Pancakes for breaKfast

With the kids or on your own we can celebrate food over this strange time of lockdown. You can make pancakes for breakfast, especially at this special time of Easter!

2oz plain flour, 2 eggs and a little milk makes 6-7 small pancakes. Double that for more, halve it if you are on your own (give left overs to the birds) 🙂

I use gram flour as I can’t eat wheat but use any plain flour!

mix it up together with a fork squashing any big lumps, little lumps don’t matter.

Turn on the pan on a high heat and add a tiny bit of oil (we are cooking them not frying them) and spread it out over the pan. You might have to add a little more during cooking all the pancakes but remember a teeny tiny bit!

put a large spoon of mixture into the pan.

Your pancake needs turning over with a spatula as soon as little craters start to appear like the ones I’ve ringed around.

Only leave it like this for a few seconds and then put on a warm plate and make the next one.

Note: When the pan looks like it’s smoking, don’t panic, just turn the pan down a little but not a lot, you need it hot.

Then you can put them on the table with all your chosen toppings 🙂 You can use savoury toppings if you prefer.

Note: in your enthusiasm, don’t forget to move the pan safely of the heat.

For the more fussy among us, just jam is ok 🙂

Happy eating!

 

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New Side Table

I’m delighted with what I’ve just made. I’ve made a side table for the lounge out of  vintage chemists box.

I found this box in the loft of our last house when we were moving and so decided to bring it with us. We’ve been using it to store sketch books and journals until now when we had a need for a new side table.

I’m really happy with it 🙂

Last Nights Dinner

Wild venison bourgignon was on the menu yesterday, dinner with some lovely friends. I’m sorry if you are vegetarian 🙂 but we try our best to use responsibly sourced meat as a principle and believe it is very healthy and good for you. The recipe was from a magazine I buy called ‘Simple Things’

Wild venison (from responsible countryside management)

Marinated in red wine with rosemary.

Cooked with carrots, red onion, bulb fennel, mushrooms and garlic.

A beautiful Supper for a cold evening, served with mashed potato and peas!

Here’s the recipie, very easy, you just need to give yourself preparation time. 

Happy Cooking 🙂

 

New Years Marmalade

It’s the time of the year for marmalade, the Seville oranges have been in the shops and thoughts are directed to making a years supply of marmalade. The reason for this sudden desire to slice 6 pounds of oranges is two fold. It tastes better and it’s cheaper!

For several years now I’ve put the oranges in a food processor to chop them, but this year I decided to slice by hand. Oh my word, I was so surprised how pleasant it was to sit and slice the oranges by hand (with a nice serrated steak knife) in the quiet. A very simple life thing to do, and it was easier to extract the pips too!

Once the sliced oranges have soaked over night they are meant to be simmered to reduce the liquid by a third. When I had heated the the water in the pan and added the sugar I realised I hadn’t done that!!!

I managed to rescue it by taking some liquid out, adding more sugar and a bottle of liquid pectin. Here on my pantry shelf are twenty jars of marmalade. I now feel like Moomin Mama and I have a very happy husband!

It tastes exceptionally good too 🙂

Enjoying my Cactus

This is the second year this cactus has flowered, isn’t it beautiful? I don’t know what it is called, I think it’s too early to be a Christmas cactus.

It is obviously very happy there on the window sill and I thought I would share it so as you could feel the pleasure too! 🙂

New Lamp Shade

One of my projects last week was to make new a very tatty lampshade.

I have a collection of used stamps and I have loads that I have accumulated that are no use in my collection, so the new project began.

After the laborious job of soaking the stamps of the paper of the envelopes, it was a fun and satisfying thing to do.

What do you think?

Now for the job of restoring the lamp base! 🙂

We Made a Pond

We just went outside one day and collected everything together, gradually placing things where we wanted them. The only thing we actually bought was a couple of pond plants! 🙂 There’s a frog under there! There’s still a bit to do, but I’m happy 🙂

Yellow Chair

I am very happy to report the continuation of furniture preservation in my garden.

I now have a yellow chair! I decided that this chair couldn’t be left any longer and needed attention….

and I am quite happy to tell you I painted it yellow.
I am really enjoying the brightness in my garden as the sunshine has been very limited lately, so now I have my very own bit of sunshine 🙂

Baby Bull Finch

I had to share this with you 🙂 I took this photo this morning through the window. We must have a bull finch nest in the garden!

Home Grown Chicken for Dinner

Well, this is a huge sense of achievement. We’ve just had one of our own home grown chickens for dinner. These are three more going in the freezer. One small step towards self sufficiency! Girls for laying, boys for eating 🙂
We pot roasted one (which I forgot to photograph to show you) and this is a risotto with some leftovers. I also plan a pie or pasty for tonight and then make some stock for some soup.
This makes me happy! 🙂