Ooops...

Oh dear. Over a week since I posted last - there has been a fair bit going on but this just won't do! There. Given myself a smack on the hand and shall now try to proceed with a fair amount of speed or at least frequency.

Let's start with a thought... Just need to find it...

'Man is a goal seeking animal. His life only has meaning if he is reaching out and striving for his goals' ~ Aristotle

This is so true... Especially to me at the moment. You see I seem to be somewhat challenged. In the knitting department. People have been doing it for goodness knows how many years but to me it's still a challenge. Make that impossible. I'm purl dyslexic I've concluded - they all seem to end up being knit stitches... A dear friend has just had a baby boy and I'm trying desperately to make him some booties from the Debbie Bliss baby book for beginners... It's not working terribly well... However, I shall succeed. Perhaps I just need to concentrate more...

The reason for my absence has largely been owing to a quick trip down to Cornwall. Stu had a meeting down there for work so I toddled along too and we stayed overnight. Very nice it was too. I'll add some photos and a bit more waffle but for now, I have trifles to make for work so need to get a wiggle on!

Tuesday tought...

'Patience! The windmill never strays in search of the wind' ~ Andy J. Sklivis

This quote is so appropriate to me and something that I know to some extent is a fault of mine (it can also be one of my strong points at times though, it just all depends on the situation!)... I am SO impatient - as soon as I think something I'm off doing it, finding it, making it happen. Sometimes for me to only then find a better / different way of doing it, finding it, making it happen. As my mother has always told me, patience is a virtue...

Something fishy...

I don't know where the time has gone! I had full intentions of posting about my daily thought on Saturday but the day just disappeared!

On Sunday we had a lovely day out with friends. We went crayfishing and then for a BBQ at their house. Great fun was had by all... I had never done fishing of any sort before but our local rivers are teeming with American crayfish (apparently our native ones have white on their claws) and they were SO easy to catch...

Here is D, R (D's dad...) and me all looking into the river...

Here is our friend K looking the part...

And here he is again with a crayfish attached to his finger... Honestly - what is it with boys and doing daft things?!

We then returned to H and D for a lovely BBQ. H had worked SO hard with all the lovely food and we really appreciated it. Very yummy indeed!

However I also got an unexpected gift... D's parents live on a smallholding and therefore have various animals. A local organic farm has recently decided to get rid of their chickens as they can import the eggs from abroad cheaper (don't get me started - I'm furious...). Therefore they re-homed 2 for themselves and 2 for me! We have friends who have chickens who really wanted one though so I'm now the proud owner of one black rock! The only problem is that I can't think of a name that suits her... Any suggestions? She's beautiful and has the most lovely dark green tinge to her shiny black feathers. She's laying as well which always makes me happy! I'll take a photo of her soon once the weather cheers up a bit...

Saturday Thought

'Remember happiness doesn't depend on who you are or what you have; it depends solely upon what you think' ~ Dale Carnegie

I think I might post more about this later as it's really struck a cord with me...

Friday thought

'Never mistake knowledge for wisdom. One helps you make a living; the other helps you make a life' ~ Sandra Carey

Jammy Words

It has been a very jam filled week this week which is rather strange because prior to this blog, jam making hasn't featured very highly on my list of priorities because of the trouble I have making it on the electric hob. However, as I've already said, my whizzy jam maker has changed all that - it's one gadget that I absolutely LOVE. I went into town this morning to pick up a few ingredients for work as I have been baking today and so stopped at the market and picked up some fruit ~ 6 punnets of English raspberries, 3lbs greengages, 5 nectarines and 2lbs pears for £9. Bargain I think... Once I was home I decided that I'd make even more jam and I'd start with the greengages. I haven't made greengage jam before so I turned to my trust RC Preserving Handbook... ARGH! No recipe! Ok, so I assumed equal quantities, a little bit of water but not being terribly experienced in jam making I really wanted someone to say 'yes dear, that's right, now off you go and take the stones out of those greengages'.... So I scanned my bookcase. I'm quite a fan of cookery books. In fact I'm a BIG fan of cookery books. I love them. I read them like novels. One of my greatest pleasures in life is sitting down with a new book, armed with a cuppa and spending half an hour looking at the photos, feeling the pages, reading the text. I love them. I've got quite a few downstairs now but most of my collection is still in the loft - we moved into this house 2 years ago and because of the amount of work that needed / needs to be done, to keep moving all these books just wasn't an option. Hence they are still in storage because we still live on a building site... I will be one happy lady on the day that my beloved books make it downstairs! Now I'm not a terribly 'particular' person in terms of the house - I like it to be tidyish and preferably hygienic but other than that, pretty much anything goes. However, I have recently sorted my bookcase and arranged my cookery books in alphabetical order by author. Yes, I know, I know but...it's brilliant! I can find any single book I want now in a matter of seconds. Here it is...

