Busy week!

This week I am doing all I can to help youngest son before he returns to university, washing, ironing, proof-reading, shopping, all sorts of things!  I am loving every minute, and we will all miss him when he goes back.

To relax, I have been watching more Heidi Baker videos on Youtube.  This morning I have been watching this one called Riches of the Poor.  God is doing amazing things in Mozambique.

I recently bought this book.................

and yesterday I attempted Mushroom Risottioni.  It tasted very nice, but maybe wasn't too healthy, as there was a lot of creme fraiche in it, but we all enjoyed it nonetheless.  If you want to see a picture of it and have the recipe, you can find it here.  You'll have to scroll down a bit.  I doubled the ingredients to make enough for four people, which meant wiping 1kg of mushrooms!

Working on my PhD.

I've just had such a funny email from my sister, who is a champion knitter.  She said:  When asked, tell people you are working on your Phd this year. They will show you great respect and you can decide whether to admit it stands for 'Projects Half Done' in knitting parlance.  Hahaha, I love that!  My sister raises a LOT of money for Oxfam every year through her knitting, which is hugely popular.

 I am currently working on my PhD, a jacket and hat for granddaughter Poppy.  They might not fit for a while, but  I will be seeing Poppy next Friday and want to give it to her then.  I'll try and remember to take a photo of the finished work.

I made a wonderful cake the other day from this recipe.  Give it a go, it's yummy.  I didn't have any lemons so I left them out, and I added some chopped apples and cinnamon and ginger, and I used Stork margarine instead of butter, and it was still gorgeous, this is my current favourite recipe.  

Braised Chicken Chasseur

I had a new recipe book of slow-cooking recipes from youngest son for Christmas, so I've been trying out some of the recipes.

The other day I tried Braised chicken chasseur.

It is supposed to take 1 3/4 hours and serves four, but I like to use my slow cooker and let it simmer for a looooong time, and I always cook up a double amount to save time on another day.

The ingredients stated in the book are:-

4 chicken legs (I used 8 chicken breasts)

2 tbsp olive oil

2 onions thickly sliced

250g/9 oz mushrooms

1 tbsp tomato puree

300 ml/half pint white wine

400g can chicken connsomme, or stock (I used good old oxo cubes)

3-4 fresh tomatoes, quartered

This Tesco market value vegetable stir fry is one of my kitchen allies.  It's fairly cheap, and I use it in heaps of things, sometimes I even use it in a stir-fry!  On their own, I don't find frozen veg to be great, but the secret is to combine them with fresh veggies, and then you really cannot tell the difference between the fresh and the frozen veg.

First I browned the chicken and popped it in the slow cooker.

Next I browned the onions, along with the mushrooms and some dried apricots and sultanas I happened to have in the cupboard.  I usually start off with a recipe as a guide, then I add whatever I fancy to make a concoction.  I also added carrots because I had a few that needed to be used up.

Then it was all popped into the big 6.5 ltr slow cooker.  Can you see his little brother alongside?  He only cost £9 from Tesco's a few months ago, and it is so handy for smaller meals, soups, sides or desserts.

And here is the finished result, with the fresh tomatoes added a few minutes before serving.  It was delicious!

And here are some of my recipe books, I love to flick through them and plan meals, although I often make meals up as I go along too, especially at the end of the week, when I have an odd assortment of foodstuffs to use up!

The Year End

I cannot believe that tomorrow is not only the start of a new year, but it is also the First Birthday of Letters From Home!  It has been a busy year, and I haven't blogged nearly as often as I would have liked, but from now on I want to to try and post on most days.

Yesterday I bought my granddaughter Poppy a lovely coat from an 'upmarket' charity shop in Leamington Spa for £2.50, originally from Sainsbury's.

This afternoon I have made a big vegetable curry, mainly using veggies left over from Christmas, so this is almost a free meal!

I chopped and boiled some potatoes, carrots, Brussels sprouts and a cauliflower in hot water with a teaspoon of turmeric, which gives the veg a lovely colour.

