OS Daily Thread - Monday 14th September

Floss

celyn90 wrote: »

....I was bored yesterday evening so I knitted some sushi. I'm not sure why I thought to do that, or indeed what I am going to do with the result, but it looks kinda funky I might make some more, if I can figure out how to knit prawns.....

Celyn, could you crochet them, so they curl a little? The knitted sushi sounds fab - please could we see a photo?

mioliere

Hi everyone; a bit late for me because I slept through the alarm. Managed to see DH off the premises on time, though.

MSD - so sorry that the meds are making Tris feel down. Perhaps that effect will wear off soon.

PenPin - belated birthday wishes to you. Hope you are feeling well today.

Sistercas - hope your girls are getting better now.

Well, we have friends coming to stay for a week next Sunday; yesterday DH spent the day sorting out an attic room for us, so that our friends can have our downstairs bedroom. The mess that came through the ceiling all over my office was horrendous and took ages to clear up last night. Still, the worst is over and he has friends coming over for a couple of days later this week, so we can get it organised, hopefully.

Dinner tonight will be Shepherd's Pie with beans, and pudding is undecided, although I have lots of peaches, grapes and bananas, so I think I'll make a fresh fruit salad.

The sun is shining here and I think we're in for a good day. Hope it's good wherever you are.

See you later.

KathyXX

tru

Oooooooooooooh River Cottage - you MUST visit

It was hot and sunny, trouble is me and the sun have a mutual dislike. I was hungry. There was a bar, which sold too-strong cider. I was feeling dizzy from the heat, and that was before I'd drunk anything. I wanted to ask Hugh a couple of things but by the time I actually met him, I'd forgotten what my questions were and the conversation went like this -

ME - you know your handbooks?
HIM - yes.
ME - well, you need to write a chicken one.
HIM - Oh good idea, I agree.

Then he signed my book (River Cottage Everyday), I said 'thanks very much', he said 'you're welcome' and that was that
He was very lovely, but I think he was thinking 'get this silly woman away from me' :rotfl:

I got my handbooks signed too :j I've got a photo of me, mr tru and Hugh - no I'm not putting it on here

Had a chat with Mark Diacono (author of Veg Patch), then Daniel Stevens (author of Bread), then John Wright (author of Mushrooms and Edible seashore). They gave us loads of advice. Everyone you see on the River Cottage programs are exactly the same in real life as they are on the tele Pam the Jam wasn't there though - shame as I wanted to meet her.

We watched Ray Smith butcher a lamb

There were local business selling their food - meat, bread, cakes, biscuits, salt, jams, chilli things (sauces, jams and chocolate), cheese and wine (I've got a lovely bottle of organic tayberry wine which I'm saving for Christmas).

There were local people doing woodturning, blacksmithing and toolmaking all done the proper (IMO) way, no electricity or generators in sight There were bushcraft and survival skills, beekeeping, ferret racing, basking making and a man from Gloucester (near me) with his birds of prey.

You could wander into the polytunnels, around all the fruit and veg that was growing, visit the pigs and chickens and even go right up to the house.

I had a fab beef and tongue stew with bread for lunch :drool: I wanted their own ice cream too, not sure if they ran out or I'd left it too late, but the stall was closed by 3.45pm so we drove a couple of miles to Seaton, bought Mr Whippy's (with flakes, lol) and sat on the pebble beach. Then we drove home and mr tru whipped up some fishcakes and spinach. It didn't take long - he mashed the potatoes a couple of days ago and the spinach was from the garden

Penelope_Penguin

Good morning, everyone :wave:

tru wrote:

Oooooooooooooh River Cottage - you MUST visit

We watched Ray Smith butcher a lamb

You could visit the pigs and chickens

I'm not a slightest bit jealous :rolleyes: :whistle: Glad you had a lovely time :T I'm keen to find a butchery apprenticeship, but my butcher is far too miserable for me to approach him :rolleyes: I'd love to work with Ray!

I borrowed a press from some friends over the weekend, and made apple juice :j It was quite labour intensive, and we didn't get as much juice as I'd expected. I've frozen some, which I'll turn into cider later :beer:

DH and DS 14yo climbed Scafel Pike yesterday - they did very well, but DS is shattered (he went to bed without pudding :eek: ). When the going was tough, DS marched on with the reward of roast chicken and Yorkshire puddings in his sights

DD camped out over the weekend - it was the centenary of our Scouts, so there was a huge camp. She's been offered lifts to college with the father of a friend (who drops said friend at school on the way) so that makes for a more interesting journey for DD, and a saving of £9.50/day for me :T






Old Style jobs for today:

• pick more apples to make into juice
• strip chicken carcase to make curry and soup
• write shopping list
• go to farm shop for fruit and veg
• pick damsons from the garden and make jam
• Flylady list

Have a productive Old Style day, everyone :beer:

Penny. x

CRANKY40

Good morning,

I'm off to the doctors this morning for my asthma review. Normally I know what causes my asthma attacks, but I had a very long lasting one that wasn't caused by anything I knew of earlier this year, so the asthma nurse is keeping an eye on me bless her!