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, I was waffling about scanning my bookcase for a holding hand whilst I made greengage jam. Yes, well there, sat on the bookcase peeping out I found the answer to my prayers that I'd totally forgotten about:

Mrs Beeton's Jam-Making. What a treat! I purchased it on eBay a few years ago just because I was intrigued by it. However, we then moved and it just happened to be placed in the box which I opened. What a treat - all sorts of lovely recipes for all sorts of things! I'm not sure when the book was published but I think it's quite old. It has those lovely little notes on the inside cover and around the recipes that previous owners have added too. It's such a treat and will be my bedtime reading for the rest of the week! I'll let you know of anything that really stands out recipe wise... Needless to say that the greengage jam looks fab... Another one of my favourites! Just as well we like jam in this household!

Thursday Thought

I'm trying to use this blog in an effort to gain more knowledge about all sorts of things including me and my abilities but also to encourage me to think and analyse more things in a deeper sense. Therefore I've decided that I'm going to add a daily thought to my blog. I've seen it done on other blogs that I'm fond of and think it might add another dimension to my daily ramblings. It might be a quote, it might be a news snippet, it might be something controversial which isn't necessarily my view point but is something that, for whatever reason, I need to consider more perhaps as a differing point of view. But whatever it is, it is aimed to make me (and perhaps you too!) think about it in some way or form.

'If most of us are ashamed of shabby clothes and shoddy furniture, let us be more ashamed of shabby ideas and shoddy philosophies' ~ Albert Einstein

A day of two halves.

It's definitely been a day of two halves here. First thing this morning wasn't great - I was a little bit glum. Not sure why, we had some fantastic news last night - Stu and my Dad got their first order for their new company so we celebrated last night! This morning however I was a little bit down. Not for any particular reason just a little bit glum - perhaps it was the weather. It was very cool, windy and damp here first thing... Anyway, I've managed to get quite a lot done today - I haven't had to work so just general housework bits and bobs. Ironing, washing, cleaning etc. I also made some gooseberry jam using a recipe from the River Cottage preserving book and my bobby-dazzler of a jam maker. I've decided that gooseberry jam is magic - green fruit make dark pink jam. Now that's clever!!

This afternoon has been decidedly better - I had a very long and lovely lunch with my pal V. She's expecting a baby and is now about a week overdue so it was lovely to see her and check that she's all ok, which she seems to be - just a bit fed up and would like to meet this bump of hers. All in good time I've assured her - 'bump' is just too comfy for the time being. It was a lovely lunch actually; we didn't meet up until nearly 3pm (much as I adore V, her time keeping is shocking - a fact that she openly admits!) and then sat on the terrace of the local corn exchange which is now quite a modern, flashy restaurant. Fortunately the clouds and rain had given way to sunshine and it was beautifully warm. V had a chicken salad and I had a chicken breast burger which was actually very good. We spent a good couple of hours chatting away, putting the world to rights. Hopefully next time I see her she'll have her bundle of joy to share with us too!

