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Little House by the Railway Line
2009 Goals
- Learn to make yoghurt
- Pickle walnuts
Make marmalade- Perfect my granola bar recipe
- Grow green beans to eat
Grow spinach- Grow peppers and winter squash
- Save seeds from peppers and winter squash
- Knit lots of dishcloths
- Finish my hidden stars quilt
- Make napkin rings
- Finish cardigan back
- Learn how to do water-bath-canning
- Knit a pair of socks
Preserved this Year
- February: Marmalade, 10 1/2 standard jars, 2 tiny jars
- February: Blatjang chutney, 6 jars
- March: Caramelised onion chutney, 6 jars
- June: Elderflower cordial, 5 jars
- June: Strawberry Jam, 7 standard jars, 3 tiny jars
- June: Elderflower cordial, 4 1/2 jars (2nd batch)
Projects in Progress/ Planned
- Navy and pink lap quilt
- Hidden stars bed quilt
- Sampler cardigan
- Amish Alphabet Cross-Stitch
- Knitted scrap blanket
- Planned: summer blouse and skirt
Scripture Memorised this Year
- Psalm 8
- Psalm 103
- Romans 12
- Romans 13
Preparing for Holiday Bible Club
This has been quite a week! For one thing, we've been in heatwave mode all week, and it's horribly humid. I've discovered that my productivity in the afternoons at work is atrocious when I'm this hot and can hardly think. For another, our Holiday Bible Club starts two weeks on Monday, and I'm terribly worried that I'll never get all the preparation done I need to.
Everything else has pretty much gone to pot in the meantime. Haven't cleaned anything except dishes all week - I really will have to tomorrow, though, as we're having about 20 people round for a barbecue lunch, and the bathroom's full of blue fluff.
This week I've:
- Designed a template for an angel decoration craft
- Designed the template for a ridiculously complicated stained-glass craft
- Made a giant cardboard sword, helmet and shield for Goliath
- Stuck together masses of paper to draw Goliath on
- Designed a David and Saul's armour paper doll craft
- Started working on a lion mask - need to check the size of it on a child
- Bought 18 pairs of socks to make into sock puppets
- Bought balloons and plastic cups to use for the Goliath activity
- Cut out 36 snake tongues from pink felt
- Laminated two sets of Bible dominos
Tonight, after Youth Group I need to start preparing barbecue food, and see if I can actually fit anything else in the fridge - at the moment it's completely stuffed. The problem is exacerbated by the two tubs of green walnuts I've got soaking in brine in there, for pickled in about a week's time. I hope they're worth all this fuss.
Still, I've made sufficient headway on my holiday club to-do list, I think, that I actually stand a reasonable chance of getting some sleep and fewer emotional melt-downs next week, which would be lovely for me, and probably rather a relief for my husband, too.
(Notes to any Americans reading: Holiday Bible Club is what you call Vacation Bible School. The fact that our barbecue is on July 4th is purely coincidental, as we are obviously not celebrating another nation's independence from us, because that would make no sense at all.)
The Garden at the Beginning of July
While I've been slacking in my blogging over the past few weeks, the garden has been growing like crazy. I thought it was probably time for an update on how things are doing.In the Main Bed:
Our main vegetable bed. There are strawberries here permanently, and we've planted beans, squashes and courgettes there as well.The courgettes and squashes are producing flowers now. So far I've only seen male flowers on the courgettes, but I'm not too worried as apparently that's normal. We have three courgette plants this year - I planted 6 seeds, four of them germinated and were planted out, but one appears to have withered - it's just a stalk with one leaf on it and doesn't seem to be doing anything. Three courgette plants in more than enough, though, so I'm not worried. The squash plants have really taken off. They're growing in all directions, and I have to keep checking that they're not twisting tendrils round the bean plants, because I think that would suffocate the beans. There are lots of flowers now, both male and female, and I hand pollinated a couple of the female flowers to make sure the seeds produced are true to type. Those flowers have nearly died away now, probably hastened by their rubber bands. I've marks the squashes with wool round the stem.
I noticed earlier in the week that we actually have little tiny beans. I'm not sure how easy this picture is to see, but there are a couple of beans in it:
Two tiny beansHowever, last night I was out watering and noticed that some of the beans are rather bigger:
A bean that's big enough to eat!I suspect we may be able to start eating them next week, which is very exciting!
Vegetables in Pots
I've also got a few things growing in pots, owing to lack of space in the bed more than anything else. I've got four large-ish pots of leaf beet (chard - perpetual spinach) growing, and they seem to be doing ok. They actually seem to grow better if I cut some of the leaves of and eat them.
