Beautiful Things

I do love old china, and if it's in shades of green and white and displayed on antique lace cloths or doilies I seem to love it even more.

As my modern plates and dishes break I am instead replacing things with charity shop finds, gorgeous old china that doesn't necessarily match anything I already own, but that is simply pretty in it's own right.

I like this beautiful old kitchen, but even more than that I LOVE the wallpaper.  What a gorgeous statement in a very rustic looking room.

And to end each day in this lovely bedroom must be wonderful.  I even quite like the pinkness of this room, muted as it is slightly by all the little green touches.  I'm actually letting my bedroom get more and more girly, mismatched ... and yes green, as time goes by.

Sue xx

Books and Signatures

 

I took a break from reading my other books to go right through this one last week.  It was good to refresh my mind on  things to do with leftovers.  Of course it's right back on my shelf where it's nicely to hand for any last minute dithers over using up bits and bobs.

It was only when I finished reading it that I noticed Suzy's signature inside.  Of course I knew it was signed when she sent it to me, but in the intervening years I had forgotten.

It made me pull out a few of my other books that are signed for a quick look.

Suzy's book, one of Ella Woodward's ... all my copies of her books are signed ... and the most recent acquisition on my cookbook shelves is the latest one by Gaz Oakley, also signed.

There's something nice about having a link to the author of a book, well for me there is anyway.

The covers of the books above.

We used to have all of the River Cottage books, all signed by the authors, Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall, Mark Diacono, Pam (the Jam) Corbin and John Wright, all signed when we visited Park Farm for various events when we had our farm and smallholdings.  

Our very first signature off Hugh was in the diary we purchased from Park Farm as it was known then, right at the beginning of our self sufficiency journey, it was the quickest of signatures but the longest of chats as Hugh and Alan got on really well. 

I have to say that when we sold most of our River Cottage books via Amazon we managed to get a much better price for them because of the signatures.  😃

One final book that I remembered while I was having a little look through the book shelves was one of my Harcombe Diet books, again they are all signed, but this one has contributions from me in it and I got a thank you off Zoe.

I thought this was a nice touch.

 I do have some more signed copies of books, but my books in general seem to be here there and everywhere at the moment. I really need to get them organised and maybe ... shock, horror ... have a bit of a cull.

Sue xx

Let someone love you ...

Carl Holsøe - Woman near the Dinner Table, 1900.

"Let someone love you just the way you are .... as flawed as you might be, as unattractive as you sometimes feel, and as unaccomplished as you think you are.

To believe that you must hide all the parts of you that are broken, out of fear that someone else is incapable of loving what is less than perfect, is to believe that sunlight is incapable of entering a broken window and illuminating a dark room."

Marc Hack

It might be easier said than done, but it's something to aim for for sure. 💗

Sue xx

Christmas on the Horizon?

 

We went out for lunch the other day to one of our favourite venues Daisy Clough Garden Centre and Tearooms in Scorton.

The are having a bit of a re-jig at the moment, the Autumn/Winter selection of clothes have appeared on the rails, the gardening section is being condensed and the pile of boxes at the entrance as we walked in suggested that Christmas will be appearing soon.

Alan chose a Prawn Salad and I had the small Fish and Chips with garden peas ... it's never mushy peas for me.  Even the small portion was too much, so Alan ended up with all of the crispy little chips, his favourite sort ... and I ate all the big fat ones.  We do compliment each other quite nicely.  😀

I also came home with some freebies off our table, the sugars that we didn't use, the little Biscoff biscuit that Alan wasn't in the mood for, and the lemon that was served with my fish, I don't like lemon juice on fish but I do use it in my compost heap jelly making, so it didn't go to waste.

On the way out I also spied two unopened little biscuit packs on a recently vacated table, so they came home with us too.  I cannot bear the thought of good things ending up in the bin.

Sue xx

Menus ... and Holidays

 

My menu planning from the freezer is going really well, with lots of things now being used up nicely and giving me back some space in there.   Here is last weeks menu, and as you can see all but one of the meals was eaten as planned, and all of them contained at least something from the freezer.

This weeks menu looks very different.

That's because we are off to this magnificent looking castle for our holidays.

It's a Warner Leisure Hotel called Studley Castle Hotel and it's in Warwickshire.  This will be our third holiday with them all in different venues.  We stayed at Alvaston Hall in Cheshire back in September 2022 and then Holme Lacey House in Hereford in May 2023.  Hopefully this holiday will be just as fantastic as they were, although none will ever be as memorable as the 2022 one. ❤

Alan wants it to be our mission to visit them all, we'll have to see about that.  😄

Anyway knowing that we would be away all week there really was minimal shopping to be done, so it was a few real necessities for me and Ginger, bananas for the journey, and a couple of boxes of fish fillets to restock the freezer ever so slightly.