Oooh, something else nice happened today too! The postman came! I like our postman - he always stop to say 'hello!' and have a chat, stroke the dogs etc but today he brought me a very nice envelope and in the envelope was a letter from my new penpal down in the south-west! Yay! I've decided that I love letters - there is just something so different about them. I like the way they look and feel and even (this is going to make me sound odd...) smell! I find people's handwriting fascinating and I think you can tell so much about someone from the paper they use and the ink they write in. I loved sitting down with a cuppa and having a read. I'm going to see if I can get the time to sit down and write back later this evening and if not, then tomorrow after I've finished working... :-)

Not sure what's planned for this evening - Stu is travelling back from the Midlands where he's been on business today. I suppose I'd better finish labelling the jam and then whizz something up for dinner. In fact I might go and see if there is anything worth eating in my square foot kitchen garden - some spinach, pine nuts and mushrooms with lemon and pasta sounds like a plan...

Pizza. Yum.

Dinner in this household tends to fall into two camps. Namely either 'which culinary creation shall I spend hours slaving over this evening?' or 'I really, really can't be bothered'. It's normally not the latter these days but sometimes if I've been at work baking all day and it's really hot then the last thing I want to do it get home and start again. However, today was neither of those scenarios. Today was 'experiment day'! I try to have a few bits and bobs stashed away in the freezer to solve those 'can't be bothered' days and one of my favourite 'junk' foods is pizza. However, it's 40 minute round trip to get a pizza from here and if I can't be bothered to cook then I sure as hell can't be bothered to drive all that way, spend all that money and get something that to be honest looks like it has definitely seen better days. Homemade pizza is always a treat, especially this year when I've been able to get some salad leaves from the garden to go with it. However the base can take a while to make, prove etc. So, I wondered whether it would be possible to freeze homemade pizza bases, remove them from the freezer, chuck some toppings on and then bung it in the oven and wait for the time to *ding*! And indeed it is!!! YAY! I made the base in the bread maker last night, rolled it out and popped it in the oven for 5 minutes just to firm up a bit, then popped it in foil and chucked it in the freezer. Perfect! So when I next have an afternoon spare I'll be whizzing up a few of these as emergency dinners! I love it when homemade really does become even easier than bought. And as for taste - well, there's no comparison is there?

Here is tonight's dinner before it reached the oven...

This one was loaded with a tomato base, sun dried cherry tomatoes from the farm shop, Parma ham, salami, red pepper, oregano, marjoram, basil and buffalo mozzarella.

And here it is again once it has visited the oven - double yum! :-)

Pasta with Tomato and Mascapone Sauce

This is the recipe that H cooked for us on Saturday evening - it was totally and utterly yummy. She did tell me where the recipe came from but I'm afraid that I'd indulged in a couple of glasses of dry white on an empty stomach so can't quite remember... I'll edit the post if I remember to ask and find out...

Anyway, H also made pasta by hand which is one of my favourite foods ever. It's miles away from the majority of dried stuff that you can buy in this country... The recipe I use is 300g flour (ideally pasta flour but I've had good results with strong white flour too), 3 eggs and 1 egg yolk and a good gulp of olive oil. Mix to a dough, knead for 5 mins or so until elastic and then cover and leave to rest for 30 minutes or so. I then just whizz mine through a pasta maker (I'm sure you can do it with just a rolling pin but I think it would probably take a while), cut it into ribbons and leave to dry for a short time before either plunging into salted boiling water for a couple of minutes or packaging up and popping in the freezer for another day.

This sauce is yummy and definitely one that I'll be making again:

2 tbsp olive oil

1 punnet cherry tomatoes

1 onion

2 cloves of garlic

1 tsp sugar

100ml dry white wine

200g mascapone

seasoning to taste.

~ Heat the olive oil, add the tomatoes and fry until they burst their skins

~ Chop the onion and garlic, add and soften for 5 minutes or so

~ Add the sugar and wine, reduce until it resembles a syrup

~ Add mascapone and blitz with a hand blender or into a food processor

~ Season to taste

A lovely simple, delicious recipe. I think I'll be trying it myself later this week so will take a picture if I remember and I'll add it to this post.

