Almost human again

A nasty cold crept up behind me last week, wrestled me to the floor and left me there, coughing my lungs out and sneezing my pounding head off. I was poorly! That cold really hit me hard and put me out of action for a few days. I tried to look at the lovely blogs I follow but my brain wasn't functioning and I'm afraid I wasn't even able to comment on them, somehow my brain just couldn't translate the wonderful thoughts I had into any sort of action. Sorry gals! But I am getting better and feeling almost human again, so I should think that as from tomorrow things will be back to normal.

I want to say a very big thank you to all you really great people for your birthday wishes, and a huge thank you ( and a big cyber slap for being horrid to little me ) to JJ for writing me such a, errrmmm, long poem. Boy, that gal can talk some, going on and on and on and on............. I wasn't in any fit state for birthday celebrations and even worse, the next day was our 29th wedding anniversary and we had planned to go to our favourite Thai restaurant, but that had to be cancelled as well. But there is nothing to stop us from going out to dinner sometime this week, hurrah!

I had two lovely packages arrive in the last couple of days - from Beki the lushious goodies from Michela's pamper swap and from the very generous Deb of the linenslaceandlattes blog I received two pretty vintage aprons, which I had won in her giveaway. I haven't taken any photos yet, but I'll promise pics for tomorrow!

Wow, short post this, and no photos either! Hmm, thats not good, lets have a quick looksie whether I can find a couple of pics which I haven't shown before.
Oooh yes yes yes, photos of my most favourite dessert, Whisky Trifle made by my darling husband. His is the bestest trifle ever!


Droooooooooooooool! I have to ask my sweetheart to make me one tomorrow, I think. Its bound to be good for me, recovering from that nasty cold.

I'll try and visit all your blogs properly tomorrow. Until then, toodlepip! xx

Now what have I done, lol

A really lovely lady called Liz ( what else, tehehehe, such a good name ) talked me into joining this rather fun Valentine's party, 14 Days of Love. I missed the first week, but just made it in time for the start of the second week. You can read all about it here. Today's topic is Sweets for the Sweet, all about luscious sweet recipes for your favourite cakes, biscuits, beverages, sweets, whatever. SO NOT FAIR! I have been craving cake all day long, lol! Just have a look at the luscious yummy recipes that the various people have posted, it'll get you drooling, definitely.

Now, I got a bit of a problem here. My alltime favourite dessert is trifle. My DH's whisky trifle. I love it above all other desserts. And I get somewhat possessive about it, nobody is allowed seconds, because I need leftover trifle for the next day. Have to have another trifle fix then. I would love to show you a lovingly prepared trifle, but I don't have any photos, I am sorry. So there is not much point in sharing the recipe with you either. Bummer. Maybe I can talk him into making a trifle tomorrow and I'll take pics then and add them to this post.

Then I thought I would share the recipes and photos of a few other favourite desserts from a couple of our cookery books. And remembered that since I changed computers a couple of weeks ago to one with Vista, my Canon scanner won't work anymore ( oh, and Canon don't do new drivers for mine, grrrr ). So, no pictures of Jamie Oliver's Sheila's pudding either, sigh.

But, despair not, I have a recipe to share with you, my friend JJ is helping me out. She makes the most fabulous muffins, which just melt in the mouth, and are incredibly morish. And best of all, they are full of healthy stuff.

Here goes, a very delicious, healthy, unpretentious everday dollop of yumminess -


Blueberry & Oat muffins Makes 12

105g wholemeal flour

115g plain flour

1 ½ teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

¼ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

90g rolled oats

1 medium egg

2 medium egg whites

125ml maple syrup (I used honey & it worked fine)

180ml buttermilk (or semi-skimmed milk/soya milk soured with lemon juice)

3 tablespoons rapeseed oil (I used vegetable oil)

2 teaspoons grated orange zest

1 tablespoon orange juice

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

225g fresh blueberries, rinsed & patted dry

1 Preheat oven to 200C/Gas 6. Lightly grease a 12-hole muffin tin or insert paper cups

2 In a large bowl, whisk together the wholemeal flour, plain flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, salt & cinnamon. Reserve 2 tablespoons of the oats and stir the rest into the mixture

