not_blue

Pye

This pie was made as a desperate measure to ward off insanity. As this sounds quite harsh, let me explain. I am aching to sew something. There are lots of clothes that I have on my to-do list and some things that are half-done and have to be finished. The problem is, all my sewing and craft supplies are stored away in boxes, and the actual moving to a new apartment has been delayed until next week. So the only creative outlet that I have for now is cooking, although simple cooking as I don't want to make more of a mess than we already have here.

Cooking always calms me down. I was really getting depressed these past days because I was drawing up lots of designs of clothes that I want to make, but being unable to even draft anything. So I started thinking about recipes instead that I want to try out. The medieval pie has been on my list for a long time, because it is a sort of basic medieval food. I read dozens pie recipes, but this one that I found at the Medieval Cookery site I really liked the most, because it contains a recipe for the pie crust as well as the filling.

Most medieval recipes that I have read didn't include any recipe for the crust. I have read that in some cases the dough was made only of flour and water, and meant only to cook and keep the filling together, and that it was not eaten. In the recipe I used the recipe for the crust is given and is edible. Of course there are no indications of quantity of ingredients in the original recipe, so I took up the suggestions of the Medieval Cookery site. The amount of filling turned out ok, but I had to double the amount of dough for the crust.

Image taken from Gode Cookery.

For historical correctness, I minced the meat all by hand. It was a lot of work! I pounded the minced part also with the meat hammer. The resulting texture is really different than that of ground meat, so I recommend this if you want a more authentic flavour. And speaking of flavour, it is certainly different from our modern taste. The fruits add a nice sweet touch, but the next time I would add a little bit more vinegar and saffron, as their taste was almost lost in all that meatyness.

I definitely want to make this again in other variations! Gode Cookery has many suggestions on what you can include in your medieval pie. I guess there will be many more pies here in the future!

To Make Pyes

Original Recipe:
Source: A Propre new booke of Cokery, England, 1545

To make Pyes. Pyes of mutton or beif must be fyne mynced and ceasoned wyth pepper and salte, and a lyttle saffron to coloure it, suet or marrow a good quantite, a lyttle vyneger, prumes, greate raysins, and dates, take the fattest of the broathe of powdred beyfe, and yf you wyll haue paest royall, take butter and yolkes of egges, and to tempre the flowre to make the paeste.

My version:
Filling:
1 kg beef, minced
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup prunes, chopped
2 Tbsp vinegar
Salt, pepper and saffron to taste

Pie crust:
2 1/2 cups whole-wheat flour
50 g butter
2 egg yolks
Water

Mix all the ingredients for the filling and set aside. Soften the butter and mix into flour with tips of your fingers, until all the butter is incorporated. Add the egg yolks and enough water to form dough. Roll out on a lightly floured surface. Grease a round baking pan and use half of the dough for the base, fill with the filling mixture and use the rest of the dough for the lid. Bake in medium oven for 30 minutes.

Note: I left our the dates and the lard that are called for in the original recipe, because I didn't have any. If you do have these ingredients please use them. You can substitute some of the fruit for chopped dates and include 1-2 Tbsp of lard in the filling.

Frumenty

I love breakfast. For me it's definitely the most important meal of the day. I am usually very hungry in the morning as I don't eat much for dinner, so breakfast has to be filling and give me enough energy to wait until lunch. Because of that whole grains and cereals are a must. I usually have a bowl of mixed cereals with soy milk, but today I had Frumenty, and can gladly say that it's an excellent substitute for my usual breakfast.

Frumenty is a wheat porridge and was a very popular dish in the middle ages. It was usually had with meat, especially venison. I made a sweet version for breakfast, with milk and honey, but because the honey is added only at the end I can see this working as a savory dish as well, especially if made with meat broth. The idea to have it for breakfast came from this recipe.

Picture taken from the Tacuinum Sanitatis.

The recipes that I have seen (some examples here and here) all use cracked wheat, but I used the whole grain as this was what I had available and I don't own a mortar and pestle. The Frumenty tasted great anyway, but I think the texture would be different in the cracked wheat version. Perhaps it cooks faster too?