The first thing that I got organised was my holiday reading, and I decided to take these two books off my 'to be read' pile.  Looking at the titles I do hope I don't become the Missing Wife ... or have to Walk Home!!  😁

Don't worry about Ginger, he and the houses are going to be in the capable hands of Jason and Tash, who are holidaying in our home as a change from living as they do, in the holiday capital of the North West ... Blackpool.

There will still be posts each day next week, as I have been a busy bee double blogging all week to give  you something to peruse in my absence, although I may not be answering comments, sorry.  I will tell you all about our holiday when we return next week, unless you are on Instagram then there may be a few little reels and posts.

Sue xx

Katsu 'No-Chicken' Fillets

 

I don't know how long these had been in the freezer. 

 I scrolled and scrolled back over shopping photos on here and didn't manage to find them before I started getting side-tracked looking at other things ... dangerous time wasting strategy!!  😄

Anyway it must have been a long time, to be honest I didn't hold out much hope for them being super tasty as I have been slowly going off most of the Aldi range of Plant Menu offerings.

So, it was time to give them a go then.

For a start each fillet was a lot bigger than I expected, and the sauce happily came in two sachets so I didn't have to eat them both at once.  One fillet with it's sauce, and a portion of rice and peas made for a very satisfying meal.  There's not that much flavour to the fillet, but the crispiness of it and the lovely flavourful sauce work very well together.

I am very impressed, and I will be buying these again.  As long as they don't  disappear the way the Plant Menu sausage rolls seem to have!!

Sue xx

A Blast from the Past

 

I was searching for an image of a coin purse to use as an illustration on yesterdays blog post, but the only ones I could find online that I liked were copyrighted.  So, I went back in time on my old blog and found an image of my old purse to use instead.

Dangerous stuff, it sent me down a rabbit hole of blog posts from various years, where cash was indeed king as we shopped with limited budgets gleaned from our various sealed pots..

This one was particularly interesting, it's from the era when we all used to share things to get to know each other better.  It suited the times but I'm not so sure we would really do that sort of thing now ... or would we?

 But, I decided I would be brave again and share it with you.

Exposed in Every Way

Sue xx

A Cashless Society

 

I've been using mostly cash for the last few weeks as I have to keep my credit card spending to the minimum, mostly as I always pay it off in full and I really don't want to have to dip into savings any more than I have to, to pay it while I have such a small trickle of cash coming in each month.

Doing this has really got me thinking about what a cashless society we are becoming, and in my opinion it's not a good thing at all.  Look at the meme above and see what we would lose without cash in our pockets.

I was also thinking about how much the bank is actually making from the shop keepers for our credit and debit card purchases.  The highest charge that they have to pay for the convenience of taking money from their customers via card is 3.4%, and the average for credit and debit cards works out just under 2%, it is slightly cheaper for debit cards.

That means if you take £50 as an example, if it were to be spent in cash over and over again changing hands from you, to the shopkeeper, them paying for their lunch or more stock etc. it would remain at £50, but if you were to spend it in the same way over and over again on a card, it would eventually disappear altogether into the pockets of the banks.

Food for thought ... and I have to say I do like using cash.

Sue xx

Mother-in-Law's Tongue Cuttings ... with Bread and Marmalade

 

All but three of my Mother-in-Law's Tongue cuttings now have a good showing of roots, so I trimmed the bottom of the ones that didn't, and gave them all a nice fresh drink of water. I suddenly had the idea that I could actually make two small pots of them and give them to my 'daughter-in-laws' * whenever we visit each couple, or perhaps for Christmas.

*In italics, because neither couple is actually married, but they've been together for so long it feels like they are.

My only shopping this week has been a loaf of this Warburtons brown Danish.  It makes good toast and I fancied some for breakfast earlier this morning.

I opened this jar of Rose's Lemon and Lime marmalade to go on it, as I had finished the last of my previous batch of Compost Heap Jelly last week.  I thought this used to just be called 'Lime Marmalade' so I Googled it, and yes simply lime marmalade is available, but seemingly at almost twice the price of this one ... and did you know you can actually buy it on eBay for £4.10 a jar with only £3.95 for postage and packing!!  😄

Does anyone actually do that?

Reading the label while I was waiting for the toast to pop up I was pretty horrified to see that the sugar content is actually 65g per 100g. 

 Perhaps this wasn't the best breakfast to have before my visit to the dentist this morning ... but I guess at least I cleaned my teeth really well not long after eating it.  I think it's time to dig all my apple cores, lemon ends and various bits of fruits out of the freezer and make another batch of Compost Heap Jelly, at least I use a bit less sugar in mine ... and fewer ingredients too.

