Loaves and fishes

I've been focussing on the respective costs of buying and making bread this week and must say the gulf between the two came as quite a shock. A 1.5kg pack of strong white flour, admittedly not the best you can buy, costs just 48p in Tesco this week. Strong brown costs 89p and stoneground wholemeal 93p. 1.5kg of flour is enough to make 3 big loaves. Even allowing for the cost of the other ingredients and running your oven at full blast for an hour that's a considerable saving.

I've posted the recipe for the bread I made yesterday (above) on Beyond Baked Beans. The original came from Signe, a young Norwegian post-graduate student (and trained cook) who is currently helping me out with the book. I was a bit sceptical of the idea of adding what amounts to a large bowl of porridge but it gives the loaf a fabulously moist texture. We've just had some toasted with honey for breakfast and it was terrific.

The other bargain buy yesterday was the dabs I bought for a song in the farmers market. Well, not quite a song - they were a pound each but because there was only one left when we'd bought our four they threw in a fifth free. There's not much fish on them so they're a bit fiddly to eat but the flavour is fabulously sweet - just as good as sole at a fraction of the price. We simply dusted them in a little seasoned flour and pan-fried them in butter.

Incidentally I was riveted to read on the site Sea Fishing when I looked up dabs that the recommended bait was 'a slightly stale lugworm'. I wonder how you tell if a lugworm is stale? Any fishermen reading this do tell.