From debt to freedom...

Honeysucklelou2

Buffy - that made me smile. My timetable appears to be work, allotment, cook followed by reading or inspiring myself with “ The Good Life”! Always have a to do list though!

janb5

Feeling very grumpy as I have to self isolate so I shall enjoy reading your diaries although feeling wistful I cant get out!

savingholmes

Glad your allotment is getting there now. Exciting. 
Jan - hope you manage to avoid the virus / get better quickly.

mumtoomany

Morning, Lou. I too struggle with most brassicas, but have found that kale and purple sprouting broccoli both seem to be indistructable. We are still eating both at the moment. One of the broccoli plants is from the year before last. Was decimated by caterpillars, it's in the poly tunnel, thought it was dead and missed pulling it out when weeding. Now producing well. Only downside with both these plants, the grandchildren eat them straight from the plant, have to harvest quick! Mumtoomany.

janb5

Another recipe for the collection and great for those over ripe bananas.

Hiya all,
You might like this banana cake recipe.  used it regularly over the years and it`s so quick and easy.
Also you can freeze over ripe bananas very successfully.

Banana cake

 4oz butter or margarine

6oz caster sugar
8oz self raising flour
2 eggs
2 large or 3 medium, very ripe bananas

2 teaspoons honey

¼ teaspoon cinnamon

Heat the oven to gas mark 4; 180C
Grease a 2lb loaf tin.
Mash the bananas with a sturdy fork.
Cream the butter and sugar together and mix in the eggs

Add the honey and cinnamon
Mix together the two yellow sludges you now have.
Mix in the flour.
Scrape into the loaf tin and bake for 40 minutes then lower the temperature to gas mark 2; 150C and cook for a further 30 minute

 * I sprinkle demarara sugar on mine before baking *.

 

Honeysucklelou2

Thank you Jan, I’ll have to try the banana cake. My DD2 loves banana cake, so she will be very interested.
mumtomany -thank you for the tip. I have kale and purple sprouting broccoli seeds to sow, so looking forward to trying them now🙂.

Thank you SH, amazing how little and often is really helping with the allotment.

We have been outside for much of the day. We walked to the allotment with a picnic and worked away in the sunshine.  DD2 & 3  dug over a raised bed each. I’ve done lots of what I’m  going to call, precision pruning!  Chopping brambles out from fruit bushes without actually cutting the fruit bushes. I began the other day and am thrilled that 3 blueberry plants have now been uncovered and the gooseberry bushes look much better without thick brambles crossing them.  Hopefully much better growing conditions for all the fruit bushes. It was lovely working near the blackcurrants. Even though they are just coming into leaf and have no fruit yet, they somehow fragrance the air around them.

  Wandering around the garden at home, I discovered a couple of blueberry bushes that I’d bought last year as part of a T & M offer on one of the MSE weekly emails. I’d  obviously potted them up intending to plant them at the allotment when they were bigger. So pleased that space has been cleared and they can go in near the other blueberries. As Foxgloves would say “ shopping from home”.

Talking of which, I was delighted to find 3 pots/ tubes of hand cream. The extra gardening and hand washing has meant my hands are incredibly dry. One pot I found today was Gardener’s barrier cream so have been putting that on. So pleased to have found it when I was tidying the kitchen, so not had to buy any😀.

I’ve cooked tea and made some vanilla muffins for snacks for the children. While it’s quiet I’m going to watch a bit of “ To the Manor Born”. 

Read the story of Noah the other day...reading it now in these days made me see it in a whole different light. Thankful that we have the technology to keep in touch with friends and family even if we can’t be with them. 

Cherryfudge

Can you send your gardening team to work on my borders please? The ivy is pernicious!
I've been taking dead wood out of currant bushes and saving it for kindling: whether it will make good kindling remains to be seen. It's a shame blackberries aren't much good on the fire as mine grow like trees! (Though I am cultivating them as they are delicious and remarkably bug-free).

janb5

Today I`m adding my favourite cake which Princesszeilein from MSE gave us a few years ago.  Soo reliable and although not calorie free is totally yummy. It may be worth dividing it and freezing half but I`m never been able to achieve that

"Oh...and here is the recipe for Mum's Gingerbread....it is all in imperial measurements...and uses the standard German idea of using plain flour and adding baking powder.....it is one of the yummiest ginger cakes I know - and is deliciously squidgy! (It also freezes beautifully...I cut it into slices and freeze individual portions....Mum freezes the whole cake)  

1lb Plain Flour; 8oz Brown Sugar; 6oz butter; 3/4 lb Golden Syrup; 1/2 pint Milk; 1 egg; 3-4 tsp ground ginger; 2 tsp ground cinnamon; 1/2 tsp ground cloves; 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg; 1/2 tsp bicarb of soda; 2 tsp baking powder; 1/2 tsp salt
In a saucepan, warm the butter, syrup and sugar until dissolved. Cool until the mixture is lukewarm and then beat in the egg. Sieve the flour with the spices, salt, bicarb and baking powder - add this to the mixture a little at a time. Warm the milk a little and add this to the mix stirring until the mixture is well blended and smooth. (It will be rather thin and runny - this is normal!)...Divide the mixture between two greased and lined 1lb loaf tins (the tins will each be about 3/4 full) . Bake in a preheated oven. Gas 3 to 3 1/2 or equivalent. Middle shelf for about an hour. ...check the cakes with a fork - if it comes out clean they're done...if not ready then cover the cakes with baking parchment and bake for 10 minutes more (sometimes takes 2 more 10 minute cooks)

*  I use a square 8" tin which works well*  Enjoy!

 

 

savingholmes

Glad you have found some older plants ready to go out. Also hand cream - a real prize at the moment. 

Honeysucklelou2

Thank you Cherryfudge, Jan & SH. Loving the recipes Jan, especially in good old pounds and ounces😉.

Sunday was a bit of a strange day. I woke up quite early but read rather than getting up, which I then felt bad about. I don’t usually sit in bed reading after I’ve woken up but I felt a bit bereft of my usual Sunday routine and structure. After berating myself for such laziness, I did get out with the DDs and DS3 for a decent walk. As the crow flies we are only about 2 miles from the coast ( but a 10 minute drive from the nearest accessible beaches) .We used the public footpaths to walk to a point at which we could see the sea, not to the cliff path itself.  Just wanted to see the sea, know it was still there(!), fill our lungs with sea air and walk back. It’s a walk we’ve done before and am glad that we know the footpaths fairly well so have a variety of local walks we can do.  I was thankful for the expanse of sky that gave a sense of freedom, the sight of the lambs racing across the fields, the young calves warming themselves in the sunshine and the pleasure of seeing white horses out to sea😊. The cows that have been inside all winter are now out in the fields.

On our return, I cooked chicken cobbler, which is a favourite of the children and always warming and filling.

DD1 turns 21 this week. We had planned to go and see her ( before social distancing and lockdown were part of our everyday vocabulary.) as we knew she would be busy with her final assignments and projects. Feels odd not to be seeing her on such a significant birthday but will have to hope that we can manage a belated celebration when normal life returns.