In another pan I fried onions in a little oil, along with chopped garlic, and when softened I added a tablespoon of curry powder, some cumin  seeds and some paprika, just because I happened to have some.  To this I added chopped mushrooms and some yellow pepper. I threw in a handful of sultanas and some dried apricots.  Then I added a can of chopped tomatoes and about 250ml of vegetable stock.

When the veggies in the other pan were cooked, I drained them and added them to the curry mix and stirred it all together.

This is now sitting in a pan, waiting to be eaten!  I am going to serve this on a bed of rice, with low fat fromage frais on the top, along with some fresh pea-shoot salad, that I have just harvested.

I simply planted some dried peas, from the box above, in compost, a couple of weeks ago, and spread a thin layer of compost over them and kept them watered.  Ta-da!  A free, fresh salad in the depths of winter!  If you want the full instructions on growing pea shoots, go here.

Just a little walk this morning, 1.25 miles in 30 minutes, along our local streets, as the pavements were wet, so the fields would have been really muddy.  It's such a good feeling to be out walking, getting fresh air and exercise, I am feeling so much better for it, and so is Mr LFH too.

Happy New Year to you, here's to a healthy, happy, frugal 2012!

Indoor Barbecue

Here at Letters From Home, we are not really into barbecues.  In our part of the world, it is rarely warm enough to actually eat outdoors, at least that's how we feel.  So this weekend I have discovered I can do barbecue food, kind of, in my trusty slow cooker.

  

It was so delicious, I want to get it all down here before I forget what I did!  

Firstly, I browned some veggies, 2 onions, a sliced red pepper, 2 sliced courgettes, some sweetcorn.  I put all the browned veggies into the slow cooker, then I browned 8 sliced of pork fillet.

This meal was to serve 4 people, but I usually cook a double amount and chill or freeze half of it for another day.  I love the fact that I only have to cook about 4 times a week!

I placed the pork on top of the veggies.  I find that slow cooked meals always work best when the veg is at the bottom, otherwise the meal cooks well but the veg can be a little undercooked.

Then I heated about half a jar of barbecue sauce in my pan, along with a can of chopped tomatoes and a can of vegetable soup (Sainsburys cheapest, about 17p a can, probably not very nice taken as soup, but fine in the slow cooker.

I then tipped this sauce mix into the slow cooker, and switched the cooker onto High for about an hour, the length of time it took me to get ready to go out to lovely Stratford upon Avon for a shopping trip.

Then just before leaving the house, I switched it to Low.

About 5-6 hours later, i.e. the time it took us to go to Stratford, buy a new dress at Laura Ashley, some new shoes, have a coffee at Cafe Nero, just next door to Shakespeare's birthplace, etc. etc, I arived home and boiled up some rice and peas and served this with our "Barbecued Pork".  

I had never cooked meat in barbecue sauce before, I just used Sainsburys own brand of sauce, and it tasted absolutely delicious.  

That was yesterday.  Today, we came home from church and ate the rest of the barbecue pork sauce with pasta, which was nice and quick and just as delicious.  You could serve this with salad and crusty bread, maybe with a little crème fraiche on top.  With a little imagination you could do all sorts of things, maybe some tortilla chips alongside would be nice.

Here is the dress I bought from Laura Ashley.  There was a 25% discount on all clothes, so it was a bit of a bargain, although as I usually buy a lot of my clothes from charity shops it still seemed quite expensive, but it's beautiful and comfortable, and I'm sure I will wear it a lot, so well worth it.

 

We are all on tenterhooks here at "Letters", as we are expecting the birth of our first grandchild any time in the next week or so.  You can imagine how excited we all are.  This baby will create two new parents, four new grandparents, and three aunties and two uncles!  I'll let you know when we have some news.

I am currently reading The Book of Margery Kempe, the oldest known biography written in the English language.  I hadn't chosen it, it is a set text for my son's English Literature degree for this year, so I am reading it before he returns to university, and I am enjoying it immensely.  She was a Medieval Mystic, who had an extraordinary life.