Vegetables in Pots
I've also got a few things growing in pots, owing to lack of space in the bed more than anything else. I've got four large-ish pots of leaf beet (chard - perpetual spinach) growing, and they seem to be doing ok. They actually seem to grow better if I cut some of the leaves of and eat them.
I've also got peppers and chillis growing in pots. The pepper is actually in our bedroom, on the windowsill, chiefly because I need to keep the pepper and chilli separated so I can save the seeds. It's got a flower or two on it now, which is exciting. The chills (2 plants, in the mini greenhouse) also have flowers:
The tomatoes are starting to produce fruit, too. We've got three plants in a "hanging basket" bolted to the fence a few feet up, and they're growing very well. Lots of trusses of flowers, though only three tomatoes have appeared yet. It's a Siberian variety, a yellow cherry tomato, which I'm hoping will make ripening more likely. So many of our friends grew tomatoes last year that simply never ripened.
The "basket" with three tomato plants in it.
Tomato fruit growing and (hopefully) ripening
The Herb Garden
At the other end of the garden, on our patio, most of my herbs sit in pots. We have chives, marjoram, lemon thyme, golden thyme and ordinary thyme in a herb pot, parsley in a pot and a third pot containing mint.
Mint, growing like mad and thinking about taking over
Parsley
This is one of my (ordinary) thyme plants. I'm really impressed by this, as I grew it from a cutting taken from my mother's garden in May. There are three of them, and they seem to be doing really well.
We also have a basil plant. This is amazing - it was meant to go outside (according to the label on the plant when it was bought), but it promptly withered and appeared to have died. There were maybe two leaves left, both brown, and we thought it had had it. We're not sure why - lack of water / too much water / not enough sunlight / too cold are all possibilities. Anyway, we shoved it in the greenhouse, and a few weeks later it looks like this:
The "basket" with three tomato plants in it.Tomato fruit growing and (hopefully) ripeningThe Herb Garden
At the other end of the garden, on our patio, most of my herbs sit in pots. We have chives, marjoram, lemon thyme, golden thyme and ordinary thyme in a herb pot, parsley in a pot and a third pot containing mint.
Mint, growing like mad and thinking about taking overParsleyThis is one of my (ordinary) thyme plants. I'm really impressed by this, as I grew it from a cutting taken from my mother's garden in May. There are three of them, and they seem to be doing really well.We also have a basil plant. This is amazing - it was meant to go outside (according to the label on the plant when it was bought), but it promptly withered and appeared to have died. There were maybe two leaves left, both brown, and we thought it had had it. We're not sure why - lack of water / too much water / not enough sunlight / too cold are all possibilities. Anyway, we shoved it in the greenhouse, and a few weeks later it looks like this:
Menu Plan 1st-7th July
Another vegetable box arrived on Tuesday. It contained:Potatoes, carrots, onions, mushrooms
2 courgettes, 1 cucumber, 1 lettuce, swiss chard, cauliflower
2 peaches, 1 punnet redcurrants, cherries, 3 bananas
I think this may be the worst menu plan I've ever come up with, chiefly because we've invited about 20 people, plus kids, to our house for a barbecue on Saturday (and it had better stay sunny because there's no way they'll all fit in the living room), so we may or may not be left with masses leftover.
Anyway....
Wednesday: Toast with beans and fried eggs
Thursday: Pasta with swiss chard and cabbage
Friday: Leftover corned beef hash
Saturday: Burgers, sausages, chicken and vegetable kebabs, bulgar wheat salad, spicy potatoes, lentil sprout and spring onion salad, crudites and dips, cheese and onion bread, pappy burger rolls, chocolate brownie cake and raspberries.
And there my menu grinds to a halt. We'll eat leftovers till they run out (except for uncooked meat, which can go in the freezer), and then I'll make macaroni cheese with cauliflower and bacon. And hopefully that will take us through to the next vegetable delivery. I suppose we also have some spinach in the garden that could be eaten, along with a lot of herbs (chiefly mint - it's taking over).
Garden Tragedy
Last weekend G and I were very excited, watching a female blackbird fly back and forth from a bush in our garden with nesting material. The nest wasn't tremendously well hidden, so we could see it without too much difficulty when we were outside. G informed me the other day that the bird was sitting on the nest, and we hoped there would be babies hatched soon. A little late in the year, but sometimes they have second broods, and there's plenty of summer still to come.Yesterday when I came home, I went out into the garden to water the plants. On the garden path, next to the watering cans, lay the female blackbird, on her back, with flies crawling all over her. Horrible. When G came home later he got rid of the body, and then we discovered there were too little blue eggs in the nest. Abandoned. There was also a third eggs, smashed on the floor beneath the nest.