My mouth is watering now.... :-)

P.S. Sorry it's all squashed up - I can't work out why I've got line spaces whilst I'll write and then once I publish the post it goes all 'squashy'! Anyone got any ideas?!

Sunday blessings...

Well, what a day yesterday turned out to be! Stu and I regularly go into our nearest town for a coffee on a Sunday morning. Or, in my case, a cup of tea. I've no idea why do such a thing but it's sort of become a habit and one which Stu really, really enjoys. Yes it's needless spending but if we can carry on doing this but try and cut down a lot of our other spending then as far as I'm concerned, for the time being it's fine. Besides, what I'm writing about in the rest of this post doesn't really link in with being careful with money... Anyway, rambling. Yes, coffee and friends of ours who we had dinner with the previous evening (great night, fab recipe to follow...) also joined us. So, there we are, coffee and pastries (and tea!) a plenty, putting the world to rights. Then H pulls a newspaper cutting from her bag regarding an auction that was taking place in a local hotel. They were going along for a look to see what was up for sale and did we fancy going too? I wasn't too bothered but Stu wanted to have a look so off we went. It was a varied mix - lamps, rugs, wine, pictures, laptops etc. and JEWELLERY! Now I'm not generally speaking a big jewellery person. I have several pieces of silver that I love, a charm bracelet that Stu bought me for my birthday last year that is very special and some earrings that are very precious to me. However I'd been thinking just the previous evening how lovely it would be to have a pendant that I could wear all the time. My eldest sister has worn a diamond pendant for as long as I can remember (think it has something to do with my grandmother but not entirely sure...) and it always looks beautiful. So, there in one of the cabinets is a solitaire pendant. Totally beautiful. I pointed it out to Stu in passing saying that I thought it was beautiful and moved on. About an hour later it came up for auction. The room fell silent. They were offering it for about 50% of its valuation cost. Next thing I know Stu has agreed to open the bidding, the hammer fell and I'm now the proud owner of a stunning pendant. I'm still shocked - as soon as I realised that it was mine I started to shake and cry. I really do live with an amazingly special man and I thank my lucky stars everyday for the blessings that I have...

New herbs...

What a lovely day I've had - I've been smiling virtually since I got up and have that very smug, contented glow about me. This morning I just pottered about; put some bread on for lunch, put some laundry away, put some more washing on, had a tidy up etc. Instead of the planned soup and bread for lunch (I'd make some potato and leek and also chicken, corn and leek soup earlier in the week) we ended up meeting my parents for a bite to eat at a lovely pub which is local to a large garden centre. Therefore (obviously) I had to visit said garden centre and picked up some more peas (mine unfortunately got eaten by pea moth caterpillars :-( ) and a nice rustic looking pot which is now home to my basil plant on the kitchen drainer. We had 'jobs' to do in Harlow such as picking up dog food and Stu needed some bits to continue the electrics at home so we jollied around for a bit before returning home. Since I've been back I've planted my herbs up in their container ~ now sat by the back door and looking rather splendid... I'll see how many I can remember but I've got mint, bay, lemon thyme, marjoram, oregano, chives, rosemary, parsley and sage. I'm planning on having a lovely herb circle when we get round the planting out the garden but it's nice to have run-of-the-mill herbs next to the back door ready for any culinary creation I should decide to whip up... I've also been having a nose through the River Cottage Preserving Book (inspired by a lovely friend on a forum I visit - GTM that's you that is!) and there is some rather lovely looking herb jellies in there that I just might have to try - they'd make a nice addition to the Christmas hampers that I'm intending to make this year...

I've also run the hoover round again. This is the trouble with very gorgeous but very hairy Labradors - there is constantly hair everywhere. It drives me mad, especially as I HATE hoovering. Pah.

Off out to friends for dinner this evening and not a lot else planned for tomorrow. Other than to continue acting as the peace corp for those pesky hens of mine... ;-)

Unplanned Saturdays...

