apologies for absence, and limes

Gosh I've been away for a while! Sooo sorry, it really wasn't intentional. In fact, I'm not even entirely sure what happened. Life kind of got in the way for a few days, and then a few more, and then we went to the seaside (the seaside!!), and now we're home and life's doing a jolly good job of getting in the way again.

Phew!

So, much as I would love to show you all my gorgeous, sunshiney-seasidey photographs, and tell you about all the fun I had paddling in the sea, and running about on the sand, and seeing lovely friends, and family, and generally driving around the countryside ooohing and aahhhhing at the autumnal scenery, I'm going to save that for a day when I have the patience to sort through the hundreds of photographs I took.

Instead, today I want to talk about limes. Do you remember wayyyyy back when I bought all those limes? I've just realised I didn't tell you what happened!

Well, there's not much of a story. An impulse purchase, of an entire box of limes, for £1.85. What a bargain! I thought, not giving too much thought to what on earth I was going to do with an entire box of limes. Sixty one limes, to be precise. Goodness me!

I managed to give 13 of them away to unsuspecting friends, waxing lyrical about lime-filled G&Ts. Another 10 went to a harvest festival (I know I didn't *quite* harvest them myself). Twenty of them went into the biggest pan of lime marmalade I've ever seen, along with what felt like 14 bags of sugar. We then managed to give away two jars, but there's still five left. No photographs, but I think it'll be around for a while.

(and it's brown, not green, but it does taste rather marvellous)

Anyway, the other thing I did was whip up a quick lime drizzle cake, which I was *very* proud of.

Look at it there, all limey in the sunshine! Just an ordinary sponge cake (I never bother weighing ingredients, but if you want to it's just the weight of 2 eggs in self raising flour, margerine and sugar), cooked until done, then the drizzle poured on top.

I've never had much success with drizzle cakes, and it turns out I was rather underestimating the amount of sugar that goes into the drizzling. You might notice I've rather overestimated it in this cake. But it was so tasty, soooooo tasty, that I think I can be forgiven.

So, there's still 13 limes left, evidence of possibly the most daft, and most inspired, impulse purchase of recent years. Another cake might be in order, and several G&Ts. Any preferences?

afternoon tea

Well, it's Sunday afternoon and I just fancied a cake. And some strawberries. And tea-in-a-teapot.

So that's exactly what we had. And very nice it was too. I don't normally bother with a recipe for sponge cake, but we've been talking about the old Be-Ro recipe book here recently, and there's a recipe in it for a sponge cake without butter, just 2 eggs, 3oz sugar, and 3oz self raising flour.

Surprisingly, it does actually turn into a cake! (I must confess to being a little doubtful...). But the verdict seems to be that it's a little on the dry side, and would be better with jam in the middle. Or custard. Or ice cream. Or, as my auntie (who made her own version the other day) put it - it's a 'with something' cake. Definitely.

But still, it was very nice, and perfectly acceptable for Sunday Afternoon Tea with a few strawberries.

Would you like to see the little cheery bargains I got from the charity shop yesterday? 49p each, and they seem to have been hand painted, maybe by a child and parent?

Yep, handpainted glass jars, one with flowers and caterpillars on (with stuck on googly eyes!), and the other an underwater scene with lots of stripey fish. They're living out in the garden at the minute, as I'm trying make a few litle special secret places out there, with little colourful whimsical things to happen across, and these seemed just right.

They also came with lids, so I've put a tea light in each, and popped the lid on to keep the rain out, and now we just need a nice warm evening so I can sit out there and light the little candles and have a nice glass of something tasty.

polka dot cakes

Just how much am I smiling at these little polka dot cakes?

Oh, so very much.

weekending

I've noticed recently that my weekend posts are starting to fall into a bit of a familiar pattern. Look, there's the new bunch of (reduced) flowers in the kitchen, the baked goodies (a very nice lemon sponge in this case), a view from out and about (some 'meringue shapes' from the window of the bakery - meringue snowmen at Christmas that have beaks added for easter, and icing sheets draped over to become ghosts at Halloween), some sewing (looking remarkably pink and flowery, don't know what came over me, in my defence it's made from two 50p cotton pillow cases, and there's plenty left over - not much of a defence I know), and a nice bit of sitting and reading - in the garden for the first time this year!

