confession time...

Success! Woohoo! I am so happy to be adding HF-W's Sweetcorn Fritters to my repertoire of... not only things I can eat, but things I can cook! These make a nice change from buckwheat pancakes, and almost as quick. Mr H even let me loose with his special tin of spices. I felt like a real chef! Though I may have to rename them...

There can't be many English Juanita's that grew up on the South Coast of about my age, so I'm definitely taking a gamble here by confessing to something I used to do at school that was pretty darn naughty and slightly disgusting...

Some of our school dinners still give me nightmares. So does the warm creamy milk we were pretty much forced to drink every morning. I tried every trick in the book to get rid of it; giving it away, tipping it away, they always sussed me out, the last dregs used to make me gag. Kids who could melt a square of butter on their tongue used to make me gag too... and then there were F R I T T E R S. The very word brings back horrible memories! Not only fritters but S P A M fritters. Good grief, it's a wonder any of us survived. You could squeeze them between your fingers and the fat would drip from them. I feel queasy describing it. The dinner ladies were as vigilant as spies so there was absolutely no chance of leaving them on the plate. If I'm making this sound like the 1940s, it wasn't, I'm talking mid to late 1970s here. Eventually I hit upon the cunning plan to secrete these offensive items between the metal legs of my chair and the plastic seat, one on each side. I got very nervous when the chairs had to be put away and stacked up after lunch in case they fell out. Thankfully I was never found out.

So, you'll understand if I call them sweetcorn 'bhaji's' from now on? Ta  :o)



definitely a rug...

Oops, this is going so much slower now! The first rows just whizz by with all the adrenalin of starting off a new pattern, then it just slumps into monotony (or maybe my concentration span needs working on).

In it's favour is the softness of the yarn, the way it is eating up my plain acrylic yarn supply and how easy it is to repeat the pattern. A really warm, thick, fabric is being created and I've decided it would be best underfoot, so a rug it will be!

It was lucky I did a foundation row just the right length for the distance between our two sofa's. I'll continue until it reaches the same length as the distance between each foot, and I'll leave the zig zag edges as they are without squaring them off. Easy peasy.

Wishing you all a happy sunny weekend. J x

(I'm hoping to get further on with my herb garden if it ever stops raining!)

a good yarn...

The books are a recent indulgence that just happened to fall into my 'shopping cart' when I ordered the 'Veg' book! I always read Orange Prize shortlisted novels so this year it made sense to get the whole shortlist on offer with The Book People. At £20 for six titles it's probably cheaper than buying them for my Kindle.

I picked up this rustic little studio pottery vase yesterday when Mr H and I visited that lovely little market town I mentioned. Butterflies don't usually catch my eye but I liked the wedgewood blue colour and the oatmeal background. It looks like it would make a good utensil pot but it's holding a few knitting needles at the moment.

Talking of knitting needles... I haven't knitted for quite a while but I've dug out (with much effort) a bundle of superchunky charcoal yarn (7 balls) and a Sirdar pattern for a poncho. I've had this for a while but had completely and utterly forgotten about it until the cricket match at the weekend when we were frozen despite having jumpers, coats and blankets! I suggested that a poncho would be an ideal garment because it would be like wearing a blanket instead of huddling underneath one (looking like an idiot!).

If you're conjuring up thoughts of lacy, 70s style ponchos with big fringes, fear not...

*E* said she wouldn't be embarrassed if I wore one of these as long as I promised not to get the hat too! Aw, spoilsport! It would have been nice in the Indie yarn but it worked out at over £50, so I'm happy with my Stylecraft superchunky which cost less than half of that. I just hope I can remember how to knit!

on my sofa tonight...

I've been out all day (visiting a really vibrant, 'happening' little market town). I came home briefly to make up the flasks of tea and coffee for this evening's cricket match and I've spent another couple of hours on the boundary line freezing my socks off...

...but tonight I'm not complaining, I warmed up with a hot bath and I'm now sitting on the sofa with Hugh (he arrived in the post this morning).

I've put up with Mr H watching all the celebrity chefs on TV at every available opportunity for years, and now it looks like I might just be joining him. I've liked Hugh F-W's style since he first did a programme about foraging - he had a fantastic Land Rover all kitted out for open air cooking (I like that kind of thing!). The book, at first glance, looks brilliant (it's over 400 pages!). I can't wait to expand my repertoire with Hugh's help!

