Seasonal goodies!

This time of year means many things to many people but to me it means food!! I love to feed people...I have no idea where the need came from but the force is in me and feed folks I must. AND there is so much scope for that around Christmas. It starts about now. Mince meat, Christmas puddings, things marinating in alcohol, freezing things now for extra mouths later. I love it!!

My Christmas magazines come out this week too and I'm excited, stupid excited, ridiculously "I have no life nor any other interests and I don't mind sharing it with the world" excited!!
2 or 3 magazines with nothing but recipes of things I could cook...lovely!

Having admitted publicly to the sadness that is me and my life perhaps your impressions will change when you see what I'm up to at the moment......Lemon Verbena Liquor
All's I'll say is that a herb, some vodka and a little bit of time make a whole lotta heaven!!!!!

Kniting Photos...

Because I'm currently excited about the cardigan type top I took some pics over the weekend for all you lovely people that I'm sure are out there at this very moment reading this very blog!!
Below is the second (left) front where I have picked up 212 stitches and begun knitting the rib.
Here you can see the first (right) side which looks more like a boot than a cardigan!
A tantalizing glimpse of what the finished product might resemble!!!!
An artistic close up shot of the stitches

Chicken & Pasta Broth

This weeks soup was a bit of a comprimise. I've had a craving for a creamy chicken soup but I really wanted to do something in keeping with the season....like you would have when feeling sick or in need of some comfort food.
Everyone I spoke to said that Chicken Noodle or Chicken with Pasta is what you have at those times and so I put my own cravings aside (how selfless!!!) and went with the majority.
I have to say it tasted lovely even tho it didn't come out at all like the photo in the cook book. The only thing I changed was brocoli instead of carrots...cause we didn't have any!

Here's a nice arty close up shot designed to make your mouth water! It's hard taking photos of food and making it look nice

Chicken & Pasta Broth

350gm boneless
1 medium onion, diced
250gm carrots, diced
250gm, cauliflower florets, chopped small
850ml chicken stock
2 tsp mixed herbs (thyme, oregano whatever etc)
125gm small pasta shapes
2 tbsp sunflower oil
Parmesan cheese

Remove skin from chicken and dice.
Sauté chicken, onion, carrot & cauliflower in oil until lightly coloured
Stir in stock & herbs & bring to the boil
Add pasta shapes & bring back to the boil before covering pan and simmering for 10 mins
Stir occasionally to prevent pasta sticking
Season & serve with parmesan cheese

Gasp....not actual knitting content!

Yup...actual blogging about knitting! Woo Hoo!

The main reason I have been quiet on the knitting front is that it's been so damn slow of late. I got distracted with other projects and the cardigan sat unloved in the corner with post-it saying "too hard" stuck to it. I think all the tinking and ripping and looking up how to do things on the net got too much. I would love to knit an easy top....just once. Aren't you supposed to learn on easy stuff???

However last weekend I grabbed hold of the darn thing and forced myself to start working on it again. Of course that was after ripping back the front ribbing...sigh!! Still. It's right now and I have one side done. YUP...actually finished!! hehehe I feel so happy it's silly.
What's more even though the arm and side is yet to be sewn up it still looks like a piece of clothing. It's amazing! I'll take some photos on the weekend when the light is good.

So all I have to do now is sew the left side to the arm and back (its raglan), pick up 212 stitches evenly all the way across and then knit a rib of about 50 rows wrapping about 30 of them!!! Phew!

On the upside of all this ripping (there's an up side?) I have learnt heaps in a very short space of time. Plus the challenge has kept me interested where with an easier project I may well have died of boredom!
Officially I can now knit & purl very evenly, I can slipstitch, cast on & off a couple of different ways, wrap & turn, read a knitting pattern, know how very important gauge is, increase & decrease with flair, pick up stitches from an edge, understand roughly how to alter a pattern to fit me, tink back, rip without fear (almost!), recognise a twisted stitch, fix a twisted stitch, ladder down to fix a stitch (very scary the first time) and pick up a dropped stitch.

Not bad for a two cardigan career huh!!

Ghost Tree

I've been a bit slack this week so far. I have stuff to say but cant seem to get motivated enough to put it on here. Too many other things flying around my head I think. So here are some more pictures. The first one is of a tree in my street. I call it the Ghost tree because of the way the leaves go so white in the light of the street lamp. I know it looks a little yellowy (which is still nice) here but trust me...it's white to look at.
Below is a street on my way home. At the moment there are millions of leaves just waiting for me to 'shoosh' my way through them! And I had to include the post box of course!
More leaves. This are was carpeted with orange, yellow and brown. The colours don't come out so good on camera...something I shall work on over the weekend.

Sweet Potato & Onion

Another week, another soup. This time Sweet Potato & Onion. I have another Sweet potato recipe but it’s somewhere on my computer and I got all lazy and didn’t want to go to the trouble of finding it so I picked this one out of a cookbook.

