Crafty day

It was a late night last night. We went out to a lovely Chinese restaurant. Our local Chinese take away restaurant isn't great for vegetarians but there was quite a bit more choice at the restaurant we went to last night. Even so, I managed to order an aubergine starter and main course. Have you guessed that I love aubergines however they're cooked. The lovely thing about Chinese food is it's all about sharing food so I managed to try other things that I hadn't ordered. It was a thank you meal for all the support we give to the judo club our children go to. So a BIG thank you for the lovely meal.

Everyone else was out of the house today so I spent the day crafting and cooking with the cats for company. I managed to finish the post boxes - what do you think?

I'm really pleased with them now I just need to come up with the next idea. I finished them whilst catching up with some of my favourite programmes - Dowton Abbey and the Paradise. I've just got Merlin to go now but I'm waiting until everyone is home for that. I made sure that everything was switched off for the 2 minutes silence at 11am. As a grand daughter of refugees from the Second World War, I wanted to say thank you to all those who made it possible for them to escape with their lives. Thank to all the service men and women past and present. You are all amazing.

 I've also been busy in the kitchen and have made a double batch of flapjack and an apple crumble. This time, I added some dried cranberries to half of the flapjack mix. The kids don't like anything extra in their flapjack but I fancied a bit of a change. This is how they turned out...

 You can see the second batch just peeking out in the corner of the photo. I only made two thirds of the tray with cranberries as I knew I wouldn't be able to eat a whole batch myself (I like my food but not that much). The cranberries were an addition as I found them in the cupboard and I'm trying to use up cupboard stores before I buy anything else.

The crumble recipe is really easy. I'd already made the stewed apples so all I needed to do was make the topping. Weigh out 200g plain flour. Rub in 100g butter or marg until the mixture looks like breadcrumbs. Mix in 100g sugar. Spread over the top of the apples and bake at 180 degrees centigrade for approx 20 minutes and then enjoy. The plan is to have the crumble after homemade pizza tonight. I'm going to make double the amount of the tomato sauce so there will be plenty to have with pasta during the week. I always find that I'm exhausted after work and can't be bothered to cook something healthy no matter how many times I watch cookery programmes that say it's really easy. It's never easy when you're feeling tired.

I hope you're all having a lovely day and that I've given you some ideas.