Autumn Sunshine

Thank you so much for all your supportive comments on my last post. Rather than hang around the house I have signed up to listen to children read at school and have plans to volunteer at a community co-operative that I am a member of.  Being pro-active doesn't come naturally to me, but it's either that or sit at home feeling sorry for myself and I don't like the sound of the latter!

Today I made the most of the beautiful weather we've been having and went for a walk along the River Bollin at Quarry Bank Mill.  It was so quiet and still you could hear the beech nuts falling from the trees...

Of course, I had a quick scoot through the mill which today was full of school groups.  I don't think I have ever seen teenagers look so bored!  I thought the talk on the spinning mules quite interesting, but I daresay I wouldn't have 25 years ago.  I've mentioned before that my favourite part of the mill is the weaving room. How is it that a particular smell can evoke such strong memories?

It was a good way to spend a morning.

Adjusting...

I find I am struggling to adjust to life with both children out of the house. I thought I'd love it, but I feel like I have too much time on my hands and it is too quiet. I sometimes find I'm asking myself questions out loud. 'Where's the cat?' I asked the other day, to an empty kitchen.  I know I'll get used to it, but in the meantime I am feeling a little bit aimless. It's not like I don't have a long, long list of things to do either. I will get used to it, won't I?  Do you think I am suddenly going to come over all productive?

So, today, I have forced myself to get some things done. I have done a food shop, washed all the cushion covers while there is the promise of a sunny day, acquired more dahlias...

made red lentil and spinach soup for lunch...

and started sewing a doily onto a cushion. Something I've been putting off for 2 months now...

Maybe putting the radio on, just so it's not so quiet, would be a good idea. x

Vintage crochet

Sitting on the floor of my local Age Concern shop rifling through the knitting patterns has paid off a little at last.  I found a vintage crochet booklet called 'Crochet Gifts'. It looks to be late 60s or early 70s but is missing its front cover so I can't say exactly.

I thought you might like to see some pictures from it.

A fabulous chevron striped handbag...

I'm wondering if any of #1's dolls need a cape...

A shopping bag (I love the styling on this photograph)...

You could be the perfect hostess with these glass covers, coasters and an apron...

And a beaded evening bag just big enough to carry your opera glasses...

Isn't it fabulous?

Recipe :: Petits pains au chocolat

I made petits pains au chocolat the other day. Not the croissant-y kind of pain au chocolat. These are from Elizabeth David's 'English Bread and Yeast Cookery'* and the dough is a modified bread dough.  


My Mum used to make these when I was small and I still love to eat them now.  Well, who wouldn't love a small white bread roll with a lump of chocolate inside? Best eaten warm, not long out of the oven.  


Imagine being met with one of these at the school gates, the chocolate still oozy inside...

Childhood memories are made of these. x

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Petits Pains au Chocolat


8oz strong white flour
½oz bakers' yeast (I used around ½tsp Doves Farm quick yeast)
1 tsp salt
approx ¼pt warm milk and water mixed
about 4oz chocolate


Make the dough and leave to rise in the usual way.  Have ready 8 ½oz pieces of chocolate.
When the dough has doubled in volume, break it down, knead a little and divide into eighths.
Roll or pat each piece of dough into a rectangle of a size to fit around the chocolate. Place the chocolate on the dough, fold the ends, then the sides to make a neat parcel. Press the joins together carefully and brush the rolls with milk.
Leave the rolls on a floured baking sheet to recover shape and volume.
Bake in a hot oven 400°-425°F, 205°-220°C, gas 6 or 7, for 15 to 20 minutes.

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* I have no idea why this book should be so expensive on Amazon, (perhaps the paperback is now out of print) but this is an excellent book if you like to bake bread.

Getting better and soup #2

Thank you so much for all your get well wishes.  I feel better, the headache is gone at least.  My #2 child seems happily settled in nursery. Maybe he hasn't realised it's an everyday thing yet?!

How was your weekend?  Ours was fairly quiet.  Our local monthly market was held on Saturday and we popped down there for some biscuits and a bunch of beautiful dahlias.  

Yesterday was swimming lessons and a children's party. Later on I made a batch of ginger and coconut flapjacks while the oven was on roasting root vegetables and sausages for tea.  Which leads me, very neatly, to todays soup - I make too much roast veg on purpose just so I can make this the next day.

Red lentils cooked in vegetable stock with the leftover roast veg from last night. Whizzed in a blender and with a handful of leftover cabbage thrown in. I perked it up with tabasco sauce too. 

Got to love those leftovers. x

Soup #1 and a new crochet WIP

I have got the flu, so have sacked off the usual Friday gym visit to lounge around the house all day drinking tea and either crocheting or reading. #2 declared that he wasn't going to nursery this morning and, in a complete about turn from Wednesday, I thought 'Yes you are, Buster'.  The head cold is accompanied by a headache. I need a bit of peace and quiet not a 3 year old whirlwind to entertain.   

I also need comfort food, so I've made spiced chickpea and vegetable soup. I imagine this is fairly odd, but I regard pretty much any type of lentil or bean to be a comfort food. The soup recipe is originally from a Sainsbury's magazine (November 2009) but I have found it on the web here.  It makes a huge panful but it's good to have a stash of soup in the freezer I always think.