It was good. Very thick and creamy even tho I didn’t add in the yoghurt. But it was very sweet and orangey and you definitely need some bread or crackers with it. I couldn't eat a massive bowl of it but the smaller bowl I has was lovely, wintery and warming.
Definitely worth trying

Sweet Potato & Onion soup
Ingredients
900g Sweet potato’s diced
1 carrot diced
2 onions sliced
2 garlic cloves crushed
600ml vegetable stock
200ml orange juice (unsweetened)
225ml natural yoghurt (I didn’t use this)
2 tbsp fresh coriander chopped
Salt & Pepper

Method:
Sauté the potato, onion and carrot with the garlic in some vegetable oil for about 5 minutes.
Add the vegetable stock and orange juice and bring up to the boil.
Reduce to a simmer for 20mins or until the veg are cooked
Whizz till smooth and return to the pan
Stir in the Yoghurt (if your using it) and coriander
Season to taste and serve!!

Photos for all

I have photos today for you all, tried to post them yesterday but the computer was having none of it. Anyway I made an effort and got the pics we took on the weekend sorted. Nothing spectacular…just some autumnal shots but kinda nice in their own way.

I really like this shot of the bike under the tree even though there's not a huge amount of colour in the leaves. These are some of the chestnuts we found.
This is our competition!!!!

Frump-O-Licious!

Does anyone else do that thing where they put clothes on and get to work and then think…this doesn’t feel right? Not for any particular reason. Just that somehow the clothes feel “off” or not right or whatever and so you end up spending the day feeling really crap and old and...well...frumpy? Nope? That’s just me then…EXCELLENT!

The situation is not being helped by the fact that the magical powers of “THEY” have decided to sit someone in the desk next to me. This is something that I don’t mind particularly, the desk is there to be used I understand that. It’s just that the angle of the computer/desk is such that it feels and looks like the strange man is staring at me all the time.

It’s making me a tad uncomfortable. It's making me a little narky. I keep wanting to ask him what he wants or tell him not to stare. Instead I'm getting increasingly clumsy. My pens have never been harder to pick up, papers are flying everywhere and come lunchtime when there is soup involved...well I just don't want to think about it.

Stupid staring man.

So…how was your weekend? Mine was short!! Managed to get down to the park in search of chestnuts and took a couple of pictures which I will post tomorrow. The weather was surprisingly good with one of those crisp clean autumn days that make you think of log fires and mulled wine. Well I do anyway!

Friday night at the Pampered Chef party was great. There was a large quantity of wine consumed and a fair amount of money spent. I did manage to control the credit card and came away with only what I’d been planning to buy…that is the stoneware roasting tray.
Saturday was shopping and coffee with K & S and also M from Redhill…again didn’t buy too much and so am feeling rather proud of myself at the moment.
I even got some knitting done although true to form I’ve since had to rip it out. I figured out belatedly that I was knitting the collar at the wrong end. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to reading knitting patterns!
Anyway I managed to pick up the 200 odd stitches successfully and now I’m back on track. I daresay that by the time I’ve finished this cardigan I’ll never want to see it again let alone wear it!!!

Nothing much

Lordy but it’s been one of those weeks. Nothing bad in particular has happened. Everything’s just been hard…kinda like swimming through honey if you know what I mean. But it’s the weekend now (almost) and it’s all good.

Well almost good. I’m annoyingly close to the end of Harry Potter. Probably less than 100 pages and I’m dying to find out how it all ends. I would have finished it this morning on the train but for some reason time sped up and I was in London before I knew it. At least I didn’t have to sit next to another annoying MP3 person. Can someone tell me WHY I would want to listen to someone else’s music filtered THROUGH THEIR HEAD????? Oh don’t get me started…

SO…the weekend. Not too much planned. I am attending a Pampered Chef party tonight. Should be fun cause they sell loads of cool stuff for the kitchen. And I love utensils dontchya know. Wine, friends and someone else doing all the work! What else could you want!

Aside from that I’m toying with the idea of taking the camera out for a spin somewhere. Its autumn now and the trees are all changing colour and looking pretty. We haven’t been out and taken photos for ages and even if it’s just a trip down to the local park I think it will help us get our motivation back. If we get anything good you’ll be the first to see it, I promise!

And of course more study. It’s never ending but I’m starting to feel like I’m getting somewhere…very slowly. I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned the course I’m doing on the blog before. For those who don’t know I’m studying Natural Nutrition (which is nutrition but looked at from a more natural and holistic point of view). It’s through a UK College but I’m doing the correspondence course which is making for some problems when I’m not so motivated but I’m starting to be more dedicated and progression can be seen from time to time.

Oh and the knitting. Going to make a push to try to get this cardigan finished have it over my shoulders rather than hanging around my neck!! And to go with the knitting…in perhaps not the wisest of pairings…there’s a bottle of wine somewhere with my name on it!!