Of course, being the crazy person that I am, all my instincts are telling me to bring the two little eggs in and try and incubate them. But I know perfectly well that that's impossible, and even if they did miraculously hatch I could hardly feed them semi-digested worms and teach them to fly, so we're leaving them out there.
We think the bird was killed by a cat, because there are feathers all over the garden and the nest has been knocked about a bit. The cat probably jumped up to attack the bird; an easy target sitting on the nest and reluctant to fly away, and there must have been quite a struggle, as there are feathers and bird excrement all over the garden. And then the wretched cat had the gall to not eat the thing when it was dead!
G and I were both incredibly sad, though.
In other garden news, I think the squash plants are on a mission to take over the garden and bury everything in vines.
Two weeks of menu planning
I'm trying to drag myself out of blog-apathy at the moment, and I don't want incomplete records of the menu planning (in case I want to try and work out what I did with something last time), so this is last week and the current week's menus.Tuesday 16th July's box:
Chard, courgette, 2 red peppers, lettuce, cabbage
2 apples, 2 pears, 2 bananas, 9 apricots
Wednesday: Pasta with tomato sauce (courgette, pepper, onion)
Thursday: Pasta with chard and cream sauce
Friday: Leftovers
Saturday:
Sunday: Lasange with peas and cabbage
Monday: Campfire salmon, chips, peas
Tuesday: Bread and cheese, ham, chutney
Tuesday 23rd July's box:
4 yellow beetroot, 2 courgette, cabbage, kohlrabi, cucumber
4 bananas, 2 pears, 2 peaches, 1 punnet gooseberries
Wednesday: Kohlrabi and beetroot soup, bread
Thursday: Out
Friday: Leftovers
Saturday: Out (Dedication Day for camp)
Sunday: Summer squash bake (Sharing Lunch at church)
Monday: Leftovers
Tuesday: Corned beef, cabbage and potato hash
This is the Golden Beetroot. I didn't know what it was, and had to email the supplier to ask them!
Catch-Up
I don't seem to have posted here in two weeks - not really sure why, I think I'm just feeling very tired and overwhelmed at the moment. We've got the church holiday club coming up in about four weeks, and I've got a lot of preparation to do for that, so I guess that's partly why I'm so tired. I've just realised there are a couple of posts in my drafts folder that I wanted to write before I went AWOL, too - no idea when I'll get my energy back to do that.It's been a busy couple of weeks. My husband and I went to Bath for the weekend the other week, to meet up with his former PhD supervisor. We had a lovely time wandering around the countryside, and went into the town in the evening. The architecture is stunning, and we enjoyed being there not in the heat of the day. On the Sunday we visited a church, and then went for a wander round the Prior Park Landscape Garden, which was very interesting and beautiful, before getting the train home again.
View of Bath from the "Bath Skyline" walk
The Royal Crescent
Prior Park Landscape Garden: looking down from the hall
Prior Park Landscape Garden: the Palladian BridgeThe strawberry crop has come in in the last couple of weeks, and we've been eating strawberries and ice-cream almost every night we've been home. It's almost finished now, though - such a short cropping season. We can't possibly eat all the berries while they're ripe, and they go soft very quickly in the fridge, so on Saturday we made jam from them - 7 regular jars and 3 tiny ones. We've given one of the larger jars to some of G's colleagues who provide us with eggs from their chickens. We also gave them some fresh strawberries to eat.
On Sunday I finally managed to get round to doing something I've been meaning to do for years - I was baptised. I was incredibly scared about it all week, and so panicky on Saturday and Sunday that G said I was making him nervous too. Standing up to give my testimony was terrifying, but I think looking back it was a wonderful day. Far more meaningful than I'd anticipated. One of my college friends came down for it, and she and her young man came round for Sunday lunch, too, which was lovely. I'd not really met him before, and hadn't seen her in nearly two years, so it was lovely to catch up.
Our garden is coming along really well at the moment. The squash plants are getting huge leaves on them, and one of the courgettes has produced a flower. Admittedly, one flower on its own isn't much use, but maybe there'll be another to follow. Our neglected tomato plants have produced flowers and when I looked on Monday there were two tiny little green tomatoes (about 5mm diameter) on one of them - woohoo! There are bumblebees humming round the blackberry bush and hopefully pollinating things nicely, and the bean plants look like they're planning to flower soon.
We opened the first jar of elderflower cordial on Saturday, and it was lovely. It was rather stronger than the shop-bought stuff, so we need to remember to dilute it very well.... Not a bad thing, though, since that means we'll get more out of it. It was so lovely that we went for a Saturday afternoon stroll and picked more elderflower, before the season completely ends, and made another batch which I bottled on Monday night. Hopefully there should be enough to drink the stuff for three or four months of the year.
