Sunday

Still cold, still damp, still dark!

What a lovely day it was yesterday.

I made bread.  I decided to try and up the oat content so I used 150g oats and 350g strong flour.  The flavour is great, as it the texture but the colour is not so fantastic.  Probably better to use wholemeal flour from the colour perspective.
This week I tried a five strand plait and I looks as if I am getting used to the whole pattern of plaiting, because it worked!

I used up most of the shop bought carrots making a spicy carrot and butterbean soup.  the spices (cumin and coriander) have counterbalanced the sweetness of the carrots and it tastes great (I think).  The recipe is here.

I got George to pull the remaining carrots from the garden while he was doing his hour and I then prepared, par boiled and froze them, ready for Christmas.  I am sure most of my readers can do this standing on their heads but I described what I did here.

I had some punnets of plums that really needed using and a bag of apples, very sound windfalls, that also needed using so, with Christmas pressies in mind, I made a large bowlful of plum and apple jam - well, I did the first half of the process and the actual jamming will be done this morning.  The jars are in the dishwasher as I type!

In the fridge I have some puff pastry that needs using up so, for lunch dessert today, I will make some mincemeat puffs.  Fancy name, simple thing - just like pasties but sweet.  Dead easy.

Today is going to be a lazy, easy, cosy, comfortable day.  I need one!