Sigh........

Firstly,that tip of the day..........
If you put hair colour on, then put marmalade on, then realise halfway through everything that..........
a) the water won't be hot in time to rinse your hair
b) your hair and the marmalade will be done at the same time
you are in trouble,so turn boiling fruit off,stoke up fire to heat water as well as turning immersion heater on,then give your hair its quickest rinse ever,turn marmalade back on whilst trying to wrap hair in a towel.
At least I am not the only one who makes things like this see here.

More seriously,we are having a family panic,we have all been worried about youngest and her spotting during pregnancy whilst we thought middling daughter was muddling along just fine.
Middle daughter Sarah went for her 12 week scan Wednesday it threw up some anomalies so they immediately did a nuchal translucency scan,which suggested there was a very high chance of baby having a chromosomal anomaly like Down's syndrome or trisomy 18,well they sent her for a cvs test the next day,which is pretty horrid and carries a risk of miscarriage,she got the results today,her 25th birthday,no extra or missing chromosomes so that rules out all the more common problems,she now has to wait three weeks to find out if there are any translocation errors,insertion or deletion errors in the babies genes,but it looks a lot more promising than it did two days ago.And if all is okay we will know whether we need pink or blue too.
I thought I would make her a yummy cake,an old fashioned butter cream and jam filled birthday cake(her fave).I went to the shop in the village for eggs as my girls have been off lay for weeks,they only had cheap evil eggs,not only will I not buy them, but daughter would rather have a scone than eat anything battery,I went to see my friend who has pet hens but she had already given her spare eggs away.Then last night as I was tucking my girls in for the night what did I find,three perfect eggs in the nest box..........It may be a good omen.

Not Welsh or rare,but yummy.

I had cheats rarebit for lunch.........unlike the real thing it required no roux making or reduction of beer and mustard....in my strange but delish version you put your toast under the grill and whilst it is doing, grate cheese,add a beaten egg, a pinch of dry mustard and a teaspoon of horseradish sauce,mix well, spread on toast and plonk back under the grill till nicely cooked.It is jolly moreish.
Talking of food,when did my offspring turn into a plague of locusts ? If one more of them claims to be eating for triplets I will have to murder them,I even had one claim that she needed the energy as she was trying hard to make me another grandchild(insert rolly eyed gif here) Still I suppose it saved me having to eat all the choccies.......sigh !

Since the last posting I have made two newborn cardis from the new book (bloody kids) one in baby yellow and one in green,I will of course have to make at least another pair the same or arguments are bound to ensue,I have also started on a newborn basket-weave pattern sweater,but despite being good and doing a gauge swatch,I suspect it will be a better fit for Poppy's Barbie doll.
Just as an after-note,it is ruddy cold here...........

It's been a while.

Over a week, that is how long it has been since I last updated you on my exciting life.
Where to begin is the problem.........
I had a birthday between then and now,I am a third of a gross or four dozens..  

No you can't come in.

The new rescue hen is happily settled as part of the flock,
I haven't yet heard from the hospital about an appointment so no news about the aches and pains yet,I still think it is psoriatic rather than rheumatoid.The new jobs seem to be going well from my perspective,although it was way easier when all my hours were worked in one place,it is getting cold and wet cycling between the jobs that is the pain.
It is very early days, but as none of you know the offspring, I can share the news,my middle daughter has just thrown out her good for nothing partner only to discover she is seven weeks pregnant(oops),and my youngest daughter who has been trying for three years is five weeks pregnant,so fingers crossed I will be two grandchildren up next summer.Of course that means crocheting two of everything.
And my parents delivered the legendary Christmas hamper (I wish),I have to blog about it somewhere every year.My parents are definitely not foodies,my hamper consists of..........
six jellies,two cans of squirty cream fake cream,a tin of biccies,a packet of teabags,a jar of coffee,a multi-pack of ready salted crisps,a tin of pears and two of sliced peaches,three types of pasta,two bags long grain rice,a jar of sweet and sour sauce,a jar of chilli sauce,three tins of tuna, a bag of bread flour and a box of quality street.........my poor parents think pasta,chilli and sweet and sour are exotic fare,they mean well but please next year can I have a tenner in co-op vouchers..........

That went well-ish.....

The youngest and her other half came to dinner today,we were playing 'come dine with me' the food was brilliant,the entertainment went down well,retro themed PS1 and a couple of games.........just brilliant until I stood a plastic bowl on the hob,turned the wrong ring on and walked away.Sigh........at least I know the new smoke alarm works and is loud.
The kids were running round frantically searching everywhere for my inhaler whilst I tried to explain that it was ok I wasn't allergic to burning plastic..............all's well that ends well,the cooker is clean,the plastic tub was an old thing that holds a bunch of fridge magnets for amusing any kids who dare to come into the house.
The menu was sexed up a bit,leek and tatty soup became creamed vichyssoise with a mirepoix of lightly sautéed leek and potatoes as a garnish, glazed carrots meant add butter and honey swish about in the pan,the savoy cabbage was cooked in olive oil with bacon and garlic,the pork was perfection according to the son in law..........and the creamy cheesecake with a blackcurrant topping came from scummerfields....... a good day and another horrifying tale to add to the family repertoire.This themed thing comes from when the kids were growing up,we used to raid the cupboard and make what we could with what was in there a la ready steady cook,it was a good set of budgeting and cookery lessons for the kids without ever lecturing.
In other news,I have been referred to hospital to see a bone quack as my doc thinks I may have rheumatoid arthritis,I personally think I have psoriatic arthritis as I have had it on and off for donkeys years without any major progression(thank dog),so I will cross my fingers and hope they don't stay that way.