We've been keeping an eye on some local walnut trees that G walks past on his way to bellringing. He brought one back yesterday, and I stuck a fork into it to determine whether it was at the right stage for pickling. We think it is, so we'll be heading off tonight to get as many as we can to make pickled walnuts for Christmas. It sounds like quite a tedious process; they have to be soaked in brine for two weeks, left out to dry, and then pickled in spiced vinegar. But my husband loves them, as do his father and brother, and they cost a fortune in the shops. If we can make them for only the cost of the vinegar, some spices and a little electricity I'll be really pleased. And if we can't - well, it's not much loss.
There are wild cherry trees (well, not actually wild, as they've been planted as street scenery by the Council) all round the estate where we live, and I'm eagerly looking at them to try and work out when I should pick them to make cherry jam. I have a nasty suspicion it may be soon, probably while I'm up to my neck in holiday club preparation. But I'd like to have a bash at it, if I can get any that the birds haven't eaten.
Speaking of birds, we had two blackbirds building a nest in our garden last week. It's an absolutely beautfiul nest, but it was empty when I last looked. I daren't look to closely or too often for fear of scaring them off. Truth be told, it's in a stupid location as it's in a bush that overhangs our garden path and we have to walk right by it to get to the vegetable bed and the greenhouse every evening. We're having a mission worker to stay for a couple of weeks soon, too, and she'll be using the back gate and dragging a bicycle in every night, so trying to avoid disturbing the birds won't be easy. I would love it if they did raise a brood in the garden, though.
Some less pleasant wildflife we have in the garden is rats. The bins out the back of the flats near our terrace are open, and large rats have been seen crawling over the piles of rubbish. We've seen the baby rats scurrying up and down the gardens of our terrace, looking for food. I think all the families on the row have put poison out now. I'm hoping that sorts the problem without having to call in the council (although they really ought to have someone looking after the bins to the flats - it's disgusting). I'm also hoping the rats go somewhere else to die, and we don't end up with corpses in the garden.
Sorry this is a bit rambling. I wanted to try and catch up a bit, and I don't know how much energy and time I'll have for careful blogging over the next few weeks. Thanks to those of you who left messages for me asking where I was. I'll try and not be gone so long next time!
Menu Plan 10th-16th June 2009
Yesterday saw the arrival of yet another vegetable box.
Potatoes, carrots, onions, mushrooms
Spinach, bagged oriental salad, courgette, red pepper, kohlrabi
3 bananas, 2 apples, 1 oranges, a small punnet of strawberries
The strawberries frustrate me - they've sent us 16 strawberries in the punnet, and it appears to be worth 5 units of fruit - which doesn't strike me as a particularly good ratio. And we've got strawberries coming out of our ears in the garden. We haven't yet tried the ones that came in the box yesterday (which are from Hereford - hardly local!), but last year's box strawberries were completely tasteless. I may request no strawberries again, like I did last year.
However, on a more exciting note, the kohlrabi they've sent is purple!
A bit different to normal!Anyway, here is the week's initial menu plan:
Wednesday: Wraps with spinach and spicy bean mush (leftover stuffed pepper filling from Monday), served with lentil sprout salad (leftover from yesterday) and tomato-cooked potato and courgette (leftover from yesterday)
Thursday: Out
Friday: Leftovers from freezer - red lentil coconut curry. I'll make up some bulgar wheat to serve with it
Saturday / Sunday: Away for the weekend
Monday: Jacket potatoes with fried red pepper and onion topping
Tuesday: Rice and vegetables with spicy peanut butter sauce
Red Lentil Coconut Curry
This is another of the recipe's from the Simply in Season cookbook that my husband bought me for Christmas - definitely one of the best cookery books I've got. I've made several of the recipes in it now, and they've all been very successful. This one serves 8-10, apparently, though I've never followed it exactly.What follows is how I made it, rather than how it was stated in the book. I never seem to have quite the correct vegetables, and the book said to cook the lentils separately and add them when cooked - this seemed to me to create unnecessary washing up. You get very cautious about making pans dirty when you have to wash them up! (Also, the recipe actually called for canned coconut milk, but what I keep in the house is creamed coconut - saves space and more useful)
Chop 1 onion finely, and fry gently in a little oil in a large saucepan.Unfortunately, I didn't take a picture of this one, despite having cooked it more than once. It smells so yummy we just dive in and eat it. It makes about four/five portions this way, so we get leftovers for the freezer which is useful.
