Ha, I am not eating anything gourmet. Today for lunch I ate boiled eggs and toast soldiers, which is a favourite of mine and very quick and straightforward to prepare. I have recently discovered hasselback potatoes, which are very simple too - I decided to try it with parsnips today, as I got a 5p bag of parsnips in Asda yesterday (one of the rare days when there was actually something left in the reduced section), and I added grated cheese and crushed garlic too, and it was very nice.
My daughter's 4th birthday so we had homemade pizza at her request, along with a large chocolate cake topped with hundreds and thousands and 4 candles (I can sense at least 3 of you planning 2 Ronnies jokes here and I'm not finding any of them funny) filched from my stash of votive candles with a cocktail stick rammed in the base. A Good Time Was Had By All.
Beef mince and veg fajitas here, courtesy of husband.
I managed to get some writing done (currently justifying my research questions). Now having a beer and feeling too tired and lazy to do anything.
Ha, I am not eating anything gourmet. Today for lunch I ate boiled eggs and toast soldiers, which is a favourite of mine and very quick and straightforward to prepare.
I've encountered toast soldiers in lots of (English) books, and I understand what they are. What puzzles me is why they're called that? (Maybe this should be on the "Proof Americans and Brits speak a different language" thread.)
I made my first dumpling yesterday; a success! I've been going through saved cookery pull-outs from the weekend papers and seeing what's interesting to make. Flour is finally available so that expands the list. On a less gourmet note, lunch today was a supermarket onion bhaji in a stickered hot cross bun. Necessity is the mother of fusion cooking.
Some spare guitar strings arrived in the post, so replacing the old ones will be the highlight of tomorrow (apart from standing in a queue at Morrisons).
... I can sense at least 3 of you planning 2 Ronnies jokes here ...
<raises trotter>
Guilty as charged, m'lud!
... and I'm not finding any of them funny ...
What do you mean, not funny? Four Candles has to be one of the best sketches in the history of television ...
Happy birthday to Little Miss Feet anyway!
The pasta thing came out rather well; S. was very impressed, and it did have a nice gutsy flavour. Definitely one to do again.
@fineline - I wonder if in The New Normal™ arboreal osteopathy will be A Thing ...
I made my first dumpling yesterday; a success! I've been going through saved cookery pull-outs from the weekend papers and seeing what's interesting to make. Flour is finally available so that expands the list. On a less gourmet note, lunch today was a supermarket onion bhaji in a stickered hot cross bun. Necessity is the mother of fusion cooking.
Dumplings are one of my favourite things! I’m now wondering if I should try lentil curry and dumplings for tea. Perhaps with some side orders of veg curries.
I love the idea of an onion bhaji in a hot cross bun; I usually eat cheese in mine.
Cheese and biscuits for lunch today. While Mr RoS enjoys his cheese on Scottish Oatcakes, I prefer mine (currently a tasty Red Leicester called Red Fox) on ginger nuts.
Cheese and biscuits for lunch today. While Mr RoS enjoys his cheese on Scottish Oatcakes, I prefer mine (currently a tasty Red Leicester called Red Fox) on ginger nuts.
Forgive my impertinence, but may I ask whether congratulations are in order?
Beef and veg pasties here, courtesy of the veg delivery company.
It’s that prevarication time of day, when I contemplate walking upstairs to continue that research assignment. This evening is the weekly Zoom prayer group.
We had polenta with lactose free mozzarella and the last of my carrot top pesto, followed by Jack Monroe's cherry and white chocolate traybake* for my daughter, made for Monday's we're-at-a-festival-and-make-believing-there-are-catering-tents, so we can have tea and cake.
* the nicest cake we've tried with GF flour and dairy free marge substitution.
David loved dumplings - one of our default recipes was a left-over chicken casserole with slightly herbaceous dumplings. I made them a few times, but more usually assisted (adding milk when he had dumpling-mixture all over his hands). I haven't made them since he died; not because I don't like them - I just haven't thought about them.
I'm rather puzzled about the cheese/ginger-nut combo, I have to confess. Digestives - yes, especially with strong-ish Cheddar - but ginger-nuts? Not at all sure about that!
