Stripy Granny Finished At Last and a New Addition

At last my lovely colourful Stripy blanket has been finished, I spent all of Friday afternoon hooking like mad to get the border finished. I had been feeling rather guilty that my blanket had been sitting in its basket all forgotten about and with really so little to do on it to finish I thought 'get on with it girl' and so I can get on with other projects without any guilt.

So here if the first of my Tah Dah's of todays blog

It just looked soooooo gorgeous all folded up and waiting to be taken to my little grandson

The colours are just so right with each other, they make you feel happy just looking at them. I was unsure about using an acrylic yarn as I much prefer natural fibres but this Stylecraft yarn was a dream to crochet with, soft, no rubbing on my fingers and it drapes really nicely 

I haven't made a huge blanket as it is for a childs bed so I do have a little bit of yarn left to go back into my stash, so keep your eyes open for more projects

And here it is on the beanie bed sitting and waiting for a little boy to come and snuggle up in, I couldn't wait to get it on his bed and see how lovely it looked, it has bought a ray of sunshine into the room, my heart skipped a little beat as it went on, and I had a lovely feeling again that giving something that is homemade and has had love and thought put into it shows how much you care and makes others see that your child is loved and well cared for.

My second Tah Dah is my finished Cath Kidston tapestry purse, it really took only a few days to make and finish so I am very pleased.

As it is a Diamond Jubilee year I thought that it would be a nice touch to stitch my initials and the year on the back of the purse so that if it survives a few years my children may look back and think of me.

My hand needlecraft has a lot to be desired so I first maked it all out with pencil on the back on my cut up Sainsburys tea towel and then just did little back stitches in red and blue

Here are all the bits just waiting to be put together

and here it is all lined in a lovely red and white polka dot cotton and with a zip!!!

 Now to be honest the zip has let the final project down a little, I really really struggled to get it in and with it pinned into place and pins sticking into me and after much cursing I did get it in but its not quite how I would have wished it to be

The finished purse is lovely I so enjoyed doing this it was really quick to do and gave a sense of virtually instant gratification. I don't know what I am going to use it for yet but no doubt I will soon find a useful purpose.

This weeks cake was a devine Carrot and Pineapple cake and it has stayed moist all week and I am glad that I tried something a little different, I topped it with a lovely sweet cream cheese topping.

So here is the recipe:-

300g plain flour

1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1tsp baking powder

2tsp cinnamon

4 eggs

250ml oil (I used sunflower oil)

200g soft brown sugar

the zest of an orange and a lemon

200g of grated carrot

150g chopped walnuts

227g of chopped tinned pineapple pieces

Pre heat the oven to 140c that is in my fan oven so a little hotter if yours is not a fan and line a 20cm cake tin, make sure that it is quite a deep tin as you don't want your mixture escaping the top!

Right first sift the flour baking powder, bicarb and cinnamon together and then add in the sugar.

Whisk together the eggs, zests and oil and add this to the flour and sugar. 

Stir in the grated carrots and then fold in the walnut (I actually didn't have any walnut so I used pecans) and then fold the pineapple pieces in, if you don't like pineapples then you could actually leave them out.

Put all this mixture into your tin, give it quick smooth over and pop into the oven for about 1 hour 20 minutes, give it a little test with a skewer and if it comes out clean with not mixture sticking to it then its ready.

While the cake is cooking, you can get on with the frosting, which is:-

125g of soft butter

250g cream cheese

50g icing sugar

The topping is so easy to make all you do is mix all the ingredients together, it is a good idea to make sure that the butter is soft and that the cream cheese is a room temperature so that is comes out lovely and silky smooth. Don't be tempted to put this frosting onto the cake before it is completely cold or it will just melt it and make it run off.

I make my cake look a little prettier by adding some little threads of orange zest just to give it a little colour. I will definitely be making this again, as you can see it was cut into and tested before I could even get my camera out!!

On a different note we now have a new addition to our family :) Her name is Tiddles, chosen by my youngest son Caleb. She is 7 weeks old and here she is with her little brother, isn't she just adorable!!!!!!

After the initial shock of discovering that we have a dog and a few hisses later I think that she has settled into our home quite nicely. Well she looks contented enough wouldn't you say?

I will soon be giving you an update on my next project which I am quite excited about!