Add a couple of crushed garlic cloves, about 1/2 tablespoon chopped fresh ginger root, 1 teaspoon curry powder, 1/4 teaspoon each turmeric, ground cumin, paprika, 1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon, and a couple of bay leaves. Stir and cook for about 3 minutes.
Make up half a block of creamed coconut with 400ml boiling water to make coconut milk, and add that to the pot, along with a good slosh of soy sauce and a couple of tablespoons of tomato puree.
Then add 1 cup of rinsed lentils and about a pint of water to the pot.
Add vegetables, chopped into chunks: the book says cauliflower, sweet potato and cabbage. I've also used carrots and spinach, depending on what I've got around. Spinach needs to be added rather later than carrots or cauliflower!
Cook until vegetables are softened, adding more water as necessary.
Serve with brown rice, steamed greens and mango chutney.
Hatfield Forest
On Saturday my husband and I were going to an evening barbecue at some friends of ours who live in Bishop's Stortford, so we decided to make a day of it and go to nearby Hatfield Forest while we were there. It got us double use from the train tickets, so it seemed a sensible idea.
Simple Woman's Daybook for 9th June 2009
Outside my window... the weather is bright but cool. We had a lot of much-needed rain over the weekend.
I am thinking... about trying to write my testimony. This makes me very nervous, for some reason.
I am thankful for... Rain ... and the fact that my tomato plants didn't die, even though we forgot about them and forgot to water them for three weeks!
From the kitchen... I'm making stuffed peppers for supper this evening, with strawberries (from our garden) and ice cream for pudding. I also made a batch of cookies yesterday, from a new recipe that has worked very well.
I am wearing... Brown stripy trousers and a blue jumper.
I am creating... A plan for what crafts and activities I want to do with my group at this year's Holiday BIble Club.
I am wearing... Brown stripy trousers and a blue jumper.
I am creating... A plan for what crafts and activities I want to do with my group at this year's Holiday BIble Club.
I am going... to spend a quiet evening at home with my husband.
I am reading... God's Lavish Grace by Terry Virgo.
I am hoping... to get the rest of the plants in the greenhouse planted out in the next week,
I am reading... God's Lavish Grace by Terry Virgo.
I am hoping... to get the rest of the plants in the greenhouse planted out in the next week,
Around the house... I need to use another round of Viacal on the toilet. The limescale builds up in there so incredibly fast....
One of my favorite things... Watching boats on the river.
A few plans for the rest of the week: Bible study Tuesday, visiting my mum on Thursday, Youth Group Friday, and we're going away to Bath for the weekend.
Here is picture thought I am sharing...
My Dad's motor racing trophy shelf a couple of weeks ago. He never won any at all in previous years, but so far this year he seems to be doing pretty well!Read more daybook entries here.
Company Girl Coffee 5th June
Good afternoon company girls! Lovely of you to stop by. It's very early afternoon and I'm terribly hungry as I haven't had lunch yet - an old work colleague is coming to visit and we're all (the folks in my office) going to sit in the park with our sandwiches, but she's running late. So we're hungry. So it's good to have the distraction of chatting to you while we wait.
I've spent this week getting over the various ailments I acquired on the long walk last weekend - one blister, some sunburn and a slowly healing horsefly bite. Ugh. Thankfully it's mostly over now. I've also done some sunday school preparation, had a meeting with my pastor, and eaten the first strawberry from the garden!
There are lots more now, and we've bought some ice-cream to eat with them. Yum!
It's weird to think that in America the summer break is starting up already. Here in England we've just had half term, and there are another six or seven weeks until the summer holiday. I remember when I lived in America (for about seven months, when I was nine), I got a really long summer holiday, because we moved back home to England in August!
So the Church Summer Holiday Bible Club, which we do in the first week of the summer holidays, is starting up on 20th July. I've (probably foolishly) agreed to run a double group - ie prepare twice as much craft as everyone else. I really need to get my skates on with this! We're doing a really interesting looking programme with a theatrical theme, so I get to decorate the den to look like a dressing room. Should be fun!
I did really badly on the Small Things all through May, so have resolved to do better this month. So far this is going fairly well - I've managed 2 1/2 out of 4 (1/2 because out laundry system simply doesn't allow for doing a whole load in one day - we wash on the timer overnight to save money on electricity, and dry on racks). Sorting out the desktop items was brilliant! One of those things that really irritates me, and I never get round to sorting out - and it's done!
Hope everyone has good plans for the weekend. We're planning to go to Hatfield Forest for a picnic lunch and a walk, and then we're going to a friend's birthday barbecue in the evening, which should be lovely.
Thanks for visiting!