Well it's the weekend again! The weeks are just flying past at a vast rate of knots at the moment... Stu managed to come home from work early yesterday so came chicken shopping with us and then we decided to give our local pub another try for dinner last night. What a mistake. It took them an hour to serve us any food at all and then it was suspiciously hot. Not feeling great this morning either so I guess that should tell me something. The hens have all been in the run together this morning and all hell has been breaking loose. I've just let them out for a run around the garden just to stop the noise! It was deafening and whilst we do live very rurally we also have neighbours to think about. I'll try putting them all back in together again in a while.


Other than that, there isn't really a plan for today. Stu is going to do some work on the house and I've still got to plant my herbs up from the market as I never got round to it yesterday... Ooops! Actually here are some photos of my jam from yesterday - it's set quite loosely so I'm now calling it 'conserve'... ;-)
When you open a jar it just smells of summer, it's SO yummy! Wish I'd put some bread on last night actually and then I could have had some on toast for breakfast which I still haven't had... Right, best try and find the coffee machine and get some coffee on....

I'm sure I'll be back later!

New purchases...

New hens! Meet Penny and Dorris!

Well, I've found the most lovely garden centre and rare breed poultry farm in Letchworth - Thorne's. It's absolutely splendid - the hens are in fabulous condition, it's very family friendly and the people there certainly know their stuff. They haven't got any pure breed hens ready to go at the moment so I've got two new hybrids - a Speckled Lady and a Welsummer (well, I think that's what the man said but I was away with the fairies by this point...). Appropriately named Dorris and Penny...

They're out in the garden at the moment, don't think they quite know what to make of my other two hens Jemima and Buffy. More to the point, I don't think that Buffy and Jemima know what to make of them!! This is definitely the worst part of getting hens - I hate the next 48 hours as they discover where everyone is in the pecking order, I just hope that it's over and done with as soon as possible with no blood shed!

Whilst we're on the subject, let me introduce my two older hens - Jemima who I've had for 4 years now and Buffy, my beloved Buff Orpington who I totally adore. She's sort of a chicken teddy bear...
And a special photo of my girl...

Happy hens and an even happier Mother Hen!

New things...

Well, how exciting. A blog. Wow. Goodness only knows what I'm going to write about or who will read it other than myself but that's not for me to worry about at the moment. I'm far more concerned with how these things 'work'... I'm not a technophobe but having said that I'm not exactly an IT whizz either...

Anyway, I'm hoping to use this blog to write my daily ramblings about my life in the Hertfordshire countryside, what I'm up to, what my family are up to and in the hope that it will gee me on a bit to get more done in my days. For the record I was quite poorly last year - a horrible experience in the workplace (I used to be a teacher...) left me all down (doctors insisted on calling it depression but I don't like that word...) and anxious and not wanting to go out of see anyone. This resulted in a very lethargic and dull Kate. I'm fighting back now!!

We live in a cottage in a small Hertfordshire village which is having A LOT of work done to it - we've extended it but are still re-plumbing, re-plastering and re-wiring it not to mention new kitchen, bathrooms and obviously decorating... Some photos might be nice of what we've achieved later on but one step at a time...

I've just used my new (well, had it quite some time but this is the first time I've used it...) jam maker and made strawberry jam for the first time :-) Not sure if it was properly at setting point but we'll see - if it's a bit runny we'll just call it strawberry conserve instead... In fact it's bleeping now to tell me that it's finished the 'wash' cycle... I do have a preserving pan etc. but electric hobs aren't very helpful when making jam... We've installed LPG so that in time I can cook on gas but until the new kitchen and oven are installed we have to wait for such luxuries...

Ok, I'm not going to make this a 'meet me' post, I'm going to tell you about my plans for today and then we'll see what happens. The plan for today - put the bed linen on the line as it's a glorious day here, plant the herbs that I got from the market yesterday, do a delivery for work (more on that another day) and then this afternoon I'm going hen shopping with my mum. I've discovered a poultry centre not a million miles away from here and I'd love another couple of pure breed hens so I'm going to see what it's like and what they've got...