A nice gentleman has just delivered a box of very interesting looking comestibles from Root to Market - veggies, flour, yeast, WINE, tea and a chicken PIE.
That'll be tonight's supper sorted then.
It's another glorious day (17°, but I'd say feeling warmer than that), and a lovely amble has been had.
One of my favourite cheese and biscuit combinations is applewood cheddar on the Hovis biscuits that are shaped liked a loaf, but are smaller and less crumbly than a standard digestive. They are my Sunday evening treat, with a glass of red.
In Other News, the Slimming World plan is not going too well just now...
I must admit, my addiction to cheese is something of a nightmare to my waistline.
I have finished my literature review and research questions assignment! I need to proof read and tidy it tomorrow and write a progress review, but I hope to submit on Friday. Then I can get stuck into some planning for my pilot in the autumn.
I should know, after all these years NOT TO EAT UNDER-RIPE STONE FRUIT. Not. Ever.
The thing I miss is the liqueur they make in the northern Balkans from juniper berries. It tastes like creosote and washing-up liquid but by god it does for an upset stomach. I made do with some Dutch genever.
The agony having somewhat abated I'm off to grill a lamb chop.
Cherries are in season and yesterday the rouge family purchased a goodly quantity of the same on the market. There being too many to eat before they go bad, I could make a cherry pie, thinks I. Cherry pie is delicious.
So once Captain Pyjamas is safely away for his afternoon nap, I begin the operation. I chop up and pit cherries and get juice everywhere until I look like an axe murderer. All going well so far. I have slightly less cherries than in any of the recipes I have seen but I figure I can adapt. I check in the cupboard for a suitable pie tin and realise that I possess none of the correct dimensions. Oh. I know, I have mince pie tins, I can make little diddy cherry pies. That would be cute.
The recipe says add sugar to the cherries, and cornflour, except that we're out of cornflour. Oops. I do have tapioca flour, though, that should work, right? How much? No idea. Add a couple of spoons and hope for the best. On the stove they go. Now about that pastry. I follow the same sweet pastry recipe I always use, but for some reason, it produces nothing resembling rollable pastry. Add some milk, manage to make a ball, stick it in the fridge to chill. Smell burning sugar and realise that I have forgotten about the cherries and that they are now welding themselves onto the bottom of the pan. Decant the cherries into a bowl and spend 20 minutes scouring away the burnt caramel with the aid of an industrial cleaning agent.
That pastry should be ready now, right? Out of the fridge it comes and turns out to be nigh on impossible to roll without falling apart. Check small tins and realise that if I use the mince pie cutters they come out too small and if I cut round a saucer they come out too big. New plan: cut two circles around a plate and bake it on a flat baking sheet. Pastry Will Not Roll without falling apart. Swear viciously. After three goes, manage to roll out first circle and transfer it to the baking sheet. On pouring the cherries over the top, discover that a) I should have used less tapioca flour and I now have cherry-flavoured silly putty, and b) I have slightly too much filling for the size of the pastry circle. Oh well, too late now. Roll the remaining Ill-begotten Pastry of Beelzebub into something like a slightly larger circle and flop it over the whole damn mess. Poke a hole in the top for form but it's hardly necessary given all the cracks the steam (and pie filling) can escape from. Now I somehow have to stick the top and bottom together. Milk. The application of a fork to try to adhere the edges results in the pastry sundering yet further and is abandoned. In the oven with the damn thing. Remember my mother's motto, "If at first you don't succeed, give up." I am never making another cherry pie ever again so long as I may live.
It goes without saying that my kitchen is by now a passable approximation of Armageddon.
I still have hideous memories of The Worst Hangover of My Life, caused by a Bulgarian liquer that I was assured had it's origins in apricots but which tasted a bit like aviation fuel smells (if you know what I mean). For two days my head felt like someone had tried to perform a lobotomy without benefit of anaesthetic
Forgive my impertinence, but may I ask whether congratulations are in order?
ROFL
Well, there is to be a happy event at the beginning of October - but that is the arrival of my fifth grandchild and has no connection to my lunch choices.