Leftover Pastry Idea
Whenever I make pastry (for quiche or pie or whatever), I end up with leftover bits from round the edge of the dish. Normally I just turn these into jam tarts, but somehow, when I was baking the quiche last time I just didn't fancy jam tarts with wholemeal pastry.So I put it in a box in the fridge.
Yesterday evening I decided to use it up. I rolled it out and cut into two pieces. I fried up some bits of onion (I was doing this for supper anyway), and put the fried onion in the middle of the pastry.
The Fen Rivers Way
Last weekend, my husband and I went for a very long walk. On Saturday we got the train to nearby Ely, and walked from there to Downham Market - about 18/19 miles. Then, after a luxurous night in a Bed and Breakfast, and the biggest breakfast I've seen in a long time (cereal, fruit juice, 2 sausages, 3 rashers bacon, 2 fried eggs, tomatoes, mushrooms and potato waffles), we set off for King's Lynn, a further 11/12 miles north. The walk was all along the river.
The other "problem" with the walk was my leg. Sometime last week I was bitten, we think by a horsefly, and the bite was getting very bid and swollen over the weekend. By Sunday afternoon it was agony walking on it, which really put a bit of a damper on the walk. Thankfully it is getting better now, and now longer hurts at all, although I'm keeping a close eye on it in case of infection.
However, the walk itself was by and large lovely. Walking along the high banks of the River Great Ouse, where the breeze was stronger than anywhere else, with nothing but fen in any direction, and lots of sheep. We saw lots of waterbirds, as we'd hoped. Dozens of herons, and several broods of Canada Geese, Greylag Geese, Swans, Muscovy Ducks and Mallard. G was also pleased that the route took us past several interesting and unusual postboxes. We also saw lots of butterflies and dragonflies, but are not really good enough at identifying them yet to say what they were.
Greylag geese and young
Swan with brood
I loved this little cart selling eggs at the roadside along the way - would have bought some if it weren't for having to carry them and they'd probably have got broken!
A church that hasn't been used for centuries. Now home to lots of pigeons and rooks.Elderflower cordial
Last year we missed the elderflower crop, and I was determined to catch it this year. There's an elder tree just beyond the fence at the bottom of our garden, and I can reach some of the branches, so on Monday I pilfered it for flower heads and set up the cordial to sit overnight.
The recipe started with 2 lbs sugar with 1pt boiling water poured over and stir till they dissolve. The recipe then said to add citric acid, but I had been unable to get hold of any (apparently it has some use in the consumption of hard drugs and is no longer widely available - I could have ordered some from ebay, but decided against it), so I used bottled lemon juice. It may make the coridal more lemony than it ought to be, I suppose, but I thought it would be worth trying. Then I added the zest of a lemon, and the sliced flesh, before adding the elderflower heads (washed) and covering to sit overnight.
After a panic the following day when I couldn't find my butter muslin to strain it though (I foolishly thought it would be in the box of preserving equipment, and it turned out to be in the bottom of my sewing basket - obviously....), I strained the liquid out and put into jars. I then water-bath-canned it on Wednesday evening.
Menu Plan 3rd-9th June 2009
This week's vegetable box contained:Potatoes, carrots, onions, mushrooms
Cabbage, 2 green peppers, courgette, cucumber, lettuce
2 bananas, 1 lemon, 3 pears, 3 apples, 3 oranges
Menu plan for the week is as follows:
Wednesday: Sausages, herby mashed potatoes, spinach and peas
Thursday: Pasta with cabbage, onion and cheese
Friday: Leftovers
Saturday: Out at a BBQ
Sunday: Punjabi baked fish, brown rice, salad
Monday: Peppers stuffed with spiced beans and onions, boiled minted potatoes, spinach / salad
Tuesday: Potato, onion and courgette baked with eggs, salad
Chocolate - Coffee - Walnut Cake
Chocolate cake: Cream together 6oz soft margarine and 6oz sugar. Break in 3 eggs, and beat together. Place bowl on scales, set to zero, dump in a couple of scoops of cocoa powder and then make up to 6oz with self-raising flour. Mix until smooth. Grease tin and fill with batter. Bake at 180C until the cake needle test comes clean (about 45 minutes in this case).
Then, when it had cooled, I made the coffee buttercream. The recipe called for 2oz butter and 4oz icing sugar, but I ended up using 7oz icing sugar. I think I put too much water in my coffee.
Coffee buttercream: Weigh 2oz butter, and leave on windowsill until very soft. Put a heaped teaspoon of instant coffee in a cup and add as small a quantity of boiling water as will dissolve it. Add to butter, stir. Then sift and add 4oz icing sugar, a little at a time (I place the bowl on the scales while I'm sifting the sugar out of the box), until it is quite stiff. As I said, this time I used nearly twice as much as the recipe said - it varies. Then spread it onto the cake.
