Monday morning



What a cold, gloomy, miserable day it was yesterday!  Rain, rain, rain with some strong wind occasionally, just to liven things up a little bit.  I turned the heating on in the afternoon because DD was so cold.  I'd just finished moving things around in the shed when it started, luckily for me, or all the stuff would have got a soaking.  Now I can actually get to the upright freezer easily again. 

You should see the inside of said freezer - clean, sparkling and frost free!  Now I have to do an orderly and recorded transfer of stuff from the chest freezer to the upright, which shouldn't take long.  And then I must manage things a lot better!

I made the chicken balti and it's all ready to go into the freezer in single or titchpot portions.  In the end I decided to freeze the remaining chicken in single uncut portions and I cut up the beef and that also got bagged into single portions.  They're now in the freezer.  These special offers can be remarkable useful if you catch them just right.

The other exciting news (exciting for me anyway) is that the camera will arrive today.  Hardly unexpected, seeing as I paid over the odds for a speedy delivery, but I'm excited all the same.  A new toy to play with.  Yay!  If it arrives in the morning I can do a quick battery charge-up and try it out on the children p.m.

Today will be ordinary (I hope).  School, not wet playtimes (although I don't hold out much hope as it's still raining now), violins and swimming (no, proper swimming, not puddle swimming and no, not me, the children).  Days like today tend to pass very quickly.

Saturday

. . . and it's the weekend.  Yessssssssss!  So why am I up so early?  Well - you know what I'm like, but today I can go back up for a bit more kip later, if the spirit moves.  So far it isn't, but it's early days! 

I got a lot of stuff made and organised yesterday.  It was SEN day and there were no meetings or serious paperwork so I banged on with preparing phonic resources and organised them in folders.  Excellent stuff!

We were all of a flutter though - we have a new toy.  It's a new photocopier.  The old one was very poorly indeed.  When we used the top tray the machine uttered moans and groans reminiscent of me getting out of bed in the early morning and it kept jamming!  The new one is swish and - wait for it - best of all . . . it prints colour!  AND we have been told that it's cheaper to photocopy colour than it is to print multiple copies on the printer, so please use the colour function.  Woweeeeeeeeee . . .   I tried it after school.  I was sticking into their theme books a sheet describing the crisp tasting and realised that I'd printed one too few.  So off I went and made a copy.  The colour reproduction is very good - you really cannot tell the difference.  Oh, and it takes thin card too.  Excellent!

Diane tells me (as you will have seen from the comments yesterday) that I have  made blackberry cheese or even blackberry leather!  Nice one.  What a shame I wanted blackberry jam, eh?   She said it would be good with cheese.  Hmmmm - well, it is certainly good, absolutely delicious, in fact., with an intense berry flavour and I can see me using it in porridge, in yogurt and in stewed apple, etc, and I'm wondering which cheese would be best.  Today I'm having another go at jam in the new pan using the defrosted berries and those K brought for me yesterday.  Her little girl, who was in my class a while ago, assured me that 'we picked the best and biggest ones for you, Mrs Clark'.  Her older brother just looked amused!!!  Yesterday evening I simmered them and squashed them and at the moment they are warming up a bit before I push them through the mouli to get rid of the pips, etc.  Then I have another go and I won't make the same mistake again!  Proper pan = faster setting, must remember.
Update:  it is now a puree, one litre of the stuff, sitting in a bowl looking delicious - which it isn't because I haven't added any sugar yet.  It smells good though.

It's going to be a busy and productive day all round.  I want to go shopping early, then make the jam.  After that I have a couple of recipes to try - chickpea and butternut squash curry and sticky lemon chicken.  Also I have the leftover soup to make, although there isn't an awful lot of leftover veg this week so I may resort to chopped tomatoes and lentils as my base!  I'm going to get the newly cleared chest freezer defrosted so that tomorrow I can move stuff from the chest freezer and also do an audit of exactly what's in there.  I never want waste like that again!

Yesterday I made the Hairy Dieters red pepper hummus and, for the first time, I'm not so sure about one of their recipes.  I've never, ever been happy with home made hummus, but I've got it planned for lunch with crispbread, so we will see.  It might just possibly be one not to do again, for a change!

On top of that, there is the minor inconvenience of housework, washing and ironing.  Maybe . . .

Wednesday

You can really tell I'm back at school.  Early to bed last night means early to rise this morning with no chance of another snooze because by the time I am tired enough it will be time to  wake up!  Never mind - by this evening I will have absolutely no trouble getting to sleep whatsoever!

For a lovely sunny day, yesterday was bloomin' chilly!  Playground duty am and pm meant that I had the joy of appreciating the cold blasts of wind that kept swooping around the school field and made me wish I had put tights on.  Brrrrr.  It feels chilly now too, but not enough to wish the heating on.  I like getting both done on the same day rather than spreading it out over more days.  OK, I have a couple more afternoon duties each week but that's OK, it is infants only.