Claire xx

Happiness and Decisions

The week started with more baking in anticipation of people calling around for tea and cakes, so I made some Chocolate and Almond biscuits, homemade biscuits are just so much better than shop bought and at least you know what is going into them, although sometimes this isn't such a good thing as you know exactly how much sugar you are eating!! :-

2oz dark chocolate cut into chunks
4oz butter
1 good dessertspoon of golden syrup
1 1/2 oz whole unblanched almonds
3oz demerara sugar
4oz self raising flour
pinch of salt
4oz porridge oats

Preheat the oven to 170c.
Chop into 1/4" (5mm) pieces the chocolate and the almonds, I use the unblanched almonds as I think they are much sweeter, put them to one side, then in a saucepan melt gently melt the butter, sugar and golden syrup.
Sift the flour and salt into a big mixing bowl, add the porridge oats and just over half of the chocolate and almonds, when all the ingredients in your saucepan have melted pour into the bowl and give a good mixing until thoroughly combined.
You will need two good sized baking sheets and onto them you take large walnut sized balls of the mixture and press on to your baking sheet to become flattened rounds measuring about 2" rounds, make sure you give enough space between then to spread.
The remaining nuts and chocolate your press onto the top and then pop the baking sheets into the pre heated oven for 15 minutes, take out of the oven and leave to cool on the baking sheets, if you try to remove them at this stage they will just break up into a little crumbly mess. When cool use a pallet knife to remove.

These little beauties didn't last long in the biscuit tin and I have to confess it was me that ate the majority, and I wonder why I have put on half a stone since Christmas???!!!

Next was a very quick apple scone which is great with cream or custard as a pudding as well as just a simple slice of cake :-

1 medium cooking apple chopped
pinch of salt
8oz self raising flour
2oz sugar
1tsp baking powder
2oz butter
1/4 pint milk

Pre heat oven to 200c.

Sieve the flour and baking powder into a bowl, add the sugar and rub in the butter until it looks like a crumbly mixture, drop in the apple and mix then add the milk and then get your hands in and knead until you get a dough, then I just put it straight onto a baking sheet to form a kind of rough circle about 1/4" thick, brush with milk, sprinkle with sugar and mark into 8 then into the oven for 20-25 minutes.

Finally my usual Victoria cream sponge

Friday night we went to a lovely newly opened Bistro with friends and I decided to wear my lovely Dorothy shoes :)

What a lovely evening we had, its so good sometimes to go out  and leave the children behind so we can play at being a couple and and not just a mum and dad. The evening ended with me being asked to knit or crochet a dishcloth for our friend who is an MP so along with also knitting dishcloths for my barrister friend this we thought would also look good on my C.V.
When my husband is asked what I do for a living he always says she is a Magistrate and knits dishcloths
for barristers!!!!!

Saturday morning was lovely so I did my ritual roam around the collectors market and this week came away with a lovely little leather collar stud case which had a lovely selection of old studs in it, this will look lovely in my display cupboard and even better if I can beg my dads old leather collar box which has my grandfathers initials on.

When I was wandering around I was stopped by a lady who asked my where I had bought my brooch I could feel myself flushing as I told her that I had made it myself, I couldn't believe that someone would be kind enough to comment on it

I then went into my favourite shop Bibelot to buy some of there lovely buttons, they must think I am very fussy as I had all of there jars out sorting though and picking out just the little ones

The lovely girls in the shop also commented on my brooch and asked if I had ever thought of making things to sell, as they sell locally produced items in their shop, so theres an idea I have been giving a lot of thought to.

With the weather going from this

My new Staffordshire Flag in the sunshine

to this!!! and all within the space of a few days

and with the power cut from 6am to 7.30pm I have been sitting in front of the fire doing more crocheting and thinking

crafting on the table with my lovely Cath Kidston craft bag

Some little brooches inspired by Attic24 and some key rings

A little cover to put my iPhone in, which was inspired by Attic24's herb pot cover

some lovely little Sunflower brooches which were my own design

and finally my lovely Debbie Bliss Andes wool which arrived in the post for my next project

Have a good week,

Claire xx

Visitors and Cooking

I have received my latest purchase from Ebay, a little set of antique pine drawers and it is now sitting on the side in my kitchen looking rather beautiful! I am soooo pleased with them.

Its a lovely day here on the hill the sort of day that makes you feel glad to be alive.

Our garden which is in desperate need of some TLC but with all we have to do on the house the garden will have to wait a little longer

The chickens this morning decided to sit on the bridge just outside my bedroom window and the cocks had a good old crow to wake us up (far too early)

This evening I have guests coming for dinner so have decided to do a very quick fish starter of smoked salmon, poached salmon and prawns in a marie rose sauce, I did this at Christmas and it was lovely!

For the main course we will have Coq Au Vin, which is a great dinner party meal as it can be made earlier in the day and improves during the day as the flavours develop.