Carrot & Coriander

Soup I promised you and soup I will deliver. I decided to start my soup trials with one I’ve been meaning to try out for a while now.
Carrot & Coriander…and it was goooooooood. Very simple, very quick and very yummy. Best of all you can control the corriander-ness of it all…cause some folks don’t like it so strong.

So…serves four, takes about 20mins to ½ hour to make and goes really well with homemade bread rolls!!

Carrot & Coriander Soup

Ingredients

450g carrots…I sliced and chopped mine to make them cook quicker

1 onion…sliced and diced as well

1 tbsp vegetable oil…for frying only

1 tsp ground coriander

1.2 lt veggie stock

large bunch fresh coriander, roughly chopped

salt and black pepper…to taste

Method

Put the carrots and onions into a pan, add the oil and cook until starting to soften.
Add the ground coriander and cook for about a minute longer to heat the spice.
Pour in the veggie stock and bring to the boil before turning down the heat so the veg simmer until they are tender
Whizz it all together until smooth. Reheat in a clean pan, stir in the fresh coriander, season to taste and serve.

I forgot to take a picture unfortunately but it comes out this lovely warm orange colour with green flecks of coriander...very pretty!
Next time I'll try to remember to take a photo before eating it!!

No...don't tell me...

The last couple of months have been hard. I’ve made repeated dashes to the radio to switch channels and launched myself across the lounge room to turn the sound off on the TV. I’ve avoided web pages, walked away from people mid conversation and blatantly refused to read any magazine or newspaper article.
It’s been a struggle but I’ve made it…why and what you ask? Well in two words...Harry Potter!

I'm just about to start the last book in the series and despite everyone else in the world having read it I still don’t know what happens or who dies or anything!! yay me!

I thought I was being quite smart really. Till I started it on the weekend. 23 pages in and I was dumbfounded. Till it dawned on me...

I’d missed a book.

Somehow despite all the hype that accompanies these launches I completely overlooked Number 6, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.
So in reading the first 20 pages or so of Number 7 I managed to ‘spoil’ the ending to No.6. Bollocks!

I am now ¾ or more of the way through No.6 and things are making much more sense. I have to say it’s much better than No.5 which I thought was an annoying read at best (settle down people it’s just my opinion…to which I’m entitled). I will say that I’m enthralled by the story at the moment. I can’t read it quick enough to find out what happens next. I haven’t been this enthusiastic about the plot since the first book came out.
I’m on track to finish that one today and start No.7 tomorrow. So I’m just going to stick my fingers in my ears and sing for a wee bit longer.

Courgette Soup

Ok, this is kinda cheating since I said I'd post new recipe's that I tried out and liked and this one has been a staple of ours for a couple of years now. But it's one of our favorites and it was new once!!!

Courgette Soup

1lb courgettes (sliced) yellow tastes different to green ones (I use green ones)
1 large onion (chopped)
2 cloves garlic (crushed)
8oz potatoes
1 1/2 pints of vegetable stock
salt & pepper to taste

Firstly sweat the onion and garlic in the pot until soft and then toss in the courgettes and potatoes to saute for a few minutes.
Add the stock and simmer until soft.
Put through a blender till it's smooth and add seasoning to taste.

So easy and sooooooo yummy!

Soup Kitchen

Apologies for the lack of posts last week. I started with good intentions but lost my inspiration and I’m blaming the weather!
I know that this is England and so, not the sunniest climate and I know that it’s now October and so we should be expecting some Autumnal atmosphere. HOWEVER I, like the rest of the country was holding out hope that even at this late stage we might get something that resembles a summer.

It is clearly not to be. The weather has changed with a ferociousess that has taken everyone by surprise and left the whole country a tad shell shocked! It’s grey, it’s wet, it’s windy…hello winter!

I first noticed the change last Wednesday when I got rained on as I walked to work. Obviously the raincoat and umbrella I was using were inadequate for the tornado inspired squall I was caught in because it took my trousers till 2.30pm to dry out and my socks were still wet when I got home.
This is what I’m up against people. This and puddles in the sidewalk that could swallow a small person!!! (ME!!)

Sigh…but on the up side it’s SOUP season!!! And I love soup. It’s also snuggle up under a duvet season, Hearty meat pie season, DVD watching season, ignore the garden season, knitting season, Apple pie season and of course the dreaded Christmas season - although this doesn’t officially start till December.

But back to the soup season which is one of my favourites. I love me a soup and I have a huge number of soup cook books which, I realised yesterday, I don’t really use that much. I tend to just repeat the ones I know.
SO I am going to make a new soup each week until I get sick of the idea!! If they are good I’m going to post the recipe up here because I want to share the soupy goodness with you all. No, don’t thank me…I consider it my civic duty!

Also so you know I’ve put some new photos up on the photo page (follow the link here or the one at the top of the page). The photos are from the Medieval Festival we went to before we left for Canada.
I'll be making an effort in the next two weeks to get some others up there as well so keep checking back.