50p a day til Christmas - healthily?! Weezl's next challenge...

Sian_the_Green

Tea Cakes
1lb plain flour
1/2 tsp salt
2oz lard and margarine
1/2 oz yeast
1oz sugar
1/2 pint warm milk
2-3oz currants

Sift warm flour and salt and rub into the fat
Cream the years with the sugar, add the warm milk to it and mix with the flour and fruit to a light elastic dough
Put to rise until doubled in size and divide into 6 pieces
knead each into a round and rollout to the size of a tea plate
Place on greased baking sheets, !!!!! the top neatly and allow to prove for 15 mins
Bake at GM 7 for 20-25 mins

Top can be brushed with egg and water or rubbed over with margarine after baking

In_Search_Of_Me

Re the pills I tried em all! The reeealy nasty thing about the fat ones is that you never look at the oil in italian cooking (think orange) the same way again...gave me awful stomch cramps as well. Will stik with SW when I'm back on my feet. Back from shopping (I shopped and paid & mum carried!) at asda. Now feeling quite sore as think stitches rubbing on dressing so time for quiet and that wee snooze!
I have a lovely new jam book if anyone wants a recipe for owt - just tell me what ya need and I'll have a look! as and when I have the energy will make some. Mums begging for my dowager chutney as I've run out (think its in index) so will do a batch in time for her birthday on 8th sept.
Shopping came in at 27 but that included new nicks and nice bits for mum plus cleaning stuff and loads of cat stuff in case I cant drive for a bit...sure makes you realise how much you rely on the car!

munchki

In_Search_Of_Me wrote: »

Re the pills I tried em all! The reeealy nasty thing about the fat ones is that you never look at the oil in italian cooking (think orange) the same way again...gave me awful stomch cramps as well. Will stik with SW when I'm back on my feet.

I only took them last week and agree, horribly tummy ache. I am going to just do sw as well, have all the stuff here anyway and no awful side affects! :eek: Think I am not going to continue to take the little pills. I eat very little anything with fat in it, outside of the odd day where I crave cheese and quite frankly dont think the blue pills are a healthy way to eat unless of course it is out of fear! i did lose nearly 5 pounds last week (DH says to just keep checking my pockets) but so scared to eat anything that mostly ate veg and not much else and was getting very ratty! So just going to do the slow and steady thing, much healthier in the end.

Well another batch of jam in the pan, this time spiced blackberry and apple jam, smells gorgeous!!

phizzimum

Went to see friends yesterday who are "camping" nearby and came back with a huge haul of blackberries :j :j It's the first time I've found some that aren't on a roadside - so much easier to forage without worrying about passing cars, especially with children around. Also there were lots of lovely young nettles there, but didn't pick any (even though I had my rubber gloves in the car) as I wasn't sure if they'd been sprayed with anything.

Normally I just freeze blackberries for crumbles but I've decided to make blackberry and apple jam this year - easier to store and uses up some more apples from our tree.

And on the bread slicing discussion - I can't slice straight to save my life. I find it easier with hand made bread as it doesn't rise as much as the BM loaves - the shorter the loaf the less chance for me to make a mess of it! We haven't had a bread knife for a while now, I just use a big kitchen knife so I suppose I don't do too bad considering.

thanks for the teacake recipe Sian, my girls love those. It's starting to feel like the weather for sitting by the fire eating toasted tea cakes isn't it?

finally... we ate the first (and possibly the last)of our home grown sweetcorn today. I couldn t believe how good it tasted! I've never really like sweetcorn much but this was so delicious and ...well...sweet! Going to make sure we plant lots more next year, and hopefully get some sun so that it will ripen properly.

In_Search_Of_Me

pp sounds a lovely day pm! jealous re the backberries! Just popping in to say weezl sends love...they are still, yup you guessed it, decorating! Quite agree re the hot fire...although apparently there is some sunshine on the way!

Allegra

Hello ) I'm new - although, I've been reading the Weezl challenges for days on end now (20 pages remaining of the old one, this one all done and dusted), and don't feel new at all. Feel like I've been here forever, actually !

A couple of random points sparked off by previous posts - we used to use pigs trotters to flavour bean stew; after a few hours of slow cooking, the meat would just kinda peel off the bone - I remember it used to be one of my favourite meals when I was a kid.

And if anyone suddenly finds themselves with a glut of tomatoes on their hands, did you know you can sun-dry them yourself ? Well, maybe not sun dry exactly, not in this country - when did we last have four days of uninterrupted sunshine that would be needed for this ? - but oven dry, rather. The end result is pretty much the same.

Just slice each tomato in half, and pop straight on to the rack of a low oven (100 degrees) - if they are on the smallish side and threaten to slip through the racks, use cake-cooling racks instead - and leave for 4-5 hours, until completely dry.

phizzimum

you know when you have that feeling at the back of your mind that you've forgotten something?

I started boiling up the fruit, put the jam jars into the oven - and remembered I'd forgotten to buy the sugar! D'oh!

I had nearly a whole bag of caster sugar and as the apples have lots of pectin (I think) I've used that to make jam with some of the fruit. And put the rest of the fruit in the fridge to make jam with another day. I;ll let you all know if it sets...

In_Search_Of_Me

fingers crossed and welcome allegra. thanks for the tip...good when toms are going spare and need using me thinks?

MRSMCAWBER

Evening all

Phizzimum... The number of times I have forgotten to put salt in my bread dough :rotfl: How difficult is it to remember..water, yeast, flour n salt ..so now i get the salt pot out on the worktop before i start ...nothing worse than bread with no salt in..bleughhhh

Im still planning n plotting what staple goods i want to get in to help us through winter.... This bloomin eather is helping as its making me think of yummy rib sticking stews n casseroles:p ... My list is getting there... in fact i might have a wander to "real" (a big supermarket near by) to price up there pulses n things... I have been avoiding it recently as I find the bigger ones much more tempting..the less choice I have the less I spend :T But i figure i can wander there armed with a pen n paper and make notes..then get to the chinese supermarket and compare

Right off to bed for me...have a good evening all

meanmarie

Welcome Allegra, thanks for the tip about tomatoes...doubt if I will have anything resembling a glut this year at the rate of 3 a week which is the current harvest. Dried some cooking apples in low oven last year as I was becoming desperate and just finished the last of them last night as a snack, will try it again this year as I hate to waste apples as they are the fruit that I eat most....snacks, stewed, sauces, puddings, tarts.

Night all

Marie