As I have some time right now and feel strangely disinclined to get on with school stuff, I think I will pootle out to the shed and sort out a few more ancient food packs.  As I said a few days ago, it is an absolute disgrace, letting my freezer get into such a mess, and I intend to keep a much, much  tighter control on things from now on!  (famous last words!!!)

Off I go.  I may be gone some time  :0)

Edit:  Just come back in because I remembered something.  Do you remember I was bemoaning (oh, OK, whinging - bemoaning sounds better) the fact that the Streele farm blackberries were late and there were none to pick?  Yesterday K came up to me with two empty jam jars and lids to return to me and a punnet crammed full of blackberries, asking 'could you use these?'.  They are now simmering on my hob to make puree before jamming.  What reminded me is that I thought I had used all my berries up from last year but I've just found another bagful in the freezer which will be fine for preserving.  So that is probably the Christmas thank yous to my lovely parent helpers sorted.  I wonder what spice would go with blackberries in jam . . . any ideas, gentle readers? 

Tuesday morning

Another happy day yesterday.  I paid for the camera so it is now mine and my Hairy Dieters recipe book arrived a day early.  I spent a joyous evening reading through and, oh, my, there are so many recipes I'm going to try, I can see that they will keep be going for months.  I'm going to have to make half quantities - one for me and one for the freezer - or I will just have too much stored away and my freezer is already rather loaded up.  I think that I have to be disciplined and make one new thing a week.  It'll make the fun last longer.

Everything is ready for school - a most comfortable feeling - so I can spend the rather earlier morning than I would really like getting up to date with online things.  I've hardly looked at the OUSA forums for a couple of days, which is unlike me!  Now's the chance to catch up!  Brekky was going to be a poached egg on a crumpet but yesterday evening I was too full after the first course to want the dessert I had already prepared (spiced apples and raisins in yogurt) so it went into the fridge for this morning.  I've got some melon to use up too so it will be a fruity breakfast!  The rest of the day's eating is freezer based stuff so I'd better go and get it all out to thaw!

Sunday morning

For the first time in I don't know when, I slept on beyond four or five. It wasn't a solid sleep but good enough, and waking at seven fifteen was a surprise. It feels pretty good, once in a while, I must say! I wonder if it was the new duvet: it was certainly much more confortable and snuggly. The old duvet is now waiting by the back door - it will go into the shed and cover the freezer to keep it just a little bit warmer. That may sound odd, but freezers don't like to sit in air that is too cold and - well, I would say 'too cold' just about describes it right now! As long as I don't cover the ventilation grills, it should work a treat.

Yesterday wasn't really a day of rest and I didn't fall asleep during the day, surprisingly enough, but it was a gentle and pottering day. I made biscotti for the first time and will make them again, they're really very easy and moreish. I made some cookies from a recipe given to me by a mum-friend from school. The breadmaker worked its usual magic and produced a white loaf and it's now starting to do the same thing with a wholemeal loaf, which takes an hour longer. Both of these, plus any brothers and sisters, will go in the freezer. There's quite a lot of empty space in the new freezer and filling them with bread seems a good idea. DD can have a loaf each Sunday when she comes over, so it won't be wasted.

I was very disappointed to see Pamela go out in third place in Strictly last night. I felt she was the most beautiful dancer of the three of them and the judges seemed to agree with this, but I guess they did perhaps play it safe in their exhibition dance and she's not a 'celebrity' of today in the same way that the other two are. I remember her from decades ago, making me giggle many a time, but a modern audience wouldn't necessarily recall those times.

So on to today. The snow is lying thickly, of course. It doesn't look as if any more has fallen overnight and the forecast for today is sunshine and to remain below freezing all day. That being so, I will either stay snuggled in my warm little house and do homey, housewifey things or I will don my wellies and trudge out for a walk. I could do both, I suppose! I'm pretty sure DD and DG won't be over for their Sunday tea. DD still isn't feeling wonderful and their road (narrow, winding, busy, cars parked on either side, ungritted) will be well nigh impossible to negotiate without bumping other cars. Best not to even try! A shame, but, of course, for two weeks we are not restricted to weekends only. Yay!!

I'd like to get some more potatoes ready for roasting and in the freezer this morning. I know I already have some, but I managed to get a bag of King Edwards yesterday, which do make the very nicest roasties. They won't go to waste and, from a controlled eating perspective, it makes it so much easier to just have one bit of roast potato in a meal.
I will also sit down and make a serious list of everything that is ready and what still has to be done, bought or prepared, and then timetable everything. I do like to be clear exactly where I am with everything at times like this.

If I get all of that done, I will be very pleased. :0)

Photo: just another of yesterday.