utterly shameful plug!

Me and my mum make lovely crocheted and knitted items; ponchos, hats, scarves, gloves, teddy bears and other small items such as jewellry and hair clips.

This is our web site, which also has links to our 'folksy' shop and our facebook page.

http://jazzitup.yolasite.com

We adore what we do and lots of love and care go into the things we make. Just look at our customer comments page.

We'd be tickled pink if you'd spread the word and tell all your friends about us and even better, buy something :0)

Thank you x

Wot, STILL no meat?

Tonight's (none meat) offering is some stuffed, sweet peppers!

I got some reduced (in price) microwave Thai chilli rice, so mixed it with some sliced onion, crumbled feta cheese, a few cashews, some garlic powder, some sweet chilli sauce and some red pepper humous.

I wasn't originally planning on using the humous but the mixture looked a bit dry and I didn't want to overload it with too much chilli sauce.

There was more mix than I needed to actually stuff the peppers so I've just spooned the extra into the dish to cook along with the peppers.

From what I licked off my fingers, it was yummy! How they are when cooked, I shall let you know later!

Orange is not the only colour...

I made the North African stew thing tonight. Well, I kind of made an amalgamated version; I took bits from the recipe in the River Cottage book and used bits from my usual tagine recipe...

OK yes, it is very orange but bye gum it was tasty!

Peel, de-seed and chop a butternut squash into 2cm-ish cubes. Saute them in olive oil until they start to go a little bit soft and sweet. Add 2 sliced, white onions, chopped sweet pepper (maybe don't use an orange one like I did, doh!), tin chick peas, tin of chopped toms, handful dried apricots chopped, good handful flaked almonds, a good tb...sp of ras al hanout, tbsp harissa, veg stock cube, few tsps sugar, some garlic (I just use garlic powder, so easy), some water and simmer for about 1.5 hours. I then added some orzo, let that cook and then serve up! Taste first in case you want to add more spices etc.

Best served with a cple of warmed flat breads......and a nice cold shandy ;0)

Watch this space for the next thrilling installment of the veggie diaries!

Vegetarians taste better. ~Author Unknown

I bought the River Cottage 'veg every day' book when it was on offer on amazon recently. The TV series made the recipes look delumptious. I made the kale and mushroom lasagne from it the other night and it was really tasty. I've also made a veggie curry recently; I basically made it as I would a meat one but just substituted the meat for chick peas. Apropos of chick peas, I've just demolished a tub of red pepper humous and some breadsticks. I like nothing better than dunking the sticks in the humous :0)

It's possible I may have a sausage buttie down at the allotment tomorrow on the BBQ, but I have to say, we are veering towards meals with less meat these days.

I'm making a veggie chilli tonight with nachos and cream cheese.

I'm doing the North African squash tagine/stew thing next week, from the cookbook. I make quite a lot of tagines with meat in so it shouldn't be too much of a switch.

Oh and apropos of North Africa, there looks to be an intriguing new place opened in Liverpool called 'Kasbah' on Bold Street...

http://www.liverpoolconfidential.co.uk/Food-and-Drink/First-Look-The-Kasbah-Bold-Street-liverpool-restaurants

I think we might have to go and try one of those electric sheesha pipes at least! :0)

Gratuitous shot of my homemade veggie curry! ;0)

EDIT/

Tonight's chilli....

I made the recipe up in my head, I'll share it with you but don't be passing it on to the veggies out there as they'll claim it as their own! ;0)

1 red and 1 green chilli finely chopped,
2 white onions finely sliced - saute in olive oil til soft but not coloured.
add a finely chopped sweet red pepper, saute til softened.
add tin of chopped toms, tin of baked beans, tin of kidney beans and a tin of brown lentils (I got the latter in poundstretcher for 35p a tin! I think they are the secret to making this so yummy.) add a tbsp garlic powder, a tbsp paprika, and 3 tsps sugar.