My man made dinner this evening, one of my favourites; a spinach and pepper fritatta. He's very good with eggs is Mr H.

More yarn talk tomorrow!

homemade date and nut bars...

I have a bit of a reputation for being totally unskilled in the kitchen department. I'm doing a fair bit of cooking now but I am still craving some kind of 'treat' food since I have had to cut out, chocolate, cakes, biscuits etc of the shop bought kind. Date and nut bars are definitely an agreeable alternative for me. I've always liked fruit and nut style bars but the commercial ones tend to have ingredients in them that are not on my 'ok' list. The 'ok' ones are quite pricey for such a small bar and not widely available; as low as 68p and as high as 90p for the same thing (Nakd bars).

We have a new whizzy cutty shreddy machine which didn't look up to the task of blitzing dates, let alone with a handful of nuts and seeds thrown in. I had visions of it coming to a grinding halt with a big sticky mess to deal with. Not so!

I soaked 10 dates in just enough water to cover them, for an hour. I took the stones out and blitzed five to begin with. It worked a treat so I put the next five in, no problem. I then threw in a small handful of mixed nuts and a small handful of seeds; judging by eye to get the ratio of dates to seeds and nuts just right. It scooped out of the container without too much difficulty and onto a sheet of cling film. I loosely wrapped it up and was then able to roll it into a slab without it sticking to the rolling pin.

Even after a spell in the fridge it was still sticky to handle so I sprinkled with dessicated coconut on both sides and 'rollered' that in with a rolling pin as before. Here's what it looked like before the coocnut treatment...

It made four very generous size bars which I just cut into three squares for the photo at the beginning of this post (the cost at most was roughly £1). I think small 'Ferrero Rocher' size balls placed in small paper cups would be a pretty nifty way of presenting these. The coconut is obviously optional, you could roll them in sesame seeds or other small size seeds or nuts to finish. You could also throw in a handful of raisins, apricots or cherries. It's definitely not rocket science. If I can do it, a four year old could do it!

This is what I used to do the blitzing: Duronic Compact Multi Chopper (not the most robust looking thing but seems to do the job).

snapshots of the day...

Lulling the animals to sleep with the hum of the hoover...used to work for my baby girl too.

A Juanita special salad: throw everything you've got in the fridge salad drawer on a plate (if the truth be told I am a little fed up with chicken salad!)

Trying out a GF recipe from the Waitrose free paper; gram flour, pecans, ground almonds. I used dairy free sunflower spread for mine and left out the sugar (thinking a whole load of freshly squeezed lemon juice, extra ground ginger and dessicated coconut would compensate - it didn't). Pretty good for dog bicuits, I'll make them bone shaped next time.

Looking back up Steep Hill at the Cathedral trying not to think about walking back up it.

Failing to get a flock of swans in my shot as we walked along the Brayford towards Nando's. Nice fluffy clouds though.

Walking back up through the town (this is the back view of Stokes Coffee House) slowly, with full tummies. The children were in good spirits and not trying to kill each other for once. What a happy day!

a small herb garden...

This isn't a before and after, this is a before and 'during'. There's quite a bit more work to do yet. I had a sudden flash of inspiration whilst out playing fetch with Harvey last week... and thought it would be a good idea to turn this patch of wild geranium into a herb bed. The geraniums are lovely but tend to get flattened or dug up by the dog, so instead of a carpet of flowers it just ends up being a flattened green carpet of half dead plants. It was pretty prolific in stinging nettles too and this year even dandelions.

We hauled the railway sleepers down from the top of the garden where they were just being used as a step up to the playhouse. I think I'll go one layer higher too, so that some new soil can be dug in. It still won't deter the dog so I will have to come up with something quite substantial but removable. Within seconds of finishing this elaborate cross cross of bamboo poles he trampled right through it to retrieve a bit of root he thought would make a good fetching stick. Stupid dog.

I'm not much of a gardener really but I enjoy small manageable bits, so far I have a gooseberry bush which is probably a bit of a space hogger for this project but will have to go in, as this little bed will be the only dog-proof area in the garden. I'll have to do a bit of reading up on herbs because I've not grown any since I had my first humble home and planted up one of those old tin baths with herbs. They grew like crazy but were a bit of a waste because I didn't really know how to use them in cooking. Thankfully the penny has dropped now!

All that stuff that looks like snow comes from a fantastic cherry tree which towers over my workshop and shed almost all of it's blossom a couple of days ago when the wind picked up...