Decorate with walnuts. I actually don't like walnuts, but my husband does so we have an arrangement where I take them off my slices and give them to him. This suits both of us!
Menu Plan 27th May - 2nd June
The last box for May arrived yesterday. We're gradually getting through the "hungry gap" now, so things are looking more springlike.
The bottle visible at the bottom of the picture is ginger beer - yesterday was my husband's birthday, and I ordered that as an extra birthday treat for him, and was very worried the order would be mixed up. Thankfully, it wasn't, and he had it with his supper yesterday evening. Apparently it was very good stuff.
Potatoes, carrots, mushrooms, onions
Kohlrabi, cauliflower, green pepper, lettuce, spinach
3 apples, 2 kiwi, 2 pears, 3 oranges, 3 bananas
We've got lots of carrots left from before, and a few potatoes.
My proposed menu plan is:
Wednesday: Out at friends
Thursday: Red lentil coconut curry (carrots, cauliflower, spinach) served with brown rice
Friday: Kohlrabi with peas and potato, served with brown rice
Saturday: Holiday
Sunday: Holiday
Monday: Leftovers (G is visiting a friend for supper)
Tuesday: Pizza topped with pepper, onion and mushrooms
I may need to modify the menu a little to accomodate more potato and less rice. We're not really getting through the potatoes fast enough at the moment. We may have fried potatoes and egg for Saturday breakfast, before we set off on our VERY LONG WALK (about 27 miles, over two days, stopping overnight at a B&B in the middle - not so very long, really).
Forgotten Music of the GPO
Yesterday evening my husband and I went to the pictures. I hadn't been to the cinema in over three years (January 2006: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe), which is astonishing considering I used to be a cinema addict and went several times a week when I was 15/16. (I think I've got increasingly unable to cope with the sensory overload of cinema, and I've finally come to terms with the fact that anything rated higher than U is too high for me - pathetic, but unavoidable, and probably a good thing in the long run).Anyway, what we went to see yesterday was a programme called "Forgotten Music of the GPO" put on the Music and Performing Arts department of Anglia Ruskin University, and featuring some of Benjamin Britten's early work, when he was employed as composer by the GPO Film Unit. The GPO being the General Post Office. Apparently the film unit saw itself as an agent of social change. It seems odd to think of the Post Office making films, especially since they weren't all about postal matters.
There were three films, each accompanied with a live orchestra - and in one case a choir - from the university. There was also a narrator for some of it, as for most of the films they had got rid of the sound track and needed to replace the voiceover as well as the music.
The first film was "Coal Face", which was about the coal miners of the 1930s. It did a really good job of showing just how dependent Britain was on the coal industry, and also looked at the awful life of a miner - 5 miners died every day. It's astonishing to think that we're just as dependent on oil now as we were on coal then. The other thing about this film was it made it clearer just how terrible the pit closures in the 70s and 80s were for the people who depended on the pit for their homes, schools, and social life as well as their work. When the pits closed they lost pretty much everything - I went to university in Durham, which was mining country, and there are mining "ghost villages" all over the place, and the villages that are still inhabited are terribly deprived, because even now there's still no work there.
The second film was "The King's Stamp", which was about the production of a commemorative stamp for the Silver Jubilee of King George in 1935. Very interesting, except to maximise the music (which was cut for the film), they mostly just showed slides from the film with titles interspersed. They did show some of the film when the stamps were being printed, and I really thought the way the machinery moved with huge sheets of stamps on bars like sails was beautiful.
The third film was the most famous, "Night Mail", which was about the Postal Special train that took mail up from London to Scotland every night, with a sorting office online, featuring W.H. Auden's poem of the same name. I knew and loved the poem beforehand, but not that it was written for film. It was absolutely fascinating. The system whereby villages would hang up the post to be picked up by the train in leather satchels on posts by the railway, and set up a net, and then as the train came past with another net held out it would mechanically grab the bags and bring them on board, and toss bags out to the village as it went past, was absolutely wonderful.
It made me want to come home and write letters, but of course everything's sorted by machine these days, and that's rather less romantic.
For a pair of postal history types such as us (both former stamp collectors, and my husband a letterbox enthusiast), it was a wonderful evening out. I've discovered that the British Film Institute do DVD sets of the GPO films, and am rather tempted, but they're a touch pricey, so I probably won't do anything about them for some time. The library unfortunately doesn't have them.
Menu Plan 20th-26th May
Here is yesterday's vegetable box. The chocolate they sent as a placatory measure because of the repeated mix-ups over flour. Shame I don't like dark chocolate! But I'm happy to cook with it, so it's ok.