I used some other non-medieval ingredients in my version as well, but as I said before, the result still tasted good. I used indian saffron instead of the regular kind (too expensive for me) and non fat milk instead of whole milk (the only milk I had at hand). I also ate it with some brazil nuts on top, which weren't available in the middle ages. A more authentic version I'm planning to make will include almonds and almond milk, which are appropriate for the time period.

I made my Frumenty at night and let it stand covered until I woke up. By this time most of the liquid had been absorbed by the wheat, so I added more milk and warmed it up on low heat, without boiling. You can of course serve it fresh, but I don't like to wait for my breakfast to cook in the morning :).

Frumenty (for breakfast)

1 cup Cracked Wheat Grain
1,5 l Water
Milk or Almond Milk
Salt
Saffron
2 Egg Yolks, beaten

For topping: Brown Sugar, Honey, Nuts

Cook the wheat in the water until it's soft. Wash the grain, drain and put in back in the pan. Add milk, salt and saffron to taste and bring to boil. Remove from fire and add egg yolks slowly. Bring back to low fire and stir for a few minutes. Remove from fire and let stand for a few minutes. Serve with toppings of choice.

Bread with Banana and Dulce de Batata

When typing out the recipe for this bread, I realized that it uses quite an extensive list of ingredients. Don't be discouraged by it! Most of these ingredients can be used in many more recipes and are very versatile. For example, I like to mix flax seed flour into my morning cereal (or you can make Flax Seed Bread), brown sugar is an excellent alternative for regular white sugar, and I have posted a recipe in which you can use the leftover wheat bran. As a health-food junkie I just had these things lying around my kitchen, but if you are not like me I assure you these ingredients are very common and not hard to find.

As a recipe that was created from scratch, I am very pleased by it. It has all the things I like in it, and the texture is fluffy and soft.The only thing I would change the next time I make it is making the loaf by hand and bake it on a baking sheet instead of a pan. The dough was too much for my pan and it rose too much, and the lower part of the loaf broke into big pieces when I took it out of the pan. But of course these are only cosmetic problems; the taste was great.

This is my first attempt to incorporate more traditional Brazilian ingredients in my recipes, but using non-traditional preparations. I read a lot of food blogs and love to see what kind of foods people eat all over the world, and how an ingredient that is common here can be seen as exotic in other places, and vice-versa. This is my attempt to spread a little bit of my personal food culture, which is influenced by many different nationalities.

One thing I used in this recipe is something I grew up with and love to this day. It's dulce de batata. It is a sweet made of sweet potato. You can see a recipe on how to make it here, but I never made it myself and always ate the store-bought kind, which you can see here and here. The pictures show the Argentinian dulce de batata in my favorite variety, the kind with chocolate. Here in Brazil the sweet is called marron glace, and I have no idea why, because it has nothing to do with the real marron glace, or candied chestnut. The Brazilian dulce de batata tastes a bit different from the Argentinian kind, and you can find it only in pure form, never with chocolate. But since this was the only one available to me, I used the regular Brazilian kind in this recipe.

I realize this ingredient may be hard to find outside of south america, so you can substitute it for some kind or marmalade in the bread recipe. If you can find the real deal though, buy a big chunk or a can, and you can always eat the leftovers with cheese as a quick dessert like seen here. I like to use a very fresh brazilian cheese called queijo minas or minas cheese, but you can use any kind you like best.

Bread with Banana and Dulce de Batata

Dry ingredients:
1 cup whole-wheat flour
1 cup white flour
1/2 cup wheat bran
1/2 cup flax seed flour
1/2 cup granola
1 1/2 cup artificial sweetener (equivalent to 1 1/2 cup sugar)
2 Tbsp brown sugar
1 Tbsp cinammon
1 tsp clove powder
1 tsp powdered ginger

Wet ingredients:
3 eggs
1/2 cup light margarine
1 tsp vanilla

Filling:
Dulce de Batata (as much as you like)
2 or 3 bananas
Frangelico liqueur

Topping:
1 beaten egg
Flax seeds

Yeast mixture:
1/2 cup nonfat milk
2 Tbsp corn syrup
1 Tbsp fresh yeast

In a small bowl, prepare the yeast mixture by dissolving the corn syrup and the yeast into the milk. Mix the dry ingredients in a large bowl. In another bowl, beat the eggs together with the margarine and the vanilla. When the yeast is foamy, make a well inside the flour mixture, add the yeast and the egg with margarine. Mix well with a wooden spoon, cover and let stand for 1/2 hour. In the meantime, slice the bananas, cover them with some Frangelico liqueur and let stand.

