Coffee, Cake and Warm Sloths

 Just perfect, coffee and cake for breakfast ...

... I don't mind if I do.

A homemade Banana Bread Muffin is suitably breakfasty in my opinion ... I may have gone back to the tin for a second one!!

Oh, and I made it one step better with my latest book.  Nigel does write well, and this one is in nice short, sharp bursts of foody bliss that can be picked up as and when I have the urge to read.

Yes ... I have a sloth sat on my little stool.  

Our new neighbours/tenants opened a new shop in town and we called in to have a chat and have a look around.  Alan, always keen to support a small business, saw me looking at the sloths and bought me one before I could say anything.  

Happily he's microwaveable, so any sloth cuddles are usually warm ones.  😄

A bit of a 'heads up' for anyone that has previously bought and downloaded the Jacquie Lawson advent calendar, the big yearly reset has just been done, so clicking onto your already purchased calendars will mean that if you don't want to buy a new one this year, you can use any of your previous purchases as a 'new' advent calendar for this December.

I've bought this years, which this time is Paris based and looks really good, but I still prefer to play the Solitaire game in 2022, so I have all the old calendars saved on my computer.

Sue xx

What Do You Do on a Wet Bank Holiday Monday?

 

What do you do on a wet Bank Holiday Monday ... well after a day of working up in his office for Alan, reading for me, and then a bit of television while my cake baked, when Alan said he was going shopping you just know I was going to say "yes, I'll come too" don't you.  

I told myself that I would only buy some fresh things and a loaf of bread ... I really have got to stop lying to myself.  😄

I'm only joking as those of you who know my wacky sense of humour will realise, I actually did quite well.  Somehow wine and chocolate biscuits have now fallen into my 'fresh foods' category, although the odds of them living here long enough to go even slightly 'off' are miniscule.

My receipt.

I bought a larger than usual bag of baking potatoes as Aldi were completely out of loose baking spuds and the packs of four were so light as to not be worth the 75p cost.  So for twice the price I have definitely got more than twice the potatoes.

I have now totally blown the August budget and used up most of my savings from previous months too.  😳

Earlier I had gotten all the ingredients out to make a cake.  Banana and walnut this time, using my trusty, never fails 'all one weight and virtually all in the bowl at once' method.

My egg weighed 60g ... so the flour, margarine and sugar were all weighed out to that weight too, then all mixed thoroughly together with a dash of vanilla extract, before adding the banana and mashing that in.  Finishing off with the chopped up nuts and a quick stir before baking at 180° for around 25 minutes in a lined 1lb loaf tin.

Then I forgot to take a photo of the finished loaf ... this is a very similar looking one that I made in January 2023 and shared on my old blog, just to give you an idea of the finished article. It was very tasty and we had half each over the course of the evening.

Now the Bank Holiday over and we have  a long wait until the next one, which of course will be Christmas Day ... I bet it's still raining then!!

Sue xx

 

Rhubarb and Custard

 

Sorting through the food cupboard early yesterday I discovered a tin of 'vegan custard'. I have no recollection of buying it but it was obviously a long time ago.  Also the rhubarb in the garden was reaching gigantic proportions ... so what do you immediately think of when you have these two offerings available?  Well, I think of Rhubarb Pie.

So after breakfast yesterday I pulled about two thirds of the stalks and started to prep it for a pie.

I fished out all the little brown sugar sachets that I pick up on my coffee drinking travels and added them to the pot ... minus the paper of course.  😄

Then gently simmered the rhubarb, for slightly too long.  Oh well, mushy rhubarb tastes just as good if not better than properly cooked rhubarb.

Digging the previously mentioned tin of custard out of the cupboard, and the roll of well out of date pastry from the fridge (I bought it here ... and promptly didn't use it. 😂) I set about with my pie making.

After a spot of blind baking, and then pouring in a layer of custard between two layers of rhubarb, I soon had my rather large Rhubarb Tart ... there wasn't enough pastry for a complete top, so it's not officially a pie ... cooking away in the oven and warming up my kitchen nicely.

Yes, it's still chilly here, although it's a good washing drying day with this breeze.

The finished tart.  I took a photo now because I just know it's going to fall apart the minute I cut into it as it's very deep and very full.  Half for me and half for Alan, who is waiting patiently with a tub of ice-cream at the ready.

It's not a bad treat for the weekend is it.  😀

Sue xx

When it all fits in neatly ... and Homemade Scones.

 Isn't it just oh so satisfying when you can tip a bag of something or other into a jar and it all fits in easily.  There's nothing worse than a little bit left over that has to either be put into another jar or left in the rolled up bag.

Or maybe it's just me being weird!!  😁

I'd used the last of the flour that had been in the jar the previous day when I made up a little batch of scones for us to share.

Nothing fancy just the most basic of recipes with a handful of sultanas for some fruity flavour.  Here's the recipe copied form my other blog and used regularly by me.  

Scones

8oz/225g SR Flour

pinch of salt

2oz/50g butter/margarine

1oz/25g caster sugar

a handful of dried fruit

milk or other suitable liquid

Simply rub in the butter/margarine into the flour/salt until it looks like breadcrumbs and then stir in the sugar.  Pour in enough milk/buttermilk or similar to make it into a reasonably firm dough and either roll out briefly or just pat into shape. 

A way of making this even cheaper is to add a tablespoon of dried milk powder to the dry mix and then you can make your scones up with water instead of milk.

The less you handle this mix the better your scones will rise.  Never twist your cutters if using them to make round scones or that will make them rise unevenly. When I'm in a rush I simply make the dough into a large circle with my hands and then cut this into four.

Brush with milk, taking care not to drip down the sides of the scones, then put on a greased or lined baking tray and cook for 10-12 minutes in a hot oven.