I'm rather puzzled about the cheese/ginger-nut combo, I have to confess. Digestives - yes, especially with strong-ish Cheddar - but ginger-nuts?
I think it was a progression, starting with eating cheese with rich fruit cake, and then to eating it with ginger parkin. In the absence of either of those cakes, I like to eat the occasional ginger nut with a nice sharp cheese - usually extra mature cheddar , but at the moment the Red Fox previously mentioned
Cherries are in season and yesterday the rouge family purchased a goodly quantity of the same on the market. There being too many to eat before they go bad, I could make a cherry pie, thinks I. Cherry pie is delicious.
So once Captain Pyjamas is safely away for his afternoon nap, I begin the operation. I chop up and pit cherries and get juice everywhere until I look like an axe murderer. All going well so far. I have slightly less cherries than in any of the recipes I have seen but I figure I can adapt. I check in the cupboard for a suitable pie tin and realise that I possess none of the correct dimensions. Oh. I know, I have mince pie tins, I can make little diddy cherry pies. That would be cute.
The recipe says add sugar to the cherries, and cornflour, except that we're out of cornflour. Oops. I do have tapioca flour, though, that should work, right? How much? No idea. Add a couple of spoons and hope for the best. On the stove they go. Now about that pastry. I follow the same sweet pastry recipe I always use, but for some reason, it produces nothing resembling rollable pastry. Add some milk, manage to make a ball, stick it in the fridge to chill. Smell burning sugar and realise that I have forgotten about the cherries and that they are now welding themselves onto the bottom of the pan. Decant the cherries into a bowl and spend 20 minutes scouring away the burnt caramel with the aid of an industrial cleaning agent.
That pastry should be ready now, right? Out of the fridge it comes and turns out to be nigh on impossible to roll without falling apart. Check small tins and realise that if I use the mince pie cutters they come out too small and if I cut round a saucer they come out too big. New plan: cut two circles around a plate and bake it on a flat baking sheet. Pastry Will Not Roll without falling apart. Swear viciously. After three goes, manage to roll out first circle and transfer it to the baking sheet. On pouring the cherries over the top, discover that a) I should have used less tapioca flour and I now have cherry-flavoured silly putty, and b) I have slightly too much filling for the size of the pastry circle. Oh well, too late now. Roll the remaining Ill-begotten Pastry of Beelzebub into something like a slightly larger circle and flop it over the whole damn mess. Poke a hole in the top for form but it's hardly necessary given all the cracks the steam (and pie filling) can escape from. Now I somehow have to stick the top and bottom together. Milk. The application of a fork to try to adhere the edges results in the pastry sundering yet further and is abandoned. In the oven with the damn thing. Remember my mother's motto, "If at first you don't succeed, give up." I am never making another cherry pie ever again so long as I may live.
It goes without saying that my kitchen is by now a passable approximation of Armageddon.
It tasted quite nice.
I hope you will forgive me, @la vie en rouge, but this has given me such a giggle 😂! Hope all is calm now 🍷.
Poor La Vie - sending a huge virtual GIN!
I can sort of see the progression from fruit cake and CHEESE (heaven) to ginger parkin. Maybe I should be brave one day ...
I've got a few job applications in the pipeline, and one of them e-mailed an application form to me this morning. I've spent what feels like hours completing it, to discover that it'll have to be printed and sent by snail-mail, as there are "yes" and "no" boxes where you can't put things in the box, and it'll have to be signed. With a pen. And then put in an envelope and posted ...
Modern technology, eh?
All this means that I haven't ambled yet - I haven't been further than the back garden, to help S. with the assembly of her new birdie bistro.
It's an utterly glorious day, so amblage will follow forthwith.
Cherries are in season and yesterday the rouge family purchased a goodly quantity of the same on the market. There being too many to eat before they go bad, I could make a cherry pie, thinks I. Cherry pie is delicious.
So once Captain Pyjamas is safely away for his afternoon nap, I begin the operation. I chop up and pit cherries and get juice everywhere until I look like an axe murderer. All going well so far. I have slightly less cherries than in any of the recipes I have seen but I figure I can adapt. I check in the cupboard for a suitable pie tin and realise that I possess none of the correct dimensions. Oh. I know, I have mince pie tins, I can make little diddy cherry pies. That would be cute.