After the 1/2 hour wait, put half the dough into a greased loaf pan, make a layer of dulce de batata slices followed by a layer of the sliced bananas, and cover everything with the rest of the dough. Cover and let stand for 10 minutes. Brush top of the loaf generously with the beaten egg and sprinkle with flax seeds. Bake at 220°C for 35-40 minutes.

Pouch and Belt Tutorials

Finally as promised, the last tutorials of the Irish Dress Set. I grouped the Basic Medieval Belt and Basic Pouch together because both are very simple to make and require very few instructions. They will serve you well however in many different outfits and are very useful items to have, especially in medieval outfits, since those don’t have pockets in which yo carry your things around.

I hope you enjoyed this set as much as I did! I have quite a few outfits in the making and will try to keep them varied and interesting. If you have any questions or want to send me pictures, you can contact me at victoria.notblue@gmail.com.

Pouch and Belt Tutorials (PDF)

Sop in Wine

Yay, I can eat bread after all! Yesterday my husband and I went out to eat to a portuguese place which serves tasty soups, and I realized that I can eat bread now if it is soaked enough in some form of liquid. The crust still gives me some trouble, but my mouth is feeling better now so I can manage.

We bought a package of frozen white bread that my husband wanted to have for breakfast, the kind you have to put for 10 minutes in the oven and it's done. When I put the bread in the oven today I realized that I had a bit of mulled wine left over from Christmas, and remembered what I had read about medieval breakfasts. It seems that bread soaked in wine was one of the things that were eaten as breakfast in those times, and I always wanted to try this out, and this was a perfect opportunity.

I heated the mulled wine and ate the freshly baked bread with it. It tasted great! Mulled wine really gets better with time, and the neutral-tasting bread complements it nicely. I didn't think at first that I would like the soggy texture of the bread dipped in wine, but I had no problems with that at all. The next time I will try this with regular dry red wine and some whole-wheat bread.

The first time I read about this being eaten for breakfast in medieval times was in the Gode Cookery site, a great resource for medieval cooking. This is the article that talks about breakfast and especially sop in wine. Another excellent site for medieval research about just everything is Stefan's Florilegium, and this is the part that discusses the various kind of sops.

Of course this post wouldn't be complete without an Oblivion reference! This screenshot was taken at my new house that I bought in the game, which is quite fitting since I'm moving to a new apartment next week. It doesn't look as good as my house in the game, but I will have my own sewing room and a bigger kitchen, which means more medieval clothes and foods.

Here is my recipe for mulled wine. It is very easy to make, and when I drink it I can at least imagine to have a fireplace and a cold climate to match.

Mulled Wine

1 bottle of cheap red wine
1/4 cup honey (more or less depending on how sweet you want the wine)
2 sticks of cinnamon
6 whole cloves
1 tsp powdered ginger
Grated zest and juice of 1 lemon (or orange)

Mix everything in a pan and heat until almost boiling. Scoop off the foam that rises to the surface. Simmer for 20-30 minutes but do not boil. Pass through a fine sieve when done. Can be drunk right after making or stored, and the taste gets better with time. I stored mine in a wine bottle in the fridge and re-heated it when I wanted to drink. It still tastes good when cold, but I think the warmth brings out the flavours more.

Fruit and Nut Bread

There is a reason that I'm posting this recipe (besides making up for the lack of tutorials). I'm having epic cravings for bread right now. I want to eat bread, make bread, buy bread, eat it with butter, marmalade, cheese or pure. The only problem is that I can't.

This is part two of my dental saga, and I really hope it ends here. I had one of my wisdom teeth removed a few days ago, a now my mouth is very sensitive, to say the least. So chewing didn't seem a good idea at all, and I have been living off soy milk, yogurt, soups and ice cream. Ice cream is nice because the cold takes the pain away for some time when the tylenol doesn't work, but I'm getting sick of it. I have a pretty big sweet tooth and can swap lunch or dinner for dessert any time, but there is a limit even for me. The rest doesn't bother me as much, I always drink much soy milk and yogurt, and I love soup. But it is getting tiresome.