I have a lot of tomatoes that are still very green, and I like chutney, so I think I may have to call in at Asda for some demerara sugar on the way home (thank you MSD). I need to make some more Twinks too, as my sensible small man has them in his lunch box (by request).

I'm knitting a scarf with that strange sticky out wool, so I'd like to get some of that done today. Everything crafty etc was completely neglected in August when my childcare plans went pearshaped.

Celyn you are so clever making all those diddy things. I don't have an artistic bone in my body. I can make cakes, but the decorating has to be very basic, and all those little fimo things are well and truly beyond me. I can do cross stitch and knitting, but that's just following instructions:rotfl:

Tru I'm jealous. I would have loved to come on your day out!

Take care all of you.

p.s. Pen-pen my dh was a "butcher's boy" whern he was at school. It was his Saturday job. The first time that he turned a whole leg of lamb into two joints and two lamb steaks I was a bit taken aback, but it's very useful and I do appreciate his knowledge now.

tru

Penelope_Penguin wrote: »

I'm not a slightest bit jealous :rolleyes: :whistle:

No, I didn't think you would be :rotfl::rotfl:

He asked for a volunteer, no women though because his wife was there and she might get jealous :rotfl:

I have loads of apples that won't fit in the freezer so I thought I might make juice too :think: I don't know anyone who has a press. Does anyone know of some way of managing without? I have an old tabletop and lots of bits of wood, some old sheets and plenty of tools to use. We saw a huge old press at work at the cider farm in Cornwall, I'm sure we could knock something together ourselves :think:

My brain's waking up now, I've remembered something else from yesterday There was a smoker outside the barn. It was made from a big wooden barrel and a smaller burner. The barrel had the top cut off and a handle attached. There were holes drilled through the barrel, near the top, and there were metal rods pushed through to hang the food on. The burner (about the size of a calor gas bottle) was on the floor next to it. They'd put ducting over the chimney of the burner, and attached it to a hole near the bottom of the barrel. We're going to build one of our own, I'll let you know how it goes

Oh and another thing - there was a little stream outside the barn. They'd made a bridge by setting an old pallet into the banks. And we found some chairs that had been made out of old floorboards. And the farm has it's own windmill for electricity. I'm sure I'll remember more later

thriftlady_2

tru wrote: »

Then he signed my book (River Cottage Everyday), I said 'thanks very much', he said 'you're welcome' and that was that

You've got the new book!! I'm not jealous either :DYou jammy Tru you. Oooh tell us what it's like. I'm counting the days until Amazon send me my copy. BTW I have a signed copy of a Nigel Slater's Real Cooking so there:p got it through the post though, didn't actually meet him.

Sounds like a fabulous day;)

OK, today is my shopping day, I'm off to Waitrose. I've just done a virtual shop there to get an idea of how much it will cost me. I also did one at Tesco just to see how much I could save. Waitrose comes to £87 and Tesco to £84. I think £3 is a small price to pay for shopping in a peaceful, spacious atmosphere with helpful, knowledgeable staff and a wide choice of locally grown veg;)

Breakfast was toasted crumpets and OJ

Lunchboxes have cheese rolls, chocolate biscuits (Mary Berry's fork biscuits), grapes and cherry toms.

Supper will be chorizo, peas and peppers with spanish omelette (fried potato for dd). I'm hoping some of the Spanish omelette will go into the boys' lunchboxes tomorrow.

mioliere

Tru - thanks for such lovely descriptions about your day with the River Cottage team (I, too, am not jealous!) Glad you had such a good day.

KathyXX

taplady

morning!

Tru - glad you enjoyed your day out and getting to meet his highness HFW!:D does he know he's a near god to some of the OSers?:D

Diva - glad you remember the raspberry buns - have never made them myself cos I'm always on a diet but cant resist them when I visit my sister.

OSiness today:

do a menu plan

washing to go on the line

pick tomatoes

other plans for today are to do my usual cleaning job, visit Mums elderly friend, take tapes back to the library.

thats about it for now, hope you all have a great day x

[Deleted User]

Morning Chums,
well the day looks bright and breezy so after my WM is finished its all going for a good blow on the line.I have a workman here at the moment putting me a new front door on my porch, and two small side windows are being replaced as well. Hopefully he will be gone by mid afternoon.A NSD for definite here today as I kinda blew my budget last week so I aam being very virtuous and staying home and cleaning for most of this week.Nowt to buy anyway, and even less money to buy it with lol.
Hope you all have a good week and the rain holds off long enough to get your washing dry.
Cheers JackieO xx