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Saturday 11 October 2014

Winter drawers on

Wet wet wet, not the group, just Wales. In the interests of "being prepared" I put the heating on to check that all was in order, Oops it was not. The boiler lost pressure 3 times in as many hours so I called in the A Team, well the heating engineer. He sorted that out and I turned the heating off as the house was now slowly cooking me. Had homemade soup and cheesy garlic bread for dinner, yummy.  Did some hooky before tootling off to bed around 10.00, when I came down this morning I spotted a damp patch on the hall carpet. Ben got a sideways look and I got some kitchen roll to mop it up, HA, it was not damp it was soaking. Close inspection showed that the radiator was leaking, nothing that a spanner could not deal with, the helper with the heating chap had bled all the radiators yesterday but obviously did not spot this. Oh Dear, Never Mind. Sorted (fingers crossed)
 Dinner tonight is cottage pie topped with cauliflower cheese instead of mash, served with cabbage and carrots. I love cauli cheese as a topping, it goes well on fish pie. I have served it griddled on burgers and that is amazing, so is macaroni cheese come to that. I know that it is calorific but you do not have to eat it by the pound and not every day. Sometimes I just cook the cauli in milk and mash it with a little grated cheese, it makes a nice change from potatoes. I should say now that my greengrocer has some enormous cauliflowers for 39p.

I have had a request for some dog coats so will be playing with fabric later, they are for Archie and Dolly, I will post pics once they are done. I have not sewed anything much this week, I have been hooking away.



I am almost 1/3 rd of the way on my coastal ripple now, as you can see Ben is trying to stake this out as his own.


My ripple scarf (?) is progressing nicely, I hook a row or two before settling down for the night and another couple while drinking my first cuppa of the day. The question hanging over this is will it become a scarf or will it morph into a cushion cover. The jury is out, I will think on it for a while, I have another 20 or so bands of colour before the decision has to be made.

In the last few days the leaves have started to turn yellow and as the sun gets progressively lower in the sky it turns them to gold. It is so dark at the moment that it feels like 7.00 at night, I have my lights on to see to walk round the house.

So much for stoptober, as my blanket is growing so fast I have bought some more yarn from Wool Warehouse, it is the large pack from Attic24 shop and I had a couple of extra balls as well. This is for a double blanket for a friend. 
The Stylecraft Special DK yarn is 100% acrylic and is 100% user friendly. It does not split all the time, it does not shed fibres, it is consistently soft to use unlike more expensive yarns that I have used. ( this is my personal view and is unsolicited).

I have not spent much though, my usual Thursday shop at Lidl was under £10 and I am using things from cupboard and freezer. I look forward to stocking up with the ingredients for stews and faggots, soups and bean feasts, simple warming foods from the slow cooker, yum.
I tried jacket potatoes in my slow cooker last winter and will be repeating this frequently. A jacket potato with leftovers becomes a feast with a sprinkle of grated cheese and some homemade ketchup or chutney.
Reasons to be grateful.

1.  The rain, lots of crafting time.

2.  Radio 2, in the background.

3.  My friends, a cuppa awaits me almost every day after Ben's 2.00 walk.

4.  Ben, a constant at my side.

5.  The bloggers who I read, and those who comment.

I went through my blog list and found several that had not had posts for many months, and also found some new ones to follow just by clicking on comments that interested me. A quick shuffle round and hey presto an updated blog list.

I have played catch up reading through the posts that I missed while the lap top played up, I see that Ilona has stirred up a few peeps. She states quite clearly that all she writes is what is pertinent to her lifestyle, I understand that. Some of her ideas would not work for me but a great many of them do.
Frugal Queen is sharing crock pot dinners with us, very nice and tasty. Karen from Chelmarsh Chuntering is still tempting me with her recipes, and I am still giving in.

I have totally missed Bake Off, I know that I am in the minority but after the first series I could not get into it.
I did catch part of a cooking program with Prue Leith as one of the judges, the contestants were cooking "war time" themed meals. I thought that the food was unrecognisable as war time food and that the panel were a pretentious group. I have no idea what it was called, I hope never to find it again.

I have picked some tasty ideas from many of the bloggers that I follow and some from their followers, who needs celebrity chefs and their high faluting ideas.

Right, it is still dark and raining, this calls for tea and maybe some lunch.

              TTFN                                                   Pam

BTW I have not forgotten to share my new crafting idea, I have not started it yet, still waiting for 1 thing.













25 comments:

  1. Pam, I love youth list of things to be grateful for. Rain and friends waiting with a cup (coffee in my case) after a walk with the dog are terrific pleasures. We're still dealing with we house issues though so maybe rain is not always terrific. Hope your situation stays sorted. http://newframereference.blogspot.com

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    1. The system is running just fine now thank you, Ben loves it when we stop for a cuppa, he gets to play with an assortment of dogs.

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  2. Wet and cold here too Pam. Thank goodness you found your leak pretty quickly as a little water goes a very long way :-! I love the look of the ripple scarf. How do you fit all these crafts and tasks into one day, you must rarely sit down...