Yesterday.........

Now I know this is all in the wrong order,but as today is so horrid weather wise,very dark,raining and blowing a gale,I thought I would tell you about yesterday's fun.
It started well,I didn't want to get up,it was dark wet and miserable,so I traipsed down the garden in welly boots, umbrella and dressing gown,not a good look but it did the job.It was so damned miserable even the chickens didn't come out until late.I went to work, getting soaked en route,came home and got another drenching(bloody weather).
When I came in, the house was buzzing with great big blow flies,

the street stank and I knew what had happened,about a mile away as the crow flies, but outside the village, is a nasty chicken farm,one section for battery(watch this one) hens and another set of sheds full of hens(so much for the RSPCA freedom food label) for eating,well they were emptying out one lot ready for the next lot of extreme cruelty to begin,sadly the wind was blowing the wrong way,so all the bloated flies who had fed on hens that died and the faeces of those that had managed to live blew straight down the hill into the houses of me and my neighbours.I am surprised I didn't get OP poisoning from the amount of spray I used,next I swept up all the bodies I could find and then went to get on with my housework,because even I feel the need to clean up in those circumstances.What did I find,a murdered mouse in the sitting room,then in the middle of the night during a break in the monsoon Lucifer the cat the evil one managed to catch a sparrow and murder it in the bedroom,feathers everywhere.

Pectin test,the infallible method and other foody science.

After stewing your fruit for jam,jelly,marmalade etc and before adding any sugar place three tablespoons of methylated spirit in an old glass,add one tablespoon of the juice from your fruit ,wait one minute and then take a look,one firm gelatinous blob in the bottom shows you have a very high pectin content,such as you get from apples, lemons, blackcurrants or quince,two or three not quite so gelatinous blobs is a medium content,and runny fruit juice in there means either boil it up a lot more or add something to it with more pectin.Make sure to throw away the contents of your testing glass,not only is it flammable it is also extremely toxic.

Why do white fleshed quince turn that lovely lush colour anywhere from amber to red when cooked ? for the same reason autumn is full of rich ambers and reds,the colour of autumn leaves is down to production of chemicals called anthocyanins,produced in a deciduous trees leaves once chlorophyll production halts for the winter,when you cook and even more when you cook them with sugar the colourless phenolic compounds in quince turn into anthocyanins.Some wild and crab apples contain the same chemicals although not to the same degree as quince.
Did you know that in Tudor times quince paste was cut into squares and wrapped in edible gold foil in the houses of the nobility,it was also flavoured with what at the time were exotic spices from the Arab world such as rosewater,testicle juice musk or whale pukeambergris.

The quince has gathered every pleasing taste,
Thereby the queen of fruits she has been crowned.
Her taste is wine, a waft of musk her scent.
Her hue is gold, her shape, like the moon, round.”
—From The Arabian Nights,  p 130.

Ongoing quincing !

Following on from yesterdays blog,the flesh of the quinces is in one pan with a half dozen Japanese quince for the fragrance,the peels and cores (minus seeds) are in another pan with half a dozen Japanese quince for jelly.
They have been simmering in enough water to cover them for the past hour,not bad going considering it is only 6am now.
I have kept the seeds from the 'proper' quinces,I am going to attempt to grow them.

More dead bodies and some quince.

The evil one(AKA Lucifer the cat) has murdered a robin in the night and left it as a gift for me,I have also just found a pile of not robin coloured feathers,so am going to have to check he doesn't have a spare snack stashed somewhere.........ruddy cat,I wouldn't mind but my animals eat better than I do,well mostly,which is my segue into quinces....

My friend was at her sons school harvest festival yesterday, she spied a half dozen quinces in a little handled basket and made a donation for them,and brought them to me as a gift(ok friend you are forgiven for the last pc fixing session I had to do for you)it is so long since I had anything more than my tiny Japanese quinces that I wanted a memory refresher for membrillo and quince jelly recipes,while looking around the web I found some amazing foodie blogs,all well worth a peek a boo.......and if I get it just right I can make membrillo with the flesh and jelly with the skins and cores...........

Free food

There has been a conversation going on between my friend and I about cherry plums,I only saw my very first cherry plum about three weeks ago,then my friend discovered one in her garden.........
Now I have found a couple of the trees growing a few villages along from me....
So I have four pounds for jam making and a pound to munch on.....
The odd thing I discovered as I was prepping these feral plums is that they have no worms in,the Victoria plums that are in the garden are riddled with bugs,yet the wild ones are perfect.

Ah food !

Being a bit on the heavy side at the moment I have decided to watch what I eat for a while.
Do you know how deadly dull cottage cheese is? or toast without lashings of butter..........
I may however have found the answer,I have a rash of plums ripe at the moment so if I eat enough of them,nothing will stay in my tum long enough for me to get any calories .
My chickens however are not on a diet,having already eaten my lettuces,tomatoes and potato tops they snuck in the greenhouse earlier and ate a bell pepper plant.
Talking of eating,I saw on the beeb that a new species of pitcher plant has been found,it is so big it eats rats ! that's only two steps away from being a triffid if you ask me.Linky
The chickens and bantams are laying well,so I have no shortage of protein,no lettuce, peppers, pots or toms to go with them though,can you make a plum omelette?Ok because I am a bit daft I googled it,you really do get plum omelette recipes Linky
Right that's it I am off to stare lovingly at the real cheese in the fridge.