Coq Au Vin

1oz butter

1tbsp olive oil

8 free range chicken thighs, I use thighs because I think they have a better flavour and are cheap

approx 4oz of smokey streaky bacon

approx 2oz diced pancetta (optional)

8oz button mushrooms

8 Shallots

2 tbsp flour

1/2 pint chicken stock, I use a Knorr gel stock cube when I don't have any homemade stock

1 pint of red wine

1 bouquet garni, mine is from Waitrose and is especially for poultry

1 or 2 large garlic cloves crushed

salt and pepper to season

chopped parsley to garnish

This serves 4 people

Melt butter and oil in a large pan, add the chicken skin side down to start and brown for about 10 - 15 minutes, remove and put on some paper towels to drain.

Thought I best put this picture in so nobody thought I was eating my own chickens!!

 

I use this type of shallot as it is a long shape and very sweet

Here is the bacon and pancetta, which I have diced, I am really very lucky as I was given a huge piece of home cured pancetta and it is so delicious!

Remove any excess fat so that you have approximately the same amount you started with and add the mushrooms, bacon and pancetta and shallots and cook over a high heat until golden brown. When done remove with a slotted spoon and drain on kitchen paper.

Put the wine into a saucepan and boil until it has reduced by half. I used a Merlot and a pint leaves you with about 1 glass left in the bottle which could be the cooks perk but as I am doing this in the morning its probably not a good idea.

Add the flour to the pan you cooked the chicken, bacon etc in and cook for about 3 minutes stirring all the time, gradually stir into this the stock and red wine which should have now reduced to 1/2 a pint (300ml), you may at this point think it has all gone horribly wrong but keep stirring or as I do use my balloon whisk and keep going until it becomes smooth.

Replace the chicken, bacon, pancetta, mushrooms and onions back to the pan and add the bouquet garni and garlic, season, being careful not to use too much salt as the bacon and pancetta are rather salty then cover and put in a pre-heated oven of 160c but mine is a fan oven so in a normal oven it will probably be 180c and cook for about an hour until the chicken is tender when you stick a fork in. You will not believe the smells that will be in your kitchen at this point it is definitely something to salivate at!

Garnish with some chopped parsley and serve. If you are making this for later, I usually cook for 15 minutes less and then give it 30 minutes when I re-heat it later in the day.

I will serve this with dauphinois potatoes and purple sprouting broccoli.

Dauphinois Potatoes

Buttered gratin dish
2lb potatoes
1/4 pint single cream
1/4 pint double cream
1 clove garlic finely chopped
salt and pepper
4oz gruyere cheese

Very thinly slice the potatoes, use a food processor of mandolin if you have one but it can be done by hand.
Put a layer of the potatoes slightly over lapping into the buttered gratin dish, season and sprinkle with some cheese and garlic, and pour a little of the cream over.
Continue to layer until all the potatoes, garlic, cream and cheese have been used.
Pop in a pre heated oven of 140c or 160c if not a fan oven for 1 1/2 hours it will be a creamy, cheese bowl full of heavenly fattening gorgeousness.

At this stage I was going to have put a picture up of the finished products, which were beautiful even though I do say so myself, unfortunately they were spooned into and plated up before I had a chance and as I don't really know one of the gentlemen who came very well I thought he might find it a little strange me taking photos of all the food! But saying that I did manage to sneak a photo of the dessert I made

Almond Tart, I gave the recipe for that in an earlier post, fresh fruits and a raspberry topped Panna Cotta, heaven in a little dish!

Vanilla Panna Cotta

3 Sheets of gelatine

1 Vanilla Pod split with seeds scraped out

250ml whole milk

250ml double cream

1oz caster sugar

Put the gelatine sheets in a bowl of cold water until they go soft

Heat the milk, cream, sugar and vanilla pod with seeds into a pan and heat to a simmer but do not boil., take off the heat.

Remove the vanilla pod, I always give it a rinse under the tap and then plonk into my caster sugar jar and it still imparts a lovely flavour into the sugar.

Now give the gelatine sheets a squeeze to remove excess water and drop into the pan, give it a stirring to make sure that it has dissolved and then although you don't have to I always sieve the mixture before pouring it into little ramekins. This mixture made 6 of the size that you can see or 4 bigger ones.

Pop into the fridge to set, which should take about an hour and then I made the raspberry topping, which was a small punnet of raspberries, with a few saved for decoration, 2 tablespoons of caster sugar and 2 tablespoons of water, put all of this into a pan and simmer until the sugar is dissolved and the raspberries are soft, its about 3-5 minutes, when that is done I added a dash of Rumtopf liquior and half a sheet of gelatine just to give it a soft set and poured onto the little custardy delights.

If you don't want to put a topping on and wish to turn them out, it is easily done by giving the ramekin a quick dip into hot water and then upturning onto a plate, with a little shake it should, fingers crossed plop out as a little quivering mound of calories!

My guests all left feeling very full, well oiled from lashings of wine and port that we had with the cheese and biscuits and I hope very happy.

Claire xx