3 In a medium bowl, whisk the egg and egg whites with the maple syrup until smooth. Add the buttermilk, oil, orange zest and juice, and vanilla extract. Whisk until blended. Add to the flour mixture and mix with a rubber spatula until the dry ingredients are moistened. Fold in the blueberries. Spoon the mixture into the tray filling the cups almost to the top. Sprinkle the reserved oats on top

4 Bake for 18-22 minutes or until lightly browned and the tops spring back when touched lightly. Transfer to a wire rack to cook slightly before scoffing.

Ta daa, and here they are, courtesy of my friend JJ -

The second recipe I would like to share with you is a very simple but utterly delicious recipe for a drink, chili chocolate cocoa. This is really lovely on a winter evening, my husband and I often have it when we settle down to watch a film. It was given to me by a dear American friend now living in Scotland. I am sure she won't mind if I pass this on to you.

You will need ( for two people )

cocoa powder - 2 heaped soup spoons
butter - good sized knob ( about a heaped tea spoon )
milk - enough for two large mugs, I use the actual mugs to measure out the milk
pinch of salt
brown sugar - to taste, I use 2 teaspoons per large mug
pinch of chili powder - again, to taste, we like it quite spicy

Firstly, gently melt the butter in a milk pan. When the butter is melted, take off the heat, and add the cocoa powder slowly, constantly whisking it into the butter. Add the sugar and the little pinch of salt ( unless you are using salted butter, then you don't need it ), keep whisking. Slowly add the milk, whisking all the time, making sure that you get all the cocoa and butter mix from the bottom. Return to the stove and gently heat whilst stirring. Add chili powder to taste. Thats it, ever so simple, but it tastes so much better than prefab hot chocolate from a packet! If you feel really wicked, add a good glug of cream or top with whipped cream.

Drooling now, lol, will definitely have to make that tonight.

Right, enough of that, I need some kind of sweet fix now, lol. Let's hope I can add the trifle pics tomorrow, toodlepip for now! xxx

YUM!!!!

A few days ago, Sally from the Kitchencrafter blog shared a great looking recipe for a rich, thick, yummy scrummy winter soup. I loved the ingredients she used and I knew my DH would love this soup as well, as it has some of his favourite ingredients.

Of course me being me, not ever able to just follow a recipe, I changed it a little to suit what I had at home. So I used a butternut squash ( darn, those things are tough to cut ), 3 carrots, tin of chick peas, 1/3 of a leek ( white stem ), large onion, two cloves of garlic and beefstock. I also had some extra hot chorizo, which all the men in the house love. And it seems the dogs love it just as much, sigh, guess what happened to it? Lets just say it didn't go into the soup, it went into the dogs, grrr. I had it all nicely cubed sitting on the kitchen table, went out, shutting the kitchen door behind me ( or so I thought ) to check up on our granddaughter. The dogs had been happily wolfing down their dinner in the hall, but it seems as soon as I passed them they managed to get into the kitchen and within seconds had eaten the whole lot. A WHOLE EXTRA HOT CHORIZO! I was only gone about 30 secs and they scoffed the lot off the table. Needless to say, some very naughty words were muttered.

Fortunately I had another chorizo, this one was only hot though, not extra hot. The dogs were banned to the family room so that I could carry on with the cooking without doggie interference. I wanted to keep the chorizo separate until the very end, so that I could mash up the veggies in the soup without destroying the chorizo cubes. So I just fried them nice and crisp, ladled the soup into the soup plates and sprinkled the fried chorizo cubes on top. That was one heck of a delicious soup, huuuuuuuuuge success with DH and DSs as well. Alright, I am drooling again, not over buttons this time, lol, just drooling at the thought of that gorgeous soup. Without further ado, THE slightly altered KITCHENCRAFTER SOUP!

