As The Workhouse Approaches....How To Do Everything To Avoid It, the Old Style Way

scottishminnie

great excitement -I have 3 baby tomatoes:j:j:j:j:j:j

I put the 3 tomato plants outside last weekend and one of them now has tiny little fruit. The only thing bothering me is whether the birds will sabotage my plants and eat the fruit. Should I cover them with some kind of net? Everyone I know has greenhouses so nobody is sure about the bird thing.

I've seen a recipe for beetroot relish earlier in this thread so off to note it down and hope that I have enough beetroot to make it soon.

I'll now need several hours to catch up on all the threads since Friday. What a bunch of chatterboxes!

Larumbelle

My recipe is 4 heaped tbsp plain flour, 2 eggs, 300ml milk, pinch of salt. I mix it in the food processor using the whisk attachment but I only mix it for about 20 secs max. Then I leave it at least an hour before cooking it.

I swear by silicon muffin trays for my yorkie puds. I used to be a bit hit-and-miss with metal trays but the silicon never fails - probably because it gets really hot, really quick, which is key to good yorkies! I try to be healthy so I don't put fat in the bottom, just a few squirts of fry-light into each one. And don't over-fill the tray, if you do you end up with burnt tops and squidgy bottoms.

My oven is a bit rubbish so I heat it to 230, put the yorkies in then turn the oven down to 180. They take 20-25 mins.

Using this method I've always had success, but everyone has their own method that works for them. I think the real secret is that yorkshire puddings can sense fear and if you don't have faith that they will rise, they won't :rotfl:

lizzyb1812

Scottishminnie - I have never netted tomatoes and I have never had bird damage. Just make sure to water them regularly not sporadically.

ifonlyitwaseasier

for Yorkies i use Saint Delia's recipe, never fails just split it into a 12 spot muffin pan and Tada!

meanmarie

My late MIL was a great gardener and used to grow huge beetroot. She used to boil them for about an hour, cool and put into the freezer. When she wanted some, she would boil until cooked, peel and slice and serve them hot with white (bechemel) sauce....lovely.

It is not strictly speaking necessary to 'preserve' beetroot, they will last for quite a while if stored in a cool place in damp sand, not touching each other.

HTH

Marie

anguk

I've been making yorkshire puds for about 30 years and the only time I've had failures is if I've used self-raising flour by mistake or used the food processor to mix them.

My quick, easy fool-proof method is 1 mug of plain flour, 1 egg and slightly less than a mugfull of milk, put everything in a jug and mix together with a fork, the mixture should be the thickness of yoghurt. Always use a deep muffin tin with enough oil to cover the bottom, stick the tin in a hot oven (about 200) for about 10 minutes until the oil is smoking then add the pud mixture (half fill each hole). They take about 20 minutes to cook and never open the oven door in the first 10 minutes!

thifty

Hi all,
Quick question- can you make soup from pea pods? Guinea pigs ate them this time but just wondering ..
Oh and as a teacher who works in a comprehensive, I love the term " Comprehensive mess" !

[Deleted User]

Greyqueen, thanks for the note about planting beetroots now for pickling size. I did just that after reading your post and will sow the last of the seeds today, quite hard work as I needed to clear the broadbeans first to make space and would have left the roots normally but they are composting instead. I got another 3.5 kg including pods, from the beans and I blanched and froze them last night. I also got myself going to sow 2 rows of my fav petrowski turnips as it feels as though this is then last ditch chance to get things going for autumn. 8.5 kg of beans from a 95p packet of seeds!!

I was wondering about those who want a bit of land to work on, what about trying your local green candidate? You never know, it is our green candidate who provided land for our allotments

Re setting claim to land, it happenened in a village I used to live in. Farmer kept an old bit of equipment in a house lean to, it was an infomal agreement between the farmer and the house owner. House owner wanted to sell the lean to to a neighbour to find that farmer had ownership rights. Nasty. It is different when it is derelict land as no-one should get hurt

The local horse chestnut trtees are looking dreadful, brown mottled leaves. I cannot believe that they are shedding already, I hope it isn`t yet another tree disease. The sky has that `look` at the moment and tdh it looks autumnal, doh it feels early

I posted a letter yesterday and the first class stamp cost 26p. I bought a stash of 1st and 2nd when I got my 25% pension and I still have rolls of them, it was a good tax free investment, just passing it on

GreyQueen

LOL, loved the idea that the Yorkies can smell fear; it's amazing how something in theory so simple can be so potentially recalicitrant in real life. I know a woman who cooks Sunday roasts for a pub, is actually a trained chef, and admits she can't do Yorkies to save herself. Absolutely anything else, any cuisine, but not puds.

paid in chickens, I think the food mixer might be the heart of the problem, it's kinda overkill. I use the technique which my Mum taught me; 2 oz plain flour and 1 egg per person, milk enough to make a batter. Combine egg and flour with a wooden spoon in a bowl and slowly add the milk, beating it in, until you have a runny batter. Cover with a clean cloth and set to one side (2 hrs is good, really helps the flavour develop).