I'll try not to leave it so long before my next post, although the new term starts at the University next week, so that means I will be back at work, but I am looking forward to meeting new people and taking on new challenges.

Enjoy your weekend!

Random thoughts

Is it just me, or does anyone else detect some similarities here?!!!

Today, I am having a relaxing time, sorting out some recipe files.  I've got lots of Weightwatcher recipes culled from magazines, and I am getting them into order so I can find and use them regularly.  Also, I keep a recipe folder in a Word document, so if I find a recipe I like online, I can file it away for future reference.  This seems like a good idea, but there are some recipes on there I use repeatedly, and I have to open up the laptop every time I cook them, and sometimes the laptop is in danger of being smeared with eggs and butter!  To save my laptop, and my patience, I am gradually copying out my favourites whenever I have a spare few moments, and then adding them to my physical recipe files.

Here is the first one I copied out, a real favourite here at Letters From Home, I think it was originally from Attic 24  I do hope it becomes your favourite too!

LEMON DRIZZLE CAKE

125g butter

175g caster sugar

Grated rind and juice 2 lemons

2 beaten eggs

175g self-raising flour

A little milk

50g granulated sugar

• Cream butter, caster sugar and lemon rind until fluffy (You could put it all in food processor and give a good whizz)
• Gradually beat in eggs (add to processor and whizz)
• Mix in flour and add about 4tbs milk (yes, whizz again in processor) - mixture should be soft enough to drop off spoon when gently shaken
• Grease a 1kg/2lb loaf time (I usually line with baking parchment instead of greasing)
• Bake in moderate oven gas 4/350F/180C for 45 to 50 mins until risen and golden, firm on top.
• Just before cake comes out of oven, prepare lemon syrup: Heat lemon juice and granulated sugar gently until sugar has dissolved (45 secs in microwave and a good stir)
• As soon as cake is out of oven, while still in tin, stab it all over top with a skewer and pour over the lemon syrup.
• Leave cake in tin until cold (The cake will soak up all the syrup, even if it looks very soggy at the start)



Recipe for Life

1 cup good thoughts
1 cup of consideration
1 cup kind deeds
2 cups well- beaten faults
3 cups forgiveness

Mix thoroughly and add tears of joy, sorrow and sympathy for others. Fold in 4 cups of prayer and faith to lighten other ingredients and raise the texture to great heights of Christian living. After pouring all this into your daily life, bake well with the heat of human kindness. Serve with a smile.

Enjoy your day!

Everything stops for tea!

For the umpteenth time, I find myself re-reading "Gossip from Thrush Green" by one of my favourite writers, Miss Read.  Here are the first few paragraphs of the book..........

In far too many places in England today, the agreeable habit of taking afternoon tea has vanished.

'Such a shocking waste of time', says one.

'Much too fattening a meal with all that dreadful starch', says another.

'Quite unnecessary, if one has had lunch or proposes to eat in the evening,' says a third.

All very true, no doubt, but what a lot of innocent pleasure these strong minded people are missing!  The very ritual of tea-making, warming the pot, making sure that the water is just boiling, inhaling the fragrant steam, arranging the tea-cosy to fit snugly around the precious container, all the preliminaries lead up to the exquisite pleasure of sipping the brew from thin porcelain, and helping oneself to hot buttered scones and strawberry jam, a slice of featherlight sponge cake or home-made shortbread.

Taking tea is a highly civilised pastime, and fortunately is still in favour at Thrush Green, where it has been brought to a fine art.  It is common practice in that pleasant village to invite friends to tea rather than lunch or dinner.....people can set off from their homes in the light, and return before dark, except for the really miserable weeks of mid-winter when one would probably prefer to stay at home anyway.

Big sigh.........don't you just love those Miss Read books!  I'd love to move to Thrush Green, but apparently it's not real!  We can all dream though, can't we.

My favourite tipple is Redbush Tea, because it is naturally caffeine-free, and has less than half the tannin of black tea, and, what is more important, I love the taste of Redbush, although I love Earl Grey too, especially when it comes from Bettys.  I have already told you about their wonderful tea-rooms here.