There's also been some mending (of the hoover in this case), some cleaning (er, hoovering), some sorting (of the drawer full of essential oils - or rather empty bottles), some socialising (at the Women's Institute, of course, and in the pub), and a fair bit of loafing around. I'm really rather coming to enjoy weekends like these, especially when the weeks in between are so busy.

Belgian buns and potato bread

We're off to a Belgian themed party tonight... 

And I thought a few Belgian buns might be in order. They certainly are.. 

And while I was kneading and baking and waiting for things to rise, I made some Russian potato bread. 

Which I made into a pizza base. 

Which was very tasty :) 

A home made birthday

Last night's birthday preparations went well, and this morning was very cheery :) I was just so impressed with my crumpets that we had for breakfast - so simple to make, and exceptionally tasty. Although I might put a little less salt in next time, and make them a bit thinner. 

The idea for heart shaped crumpets came from Rhonda's blog. I spent ages yesterday looking for the picture I remembered, and eventually found it, but haven't saved the link. I will find it. I got the recipe from the Essentially England website. 

One of the other things I made was a birthday banner. Of course, these photos are completely inadequate, but you get the idea! I've seen a few floating around on various blogs, and there were some in the Chatsworth shop when we went last week, but I just had to make my own. It started off hung above the bed, and now it's in the kitchen. I think it's going to be brought out for quite a few future birthdays in this house. 

Fabric covered books

It's been a nice bank holiday today, pottering and PhD-ing, and visiting a friend's art exhibition.

We covered these notebooks with some fabric from the stash. The fabric is just glued on with PVA glue, and they've turned out nicely.

I quite often end up with loads of notebooks lying around.... Some get a bit old and tatty looking before I've even managed to use them! So I'm glad that we've had a go at covering them, because it's a great way of using up odds and ends of material. It's the first matching skirt-and-notebook set I've ever owned! :) I'm planning to cover my diary and a couple of A4 ring binders tonight too.

Peter made yorkshire puddings earlier, and knowing how much of a sweet tooth I have, made a few sweet minipuddings with mixed fruit in. They were lovely with a nice cup of tea, and very quick to make.

There's one left, which I'm going to try to take to work with me tomorrow. Not sure it'll last that long though...

A busy week

It's been a busy week! A slight crisis at work has meant I've done more hours than usual, at all times of the day, including staying overnight. I also went on a surprise visit to my family at the weekend. All this would have been fine, but I've had a dreadful cold too, and been completely worn out. I've been burning tea tree oil in an attempt to avoid giving it to guests. 

We had two guests last night, and we had curry, baked potatoes, and home made bread. I also made a version of another Entertaining with Stork recipe - a ginger and cherry loaf, with banana instead of the ginger. It was beautiful straight out of the oven with hot custard, and tasted very nice cold this morning too.

In a break from the phd this morning I made another batch of the face scrub. I've enjoyed using this for the past couple of weeks, it feels nice and smells gorgeous. It's quite abrasive the first day or two, then softens a bit as the days go on. This little jar holds enough for about a week, so it's a scrub for a couple of days, then a paste for 5 or 6 days, then the new batch starts as a scrub again. It works well. 

Something unusual happened this morning - a man knocked on the door and asked if we'd like to buy some fresh fish. I vaguely remember there being a fish man when I was little (although I don't think we ever bought anything). I don't even eat fish, but we decided to have some for Peter. We had to change our minds slightly when we discovered the price... But we got 5 pieces (about a pound) of oak smoked kippers for £8. Probably not a bargain, but apparently it was very nice, and it'll do a few meals. 

I've said before that we spend lots of time watching the birds out of the kitchen window. The other day we were having a cuppa and this squirrel turned up.

He stayed for ages, snuffling up all the seeds on the bird table, and ignoring a wood pigeon that was trying to intimidate him. I know some people try to keep squirrels off their bird food, but we don't - and isn't he cute?

Wildlife and hot cross buns

It's Good Friday, and although I don't do religion, I'm always willing to use an excuse for a cake. The dark rainy weather today also made a hot cross bun (or three) sound very appealing. Peter found a recipe in this old BeRo baking book.