And my new WIP...

Remember I bought some Sublime kid mohair when I visited the Black Sheep craft barn? Well, it's being turned into a scarf.  I'm using the motif from the 'Floral Fiesta' blanket designed by Maggie Weldon.  

The scarf has been inspired by this image...

Source: Pomadour24 on Etsy

I'm sure you can tell that this is from the cover of a Japanese crochet book?  I have a list as long as my arm of Japanese crochet books I'd like to buy.  Anyway, I had a go at recreating this motif by eye, but then Ruth posted about the Floral Fiesta blanket and I like that motif better. This has been growing quite slowly as I find it very difficult to crochet mohair with a 3.5mm hook in an evening but now I have lots more spare time during the day I'm hoping to have it finished before the weather turns properly cold. 

One last thing - If you head over to 'L is for Love', you'll find a lovely giveaway.

Wishing you all a great, flu-free, weekend x

Home... Alone

I confess that there have been days when, on the walk home from school in the morning, I have thought 'I can't wait until the first day I get to walk home from school without someone constantly changing their mind about their preferred mode of transport'.

Carry me!

Buggy!

Scoot!

Walk!

Well, today was that day. My 'baby' has started school nursery, looking ever so grown up in his school uniform.  And I found that I wasn't looking forward to that first walk home alone. Instead, I was dreading it. We had a bit of a wobble this morning when #2 come upstairs to find me and he wailed 'Daddy says he's taking me to nursery and LEAVING ME!'. He then tried to take to his bed and I tried not to ring the school to tell them that he wasn't going to be starting nursery today after all.


But, do you know what? It was actually ok. #2 didn't cry. I managed not to cry. 


So now I find myself alone, at home, with 5 hours to kill before I have to set off to pick him and his sister up.  It's so quiet I can hear the clock ticking and there are no cushions on the floor.  Which I think is a first for this time of the morning.  I'm off to the gym to take my mind off how weird it is here without him.

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Edited to add: the gym did not take my mind off it at all. Nor did scrubbing the bathroom, making pizza dough, doing the laundry, cleaning the kitchen or stuffing my face with Tunnock's teacakes. But, hey, I got a lot done!  

Stew #2 - Poulet Basquaise

or basque style chicken if you don't speak French. A chicken stew with lots of paprika and peppers (bell peppers/capsicums) from the latest Jamie Oliver magazine.

Once again mine came out looking different from the picture in the magazine. It's a good job I don't really expect my cooking to look like the pictures in recipe books/magazines any more.


Here's the picture from the magazine, where it looks like the peppers and tomatoes have reduced to make a nice thick sauce...

and here's mine, where it looks like the peppers and tomatoes have not reduced to make a nice thick sauce...

I seem to have much more liquid, the chicken is drowning in it, and I didn't even add the specified amount of stock as I thought it looked too much.  Maybe it's a typo.  I suppose I could have let it cook for longer but the children were champing at the bit.


I have to say, though, that it was absolutely delicious - a hit with the whole family. Of course there are left-overs which I am going to turn into soup for lunch tomorrow.

Right, I'm off to sew in the ends on some of the squares I've made whilst watching 'Indecent Proposal' on TV. It was either that or 'The Sound of Music'!


Have a great weekend x


A thrifty note:
When a recipe, such as this one, calls for a 1.4kg chicken cut into 8 pieces, I buy a whole chicken and joint it myself. In fact, if a recipe calls for 2 chicken breasts I buy a whole chicken and joint it myself, stashing the pieces I don't need in the freezer for another time. Learning to joint a chicken is one of the most useful, thrifty things I have ever learned to do. 

Stew #1 - Caponata

The weather hasn't improved a jot here in the North-West. Windy with torrential downpours. It's downpouring through the back bedroom window too, but that's another story.

I said I was thinking of stews and I started with Caponata, a Sicilian aubergine (eggplant) stew.  I use a Jamie Oliver recipe, freely available here.


This is what Jamie Oliver's caponata looks like...

source

and this is what mine looked like...

A bit of a difference! But then, I am not a food stylist.  Whatever it may have looked like, it tasted good, and there's enough leftover for my lunch tomorrow when I expect it'll taste even better.

Random snippets...

Thank you for all your comments on my latest cushion. I am plodding along making squares for my new blanket and wondering whether the brown will be too dominant (and, therefore, whether I should have persevered with the Sunshine and Shade motif). I quite like the colour brown though, so I am sure it'll work out ok.  And brown is good for Autumn and Winter - this is an Autumn/Winter blanket only due to our unfortunate moth problem.  These 8-round squares seem quite time consuming to make - around 40 minutes per square.  Maybe I'm just out of crochet practice. 

And a few other random snippets...

I want to mention a lovely yarn giveaway over at 'Field Wonderful' where you can win one of three sets of yarn. 

I'm enjoying my last few days with #2 at home full-time. School nursery is only 7 days away now.   

And I've decided to embrace the Autumn, which has arrived here with a vengeance. We collected several of these spiky sweet chestnuts (am I right?) on the way to school this morning...

I am starting to think about soups and stews... and whether to put the heating on.