Sue xx

Breakfast at ...

 

When we got back from our family get-together on Sunday night I sat outside on the sunny patio going through the bag of the boys baby things with Jason, and Alan had a snooze before setting off for Berkshire and another day at the office ... yes it was another t-shirt and jeans trip to work, which seems to be helping him cope with this additional stream of unpaid toil.

Jason left an hour later and I was left with just Ginger for company, which suited me just fine.  I am a real introvert and after a busy time with people, even family, I do need a day to decompress.  By the time Alan got back late on Monday night I was relaxed again and just about ready to face conversations.  😊

His parting question before he went over to bed was 'Do you want to go for breakfast at ...'  for some reason the word Tiffany's immediately sprang to my mind ... but of course the next words were actually '... Booths in the morning?'.

We did, but it wasn't quite the same.  😄

https://youtu.be/KlZ4fYqjGJI?si=031YAyrmYfKlaK0-

I've loved this film for years, ever since we watched it at Christmas time during the last week of term one year at secondary school.  Do you remember the days when a television on a stand would be wheeled into the classroom, or in this case it was the hall so that the whole school could watch?

I loved the film so much, and lots of us cried when 'Cat' was temporarily left out in the rain.

Of course these days I have my very own 'cat' ... and I breakfast at Booths.  😁

Sue xx

A Bag Full of Memories

 

When we all met up at the weekend to celebrate Finley's 2nd birthday, (see yesterday's post if you missed it), my ex-husband Pete very thoughtfully brought with him a bag full of both our sons early things, he wanted me to have them now.  

Special things like the cards we received when each of them was born, the little shoes that they both learned to walk in, both size 4, both blue.  Their earliest colourings, drawings and writings from school and lots of other little special bits and pieces.

For me the absolute star of the bag of goodies were these two hand-knitted jumpers.  Knitted by my Nana, because she knew that Simon loved to be dressed like his little brother, but with one just a little bit more grown-up and fancier than the other.  At almost 90 years of age she raided her wool stash and came up with the design for these two little slip overs.  Funnily enough I was only thinking of these a few weeks ago and feeling sorry that they had 'gone'

Then last night Jason sent me this photo from his baby album of the two of them modelling them at home.

They were both as thrilled to see them as I was to receive them, and they stirred lots of happy memories.

He also included this lovely little blue cardigan that my Mum made when Simon was born, and that both boys wore as babies.  Aren't hand knitted items so precious for babies and small children. 💙 

Sue xx

Leftovers ... and a Birthday Meal Out

 

After leaving myself with a lonely, single sausage after a sausage bun for my lunch last week, I decided this morning that I had better use it up and free some more space in my freezer.  

I could have made myself a mini single sausage Toad in the Hole, or cooked it up, sliced it and added it to a bowl of pasta for an evening meal, but I was feeling lazy so instead I simply popped it into the Remoska to cook. 

And while it was cooking away I whipped up a mini, slightly cheesy omelette using one egg and a big pinch of grated cheese, and using the biscuit cutter that was nearest in size to my slices of bread as a shaping device.

As you can see it worked a treat, and with the sausage sliced in half made for a tasty and surprisingly filling breakfast.

I'm a bit late in posting today as we enjoyed a real family day yesterday, we were helping my little great-grandson Finley-James celebrate his 2nd birthday.  His birthday was actually on Friday, he had a party with all his little friends and family members on Saturday at a soft-play venue, and then he had a meal with our side of the family and his big and little brothers yesterday.  This photo is of him letting off a bit of steam after finishing his lunch, he needed to he seemingly has the same big appetite that his dad and grandad had at that age.

While Finley-James and his great grandad Pete both tucked into chicken nuggets and chips, for my lunch I chose BBQ Cauliflower Wings served with a lovely cous cous based side salad, absolutely delicious and a bit more complicated than this mornings simple breakfast ... oh and for the record great-grandad Alan had Hunters Chicken and chips.  😀

Now it's all back to normal and menu planning for the week ahead.

Sue xx

Just a Relaxing Sunday Post

 

Abbot's Bay, Derwent Water in the Lake District

Photo copyright Graham Shaw - my brother.

A peaceful, cooling photo for what has been promised to be a hot, hot day.

Cleaning Fruit by William K Blacklock

Something a lot of us are doing at the moment, before jam making, bottling or freezing.

A beautiful green kitchen, and you all know how much I love a green kitchen.  💚

And finally, somewhere to sit and drink the coffee that you make in the beautiful green kitchen.

Hoping you have a lovely relaxing Sunday.  

