Sunday Ramblings

Hello all, it is a rainy Sunday here, I am itching to get into the garden  but it is sodden after 2 days of rain and the forecast has it raining till Thursday!  The cats are disgusted and are sitting on the door step waiting for it to clear, a long wait!  At least it is warm and I can keep the door open.

Looking on the bright side I won’t have to water it for a few days!

I haven’t been in the mood for crochet, but have picked up a long term project, some patchwork, long term, because it is being done by hand!  I am not sure what it will be yet, I just enjoy the activity.

There was a break in the rain at lunchtime for all of half an hour, Ambrose (the black cat) decided to wander off and got caught in the next downpour, it was so funny he tore inside when it eased off and mewed at me so plaintively, I had to pick him up in a towel and dry him he was soaked to the skin, poor boy, I sometimes thinks he gets wet purposely so he can be wrapped in a towel and get cuddled

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It has been one of days where the kitchen is the nicest place to be. 

I have been freezing up punnets of lightly stewed tomatoes, zucchini and peppers ready for winter stews.  I have visitors coming next Tuesday and decided to do some baking for the occasion.  I made 2 slices, Eltham slice (a traditional kiwi bake), and a variation of it. Eltham slice usually has coconut and currants and spice and a coconut icing topping, but for the second one, instead of currants I used chocolate buttons and left the topping off. I will put the proper recipe up in the recipe page (see buttons under the header.)

When I use the oven, I like to fill it up to save on power. So I decided use to some rhubarb I had picked between showers. I was going to make crumble for my dessert.  But I suddenly remembered a cake I had seen on someone’s blog that had spoonful’s of rhubarb and custard in the mix.  I searched for it but just could not remember where I had seen it as I hadn’t bookmarked it.  Then I had a brainwave why not make it as a pie!

I was going to give the rhubarb a blast in the oven but suddenly thought why not the microwave, so I sprinkled sugar on the chopped up rhubarb covered with cling film (used no water) and cooked for 8 minutes at 50 per cent power.  It was a lot quicker than the oven

Next, I made some custard up, but you could use ready made, it needs to be fairly thick.

Then, I made some short crust pastry but quite short so that I could reserve some for the crumble topping.  I baked the pastry blind so it would have a soggy bottom.

Then I put spoonfuls of rhubarb and custard in the crust, I wanted there to be distinct patches of custard and rhubarb. 

 Then I scrunched up the reserved pastry added 2 spoons of brown sugar and I half tsp. ginger to the crumble.  Then I baked it in oven till the crumble was brown, I also used up the rest of the custard and rhubarb and crumble mix in little dishes. (I will probably share these with some elderly souls in our street)

I will write the recipe up properly during the week and put it on my recipe page.  I imagine you could use any stewed fruit.  I tell you it was delicious with a spoonful of plain yoghurt.  

My poor diet has gone for a burton, sigh!  But at least I only had the stewed tomato, zucchini and peppers on toast as my main course.  (Who am I kidding, ha ha) and probably will only have a cup of soup for supper.  

While I am off the diet wagon, I might as well have a proper afternoon tea treat. (Well, I have to try the new variation of Eltham Slice before giving it to guests!)  Also a chance to use one of the tea sets I got from the Hospice Op shop a couple of weeks ago.

I think I have rambled on enough, so I will go and devour my tea and cake.  Hope you all have a lovely Sunday whenever it arrives for you, and yay I do believe the sun is coming out, well trying to!  I am hoping the weather forecasters have got it wrong again!

A bit later, it was delicious and the sun didn't come it it raining again, oh well, at least we are not having the flooding that the Auckland region is.

The 3 "C"s - Cats,Crochet and Cakes

It has been several weeks since I have posted!  I have been under the weather and had to rest up.  I took the opportunity to get stuck into my obsession – crochet.  One project which only took one hour or so and as a result have got hooked on washcloths!  This dish cloth has been in constant use and I will be making more.

When I was in the wool shop buying some cotton, I saw the many wonderful colours that wool comes in these days.  How I resisted I don t know.  Maybe it was the thought of all that wool in my trunk from my tapestry kit making days.  Needless to say I got some of the wool out and within a week had completed this small throw and a cushion cover  to match (Well to be honest I still have the backing of the cushion to crochet).  I draped the throw on the bed and went to get my camera.  Came back and what do I see my lovely cats firmly ensconced.  What is even more remarkable these two never sleep near each other.

Ever since it has been a battle to get them off it, Bro the black one usually spends the day outdoors, but for the last week he has been inside a lot on this little throw.  I have given up, it is theirs!

So, I fished out of my trunk some more wool, big hanks of Paterna wool.  There will be enough to make a proper sized blanket.  I have already made great inroads on it.  Crochet is so easy to do in bed or listening to the radio.  It is very addictive.

I am feeling a lot better now and yesterday was back firing on all of my cylinders.  But it was pouring with rain so I couldn’t get into the garden.  I have always wanted to make a teapot cozy, so trawled the internet for patterns.  I didn’t really want to do any I saw, I want a homey one!  There are some astonishing  tea cozies out there!  So decided to do a plain one and sew flowers on it.  How to do flowers?  Well I found a wonderful blog Attic 24 with instructions .  So I spent the morning doing Lucy’s tutorials with odd scraps of wool.  I feel quite chuffed; all I needed to do was make the cozy!  Completed last night.  Tah Dah!

So feeling pleased with myself this morning, I duck out in the rain to view what could be picked for dinner (I like to have my main meal midday,) and saw a few stalks of Rhubarb appearing.  Not enough to make a bowl full, but enough to make my favourite cakey dessert that my grandmother used to bake a lot.  The fruit can be varied according what you have on hand.  I didn’t really have enough rhubarb so added one apple.  (It is rather special if the fruit has a tang to it.)

Gran’s Fruity Cakey Dessert

Ingredients

1 ¼ cups s/r flour or plain flour with 1 ½ tsp BP

¾ cup sugar

120g melted butter

1 tsp. vanilla

2 eggs

Topping – fruit of choice

2 tbsp. sugar

Method

Combine flour, sugar, butter vanilla and eggs.  Put in greased pan and top with chopped fruit.  Sprinkle the sugar on top and bake 180 Celsius for up to one hour.  Serve with custard, cream or plain yogurt.  This really freezes well.

All in all a productive few days.

See you again soon.