This mix can also be used as a crumble topping, add a little more brown sugar and some oats for added flavour and pour on top of your chosen fruit in an ovenproof dish and bake until it is all piping hot and nicely browned.  

You can also use your scone mix to make a quick pizza base or cut into small scones and use in place of dumpling in a stew or casserole.

You can't beat a nice fresh homemade scone with a cup of coffee at the end of a long day can you.  They are one of Alan's favourite treats.  😀

Sue xx

News Ways of Cooking

When my Remoska broke at the end of last year, literally two weeks after Alan's bit the dust, I had to decide whether to buy another one for myself, or whether to invest in an alternative way of cooking that would save me a similar amount of money.  

Alan asked me to order a new Remoska for him from Lakeland and while I was putting his order in I had a look at their range of air fryers.  When I saw the price of THIS one I was very impressed, at exactly a hundred pounds cheaper than a replacement Remoska would have been, I thought it was time I brought myself bang up to date with one of the latest kitchen accessories.

Although it takes up quite a bit more space on my only bit of worktop I managed to find a way to make things work for me.  The electric kettle now sits at the back of the hob, on the ring and section that I never use and the air fryer takes up the space that the kettle and Remoska used to occupy when they were both out on the worktop, although the Remoska was usually put away into the cupboard between uses.

 I still happily manage to cook in exactly the same way as I did before, with a pan on the front section of the hob and occasionally, as with this meal, with a steamer on top.  With the other part of the meal being cooked in one of the drawers of the air fryer.  

I have to say that after a few months using it, I am very impressed with my new purchase.  The only negative I've found is the noise it makes.  But that's mostly because I am usually sat directly opposite from it on my computer, and after all it is just a very small fan oven ... but with less soundproofing than a full size fan oven has.  

I think in the three months or so that I have been using it I have only turned the oven on a couple of times, each time making sure I filled it to capacity, so I am more than happy to put up with a whirring fan behind me if my bank account is staying a bit healthier.

So I am happy to say that my change of small cooking appliance has been a happy one.  😀

And now it's time to relax into the weekend, I hope you all have a good one.

Sue xx

When Life Sends You Lemons ...

 

I made Compost Heap Jelly with the last of my lemon trimmings and apple cores, peelings etc, but this weekend when I was slicing up that lovely new lemon ready for freezing for my morning drinks I decided to do something else with the ends.

The base of my kettle was looking a little bit scaly ... we are lucky here with our lovely Lancashire water, it takes a long time for scale to appear in various household gadgets, unlike when we lived down south when the first boil of a kettle made the scale appear as if by magic ... so I had read a tip that lemon juice would help remove it. 

 It doesn't, well it might have made a little bit of a difference but not to the same effect that a simple slug of vinegar does.  So I redid it with vinegar ... and lamented my wasted lemon ends. 😔🍋

So ... when life sends you lemons, don't attempt to descale your kettle with them, anything else but not that.

Sue xx

It's Been a Good Week Up To Now.

 

It's the third week of April and this is my fourth little shop.  I'm determined to keep the costs down for the rest of the month so I will only be buying what I absolutely have to.

However, I was down to my last couple of little twin packs of Biscoff biscuits in my jar, so when I saw these with 50p off for Nectar card holders I thought I would buy a new packet.  These last me for ages as I only eat them when we are out and about and Alan buys himself a cake or something to have with his pot of tea.  He does of course offer to buy me a snack, but recently there has rarely been a dairy-free option that I could have, so a pack of these in my bag means I at least have something to dunk in my coffee ... and Alan doesn't feel too guilty. 😀

The receipt.

In other news this week, in a bid to make the most of what I already have in the lodge, I turned a bag of lemon and apple trimmings, peelings and cores, along with two wrinkly apples into three jars of Compost Heap Jelly.  I already had a little jar of jam sugar and some other various sugars in the cupboard so it cost me nothing to make.

(For more information on how to make this see THIS post.)

And I made a slight inroads into the rice mountain with a couple of meals of dahl and brown rice. 😁 

 There is more dahl here than this photo suggests, as I had reheated it in the large dish in the microwave and it had spread itself out in a thin layer.  So, I just tipped the rice on top and stirred it all together when I started eating.

Fresh shopping, bargain biscuits, free jam and tasty dahl ... it's been a good week up to now.

I've just edited this post to include the shopping from the Farm Shop we went to after my birthday lunch at Barton Grange yesterday.   Alan paid as he bought things too.  So free food for me ... including the extra mayo and napkins from lunch.

Sue xx

Filling the Freezer ... and Perhaps NOT Shopping in April !

 

I made a huge pan of dahl the other day, I didn't mean for it to be as big a batch as it turned out ... no wonder my freezer is filling rather than emptying.  I was very heavy handed tipping the red lentils in.

It was tasty though, and it made me realise how much I have missed having a meal of tasty but simple homemade dahl and rice, and yes there's lots of rice ... I like it that way. 😁

Now there's rather a lot of it in the freezer, because after three days of dahl for either my lunch or tea I decided that as well as the little pots, some of the larger container of it had to go into the freezer too.

Then in a bid to use up the carrots and some of the other vegetables in the fridge drawer I made a similarly large pan of vegetable soup.  After two bowlfuls for myself and fobbing two big bowlfuls off on Alan, I only ended up putting this little glass container into the freezer.

I think April should be the month where I don't go shopping and instead go back to menu planning from the freezer, in a bid to make some space for anything else I decide to make too much of.  😄

But just in case I do decide to shop I have drawn this months £100 out of the bank and put it into my purse.  The £42.17 that has been carried forward from the first two months of the year ( I went over in March)  is in my little kitchen drawer, ready for any food emergencies that might arise ... which of course won't include buying any soup or dahl.  😄

Sue xx