Rattling On...

Trust me...I have a Food Handling Certificate.

Admitting to having the occasional fry-up is, these days, tantamount to fessing up to be a practitioner of Black Magic. 

But this isn't a post where I reveal all my darkest habits, no, it's about the sausages. Or, to be more accurate, the purchasing of them.

I was in a well known supermarket the other day, at the deli counter, as the girls are fond of the Butcher's sausages (they are notoriously fussy when it comes to meat, rightly so I think). I wanted 9 sausages, but there were only 4 there. 

The young man on the counter said no problem they had more, went to get them, and proceeded to count out my 9. First of all he reverse-fitted a polythene bag over his hand, picked up the 4 and deposited them on the scales. He removed the bag to open the new pack of bangers with some scissors that were lying on the counter. He put the bag back on his hand and picked up the first saussy out of the pack.

Wait... they are all attached in a string! What to do now? Major flummox. Remove bag, pick up scissors and cut off 5 more (individual) sausages. Put all sausages back into the pack, replace bag over hand and pick up the freed 5. Place them on scales with original 4.

Meanwhile I was rocking with laughter at the Health and Safety performance. Poor lad. But he's had the training and it must be seen to be carried out. My Other Butcher, of the family firm type, just grabs the meat and deals with it bare handed and to the best of my knowledge he's not killed anyone yet.

The germs wouldn't stand a chance on my sausages anyway. I like them well done, just a whisker away from charred.

Boys and girls.

 

This is an unusual sight, both the cats cosying up together on the kitchen chair. It's normally Frank's territory- he's the all black. Harry likes the radiator hammock best.

Don't look at the state of the chair cover. I was going to recover it, but since it has become the cat's chair (I know, I know) there doesn't seem to be the same urgency or need. 

Frank does in fact have two perfectly operational eyes, he just chose this precise moment to wink!

The girls, however, are more than happy to bunk up together, Coco is usually the pillow. This picture really doesn't convey the disparity in their sizes, but does show how Bunty gets bossed about, having only roughly half the bed here... I think she likes it.

Conkers!

When I was little my Mother used to use 'Conkers!' as an expletive. I think she thought it sounded a bit naughty, and she never swore. 

I collected these in the park at the weekend. They were all on the ground, unopened, and there was only one other small boy kicking around in a desultory fashion. How times have changed. At his age I would have been up the trees or at least throwing large sticks to dislodge the best looking specimens. Even now I find them irresistible. When my own girls were small I used to walk home from work past a large horse chestnut tree and would take conkers home in my pockets for them.

At school there was always fierce competition for the hardest conker and we played the traditional game each year. There were many tried and tested methods of hardening them off including soaking in vinegar and baking in the oven. Drilling the hole through the middle was always a turning point and many were split in the process.

At Junior school, DT was named and shamed in front of the whole school. He had a conker of legendary crushing power and had beaten all comers. But... it transpired his dad had filled the conker with lead. I think he was expelled for a short while. Unsportsmanlike behaviour.

The really dark pair in the collage are great big dobbers I bought back from Stockholm last year. They've been sitting on a shelf in the kitchen and are hard as bullets now. Our own town offerings are paltry in comparison, despite the shells being almost as big as tennis balls. But the colour of the fresh ones just can't be beaten. 

(I read on Google, on checking what conkers are called in the US ((on account of the spell-checker that has now, most annoyingly, been incorporated into the Typepad editor)) that they are known as buckeyes. Any other names around the world? )

Is it an artichoke?

Before...

 
And, well, not really after; more like in between...

I'm not a fan of this giant thistle thing that's in the front garden. The first summer we were here it grew to massive proportions. The next year I lopped it off, and was seen doing so by a neighbour who complained.

I tried to politely remind him it was in fact my garden, but he's seen fit on several occasions to put me right on my gardening techniques and routines. I may add at this juncture that his own garden is a shambles.

The people who lived here before us had a thing about thistles (they were not Scottish) and there were some box trees in the back cunningly shaped to resemble such.

Not any more. They are still there but I've spent three years trimming them into domes. Maybe it's just that feeling of making a property one's own, not wanting someone else's fetishistic gardening reminders.

When we viewed, in the late spring, there were many lovely rose bushes scattered around the flower beds. Not there when we moved in, and of course no mention had been made of them being dug up prior to the sale...