The recipe says add sugar to the cherries, and cornflour, except that we're out of cornflour. Oops. I do have tapioca flour, though, that should work, right? How much? No idea. Add a couple of spoons and hope for the best. On the stove they go. Now about that pastry. I follow the same sweet pastry recipe I always use, but for some reason, it produces nothing resembling rollable pastry. Add some milk, manage to make a ball, stick it in the fridge to chill. Smell burning sugar and realise that I have forgotten about the cherries and that they are now welding themselves onto the bottom of the pan. Decant the cherries into a bowl and spend 20 minutes scouring away the burnt caramel with the aid of an industrial cleaning agent.
That pastry should be ready now, right? Out of the fridge it comes and turns out to be nigh on impossible to roll without falling apart. Check small tins and realise that if I use the mince pie cutters they come out too small and if I cut round a saucer they come out too big. New plan: cut two circles around a plate and bake it on a flat baking sheet. Pastry Will Not Roll without falling apart. Swear viciously. After three goes, manage to roll out first circle and transfer it to the baking sheet. On pouring the cherries over the top, discover that a) I should have used less tapioca flour and I now have cherry-flavoured silly putty, and b) I have slightly too much filling for the size of the pastry circle. Oh well, too late now. Roll the remaining Ill-begotten Pastry of Beelzebub into something like a slightly larger circle and flop it over the whole damn mess. Poke a hole in the top for form but it's hardly necessary given all the cracks the steam (and pie filling) can escape from. Now I somehow have to stick the top and bottom together. Milk. The application of a fork to try to adhere the edges results in the pastry sundering yet further and is abandoned. In the oven with the damn thing. Remember my mother's motto, "If at first you don't succeed, give up." I am never making another cherry pie ever again so long as I may live.
It goes without saying that my kitchen is by now a passable approximation of Armageddon.
It tasted quite nice.
I hope you will forgive me, @la vie en rouge, but this has given me such a giggle 😂! Hope all is calm now 🍷.
I live to serve
I found another lump of disintegrated pastry under the kitchen table this morning. It had ossified into a sort of fossil.
Cherries are in season and yesterday the rouge family purchased a goodly quantity of the same on the market. There being too many to eat before they go bad, I could make a cherry pie, thinks I. Cherry pie is delicious.
So once Captain Pyjamas is safely away for his afternoon nap, I begin the operation. I chop up and pit cherries and get juice everywhere until I look like an axe murderer. All going well so far. I have slightly less cherries than in any of the recipes I have seen but I figure I can adapt. I check in the cupboard for a suitable pie tin and realise that I possess none of the correct dimensions. Oh. I know, I have mince pie tins, I can make little diddy cherry pies. That would be cute.
The recipe says add sugar to the cherries, and cornflour, except that we're out of cornflour. Oops. I do have tapioca flour, though, that should work, right? How much? No idea. Add a couple of spoons and hope for the best. On the stove they go. Now about that pastry. I follow the same sweet pastry recipe I always use, but for some reason, it produces nothing resembling rollable pastry. Add some milk, manage to make a ball, stick it in the fridge to chill. Smell burning sugar and realise that I have forgotten about the cherries and that they are now welding themselves onto the bottom of the pan. Decant the cherries into a bowl and spend 20 minutes scouring away the burnt caramel with the aid of an industrial cleaning agent.
That pastry should be ready now, right? Out of the fridge it comes and turns out to be nigh on impossible to roll without falling apart. Check small tins and realise that if I use the mince pie cutters they come out too small and if I cut round a saucer they come out too big. New plan: cut two circles around a plate and bake it on a flat baking sheet. Pastry Will Not Roll without falling apart. Swear viciously. After three goes, manage to roll out first circle and transfer it to the baking sheet. On pouring the cherries over the top, discover that a) I should have used less tapioca flour and I now have cherry-flavoured silly putty, and b) I have slightly too much filling for the size of the pastry circle. Oh well, too late now. Roll the remaining Ill-begotten Pastry of Beelzebub into something like a slightly larger circle and flop it over the whole damn mess. Poke a hole in the top for form but it's hardly necessary given all the cracks the steam (and pie filling) can escape from. Now I somehow have to stick the top and bottom together. Milk. The application of a fork to try to adhere the edges results in the pastry sundering yet further and is abandoned. In the oven with the damn thing. Remember my mother's motto, "If at first you don't succeed, give up." I am never making another cherry pie ever again so long as I may live.