Let simer for about an hour or so then tweak your seasoning to taste, I found I needed to add...a tbsp chilli powder, a good splodge of brown sauce, a splash of soy sauce. This is how we will eat chilli from now on as it is SOOOO much nicer than mince!!!! And you heard that from a die hard carnivore!

A reel treat...

Well, we finally have a local cinema again. Our last local one was turned into a Tesco about 30 odd years ago so we've been hiking over the bridge to Runcorn whenever there is anything worth watching on. But a new complex has just gone up not too far away from us, very modern and no character but you can't have everything!

What IS good is that they have 2 days a week where any film at any time is only £3.10 per person (normal price is about £8!!!). So, we treated ourselves to a night at the flicks!

'The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel' is a charming story and visually stunning. What a refreshing change for something decent to be on at the cinema. Thoroughly enjoyed it.

There were only 5 people in the cinema (me, Ian and mum plus 2 middle aged ladies who we had a nice chat with). Now that's my kind of night at the movies! :0)

A special day...

Way back in 2007, I told you about 'The Liverpool Saga' and how some lines of my poetry had been selected to go into the saga...

Well, NML have finally got round to doing something with the poem. They initially said it would go on a special brass plaque in the museum, with all the names of the contributors, but that never happened.

The saga has now been published in book form and is in the 'The Museum of Liverpool' and was unveiled on the 24th February, only *ahem* 5 years after it was written.

When it was first published, my contribution was verse three! I was tickled pink to be so close to the start of the poem. But, now that they've published it in the book, my words have been moved. I was so disappointed, I didn't note down the new verse number but I think it was still pretty much near the beginning. Does that sound churlish? sorry but it is a bit gutting... but still an honour to be included ...but none of the contributors names have been mentioned.

The book has been specially bound by bookbinder Mark Cockram (his name is a palendrome!), but it looked really plain. As it had been hand bound, I expected something a bit more...unique.

We went to a private viewing of the exhibition, 'Liverpool Doors', conceived by Roger McGough (who was there) that included The Saga exhibit. Comprising some doors from around Liverpool, some famous and some not, with bits of poetry on them. My favourite was from The Everyman Bistro which had a chalk board on it saying "Today's special" and Roger had written "so is every day" underneath.

Yes, okay, a good way to look at life, I suppose! Even if things don't go the way you expect them to ;0)

You can never go back...

That's the saying isn't it? Generally, I abide by this and if I've had a fantastic time somewhere I am always loathed to go back because I always think that the next time I go, it can never be as good.

When my sister and I were little, mum and dad used to take us and the caravan down to Abersoch and we'd stay on a camp site right next to The Warren. The Warren is the main beach in Abersoch and it's lovely; golden sand, lovely views etc.

I've been thinking of 'going back' for years, to see if it's still the same as I remember. So, we had a little trip there back in September and no, it wasn't the same... but contrary to my belief, we did have a lovely time...

Sadly, The Warren, or at least the campsite leading to The Warren, has been bought by a private leisure company. They've populated it with expensive holiday homes and it's all gated now. No access to joe public. You could still get to the beach by a different route but as the weather wasn't that great while we were, we didn't bother.

I was surprised at how small Abersoch is and how relatively unspoilt it is. I wouldn't mind a little holiday home there myself, if I had a spare few thousand, and you need quite a few spare thousand!

We took mum and Molly and stayed in a lovely log cabin type chalet in someone's orchard. They called it 'The Orchard' but apparently the trees were cut down to make room for the cabin!

There were a couple of straggly apple trees left. So I pinched a couple to make an apple and blackberry crumble one night as we'd been out foraging for blackberries during the day.

The weather was glorious the dayof our arrival then rubbish for the resrt of the week but we still enjoyed the change of scenery and the R&R.....

Anyway, some photos....

If this link doesn't work, let me know...

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150362451051757.403832.568396756&type=3&l=935a7596ba