When my parents bought their current house the woman who was leaving took everything, even down to the lightbulbs. And we once bought a house where they took the kitchen sink and the backboiler from behind the fire. All illegal of course but not really worth the wrangling nightmare required to sort it out. Or at least not to me.

The thisle thing grows on...a bit stunted this year and weather beaten. The wind had blown it skew whiff the other day and it hit the car wing mirror as I was parking. Poor thing must feel very unloved. If it is an artichoke can we eat it next year?

Sunday Scrapbook

Occasionally there's no doubting which direction is North.

Janet is joining in this week so do go and take a look.

Thirty three.

 
Almost a fourfold increase in the crop on last year. I had to pick them now as the tree is still quite small and was listing alarmingly due to the weight on one particular branch. I didn't want to lose it, and the dreadful weather isn't helping either.

Only one has any damage on it which I don't think is a bad ratio. The fruit is smaller than last year but I think the complete lack of a summer may have something to do with that.

Other than a few tomatoes still in the greenhouse, left to ripen (ha!), the apples mark the end of the garden harvest. The Rowan tree in the back garden did have loads of berries but the blackbirds have completely stripped it. I've never known that to happen so early on and it will be interesting to see if it turns out to be an indicator of anything in particular.

Or whether the birds in my garden, who ate all my precious fruit crop, are just greedy swines.

FO Friday

A bit more garter stitch this week, this time a scarf. Last winter I saw a woman wearing a very simple, very long garter stitch scarf and thought, as I often do, 'I could make that.'

So I have. Hers was a sort of saffron colour but there was nothing like that in my stash. There was however some Rowan Big Wool. Five balls, picked up in the charity shop for £4. An absolute steal.

It's good and long, and I could have made it even longer as there was plenty of yarn, but kept Isadora Duncan in mind.

I didn't want the rows too tightly packed  so I used one 8mm and one 12mm needle. It gives a slightly different texture to the garter stitch which I prefer. If the difference in size of the needles is even greater then the effect is even more noticeable.

I originally cast on 25 stitches, but then undid it and went for 18, which was plenty wide enough.

This is a real no-brainer of a project and considering how hectic work is and how long I seem to spend there, it's just what was needed. 

 

 

Vandalism.

 Corbar Cross, a local landmark, originally erected in the 1950s and replaced in the 80s due to weather damage. High up on top of a hill and visible for miles around, reached only via a steep cross country footpath- which is how it originally got there, carried by members of the local Catholic Church.

Not any longer...

This was done last week in the dead of night by a lunatic with a chainsaw. Reportedly in protest over the recent Papal visit.

Now, I am not a religious person as such. I do not practice, which is not to say I don't have faith. And what I do pride myself in having is tolerance and respect. 

I believe in democracy, the right to free speech and free expression without fear of persecution. I can only think the idiot that did this believed he was expressing something deep and meaningful. 

There has been a public outcry and offers to replace it, the grapevine suggests there is a suspect... but proving it will be a different matter. In other places in the world this type of incident would bear a much more frightening consequence than a fine and a bit of community service.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this and I don't want to get onto some moral soapbox. I hope you get the drift...   

Note: I didn't take these photos. The second is from the local paper website. The first, which is a great shot, was online, credited only to 'Amy' on a Picasa account. 

NQP

As in Not Quite Perfect, a term used when manufactured goods are being inspected before leaving the factory.

My lovely cows came from my Great Grandma's house in Wales. The tiny one, she's about an inch high, is in fact quite perfect. The large one though has seen better days.

Much better days if we're being honest. There are some more pieces inside her but they attach to other bits long lost. It would take an act of forensic reconstruction to make her as good as new.

And yet, I love her as she is and she has a place on our main mantelpiece. Unless you're right up close her flaws are unnoticeable. Somebody else must have loved her as well, to have kept her after the damage was done.

 

 

 

Spinach is good for you.

Spinach and ricotta whatsit is one of my favourite vegetarian dishes. It probably has a real name in Italian but we usually refer to it as a bake .

I made one the other night and instead of the usual cannelloni tubes, bought these sawn-off ones. Much easier to stuff. Giant pasta shells are the easiest of all, but they're like donkey poo in a backwater like this.

For the filling (whole bag of tubes-serves 6-8) I used 500g ricotta; 2 medium onions; crushed garlic; half a teaspoon of grated nutmeg and salt and pepper. I also used 10 'chunks' of the frozen spinach, defrosted and squeezed to remove water.