It goes without saying that my kitchen is by now a passable approximation of Armageddon.
It tasted quite nice.
This is lovely. Forgive me, but I must stick it in the quotes file so I can read it again (and again, and again...)
I must admit that cherry pie is far too tedious a thing for me to bake (though hubby is the baker here anyway).
Bacon and egg muffins for lunch, and chicken kievs with sweet potato fries and coleslaw for tea.
I have finished my first year doctorate submission and the accompanying progress review! Hubby will proof read it and then I can submit it tomorrow. A quarter of a way through my doctorate now.
la vie en rouge, your description sounds like my first few attempts at gluten free pastry - which I ended up pushing into a flan tin like cheesecake base. I've since found rolling the stuff out between two sheets of greaseproof paper does sort of work, At least I have something to pick up and move around.
My late mother-in-law, however, would rapidly make a pie with a tin of stewed steak as filling, whenever she was stuck for a meal, and her Cherry Pie for pudding on a Sunday was The Best.
LVER, if you get cherries again I can send you a fabulous recipe for Cherry Bakewell blondies .....
OK, your kitchen still has to look like the set for the Texas Chainsaw Massacre while you get the pits out of the cherries, but otherwise it's a dreammmmmmmmh
I must admit that yesterday's pastry turned out fine, once it had warmed up a bit from a night in the fridge: we had pear and stilton tart, as I had some of both to use up.
As I said, it tasted quite nice in the end, if not very aesthetic. We named it torture à la cerise (cherry pie in French is tourte à la cerise). I still don't know what went wrong - that pastry recipe works for me usually.
Handed my assignment in today and then spent a pleasant afternoon gardening. Cheese scones with cream cheese mid afternoon and a takeaway Indian for tea, with English champagne to celebrate the end of the academic year.
I have a natty little gadget for taking the stones out of cherries. You still get juice everywhere though. It always amazes me how far it goes!
Perhaps the best place to eat cherries is in the bath ...
Because the restrictions have been lifted a bit here, this afternoon we had a bit of a family get-together (with distancing) in the garden. At various points (though not all at once), both my nieces arrived with their wee dogs (who didn't do distancing at all), my brother and sister-in-law brought a load of groceries, and a bit later my nephew and his fiancee turned up. All in all a very nice afternoon.
I can't get over this weather (it was 25° here today): as my sister observed, how utterly awful would the lockdown have been if it had been winter, and we couldn't even enjoy the garden, let alone go for a walk?
I love the sunshine but not the heat. So I have to pick my time to go outside. Not everyone loves heatwaves! But I am not wishing for rain, though the garden is, and probably the farmers.
I'm not a sun-worshipper either, Puzzler: 25° is the absolute top limit of my comfort zone! When we were out in the garden yesterday, I made sure I sat as much in the shade as I could - it was still jolly hot!
My other nephew and his wife are coming round later with Archie the Adorable: I suspect that the distancing thing will be really difficult, as Archie's just started to walk (and we're both going to want to give him cuddles).
Impaled on the horns of a dilemma ...
We got a delivery yesterday from Hello Fresh (my niece gave us a voucher for an introductory pack), and I'll probably do one of the meals from it for supper. The package has the ingredients for three meals; unfortunately they've only sent a recipe card for one of them, so it looks like I'll have to use my imagination, or (if all else fails) look up the recipe on their app.
Busy day so far, I went for a 2 mile walk and then I planted up some tomato plants, watered the garden, weeded the veg patch and hoed half of the area my husband needs to lay ground sheet and decking in. But it is now too hot out there for me (my covid infection means my heart rate can’t tolerate heat and starts racing).
Might have a picnic lunch in the shade.