In the pot -

Chorizo cubes-

Droooooooool -

Thank you, Sally, for sharing this delicous recipe! I'll be making this soup again next week, I love it.

TTT.............. that stands for Terrific Tortilla tutorial

Some people have asked me to post a little tutorial for making tortilla de patatas, bless them. Gosh, just looking at the photos again is making me peckish, even though I have already had dinner. Now I am sure there are many different ways of making tortilla de patatas, and they'll probably be a lot quicker/easier/less labour intensive, but this is the way I was taught to do it by a lovely young Spanish lad, and they turn out perfectly each and every time, so I am sticking with this method. Don't expect precise measurements though, lol, thats just not me.

Right, for basic tortilla de patatas you need plenty of a good quality oil, potatoes, eggs, milk, onion, garlic, salt and pepper. I usually make two family sized tortillas ( they disappear ever so quickly ) and use 2.5kg potatoes and 12 eggs for these.

One of the most important things to get right is the size of the potato pieces. They have to be very thin and small. So this is what I do - cut potato in half so that you have two pieces which are nice and flat ( don't cut the potato the other way, so that the two pieces are like little mountains) -
Cut each half into narrow strips and then slice along them to get very thin little pieces of potato, like so -
You are using half the bag of potatoes, btw, errm, that would be approx. 1.25kg, right?

Now I was told to use a wok for the next bit, which is a bit iffy and it would probably be a lot safer doing this in a chip fryer. But as long as you are careful, it is perfectly ok to use a wok. You need to heat a goodly amount of oil in whatever thingy you feel safe with, enough oil to cover the amount of potatoes you are using.

Test the oil to make sure it is hot enough by dropping a little piece of potato into the oil. If it bubbles up, like this

then the oil is hot enough, and you can carefully lower small amounts of potato pieces into the oil. Don't dump it in all at once, it will froth over and probably start a kitchen fire, which is not quite what we are after.

Quickly chop a large onion and a couple of cloves of garlic finely and add to the potatoes, which are now gently cooking in the oil

Stir them around with a large slotted spoon occasionally so that they don't stick to the bottom and so that they get done evenly.

While they are cooking, beat six 6 eggs together with a little milk, salt and pepper in a largish bowl, and slice some more potatoes ( and onion and garlic, if you like ) for the next tortilla.

Check the potato pieces frequently and when they start browning every so slightly round the edges, they are ready for the next step. Use your large slotted spoon to lift them out of the oil, let the oil drain off. Use another spoon on top to squeeze a little and get rid of more oil, and then drop the potato pieces into the egg mixture.

When you have all your potato in the egg mixture, well stirred of course, heat a little oil in a straight sided frying pan. Make sure you swirl the oil around a bit, so that the sides are covered as well. It needs to be really really hot. To test, drop a teeny bit of the egg into the middle, it will sizzle and bubble when the oil is hot enough. Pour the whole lot into the frying pan, the side will bubble up like crazy, but thats how it should be. After a few seconds, turn the heat right down low, flatten the top and sides of the tortilla nice and neat, and put on a lid if you have one large enough.

Whilst that is gently frying, put the next lot of potato into the oil and repeat.

After a few minutes, gently press the top of the tortilla. If it feels completely firm, then it is ready to be turned, if it is still a little soft, give it another couple of minutes.

Now, turning the tortilla is fun, lol. You see, my favourite tortilla frying pan doesn't have a handle anymore, but I cannot use anything else, it has to be this one, it is perfect for the job. Turn off the gas, put a plate on top of the tortilla, put a clean drying up cloth over the whole lot, lift it off the cooker, take it to the table/work surface which you have previously covered with a cloth, and flip the pan over.
Pull the cloth out from under the plate, and lift the upside down frying pan off, and tada, there you have a goodlooking almost-ready tortilla.


Slide the tortilla off the plate back into the frying pan,

turn on the heat again, gently, for probably 5 mins. See in the background, the next lot of potato pieces is almost ready, have you done the egg mixture yet?