After you've removed the meat, bring the stove up hot, Gas 7 or equivalent and heat up the tins you intend to use plus the veg oil which you've poured inside. Add a splash of cold water off the tap to the batter and beat it in, then pour it into the tins and straight into the oven; about 15 mins for wee batters in bun tins, about 25 mins for large tins. Don't open the door to peek; they're temperamental little s0ds and can rise and collapse back, seemingly on a whim. HTH.

I definately think you can overbeat some things inc batters. I have ME and find mixing stuff tiring so tend to do the bare minimum and it often works well for me. I know I could get a mixer but I need one so seldom and have such a small kitchen that I haven't felt it worthwhile yet. I don't bake much at all as there's mostly just me and I really shouldn't stuff my face with too much cake and pastry. Different story for those with a houseful of growing children and a hungry OH, though! You need all the mixers you can get.

floss2, thank you so much for your well-wishes for my Mum and I am sorry that you've lost both your parents to this terrible disease. Mum finished radiotherapy for breast cancer just before Christmas last year and her GP admits that he's being ultra-cautious, that it probably isn't the cancer come back and gone into the bone, but that he would rather be safe than sorry. Me, too! He was the one in the group practice who diagnosed Mum originally and a lovely bloke. A thousand blessings on him and his caution and I hope that it is Diagnosis B (the start of a frozen shoulder).

Told her if it is, don't delay and let it get a hold. I thought that osteopathy might be helpful, as have had it for problems myself, but does anyone have any alternative ideas? Mum lives in a smallish market town and they do have an osteopath, whom I've used and can vouch for, but I'm not sure about other complimentary practioners. She'll go nutty with frustration if her shoulder seizes up for months and limits what she can do.

Yesterday was such a lazy day that I feel ashamed to admit that I did very little, just dotting around on t'internet between a (very) few chores and a little bit of cooking and sorting out. Knew I was wiped as I would normally be stir-crazy in this tiny flat but the fact that I wasn't told me how much I needed the rest. Today, I will go to work and make a flying lottie visit; got to get the rotables up there and the broad-bean glut down and blanched and frozen. Plus I need to exhort/ threaten my ungerminated carrots.:rotfl:What's that you say? It doesn't work like that? Pants!

My squash plants (butternut and turk's turban) have started to rampage and flower across the middle of the lottie so I'm quite excited about them. Only just got into butternut squash in the last couple of years and love it. It makes an almost radioactive orange curry, very cheering on a winter's evening. And lovely soups.

Getting very cross about the hikes in gas and electric and fearing what it'll mean for so many people in this country, particularly those in the colder and damper parts, who are poorer, and older and/ or disabled. Can't help but think that we're going backwards as a country, to the point where life has become/ is becoming a struggle for so many people. Things which were once luxuries, like TVs, are given away on Freecycle, and the basic foodstuffs and heat are becoming hard to afford. We're living in interesting times, that's for sure.

Hope everyone has a good day.

greenbee

GreyQueen wrote: »

Told her if it is, don't delay and let it get a hold. I thought that osteopathy might be helpful, as have had it for problems myself, but does anyone have any alternative ideas? Mum lives in a smallish market town and they do have an osteopath, whom I've used and can vouch for, but I'm not sure about other complimentary practioners. She'll go nutty with frustration if her shoulder seizes up for months and limits what she can do.

Sports massage - I have it weekly for ongoing postural treatment and additional sessions for when I do something silly... I've tried pretty much everything else and it has definitely been the most successful. I do occasionally still see the physio who tells me the massage is very effective.

GreyQueen wrote: »

Things which were once luxuries, like TVs, are given away on Freecycle, and the basic foodstuffs and heat are becoming hard to afford. We're living in interesting times, that's for sure.

doesn't it indicate that people have their priorities wrong if they are still buying new and more up to date TVs etc while struggling to pay for other things. I always thought that Maslow had it pretty much right as a starting point:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs

Mind you... I'm not sure where TV comes in, but food is One of the most basic needs, and shelter (and probably warmth) are on the next level up as safety needs.