I didn’t see myself as a promising yogi but, as I came to see, that’s kinda the point. Despite the rise of various would-be gurus around me who claimed to be “more spiritual than thou” they couldn’t obscure the fact that yoga is for everyone.


So I picked up a few poses, absorbed the wisdom that “you’re as old as your spine”, creaked my body into mountains, warriors, planks and downward facing dogs and felt amazing.


You’d think I’d be hooked, wouldn’t you, but I was just human. A few years of drinking too much, the sleep-deprivation that comes with bringing up children and worrying about there never being enough money all got in the way but gradually I came back to the yoga mat.


Now I get up every morning, put on some lovely music and spend a happy twenty minutes trying to emulate the gracefulness of a swan, while more closely resembling an arthritic flamingo. My metal knee limits a few poses, but not many and I rise from my purple mat refreshed, awake and ready for the day.


I still ache, I still lose my balance but I still come back for more. As I hold poses my mind focuses on the moment, and the reality of the day ahead dissolves to the point where it’s just me and my body in a quiet niche of time.




A book recommendation:
If you’d like helpful guide I’m a big fan of B.K.S Iyengar’s “Light on Yoga”. Rather than a thin white woman with a perfectly sculpted body wrapped in a designer leotard he’s an old Indian man in black pants. He shows you a host of positions and explains what each one is good for.
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    Josie Beszant and/or Ian Scott Massie, both artists from Masham North Yorkshire, Uk.

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  • Home
    • About
    • Our story
    • Values
    • Contact
  • Online Courses
    • Online Courses: Art
    • Online Courses: Words & Stories
    • Online Courses: Mind, Body, Spirit
  • Creative Experiences & Events
    • Virtual & Live Events
    • Support for Artists
    • Treasure Boxes
  • Treatments & therapies
  • Creative Compass Points
  • tailormade retreats
  • Helpful Places
  • Happy House Blog
  • room hire
  • calendar