They didn't quite turn out like the hot cross buns you usually see in the shops, but they are exceptionally nice, a bit more like orangey spicy scones. We had some with a cuppa this afternoon. 

We later found a recipe which uses a bread maker to knead and rise the dough, which would probably result in a more bread like, normal looking hot cross bun. Maybe that's one for next year. 

While we were eating our buns, our resident wood pigeon came to the bird table, and spotted me taking a photo of it. 

Cooking with Stork

I love old recipe books. Peter acquired a pile of little books from the Stork Cookery Service - we think they're from the mid 1960s. They're beautifully illustrated, and, predictably, pretty much all of the recipes involve Stork margarine. 

We've got 14 booklets, and I'm sure there were more in the series. The ones we have include Tea Time with Stork ('whether it's the children's tea, or tea for yourself and one or two women friends), Feeding the Family with Stork ('just the thing to help keep the family fit, especially in this very unpredictable climate'), Beat the Clock with Stork ('the busy housewife of today, with a family to feed and often an outside job as well, needs recipes that are simple and quick'), and Savory Suppers with Stork ('funny how everyone seems in such a hurry these days - there's so much to do and so little time to do it!').

The books are just so gorgeous I had to try one of the recipes. Most involve mainly Stork (of course), flour and sugar. We had a friend round for a cuppa, so I tried the recipe for popover scones from Entertaining with Stork - which wisely told me that when hosting morning coffee I should 'arrange the cakes and biscuits attractively and put them in the room before your friends arrive'.

Popover scones are just a basic scone mix, rolled out, cut with a pastry cutter, and folded in half.

When they're nearly done, you take them out of the oven, brush with egg (although we didn't have any, so used milk), sprinkle with a mix of sugar and cinnamon, and put back in the oven for a couple of minutes to brown.

They were perfect with a cup of tea, not too sweet, but the cinnamon gave them a lovely warm flavour. There's only about 3 left now. 

I'll be flicking through the other books tonight, and I'll definitely be making some more of the recipes - mostly puddings and cakes I expect...

Soap news, and brandy snaps

Between bouts of writing today I've been checking up on the soap mix. It's looking a little better today, although it's nowhere near setting yet. Looks like I might have got to the 'trace' stage now. I'll leave it another day or so and see how it's doing. Even if it doesn't work, I'll try again (measuring things properly this time!) as I'd love to have home made soap. 

My little lettuce pots are doing well, it's probably about time they were repotted. I'm being cautious about putting them outside, as every other year I've done that they've been eaten almost immediately. So I'll put them in bigger pots I think, and wait til they're a bit sturdier. You can just about see how close the edge of the garden is to the road in this photo. 

For tonight's tea I made two casseroles (one for tomorrow) with onion, carrot, kidney and adzuki beans, potatoes, and some rosemary from the garden. To fill the oven I thought I'd make some shortbread to have with friends at the weekend. 

It looks and tastes nothing like shortbread, but it does taste very much like brandy snaps! I wish I'd thought to curl it when it was still soft. Best put it in a tin before I munch it all now! 

I'm enjoying this little blogging journey very much. It's making me think much more about how I spend my time each day. My main business of week days is usually writing, but instead of mindlessly wandering around the internet during (unscheduled) break times, I'm stopping, getting away from the computer, and doing a little housework, or sewing, or chatting, or just sitting down with a cuppa. 

It's made such a difference these past few days! I feel much less wound up, much less resentful about my work, and I'm actually getting more done, not less. How wonderful.

Bathroom and baking

Well, it's not finished, but it's got skirting and a floor! It's taken me the best part of 2 days, swearing a lot, and there's quite a few imperfections, but I'm happy with the effort I put in and the end result. There's still a bit of tidying needs doing, but for now I'm celebrating!

I've also made an experimental loaf in the bread machine (all my loaves are 'experimental') - with chives and rosemary from the garden. Here it is, along with one of our home made scones.

Not a great picture! On the wall in the background are a couple of plastic automatic tea dispensers - which almost never have tea in them. I must do something about that soon! 

For now though, I'm going to have a well deserved bath in the new bathroom.