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    1. I do sit down but never with empty hands, I am looking forward to wearing the scarf, if that is what it ends up as.

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  3. I use my slow cooker a lot but I have never tried baking potatoes in it. Do you just put them in without anything else? Or do you slightly oil potato? Thanks, Andrina

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    1. Some people wrap them in foil, some put them in naked, have a look at Frugal Queen, she posted about them yesterday, Helen at the frugal knitwit does them as well. I do not wrap just put a splash of water in the base.

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    2. Thank you - I have just popped over to look and will give it a go. I hate doing them in the microwave as they are a bit soggy for my taste

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  4. I caught the end of that program about three posh folk eating posh wartime food. it was so far from how people had to live as to be insulting to those who lived through the war.

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    1. I can just remember the end of rationing, but even though we grew much of our own food I know that my Granny and Mum never cooked like that.

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  5. As an American I am not familiar with faggots? Could you please share the description/recipe. Thanks.

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    1. Frugal Queen had a recipe a few days ago. I had no idea what they were (also an American) , and didn't even hear the term when we visited UK so wonder if regional?

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    2. They are like meatballs but made with Liver and Pork, have a look at Frugal Queen, she has an amazing recipe.

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    3. Thanks Pam and Sam. I will check out Frugal Queen's recipe!!

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  6. Your crochet is coming on a treat and what a good idea - using cauliflower cheese as a topping. I will definitely try that. Hope you have no more floods.
    xx

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    1. I chopped the cauliflower into quite small pieces once it had been steamed and made the cheese sauce quite thick. I often make this and when cool enough to handle form it into burger shapes, egg and breadcrumbed it makes a lovely filling for a bread roll, and the meat eaters can have a burger in with it.

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  7. I love your posts! I can almost smell your delicious and feel the cool of fall by your descriptions! Enjoy your weekend.

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    1. I do my absolute best to enjoy every day, since moving here it takes no effort at all.

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  8. I'm with you on not bothering with bake off, If I want to watch someone cooking in a kitchen I'd hang a mirror over the cooker!
    I love the colours of your coastal ripple.

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    1. Ooh I could not have a mirror in the kitchen, I would be able to see myself hoovering up all the little Cooks perks.

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  9. I've fired my central heating boiler up once to make sure all was well, although it was already working fine for the hot water. I have it serviced yearly but it isn't due for its check up for another couple of months. Fortunately its not been cold enough yet to actually need the heating on, although we have had a couple of chilly days. I love both of your ripple crochet projects, both colourways are lovely. Thank you for mentioning my method of doing baked potatoes in the slow cooker; I think I'll do them this week. I bake several at a time and keep leftovers in the fridge to reheat in the microwave for a quick lunch with grated cheddar or Aldi's garlic and herb soft cheese. I did watch the bake off again this year, but have to admit I think it's less about real home-baking these days as many of the creations are so very fancy. As for the posh nosh wartime show; I didn't see it but have often wondered how today's celebrity cooks would manage to create a whole week's worth of nourishing meals using only wartime rations and the types of herbs and flavourings available at that time.

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    1. I first learnt how to do baked potatoes from you and now it is the main way that I cook them. If I am having a cooking session then I plan it to have potatoes in the oven ready to eat at dinner time. My microwave died just before I moved and I still have not got around to replacing it. I am not sure that I will bother now, I use my mini oven most of the time so do not get tempted in to cooking huge amounts and building up leftovers. I would have been really interested if those people had made Woolton Pie, parsnip cakes and acorn coffee. I remember mu Granny making wild plums into jam with very little sugar, it was a habit that she developed in the war years and never let go.

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  10. Gorgeous crochet blanket! I am still knitting furiously at the moment, making hats for the Operation Christmas Child boxes, but I need to do more practicing with crochet to get the tension right. People like you inspire me to keep at it and improve so that I can make such lovely things - thank you!

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  11. I used blogs and you tube to teach myself to crochet, I do a tension square to find what size hook to use. My mother was a knitter and always made a tension square, as she said that 30 minutes saved a lot of pulling out and reknitting. Mind you she could knit just about anything with hardly a glance at her needles. Although while watching Armchair Theatre on the tv one night she was so absorbed that she put 2 heels in one sock, my Dad never let her forget it..

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  12. Pam your blankets are beautiful ! I love your colour choices, I have a ripple on the go after using Lucy at Attic24 tutorial. It looks quite boring at the side of yours may have to jazz it up a little ;)
    We cook baked potatoes in the slow cooker too,my neighbour who works also puts her Cornish pasties in on low setting so when she and hubby get home they're nice and hot.
    Did have to chuckle at simplesuffolksmallholder's quirky humour lol. Another interesting post, even I've put the heating on a few times much to Mr B's surprise!

    Enjoy your week

    Peg xx

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    1. I put the heating on last night, the sun reaches the front of the house at around mid afternoon and usually heats it up for the evening. Yesterday by the time the sun was there the clouds had thickened and there was no free heat, never mind. It is raining again this morning but I managed to get the washing line dried yesterday, so a saving and a cost.

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