Away From The Madding Crowd

Humboldt

Willow1983 said:

Sound lovely Humboldt, question do you put the egg in the dumplings? I’ve never heard of that before 😊

Hello and welcome @Willow1983.  I too would not normally add an egg to dumplings, but yes, this recipe includes it.  After adding the beaten egg to the mixture, I then add the water a little at time until the dough is the correct consistency.

Humboldt

Hello and welcome.

Motivational quote of the week.

The world reveals itself to those who travel on foot – Werner Herzog.

Money saving.

Our monthly grocery budget for me and my DH is £250 per month.  Week 1 spend for November was £78.56.

Bought paint from B+Q via my nect@r account to gain nect@r points (4 points per £1 spent).  I also signed up for a free B+Q club card which gave me a £5 discount code.

Christmas shopping - 2 items from M0untain W@rehouse.  A men’s padded jacket reduced from £79.99 to £23.99, and a child’s padded jacket reduced from £39.99 to £18.49.

This week’s main menu.

Monday – Bread crumbed haddock, a small portion of oven chips, and garden peas.  All ingredients are from the freezer.  To utilise the oven, I will roast the squash for tomorrow’s meal.

Tuesday – Butternut squash and chorizo risotto (Morris0n’s recipe)

Wednesday –  Frog in a bog (otherwise known as toad in the hole), with roasted vegetables (parsnips, red onions, garlic, squash, and sweet potatoes), with gravy. Fresh rosemary from the garden. To utilise the oven, I will make a batch of chocolate and raspberry muffins for the freezer (raspberries were reduced in price and frozen until required).

Thursday – Ping meal – as above (cook once, eat twice – saves on time and energy).

Friday – Spanish chicken bake (H@iry D!eters recipe).  I will replace some potatoes with carrots and sweet potatoes. To utilise the oven, I will cook a homemade sourdough loaf at the same time.

Saturday – Away overnight.

Sunday – Chicken and bacon casserole with crispy rosemary dumplings (Ph!l V!ckery recipe). Rosemary is from the garden.

Healthier lifestyle.

Completed 0 free online workouts.

Completed 4 free meditations.

Step count last week was 60,517.

Simple pleasures.

DH and I packed a picnic and went on one of our favourite walking routes.  I made a point of stopping now and again to fully absorb our surroundings; the trees looked resplendent in their autumn colours, leaves gently falling to the ground, the sound of the babbling steam, and the smell of wood smoke carried in the still air.  Nature is simply stunning.

I am pleased to have been able to introduce rye and whole wheat flour into my sourdough baking.

A day out with DH to a local town.  Buying a few stocking fillers, and enjoying turkey, cranberry and stuffing sandwiches for lunch felt very festive.

Thank you for dropping by and taking the time to read my diary.

 

Organgrinder

Autumn for me is a strange time. There's the teaching of course, which I still love and each new year brings new students and new challenges. Yesterday however I saw a student I've never taught gift me some chocolate she'd brought back from abroad, and then I got called the GOAT which I must confess made me quite emotional.

With six weeks to Christmas I feel I have so much to look forward to. A school trip, snowboarding over New Year, a holiday to El Gouna at Easter. Etc etc.

I haven't cooked from scratch so much this week as I'm exam marking. 900 questions down. 700 to go. But I did make time to go to the cinema to watch Heretic. Not bad. A bit formulaic in the end, but very enjoyable.

Katiehound

Hi Humboldt

I've been away for 5 weeks so a lot of catching up to do, will try to remember my comments in some sense of order!

I went to Malaysia quite some years ago.
I remember staying at the Shangri-la hotel at Kota Kinabula- the one called 'Star'. Then I went on a tour of Sabah. The following year or even a couple of years  later I went on a tour of Sarawak & back to the Shangri-La. Blow me, the restaurant manager recognised me, welcomed me back & sent a large cake to my room!