Comments
I'll get me coat...
I managed to get some writing done (currently justifying my research questions). Now having a beer and feeling too tired and lazy to do anything.
I've encountered toast soldiers in lots of (English) books, and I understand what they are. What puzzles me is why they're called that? (Maybe this should be on the "Proof Americans and Brits speak a different language" thread.)
Some spare guitar strings arrived in the post, so replacing the old ones will be the highlight of tomorrow (apart from standing in a queue at Morrisons).
Guilty as charged, m'lud!
What do you mean, not funny? Four Candles has to be one of the best sketches in the history of television ...
Happy birthday to Little Miss Feet anyway!
The pasta thing came out rather well; S. was very impressed, and it did have a nice gutsy flavour. Definitely one to do again.
@fineline - I wonder if in The New Normal™ arboreal osteopathy will be A Thing ...
I love the idea of an onion bhaji in a hot cross bun; I usually eat cheese in mine.
'It is the very error of the moon. She comes more nearer earth than she was wont. And makes [people] mad.'
Forgive my impertinence, but may I ask whether congratulations are in order?
It’s that prevarication time of day, when I contemplate walking upstairs to continue that research assignment. This evening is the weekly Zoom prayer group.
* the nicest cake we've tried with GF flour and dairy free marge substitution.
I'm rather puzzled about the cheese/ginger-nut combo, I have to confess. Digestives - yes, especially with strong-ish Cheddar - but ginger-nuts? Not at all sure about that!
A nice gentleman has just delivered a box of very interesting looking comestibles from Root to Market - veggies, flour, yeast, WINE, tea and a chicken PIE.
That'll be tonight's supper sorted then.
It's another glorious day (17°, but I'd say feeling warmer than that), and a lovely amble has been had.
In Other News, the Slimming World plan is not going too well just now...
I have finished my literature review and research questions assignment! I need to proof read and tidy it tomorrow and write a progress review, but I hope to submit on Friday. Then I can get stuck into some planning for my pilot in the autumn.
The thing I miss is the liqueur they make in the northern Balkans from juniper berries. It tastes like creosote and washing-up liquid but by god it does for an upset stomach. I made do with some Dutch genever.
The agony having somewhat abated I'm off to grill a lamb chop.
What's the name of the north Balkan stuff? Slivovitz came to mind, but that's plum brandy, I think.
Cherries are in season and yesterday the rouge family purchased a goodly quantity of the same on the market. There being too many to eat before they go bad, I could make a cherry pie, thinks I. Cherry pie is delicious.
So once Captain Pyjamas is safely away for his afternoon nap, I begin the operation. I chop up and pit cherries and get juice everywhere until I look like an axe murderer. All going well so far. I have slightly less cherries than in any of the recipes I have seen but I figure I can adapt. I check in the cupboard for a suitable pie tin and realise that I possess none of the correct dimensions. Oh. I know, I have mince pie tins, I can make little diddy cherry pies. That would be cute.
The recipe says add sugar to the cherries, and cornflour, except that we're out of cornflour. Oops. I do have tapioca flour, though, that should work, right? How much? No idea. Add a couple of spoons and hope for the best. On the stove they go. Now about that pastry. I follow the same sweet pastry recipe I always use, but for some reason, it produces nothing resembling rollable pastry. Add some milk, manage to make a ball, stick it in the fridge to chill. Smell burning sugar and realise that I have forgotten about the cherries and that they are now welding themselves onto the bottom of the pan. Decant the cherries into a bowl and spend 20 minutes scouring away the burnt caramel with the aid of an industrial cleaning agent.