Ok, after five mins or so gentle heat on the other side of the tortilla, it should be ready, so repeat the turning process, onto a clean plate of course. And thats it, perfect tortilla de patatas.


Great, now my mouth is watering, and I so want some tortilla. I love it with a little bit of sweet chili dipping sauce dribbled over it. Weird, I know, but it really is very yummy.
Dang, gotta get something to nibble now. xx

Nothing exciting

Well, after all the rain last week, and the bootfair Sunday morning having been cancelled because " the field was too wet ", ppffft, and Poppy not being well, I felt somewhat under the weather and decided I needed to start a new project. Even though I have one or six on the go already. And even though I should be making soaps and gift packs etc.

Do you remember the pile of pastel knitted squares I found in a charity shop a few months ago? Probably not, lol, so here is a quick reminder -

At least this photo shows the proper colours. I have been trying to take pics this morning, but despite the decent weather, the light indoors is crap and the colours just don't look right, so imagine all the following pics with the colours shown above.

I dug them out yesterday morning, feeling thoroughly in need of cosy comfy woolliness, and decided to crochet them together. I thought it would give the little lanky a bit of texture, to have those little ridges connecting all the squares. Hmm.

Then I thought it could really do with some more texture, so the obvious thing to do was..................... crochet flowers to sew onto the squares!!

I spent a few hours with my work-in-progress yesterday afternoon, and one or two more in the evening after dinner and felt much better for it. It didn't get too boring either, making up a strip, then a flower or two, then back to making strips again, another flower....... you know what I mean. It is coming along nicely and of course I'll keep you up to date with my progress. Here are a few pics of what I have done so far ( errrmmm, try and imagine it all without all those pesky loose ends, lol, )-

Oh, and as we are talking about knitted stuff, I might as well show you these two knitting bags I found at a jumble sale a little while ago. I love these bags, so useful for all the projects one seems to have on the go all the time, and they look pretty, too.Hey look, one of the bags even has a " Buy British " on the wooden handle-

Another thing, when the weather turns horrid grey and wet, thoughts often turn to food, strange that, eh? Well, Juanitatortilla was talking about tortilla de patatas in one of her posts last week, here, I think, which REALLY got me in the mood for making tortillas again. Hadn't done that in a while, because it is fairly labour intensive. But we all love them a lot, so I sacrificed some crochet/doggiecuddle/charityshop time and made a couple-
Looks pretty good, doesn' it? I was taught how to make proper spanish tortilla de patatas by a Spanish student, who stayed with us for a while many years ago. He had to admit in the end, that my tortillas were much better than his, teeheheheee. ( If anybody is interested in how to make tortillas properly, let me know and I'll put up a quick tutorial ).

A few months ago, Lucy over at Attic24 posted a recipe for the most delicious Tiffin. I just had to try it out with my granddaughter, and we all thought it was extreme yumminess. Friday our little darling was with us again for the day and we decided to make some more. I changed the recipe a little again, using macadamia nuts and walnuts instead of pecans, using slightly less butter and golden sirup and adding some cream instead, and it was gooooooooorgeous. So gorgeous in fact, that my sons, my grown up sons, mind, forced me to make some more on Sunday! Goes without saying that it all disappeared very quickly again, lol.

Must go and look after my Poppy girl again now. She has been poorly since Friday and we were a bit worried about her, because usually she is such a boistrous and mischievous little madam, and the last few days, she has not been herself at all. Wouldn't play with Hector, wouldn't come up on the settees, didn't jump up to greet us......... She was eating ok though, so we ruled out anything bad in her tummy. I took her to the vet first thing this morning, and after a very thorough examination, he found that she had damaged a muscle in her back, the silly cow, probably playing too roughly with Hector, and that obviously made her very uncomfortable. As upsetting as that is, it is very good news, at least its nothing serious, and with painkillers, careful walks on the lead, no jumping and lots of massages (!!!) she should be right as rain again within a week or so. Of course we just have to spoil her a little while she is feeling sorry for herself ( she is very good at looking very depressed in her bed ), perhaps a little roast chicken will cheer her up..........