For some strange reason the biggest craving I have is for bread. I miss rice, chicken, solid vegetables and all the rest of course, but bread is number one. It doesn't help that I was planning on testing several new recipes for breads, pancakes, scones and so on, and now that I have the time to bake I can't eat anything! So I'm stuck visiting Tastespotting a few times per day and drooling over things I cannot eat.

The recipe for the Fruit and Nut Bread is something I made up for Christmas as a healthier version of panettone. I love the traditional panettone but I didn't want to gain weight during the holidays, so this is what I came up with. It doesn't resemble the original panettone much, but it suits my tastes by being very solid and filling and having lots of candied fruit and nuts! I really want to make this again as soon as possible.

Fruit and Nut Bread

3 cups whole-wheat flour
1 cup flax seed flour
1 cup white flour
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 cup powdered sweetener (equivalent of 1 1/2 cups of sugar)
4 Tbsp sugar
2 Tbsp fresh yeast
1 1/2 cup warm water
2 Tbsp light margarine or butter
Candied fruit in small cubes, any amount you like
Nuts, as much as you prefer (I used brazil nut, but you can use any nut you like)
1 egg, beaten

Put the warm water, melted margarine, sugar and the yeast in a bowl. Mix well and let stand for 5-10 minutes, until the mixture gets very foamy. In another bowl mix the flours, salt and the sweetener. When the yeast is ready slowly add the flour to the yeast bowl and mix with a spoon. When you have added about 1/2 of the flour, add the candied fruit and nuts. Keep adding the flour and knead the bread well. Put the dough ball in a bowl and cover with plastic film. Let the dough rise for 1 hour. Punch the dough and form loaves the size you prefer. Brush the loaves with the beaten egg and bake them on a greased baking sheet on 200 ºC until the crust has a deep brown color.

Printing Patterns

I've seen that many of you are having problems with the tiling program I mentioned in the tutorials, Posteriza. I have seen that it is indeed too bothersome to try to get the patterns to print in the right sizes in this program, so now I'm not recommending it any more. I have also removed the link from the tutorials.

Before making these tutorials I didn't realize how difficult it is to print big images if you don't have professional image editing or desktop publishing programs. I'm sorry to not have another free alternative for printing, if you don't have these kind of programs at home I recommend printing the patterns at printing bureaus, where they usually have these kind of programs installed, and you can even print the pattern out in a plotter if you don't want to assemble anything. If any of you know of a good free image tiling program that can print the patterns out in the right size please contact me, I'd love for everyone to have the ability to print my patterns out at home!

And now changing the subject to something nicer that I do recommend :). I've found this site that is completely fascinating. It's the Antique Pattern Library, where you can find lots of old needlework pattern books. There are so many wonderful books there, it's really quite a treasure. The picture on the beginning of this post is a piece of cross-stitching that I did using one of the patterns of these books. I'm in the process of finally setting up my etsy shop and the cross-stitch bit is part of a larger piece that I want to put there. You'll see it when it's finished and nicely photographed! :)

Oh, and the tutorials are on their way, and I'm already working on a few new outfits with their respective tutorials, all medieval fantasy style. If you liked the Irish Dress you will surely like the other outfits as well!

Medieval Fantasy - Muffin Cap Tutorial

This is a very quick and easy project, and perfect if you have fabric leftovers. The muffin cap is comfortable to wear and very practical if you have long hair that has to be kept out of your crafting, sewing or cooking, or if you are having a bad hair day :). In my case, it keeps my blue hair from staining my lighter-colored clothes.

To wear it is simple: You tie it at the nape of you neck, take one of the ribbons and wrap it around the front, pin it in place, take the other ribbon and wrap it in the opposite direction and tuck it's end under the first ribbon. It stayed perfectly put on my head for a whole day this way. Of course the unbleached cotton is relatively coarse and this helps in keeping the hat on the head. If you use a thinner fabric it may tend to slip off, and you will have to use more pins or bobby pins to keep it in place.

This is a quick peek into another outfit I'm making! To tell the truth I have another outfit that is almost ready, tutorial and all, but it's also green and I think that posting two green outfits in a row is a bit much. So I want to put this with lots of brown, saffron and orange first. This one is more complex than the Irish Dress but I like how it's turning out and hope to finish it soon.