That pastry should be ready now, right? Out of the fridge it comes and turns out to be nigh on impossible to roll without falling apart. Check small tins and realise that if I use the mince pie cutters they come out too small and if I cut round a saucer they come out too big. New plan: cut two circles around a plate and bake it on a flat baking sheet. Pastry Will Not Roll without falling apart. Swear viciously. After three goes, manage to roll out first circle and transfer it to the baking sheet. On pouring the cherries over the top, discover that a) I should have used less tapioca flour and I now have cherry-flavoured silly putty, and b) I have slightly too much filling for the size of the pastry circle. Oh well, too late now. Roll the remaining Ill-begotten Pastry of Beelzebub into something like a slightly larger circle and flop it over the whole damn mess. Poke a hole in the top for form but it's hardly necessary given all the cracks the steam (and pie filling) can escape from. Now I somehow have to stick the top and bottom together. Milk. The application of a fork to try to adhere the edges results in the pastry sundering yet further and is abandoned. In the oven with the damn thing. Remember my mother's motto, "If at first you don't succeed, give up." I am never making another cherry pie ever again so long as I may live.
It goes without saying that my kitchen is by now a passable approximation of Armageddon.
It tasted quite nice.
Congratulations on your perseverance, LVER. You deserve a glass of something, and some pie.
Brinjevec or Borovička depending where you are.
...as to Awful Hangovers, I suppose the locals are weaned on the stuff, so they're used to it, unlike us Foreigners!
Well, there is to be a happy event at the beginning of October - but that is the arrival of my fifth grandchild and has no connection to my lunch choices.
I think it was a progression, starting with eating cheese with rich fruit cake, and then to eating it with ginger parkin. In the absence of either of those cakes, I like to eat the occasional ginger nut with a nice sharp cheese - usually extra mature cheddar , but at the moment the Red Fox previously mentioned
I hope you will forgive me, @la vie en rouge, but this has given me such a giggle 😂! Hope all is calm now 🍷.
I can sort of see the progression from fruit cake and CHEESE (heaven) to ginger parkin. Maybe I should be brave one day ...
I've got a few job applications in the pipeline, and one of them e-mailed an application form to me this morning. I've spent what feels like hours completing it, to discover that it'll have to be printed and sent by snail-mail, as there are "yes" and "no" boxes where you can't put things in the box, and it'll have to be signed. With a pen. And then put in an envelope and posted ...
Modern technology, eh?
All this means that I haven't ambled yet - I haven't been further than the back garden, to help S. with the assembly of her new birdie bistro.
It's an utterly glorious day, so amblage will follow forthwith.
I live to serve
I found another lump of disintegrated pastry under the kitchen table this morning. It had ossified into a sort of fossil.
This is lovely. Forgive me, but I must stick it in the quotes file so I can read it again (and again, and again...)
Bacon and egg muffins for lunch, and chicken kievs with sweet potato fries and coleslaw for tea.
I have finished my first year doctorate submission and the accompanying progress review! Hubby will proof read it and then I can submit it tomorrow. A quarter of a way through my doctorate now.
My late mother-in-law, however, would rapidly make a pie with a tin of stewed steak as filling, whenever she was stuck for a meal, and her Cherry Pie for pudding on a Sunday was The Best.
I should send you some of my shortcrust pastry - invariably it turns out like something the Romans used for road building.
OK, your kitchen still has to look like the set for the Texas Chainsaw Massacre while you get the pits out of the cherries, but otherwise it's a dreammmmmmmmh
Mrs. S, slavering
Perhaps the best place to eat cherries is in the bath ...
Because the restrictions have been lifted a bit here, this afternoon we had a bit of a family get-together (with distancing) in the garden. At various points (though not all at once), both my nieces arrived with their wee dogs (who didn't do distancing at all), my brother and sister-in-law brought a load of groceries, and a bit later my nephew and his fiancee turned up. All in all a very nice afternoon.
I can't get over this weather (it was 25° here today): as my sister observed, how utterly awful would the lockdown have been if it had been winter, and we couldn't even enjoy the garden, let alone go for a walk?
My other nephew and his wife are coming round later with Archie the Adorable: I suspect that the distancing thing will be really difficult, as Archie's just started to walk (and we're both going to want to give him cuddles).
Impaled on the horns of a dilemma ...
We got a delivery yesterday from Hello Fresh (my niece gave us a voucher for an introductory pack), and I'll probably do one of the meals from it for supper. The package has the ingredients for three meals; unfortunately they've only sent a recipe card for one of them, so it looks like I'll have to use my imagination, or (if all else fails) look up the recipe on their app.
Might have a picnic lunch in the shade.