I also enjoy making cakes, and my most basic, simple cake recipe, which I bake most weeks is an old recipe passed on to me by by mother-in-law, many, many years ago.  I double up this recipe for an 8" round cake tin, and I usually make 2 cakes at a time, so I quadruple everything!

8oz self-raising flour

quarter teaspoon of salt

4oz margarine

4oz sugar - I always just use granulated, or brown

2 eggs

2 tablespoons of milk

6oz mixed dried fruit

1.  Place flour and salt in a bowl, rub in the margarine.

2.  Add the sugar and the fruit.  Beat together the eggs and the milk.

3.  Mix all together to make a soft consistency.

4.  Place mixture in a greased tin.

5.  Bake in a moderate oven (Gas mark 4) for 1 1/4 hours.

If I want to make a more moist version, I add an extra few ounces of margarine or butter.

I do all sorts of variations of this.  For a yummy chocolate chip cake, I add a few ounces of cocoa powder to the flour, and buy 3 bars of cheap supermarket chocolate, and roughly chop them up and add to the mixture instead of the fruit.

To decorate this for a birthday party, I can't be bothered with icing, so I cover the cake with melted white chocolate, and before it sets I cover it all in dolly mixtures and smarties, adored by adults and children alike in this house!

Enjoy your tea-time!  We really do need these special oases in our lives.

A Rest on Sunday

Yippeeee!!!! My wonderful, clever, techie DH has sorted out my upoading problems, so I'm back in business!

Yesterday I went yarn shopping in Solihull.  Between John Lewis and House of Fraser I managed to find just what I was looking for, some soft, washable cotton yarn in beautiful colours for some technicolour crochet.  Yes, no more black hats and gloves, but this is going to be one big, beautiful granny blanket.  Here's some gorgeous, woolly eye candy.....

I wish you could feel it and give it a good 'squidge' like I can!

I bought yarn from a variety of different brands in order to get exactly the colours I had in mind.  But it will all be fine, as they are all 100% machine washable pure cotton double-knit yarns.  That's one thing I like about crochet, you don't have to match yarns up exactly as you would if you were knitting up a garment.

I really want to get started on this new project, but I have some knitting projects on my needles that I should really finish first!

On Friday, I spent some time at home, so here are some pics from my day, I did some laundry and made some delicious rice pudding.  Here are some of my aprons, fluttering in the breeze...

My Rice Pudding recipe is an old American one.  It is cooked on the stove-top, rather than baked in the oven, and it contains eggs, so it tastes like rice pudding and egg custard mixed together, very nice.

This time I can give you imperial and metric quantities.

Rice Pudding.

1.5 litres / 2 1/2 pints semi-skimmed milk

185 g / 6 ozs pudding rice

125 g / 4 ozs sugar

pinch of salt

250 ml / 8 fl ozs semi-skimmed milk

3 eggs

5 ml / 1 tsp vanilla extract

1.  Combine first four ingredients in a deep, heavy-bottomed saucepan over a medium-low heat.

2.  Let the mixture come to a slow boil (it may foam up, that's ok).  Continue the slow boil (too fast a boil will scorch the milk) for approximately 1 hour, or until almost all the liquid has been absorbed.  The boiling will start making a 'pop' or 'slapping' sound.  When it does, the rice is finished. 

3.  Remove from heat and add the last three ingredients.  Combine well and let it stand for 20 minutes.  Serve warm or chilled.

By a warm fire, on a cold winter's evening, this is very homely and satisfying!  We've had some bacon and eggs for lunch, there is a casserole simmering in the slow cooker for later, and now it's time to put the kettle on, put our feet up, and have some hooky fun.

I do hope you are also able to have a relaxing day, life can often be tiring and stressful, and sometimes we really do need to switch off and remind ourselves that God is in control, not us, so we can safely let Him get on with what He does best, hand everything over to Him and simply enjoy the day He has given to us.