Sue xx

 

My Back to Basics plan is going quite well.  

True I have spent a bit more than I meant to already this month, and on things that I really didn't need.  But just having the plan on the back of my mind is making me do so much better.

It's oh so easy to let things slide isn't it, you start by not always writing shopping lists or menu plans, and maybe eating slightly too much because you have cooked too much, and then not saving the leftovers for the start of another meal.  So I have been thinking a bit more about things this week, and using my purposeful leftovers.  The remaining two portions of baked beans after this breakfast the other day were incorporated into lunches.

The top photo simply adding two hash browns from the freezer to the plate.

Then a nice baked potato with the final pot of beans and a sprinkle of cheese.

While I have been a bit remiss about making out shopping lists, well I only needed two items so I decided not to write them down, even if I did come away with a couple more ... I have been good about following the menu plan.  

As you can see from this photo taken at the end of last week, I ate all bar two days meals directly off the menu plan.

So they were added straight to the top of the next menu plan.

The burger was delicious, with added onion, homegrown tomatoes and cheese.

And the 'Wrap Pizza' was delicious and very satisfying.  It made good use of a small tub of pasta sauce and half of a small tub of Mediterranean vegetables from the freezer

I switched around the fish fillets and new potatoes instead of the pie, that was destined for last night as it was just far too hot for pie and gravy, but apart from that I have been just as good at following my plan this past week.  

Will I make the soup tomorrow ... perhaps not for the same reason, but the beauty of a menu plan is that it gives you ideas when you just cannot think straight at the end of a long and perhaps busy day.  It doesn't have to be written in stone and rigidly adhered to, and sometimes it can simply be beans on toast again.  😁

Sue xx

When Life Gives You Lemons ...

 

When life gives you lemons ... buy more yellow stuff to match them.  😄

I called into Booths after having my haircut first thing yesterday morning.  It was so hot outside and deliciously cool in the store so I followed the cool air.  I mainly wanted some lemons and a banana, so I think I got away quite lightly with only three other things leaping into my trolley.

It was so lovely and cool in there that I decided to go upstairs and treat myself to a coffee.  Between the coffee and a glass of tap water I managed to stay in the cool of the café for almost an hour, replying to comments on previous blog posts, doing my Wordle and my Woodoku daily puzzle and generally enjoying the chilly air-con.

Then it was back home before my ice-lollies melted in the heat of the car. 

I struck gold, well coffee-ground gold in the café for the first time while I was there.  

They have a basket at the end of the counter that has a sign saying 'Coffee Grounds for Your Garden, please help yourself'.  I have never seen any in it, obviously going in so early in the morning is the way forward, so I might have to call for another cup of coffee early one morning.  😉

Coffee grounds can be a beneficial addition to your garden, improving soil structure, providing nutrients, and even deterring pests when used correctly.

Benefits of Coffee Grounds

1. Nutrient Content: Used coffee grounds contain about 2% nitrogen, along with trace amounts of phosphorus, potassium, and micronutrients like calcium and magnesium. These nutrients can help promote healthy plant growth. 
2. Soil Improvement: Coffee grounds can enhance soil structure by improving drainage and aeration. As they decompose, they contribute to the formation of humus, which is essential for healthy soil. 
3. Microbial Activity: Adding coffee grounds to your compost or soil can stimulate microbial activity, which is crucial for breaking down organic matter and enriching the soil. 
4. Pest Deterrent: Coffee grounds can help deter slugs and other pests, making them a useful addition to your garden. 
5. How to Use Coffee Grounds

• As a Soil Amendment: Sprinkle used coffee grounds directly onto the soil or mix them into the top few inches. Aim for a layer no thicker than 1/2 inch to prevent compaction and water resistance. 
• In Compost: Coffee grounds are considered a "green" material in composting, meaning they are high in nitrogen. They should make up no more than 15-20% of your total compost volume to maintain a balanced mix with "brown" materials like dried leaves. 
• For Specific Plants: While coffee grounds can benefit many plants, they are particularly good for acid-loving plants like azaleas and blueberries. However, they may not be suitable for all plants, so it's essential to monitor how your plants respond. 
• Precautions

• Avoid Fresh Grounds: Do not use fresh coffee grounds, as they are high in caffeine and acidity, which can harm plants. Always use used grounds that have been brewed.
• Monitor Application: Over-application can lead to compaction and create a barrier that prevents water from reaching plant roots. Use coffee grounds sparingly and assess your soil's needs before application. 
  By incorporating coffee grounds into your gardening practices, you can enhance soil health and promote robust plant growth while recycling a common kitchen waste product.

1.                           

 I thought that this might be useful.

Sue xx