The onions should be chopped really finely. If you don't do this you will regret it later as you attempt to force large chunks down the pasta tubes. I know.

Mix all the filling ingredients together and then using a small spoon, or whatever works for you, jam it all down the tubes. Any left over can be used to grout the gaps...

 Over this pour a 500g carton of passata. 

Meanwhile, make a cheese sauce for the topping. I used a litre of semi-skimmed milk, Gruyere cheese and some cornflour to thicken. I always heat the milk, add the cornflour (mixed in a bit of spare milk), wait until it's thick then add the cheese (and some coarse black pepper). Remember to stir all the time. Or else.

Pour over the passata and add a handful of grated Parmesan if you happen to have some...

This is pre-cooking, but later it went into a 180C oven for just under an hour. It may be that you have to cover it with foil towards the end to prevent the cheese burning.

Another tip is to do a (literal) dry run with empty pasta to see which dish it best fills, though you can do more than one layer if necessary. It is also great re-heated the next day, in fact I prefer it then!

I served mine with salad and baked new potatoes. 

  

Monday morning philosophy...

 There is no such thing as too much chocolate. Discuss...

 

Sunday Scrapbook

This week's pictures are to remind me that it doesn't actually rain all day every day. It just feels like that...

Lesley has also scrapbooked, and by one of those strange coincidences that happen now and again she's gone cloudy as well! 
  

 

The good old bad old days.

 I suddenly find myself in the position of being dangerously close to being fashionable. Well, at least in the shoe area.

Brogues are very This Season, Dahling. And I am the proud possessor of two pairs. Vintage, of course.

I've long been a fan of brogues, this pair are Clarks' ladies' from many, many moons ago. They have a slightly elevated  heel compared to men's. My other pair, tan, are in fact men's shoes. Beautifully made and picked up in a charity shop for a tenner, unworn. I only have size 6/39 feet so they're very small for a bloke, you'd be hard pressed to find many pairs for sale nowadays.

I rather favour the school-marm Battleaxe look when wearing them: thick tights, skirt, sensible cardi. But with funky jewellery and bag. Oh, and sometimes my Dad's original Crombie overcoat. I'm a real child of the 80s and lots of fashion at the moment takes me back to my sartorial heydey.

I was only telling No1 recently how I used to spray paint T-shirts and knit bat-wing mohair jumpers on broom handles. Or go out wearing a man's dinner jacket and enough diamante to sink a battleship. Those were the days... 

 

FO Friday

A bit of garter stitch this week. The pattern came from a great blog I've been reading lately, Raglan Guld (see the tutorial in the sidebar). Leonie must be thinking she has a cyber-stalker as I've read back over dozens of her posts!

I used some Rowan aran 100% wool that's been in my stash forever, or at least it feels that way. This has hardly made a dent in it, so much of it is in there. Disappointingly, but not surprisingly there were several joins in the hanks. I find this a big problem with Rowan yarns, and very annoying considering the price.

This type of garment is great for me as I have a permanently cold back and often wear woolly waistcoats under cardis.  To say the knitting process was quick and easy would be an understatement. It'd be great for a novice, and if you had time on your hands I'm sure there are loads of ways it could be customised. Over on Leonie's blog she's added links to other people's versions, some of which are really unusual!

Suckers.

 Our house was covered in ivy when we bought it. The front garden was also completely over-run with it. 

We decided to remove it from the house first. This was a bit of a hard won decision as the ivy cladding was refuge for many birds and insects. But it was right up into the eaves and some of the insects were unwelcome and a nuisance when windows were open.

So down it all came, and when it was off the walls and in heaps it became obvious just how unbelievably much there was. We had to make several trips to the recycling plant to dispose of it in the composting.

The garden was another matter altogether. It nearly finished us off, all the digging and heaving on roots and runners. Three years later it hasn't returned. Thank goodness.

To make up for the loss of habitat and food matter for the birds I bought nest boxes and feeders. And of course they have taken full advantage of my fruit trees...

The only reminders of the ivy on the house walls are the dried remains of some of the more stubborn suckers, left behind when the plants were wrenched away. Not as easy as it sounds.

They bring to mind the fossilised remains of long gone prehistoric creatures. We could scrub them away, but I quite like the effect.