They sent:
Potatoes, carrots, mushrooms, onions
2 courgette, 2 mini cucumber, spring greens, green pepper
3 bananas, 3 kiwis, 3 oranges, 3 apples
(As an aside, they have messed up again. They are supposed to send 1 "piece" and 4 "fillers" off a list - they've sent us 4 "fillers" but no "piece". At first I thought the spring greens was the "piece" and they had sent more than one courgette to make the "fillers" up to 4, but it appears not. They've simply left something out. But I don't think I've got the heart to complain again. I am annoyed, though.)
Anyway, in addition to what arrived yesterday, we have some things left from last week: 1/2 courgette, 1 pepper, carrots, and a few potatoes.
So now I'm trying to come up with a plan for this week:
Wednesday: N/A - going out to the cinema with pub supper beforehand
Thursday: N/A - out at Mum's
Friday: Leftovers. Except there aren't any leftovers, so it'll be something like tinned soup.
Saturday: Vegetarian lasange (black beans, pepper, courgette, onion, carrot, tinned tomatoes; white-cheese sauce), served with cabbage
Sunday: Courgette quiche with chips
Monday: Carrot and lentil stew, potatoes, cabbage
Tuesday: Green pepper and onion risotto
I also need to make a cake (chocolate cake, coffee buttercream icing, and walnuts on top) as it's G's birthday on Tuesday. I probably ought to make him a PUDDING as well, because he's rather partial to them. Either a syrup sponge or a baked semolina, depending on whether we have a greater excess of eggs or milk at that stage of the week. And I think I promised him I'd make some oatmeal soda bread at some point over the weekend, too, but that's not very difficult.
Simple Woman's Daybook for 18th May 2009
Outside my window... Sunny and windy. Warm in the sun, but when it goes behind a cloud it gets a bit chilly.
I am thinking... about all the plans for day trips out and weekends away that my husband and I concocting at the moment. It's very exciting.
I am thankful for... the ducklings and baby moorhens out on the water today. All the spring birds, really, but I'm particularly fond of those. The moorhen babies are black and fluffy, and almost bald on the top, with incredibly long legs. Really, they're rather ugly, but in the "so ugly they actually become cute" sense.
From the kitchen... there is a dearth of pre-prepared food (ie leftovers) for tonight. My husband's taken tinned soup with him, and I'll probably have beans on toast. Though, what I should do is make some pasta, eat some and freeze the rest for Friday's leftovers. I probably won't though,
I am wearing... Black trousers and a blue jumper.
I am creating... My seventh dishcloth for this year. The goal is twelve, so I'm over halfway there.
I am wearing... Black trousers and a blue jumper.
I am creating... My seventh dishcloth for this year. The goal is twelve, so I'm over halfway there.
I am going... to wrap my husband's birthday presents while he's out this evening.
I am reading... A book on John Constable; Christian: Take Heart! by Tom Wells; The Message of Romans; The Summer of the Great-Grandmother by Madeleine L'Engle; God's Lavish Grace by Terry Virgo; Bible: 2 Kings, 1 Corinthians, John
I am hoping... to manage to stay productively occupied this evening. Monday evenings are always difficult, as I my husband is out and I'm tempted to get lonely and sit and eat Crunchy Nut Cornflakes for hours on my own. Not helpful.
I am reading... A book on John Constable; Christian: Take Heart! by Tom Wells; The Message of Romans; The Summer of the Great-Grandmother by Madeleine L'Engle; God's Lavish Grace by Terry Virgo; Bible: 2 Kings, 1 Corinthians, John
I am hoping... to manage to stay productively occupied this evening. Monday evenings are always difficult, as I my husband is out and I'm tempted to get lonely and sit and eat Crunchy Nut Cornflakes for hours on my own. Not helpful.
Around the house... I finally got around to cleaning behind the oven at the weekend. It looks much better now.
One of my favorite things... afternoon naps!
A few plans for the rest of the week: Bible study tomorrow, trip to the pictures tomorrow, Mum's on Thursday, Youth Group on Friday, and then another glorious bank holiday weekend with very little planned for it.
Here is picture thought I am sharing...
The promotional picture for the Oxfam Walk that my mother and I did on Sunday. I forgot to take a picture of us when we'd finished it, as I'd meant to, as I was far too achy by that point.Read more daybook entries here.
About Me
Hello! I'm Jo, I'm 26 and I live in a small house in England with my husband. I work full time in an office, and in my spare time I help out with Sunday school and the church youth group. When I have time, I enjoy reading, cookery and crafts, and I'm trying to learn about the garden.
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