Sunday

Another dull, cool and breezy morning today with evidence of rain having fallen not so long ago and, probably, more to come.  I suppose it is only to be expected in November.  The trees are suddenly looking remarkably bare and, despite a good tidy up yesterday, the back garden is littered with dead leaves again.  Winter is chasing autumn through the branches, that's for sure.

George came yesterday and, bless him, dealt with the last remains of the wonderful summer we have had.  the runner bean leftovers all went into the garden bin and he gave the front and the back a good clear up and haircut.  It looks a lot better and, since I got rid of the old and very battered garden chairs, the whole place is looking a lot better.  Now i am wondering whether I need to get any more gsarden furniture.  Usually there's only me and I have one really good reclining chair plus three of those metal and canvas fold up small and put in a bag type chairs (sort of directors chairs) so I think I am all set really.  I don't sit out very much, there's always something else to do!

Yesterday I finally dealt with last week's left over cream by churning it into butter.  I then used the buttermilk to make a wholemeal and oat plaited loaf and it was truly delicious.  I had some warm with the home made butter (slightly over salted, I think, but very nice all the same) and it was as good as anything I have ever tasted.  The butter has a freshness that bought butter has lost and the oats really add something to the flavour of the bread while the buttermilk makes for a good rise.

Home made butter has a limited life span so I think I shall portion it into little pots and freese it, which should do the trick nicely!  In one of the Little House books, Laura describes how Ma liked the butter to look pretty so she grated carrot, squeezed all the juice out and added it to the butter to make it yellow.  I don't think I will be doing that: i like my pale cream butter just as it is.

I had fun with the plaiting of the bread.  I'd forgotten how to do a four strand plait and couldn't find anything on Google which was all full of the Hollywood eight plait (which I didn't want).  In the end I sorted it out myself and then looked again and found something on a hairdressing site which was exactly what I had done!  Clever me???

Today is Delia Day.  Beth will be bringing over some red cabbages and we will be turning them into braised red cabbage with apples, a traditional Christmas dinner ingerdient in our family.  I've just read through the recipe and ooop, I need to buy some nutmeg as I am nearly right out.  I have loads of cooking apples and onions though.

Borrowed from Delia's site http://www.deliaonline.com/recipes/type-of-dish/one-pot-meals/christmas-easybraised-red-cabbage-with-apples.html