A day of cooking

I've spent the whole morning cooking for today and the rest of the week. While the children were at their synagogue classes I took the opportunity for some me time in the kitchen (although I now have wrinkled hands from all the washing up). I started with dough for the bread (I made double quantities this time so I'm now baking two loaves of bread). I've worked out that I can make two loaves of bread for under a pound and they even taste nice.  You can find the recipe here. Once the dough has risen for the second time, cook for 45 minutes at 220 degrees centigrade until the bread is golden and it sounds hollow when tapped on the bottom.

I decided to make some macaroni cheese for dinner tomorrow night. Now normally, I don't like makings the cheese sauce as I tend to burn it and then the pan is really difficult to clean. I'd read on the Internet that it was possible to make a cheese sauce in the microwave so I decided to give it a go and guess what, it worked and the bowl was easy to clean. While I was cooking the pasta (about 500g, enough for two meals for our family), melt 100g margarine in the microwave. I put it on high for 40 seconds. Take out and stir in 100g plain flour. Put back in the microwave for 20 seconds on high to cook the flour. At this point, add enough milk to make into a thick paste. Cook again for 40 seconds. Then stir in the rest of the milk (you'll need 2 pints for this recipe and I used semi skimmed milk). Cook on high for 5 minutes, stir and then cook again for 5 minutes. At this point, the sauce should have thickened. I cooked it again for another minute just to make sure. I then added in grated cheese, stirred into the cooked pasta and sprinkled extra cheese on the top. They're currently sitting in the fridge waiting to be cooked.

Microwave cheese sauce

Macaroni cheese

On Wednesday I bought a bag of kale from Waitrose for 25p instead of £1.50. Now, kale is not my favourite vegetable but it is full of iron. So, I searched the Internet and I found crispy kale. I decided that even if it tasted horrible, I would have only wasted 25p. Wash and dry the kale, mix with some olive oil and bake in the oven at 180 degrees centigrade for about 20 minutes until crisp. Once out of the oven, sprinkle with sea salt. This tastes really good and a little bit like the seaweed you get from the Chinese restaurant. 

The bread is now out of the oven and the house is smelling great. Now just off to do the weekly shop. Can it get any more exciting!

Day Out

I had a lovely day out today in the most unlikely of places - Croydon. Both the children had a judo course at Croydon judo club and as it's a bit of a journey to and from, we decided to make a day of it. Not only was there surprisingly good shopping, there was also very interesting urban geography (can you tell what I teach yet?). I bored my husband silly talking about urban land use models, housing sectors and shopping transects. I didn't realise how close it was to Crystal Palace and the transmission masts.

What I didn't realise was how socially diverse Croydon is. We found some fabulous Asian and Caribbean shops at the far end of the high street and spent a happy half hour browsing the aisles. We even had a pleasant trip to IKEA and it's not often I say that. I managed to get 8 glass jars for 75p each. They are very similar to Kilner jars but so much cheaper.

And to top off the great day, Watford beat Nottingham Forest 3-0 in an away match and they're now 4th in the championship league. As a lifelong Watford supporter, it can't really get better than that.

Tomorrow will be a making and baking day, fresh bread, hummus, cookies, muffins...... I'll see what the day brings.

Eating well and cheaply

We've really been trying to spend less money this month. I've been reading a number of frugal blogs for inspiration including Frugal Queen and A Girl Called Jack. While I don't agree with everything that is written I do like to use some of their advice. My favourite supermarkets in the UK are sainsburys and Waitrose (not the cheapest I know). We use sainsburys for our weekly shop and Waitrose when we fancy a bit more of a treat. Wednesday was a day like that. It's been a bit of a weird week here with the snow and low temperatures. We've been in own clothes all week at work due to the icy site and the day has been finishing earlier. It will seem odd next week when we're back in work clothes and leaving at normal time (with at least three evening meetings). So, I was feeling in need of a treat by the middle of the week and Waitrose is sort of my way home. The exciting part of the shopping trip were the number of reduced items I managed to find. A big bowl of salad for 45p (it was enough for three different meals), half price avocados, cheap Quorn sausages and reduced sliced white bread, perfect for cheese toasties. You can guess that meals have been quite similar the last couple of nights (cheese and mushroom toasties with copious amounts of salad) but totally delicious and I haven't spent a fortune. I am finding that a lot if products in Waitrose are now much more reasonably priced. I think this way of thinking is going to increasingly become the norm in families especially as it was reported in the news yesterday that it's looking like the UK may be heading back into recession or as the radio presenters said, doing the Hokey Cokey (in/out). I guess it's time to spend less and think about our purchases a little more. I also find this website useful when deciding where to spend Money Saving Expert. It has helped me save money over the years.