Muffin Cap Tutorial & Pattern
Download Muffin Cap Tutorial & Pattern

Lentil Stew with Toasted Wheat Bran

I really wanted to post the muffin cap tutorial today, but after a trip to the dentist and lots of drilling later I just couldn't concentrate properly, so I'm posting a sort-of recipe of a lentil stew I made recently.  My dentist told me that my wimpy teeth can't handle sugar and carbs, and now I'm thinking how good or bad this recipe is for my teeth. It's strange because I'm used to thinking how healthy a meal is in terms of nutrients and fibers and the like, but never thought about teeth health issues. Well, I still don't know if this food will do my teeth much harm or not, but it tastes good and was the only thing I could eat today besides well-soaked cereal. But enough about that.

I love making stews and soups. It's so immensely gratifying to throw everything I like in a big pot to cook together, all that stirring with a large spoon and adding spices and herbs and so on. I wish i had a fire and a big iron cauldron so that I could be like those witches in fairytales! Because I like to improvise and work with what I have available I cannot give a very exact recipe, and I really think that you have to rely more on your feeling and taste to make a good stew.

The thing you can see on top besides the stew and rice is wheat bran made in style of the brazilian farofa. I ate the wheat-bran farofa at a natural food restaurant and loved it, and this is my try to replicate their recipe. Farofa is basically toasted manioc flour with additions such as egg or bacon. I love the traditional farofa but this version is much healthier and I had lots of wheat bran left over from bread making. It goes very well with the stew and the rice, adding a touch of crunch and saltyness.

When I'm alone I love to read while eating. It's a habit that I have since childhood, and a lot of my books have food stains because of it :). The book I'm reading now is Montaillou by Emmanuel LeRoy Ladurie, and you can also see it in my "Books I'm Reading" box. It's about the life of peasants at a medieval french village, and it's fascinating. I love accounts of the daily life of people of other times, it really gives me a "feel" of the time and helps me understand their actions and motivations. My husband found this book for me at our big stash of unread books, and now I'm wondering what else I can find in there...

Lentil Stew with Toasted Wheat Bran

About 1 cup of lentils
2 Carrots
1 Onion
1 Turkey Sausage
1 package of tomato sauce
Corn Starch

About 1/2 cup of Wheat Bran
2 tbsp light margarine
Salt
Pepper

Soak the lentils in water. Brown the onions with a little bit of oil in a pan and add the chopped sausage. When the sausage is cooked add the chopped carrots and the lentils. Stir for a while then add boiling water to cook the lentils. Season as you like, I used a soup cube, shoyu, pepper sauce and herbs. Cook on medium fire until done, stirring occasionally. If the stew gets too thick put in more water. When the lentils are tender add the tomato sauce and cook a little bit more. If you like a thick stew, dissolve 2 tbsp of corn starch in water and add that to the pan when cooking.

To make the toasted wheat bran, melt the margarine in a small pan and add the bran, stirring all the time until the bran is toasted well and it has no clumps. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve everything over rice.

Medieval Fantasy - Basic Gathered Chemise Tutorial

As promised, here is the tutorial & pattern for the Gathered Chemise I'm wearing with the Irish Dress. This is a very simple and quick project, and you can wear it with many different types of garment. I made my pattern by adapting a historical pattern slightly, and I am very pleased with how it turned out. I made raglan-type sleeves instead of the rectangular sleeves normally found on historical garments, and used a curved neckline instead of a straight one. I also designed the pattern to make the most out of 2m of fabric, which is all I had for this project. If you wish, you can use more fabric to make a wider skirt or longer sleeves with just slight alterations to the pattern I made. I used cotton cord to gather the neckline and the sleeves, which is very practical as you can adjust them at will.

 

This tutorial too has only instructional drawings. Sorry for the lack of photos! I promise that the next tutorial will have some photos of the actual sewing in addition to the drawings.

There is no extra pattern file for this garment because it is composed only of basic geometric shapes. The shapes and measurements are given in the tutorial.

 

Basic Gathered Chemise - Tutorial & Pattern

Gathered Chemise Pattern & Tutorial

The next tutorials will be:

- The Muffin Cap
- A Basic Medieval Belt
- A Basic Medieval Pouch

Happy Sewing!