Never mind the why and wherefore...

Went to see the Mid-Cheshire Amateur Operatic Society perform excerpts from 'Trial by Jury' and 'HMS Pinafore'.

My friend played the role of 'Little Buttercup' in HMS Pinafore and her husband was the usher in 'Trial by Jury'.

We saw them previously in October last year, when they performed 'Fiddler on the Roof'. The girl who played Hodel is now one of the remaining contestants on the TV prog 'Over the Rainbow' for the West End role of Dorothy, in The Wizard of Oz, Danielle Hope. We knew at the time we saw her that she was destined for bigger things!

I think G&S is a bit like Marmite, you either love it or hate it and I've never been a big G&S fan to be honest, I don't find it as humerous as it is obviously intended to be and I don't particuarly find the songs, on the whole, to be that lyrical. However, I enjoyed the way it was performed and there was the odd phrase that had me chuckling. So maybe I can learn to appreciate it!

But...I'm glad their next performance is going to be 'Annie' ;0)

Choc full Easter!

...and I don't mean the sort made from cocoa! We've had a mega busy Easter weekend. We bought a tent, made a lovely roast for Sunday lunch, went to 2 boot sales, finished painting the baker's rack, decanted loads of home made tipples and started some more off!

We've sold our camper van as it was an expensive luxury that we didn't get the opportuity to use as often as we would have liked. We sold it to a dealer for a very good price and decided we would get a tent. We figured it would be far easier to just up and go with a tent, plus there would actually be more room to move around inside a tent than the van.

We bought a 'Gelert Albury 8' which arrived on the Sunday. I only ordered it on the Friday and it was personally delivered 2 days later; the perks of buying from a small, friendly, local company. It was an excellent price too!

It has 2 sleeping areas, one at each end and a living area in the middle. We're going to give it a test drive very soon!

Mum came round for lunch on Sunday and I made roast lamb surprise! Ian got a joint out of the freezer thinking it was lamb but it turned out to be pork...

I finished painting my baker's rack which is now in situ in the conservatory. I also bought some bargain planters from a couple of boot sales we went to over Easter. I've planted a couple of them already with basil and coriander and ordered some more packets of herb seeds; parsley, mint, tarragon, oregano and thyme and also some Ramsons wild garlic seeds for the garden.

Ian decanted our orange wine (which needs to mature for about a year now), crabapple brandy and sloe gin and the sloe gin is absolutely delish! We've also started off a batch of damson liqueur...

and this is the damson brew well on its way to being a tasty tipple! :0)

Spring into ebay...

Now that Spring is here it feels like the time to begin new projects...

I bagged myself a bargain on ebay, a wrought iron baker's rack for 99p! I was the only bidder and I felt so guilty for paying so little that I took the seller some of our girls' eggs and a bottle of home-made plum schnapps!

The plan is to paint it with metal paint and put it in the garden with my herbs on. I've already given it one coat of 'Hammerite' and I will post photos when it's done and in situ :0)

This is the photo of it from ebay...

Our other little project, that's been in the pipeline for some time now, is our quail keeping plan. We bought ourselves an incubator and brooder for Christmas and the plan is to hatch our own chicks, bring them on then use them for eggs and meat.

Before you quail (*ahem*) at the thought of us eating our own birds, isn't it better to make sure that an animal you eat has had a good life, know what its been fed and make sure it has as stress free an end to its life as possible?

I've bought a 2nd hand hutch from ebay which we will make into a nice little cosy quail residence with branches, stones and little hidey places for them to, well, hide in!

Again, here are the photos from ebay and again, more photos will follow once its in situ. The run is 4ft x 4ft so nice and large... well, it is if you're quail sized!

we pasta the test!

I used 600g flour and 7 of our girls eggs. I blended the whole lot in the food processor until it resembled bread crumbs then worked it by hand into a dough. Blimey it was hard work! Still, we now have fresh pasta and used up some of our egg mountain so it's all good! :0) Half of it is in the freezer for future use and with hindsight, half those ingredients would have been plenty.

It was the inaugural outing for the pasta machine we bought *ahem* quite a while ago, when I convinced 2 sheds that I'd use it immediately! Still, we got there...eventually! :0)

For a first attempt I thought we'd just stick to flat lasagne style sheets, which I cut up and used to make little canelloni tubes. The bolognese sauce and the cheese sauce were both home-made so all in all, we're chuffed with our effort, very tasty it was too and no chickens were harmed in the making of this pasta! (not a battery egg in sight).



Salute! :0)

relish it!

spicy sweetcorn relish

**I didn't have mustard seeds so just left those out. I used white wine vinegar and I now have a lovely bottle from that to use for home-made liqeuer :0)
I also didn't have enough sweetcorn so made up the volume with red peppers. I didn't have a green pepper so used a yellow one**

Ingredients
Makes about 3 -4 average jam jars

500g tinned sweetcorn
1 large onion, finely chopped
1 red bell pepper + 1 green bell pepper, finely chopped
1 clove of garlic, finely chopped
1 red or green chilli, finely sliced
500ml white vinegar
250g sugar
1 level tbsp of salt
1 level tbsp of mustard
3 tsps of yellow mustard seeds
1 level tsp of turmeric
1 level tsp of curry powder
A few grinds of black pepper
about 1 tbsp of cornflour mixed with a little water


Before you start, prepare the sterilized jars and lids.

Method
1. Rinse the sweetcorn under running water and allow to drain.
2. Mix together the vinegar and sugar in a large saucepan and place over a low heat till the sugar begins to dissolve, then turn up the heat so it starts to boil.
3. Add the sweetcorn to the pan along with the rest of the ingredients ( except the cornflour, mustard and salt). Simmer the mixture for about 15 mins, stirring it regularly.
4. Add the cornflour mixture along with the mustard,salt and a few grinds of black pepper, stirring well.
5. Continue simmering the mixture till its nice and thick (should take no longer than 4-5 mins).
6. Pour the mixture into sterilized jars and seal tightly.
7. Place in a cool, dark place for 4 weeks. It will keep for at least 4 months (unopened).

hatching a plan...

We've got too many eggs! Or, have we got too many chickens? No, definitely not too many chickens, no such thing as too many chickens! ;0)

What to do with all these surplus eggs then, even with giving them away to family and friends I still can't use them up fast enough.

Sell them of course! :0)

So, I got some cards printed up from 'vista print' for free, I only had to pay a small amount for postage. I put the name of our road in front of the word 'eggs' to make it stand out and I popped them through all our neighbours' doors.

front

back

So far, I've got an order for a dozen eggs a week from one neighbour. I always fancied being a farmer! :0)

have you seen the muffins? Man!

been busy making muffins after finding the best muffin recipe ever!

makes approx 12 muffins

Preheat oven to 180 celcius

250g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
200g caster sugar
250g plain yoghurt
90ml vegetable oil
1 egg
150g chocolate chips (or whatever else you fancy adding)

Mix together all the dry ingredients
Mix together (separately) all the wet ingredients
Mix dry and wet together, give a quick stir to combine, but don't overbeat.

Spoon into muffin cases - Bake for 20-25 minutes ....