Put away your purse & become debt-averse

Dottles1

We don't have snap up here, we have bait. When I first moved here it always reminded me of worms ! The drink recipe sounds perfect for a winter's evening snuggled with a film or a book.

crazy_cat_lady

We use bait as well Dottles - well my parents do, but I think it's not widely used any more. It was like a blast from the past reading that

kayannie

Foxgloves - I too have 'your' Cranks recipe book and regularly make their Homity Pies. Quick, easy, and cheap to make and taste good. I bought my book about 30 years ago and some of the pages are stuck in now with sellotape. I quite like to use a well worn recipe book as it shows how much it has been loved and used over the years. I still have the Battersea college of technology cookbook that I was given when I started high school in 1956! It is in even worse condition than my Cranks book, as my mum used it for many years after I left school. I reclaimed it after my mum died and it means a lot to me now as mum popped several of her favourite recipes inside the pages. Incidentally, I have the 'Entertaining with Cranks' book, also published in the 1980's around the same time as the other book. Another favourite of mine.
KA

SilverSaver459

Thankyou will follow

foxgloves

Hi Diary Readers,
Well, I was going to pop today's post on a little while ago, but thought I'd better phone poor old Mr F to flag up the fact that the A1 is closed & all the traffic is being diverted through our town & village. Oh deep joy! Goodness knows what time he will get home.
I've been no further than the whirlygig to peg out the laundry today....it's barely a third of the way down our garden & is the furthest I can reliably go & still hear anyone knock at the door. Why am I staying in listening for the door? Because after my caustic remarks about the state of his leaky boots, the Beloved DID actually order those new DMs (at last) & delivery day is today. I expect the driver is stuck in the aforementioned traffic nightmare.
So, confined to barracks but decided to do as many useful pre-camping trip jobs as I could, so as to get ahead of myself. I've sorted laundry ready for ironing, packing (or both), baked a loaf of bread for freezing.....will take out & pack with our other camping food on the morning we go, so it acts like a giant ice cube, but being edible, also earns its place in the cool bag. I've written tomorrow's shopping list & included useful jobs I can do while I'm in town.......having to pay two lots of parking because I've forgotten something always annoys me. I've even put the duvet cover & pillow cases onto the bedding we're taking camping to save a job when we get there.
While I was rooting around in the linen cupboard for the old duvet cover we usually use in the tent, I had a follow-up burst of de-cluttering activity.. It's really obvious how doing that declutter challenge in July has made me more aware of things that, while notionally useful, don't really need to be kept any longer. This duvet cover & two of the pillow cases were a case in point. I think I kept them because it seemed a good idea to take old ones on camping holidays, - I was just about to sew up a hole in the seam before putting in on the duvet & I thought that as we go camping once, at most twice a year, I'm just clogging up an already full cupboard with items which are only rarely used. So off came the buttons for my trusty button jar & the cover was duly ripped up for the rag bag, closely followed by two pillow cases. Felt quite pleased with myself that I'm obviously still in decluttering mode!
And this just happened - I was busy wittering on to you all about old bed linen & there was a loud sort of 'whoomph' noise at the front door, followed by a sort of muffled crash. "Hurrah", I thought, those pesky DMs have arrived. Ran to the door (delivery drivers around here give you about 3 seconds max), opened it &........no boots, just an amorous trio of woodpigeons - two males fighting for the attentions of an utterly uninterested female & one of them had clearly flown headfirst into the front door! (Not that unlike our nearest big city centre on a Saturday night!)
And poor old Mr F has just texted to say he's hit that traffic logjam - He's just 3 miles from home but it's solid. His satnav is saying 40 mins to 1 hour to get home.....just that little way. He could walk it quicker!
Oh well, at least he's coming home to a nice juicy home made burger...that cheered him up a bit!
And still no damn boots. The poor delivery driver will be stuck in the same traffic as the only other way into our village is for him to abandon his van & swim across the river. Think I'll fill in the waiting time by doing a few rows of knitting. My gardening jobs will have to be done later tonight. I'm determined to do them as it's garden waste bin collection day tomorrow & as it's a paid for collection, I'm making maximum use of it. It also means that the less interesting sort of 'clearing away' garden jobs keep getting done on a rolling programme, instead of backing up.
Cheers all - and special wishes to anybody who has been stuck in horrid traffic queues today.
F x

Elnora32

[FONT=&quot]Love the recent posts on food and drink. I made a coffee cream liqueur one year and I can highly recommend it but it had fresh cream in it so it didn’t keep. I’ve also made the fruit vodkas – I’m going blackberrying tomorrow so I think I’ll reserve some for vodka.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]I hope Mr F is home now and that the DMs arrived[/FONT]

foxgloves

Kayannie - Those homity pies are real Cranks classics, aren't they? My Dad absolutely loved the spiced bread pudding. I made it for him often. It's the squares of 'cake' type one, rather than the more usual bread & butter version served hot with custard. I occasionally found a slice of that bread pudding useful to take to work as a portable breakfast....... it had wholemeal bread, eggs & fruit in it, so it was quite sustaining...... more so than a silly little tart from the toaster, anyway.
I have the 'Entertaining with Cranks' paperback too.

wishingthemortgaheaway

Oh my goodness, I love that sort of bread pudding. We used to make it in a washing up bowl as kids with mum. Squishing the soaked bread through our fingers to break it up.
Happy memories.

foxgloves

Elnora32 - Yes, I did wonder why that coffee cream liqueur had condensed milk in it, but I guess it is because, as you say, the fresh cream versions don't keep as long. I think I'll try making it this year. I mostly make blackberry & apple gin or blackberry & pear vodka, as we have an apple & pear tree in our garden. I've also made a cranberry vodka. That's a really festive recipe with orange & spices. The good thing about cranberries is that like all berries, they'll freeze for up to a year, so if you can find yellow stickered cranberries at the end of December when nobody wants them, they can go in the freezer ready to turn into this festive vodka, cranberry jelly or chutney or whatever in time for next year. My best price was 20p per punnet, & all perfectly useable.
I'd quite like to try making limoncello at some point & also Nigella's rhubarb schnapps. I do use a rhubarb forcing crock to get that fab bright pink spring burst of stems, so maybe I should defo do that one next year.
Anyway, glad you've been enjoying the food chat.
F x

foxgloves

Hi Wish, Yes, that sounds like the one. The broken up stake bread goes in a big bowl with the milk poured over it, then everything else is added, then a sprinkle of nutmeg before it goes in the oven. I've made it with all sorts of stale bread & baked oddments. One year (very rare with my family) I had a slice of leftover Christmas pudding so I crumbled that in too. It's a very adaptable recipe for using up odds & ends and not too unhealthy if you use wholemeal bread.
Another Cranks recipe which is a good 'use-it-up' opportunity is the Belgian cake which uses leftover mincemeat. Cuts into little squares just right for lunchboxes.
F x