I was disappointed with Sarawak, it did not compare well with Sabah plus (my fault for not checking!) it was the rainy season. Not the weather for a week at the beach so I ended up in Kuching for a week alone. I enjoyed KL & booked a couple of day tours to see other places such as Malacca. Yes, Malaysia is fascinating.

Whilst I was away I saw some Fly Agaric toadstools- I didn't think there were any last year but I do think it's a very limited season. They only lasted about a week, bright red caps but no white spots this time. I think the slugs must also have been high! These things are hallucinogenic and something was munching them,!!

I have been in Ireland and it's interesting what you have been discussing with the Welsh language- kind of banished to the very west of the country, also in Ireland, that's where the Gaeltact exists. Cromwell is accused of ethnic cleansing- In Irish popular memory of the Cromwellian Plantation, the Commonwealth is said to have declared that all the Catholic Irish must go "to Hell or to Connaught", west of the River Shannon.
Spoken Irish is thriving. I remember my cousin (Scottish) declaring that really Irish was just a spoken tradition , nothing in written literature until I remembered that 'Twenty years a growing' & Peig Sayers books were first published in the Irish and translated into English. He hadn't realised that.
Something I heard on the radio recently was that the Corn crake (never seen or heard one of them!) only lives in the Gaeltacht [possibly because the land being some of the poorest doesn't lend itself to modern farming methods)

and I have to laugh at your term 'ping 'meals. You are almost fluent in slang Welsh as a microwave is called a Popty Ping!

Organgrinder

Sorry I have to correct that myth. The proper name is meicrodon or popty meicrodon. Meicrodon comes from meicro and tôn, meaning micro and wave respectfully. And popty means oven. 

I'm a fluent Welsh speaker btw.

Katiehound

I did say it was slang!  I didn't say it was the proper name but a ping oven is quite a reasonable name for such a useful item.

Humboldt

Good morning all.

@Organgrinder I suspect the academic timetable brings it's own seasonal highlights/challenges. It's good to read that you include downtime. I confess to having to Go0gle El Gouna - very nice.

@Katiehound welcome back.  Thank you for sharing your experience of Malaysia. Fly Agaric toadstools always remind me of fairy tales.  Interesting information regarding the Irish language.  I love the slang Welsh term Popty Ping, although I take onboard what @Organgrinder has said.  I am very proud that my ancestors came from most parts of the UK, they were hardworking people who were not afraid to travel and diversify in order to survive/prosper. 

Today's simple pleasure - I am meeting friends for a cuppa today. 

Katiehound

Today's pleasure was seeing (fleetingly) a large or 2 small skeins of geese (or were they seagulls??!!) the thing was I heard birds calling but saw them too high to identify with any confidence plus I was dog walking so need to look where my feet go!

my pleasure on long journey Monday  night was to see 2 young foxes playing chase and then another fox standing stock still by the road very soon after in a Dublin residential area. No people around at midnight. Oh, and it was a clear night too so moon & stars visible in dark sky areas (obviously not in Dublin!)

Organgrinder

It's not slang - noone says popty ping.

Nebulous2

Katiehound said:

Today's pleasure was seeing (fleetingly) a large or 2 small skeins of geese (or were they seagulls??!!) the thing was I heard birds calling but saw them too high to identify with any confidence plus I was dog walking so need to look where my feet go!

my pleasure on long journey Monday  night was to see 2 young foxes playing chase and then another fox standing stock still by the road very soon after in a Dublin residential area. No people around at midnight. Oh, and it was a clear night too so moon & stars visible in dark sky areas (obviously not in Dublin!)

I live about 20 miles from a large estuary where a lot of geese go overnight. They spend daytime in fields and then fly back to the estuary as the light goes down. 

Last week on my way home from work I saw the largest flight of geese I have ever seen. When there are a lot of them they can't hold the V formation and it splits up into smaller Vs. 

They must have just taken off and were forming up and there were at least 15 skeins taking up the whole of my windscreen. The noise was impressive as well, despite my car windows being closed.

I'd half-forgotten about it, but your post jogged my memory....