Owl keyrings

It's still snowy here but the journey to work was much better than I expected. We finished early today so we could all travel home safely and it meant I had time to finish the latest batch of owl keyrings. Here they are in their multicoloured glory.

Now I just have to get matching handbags for them!

Crafty day

Woohoo, I've got my mojo back. It's amazing what a couple of days of enforced house bound days due to the snow can do to my crafting. I've spent the day making some more owl keyrings. Mum came by this morning and liked them so much she wanted one for each of her back packs so I suddenly only had one left. Here they are all cut out and ready to sew.

I managed to use some off cuts for the beige owls. I also spent the morning baking for the week ahead. The usual flapjack

double quantity of course. It amazes me how much ds eats of it during the week. I also tried out a new recipe for chocolate chip cookies from the original green & blacks cookery book (which is why it's in the picture above). The recipe is supposed to make 20 cookies but I only made 15 (I think I rolled out the dough a bit thicker than the recipe suggested). Here's the recipe:

Cream together 75g butter or marg and 60g of caster sugar. Add 1 large egg (beaten). Add half a teaspoon of vanilla extract and then 175g self-raising flour with a pinch of salt. Add a splash of milk so the dough is soft but not sticky. At this point mix in 100-150g chopped chocolate. I used Lindt chocolate as I had it left over from Easter and Christmas. Roll out the dough to 5mm thick and cut out with a round cutter. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees centigrade and bake for 20 minutes (I baked them for 10-15 minutes). Here's what they looked like.

I also baked another loaf of bread as yesterday's bread disappeared in one sitting. One off to finish the owl keyrings and maybe fit in a snowy walk.

Wintry Walk

I made slodge and fresh bread for lunch. Of course the children refused to eat the slodge (I imagine because it has vegetables in and according to them you can have too many vegetables, especially as a vegetarian!) so they just had the bread. The good news is that there's plenty left over for lunches next week to keep away the wintry chill. I'm really pleased with the bread recipe I've been using. I've made it three times now and it's turned out perfect every time. So perfect that it doesn't last much longer than one meal. The plans for tomorrow morning is to make some more bread dough so it'll be ready for lunch.

We managed to get the whole family out for a short walk this afternoon which I can tell you was a minor miracle. It looked beautiful outside...

We walked in the fresh snow, threw snowballs (and dodged them) and generally had fun. I made a new batch of ladybirds when I got back, this time in pink and purple. Here they are part way through

and here they are finished.

I'm really pleased with the way they've turned out. They were my excuse for sitting under the blanket before and after the walk and watching reruns of Miss Marple. So, marking done, fresh bread cooked, walk with my family and a bit of sewing done. The day can't really get any better. Hope you had a lovely day.

Snowy day

Well, the snow came down thick and fast yesterday. The local schools were closed and I spent the afternoon starting on my marking (I say started because I only finished it this morning). I'm sitting in my craft room (the tv room for everyone else but all my making things are stored here), making cards and looking out at the snow with the cat snoring next to me. Here are my efforts so far

Now I just have to decide who will get which card. The bread is rising in the kitchen ready for lunch when dd arrives back from judo. Apologies for the lack of posts recently but work and home life have  been so busy to my creative juices had disappeared. I'm hoping that they will return today and I will start planning some more felt ornaments. I'm also planning on spending a bit of time in the kitchen and walking in the snow so it looks like it will be a busy day.