News

News. Good. Or bad? Good as in I'm not pregnant & there's no sign of any abnormalities so Mr Anorak has started to breathe normally again & we can manage financially I hope. Bad as in I think I secretly wanted to be pregnant - even at my age. I don't think I could have terminated the pregnancy unless an aminio had shown problems. I had always wanted more than two children but a broken marriage & then a second husband who'd suffered the fall out from a cot death & was a gibbering wreck for most of the first year of Joe's life, five years into our marriage - this was why I'd opted for sterilisation to start with. Trust me to fall pregnant immediately before hand!! Ah well back to normality. The anorak has tea under control - smoked haddock.

What Joe wore last week. Thursday was world book day & dress up as a character from a favourite book. Hmm. Joe doesn't really like fiction but adores Jamie Oliver on the TV & likes me to try his recipes so he went as Jamie!! Charity shop shirt re cut to his size & jeans & T shirt. Easy. Friday was dress as a WW2 evacuee. Charity shop again for a jumper. I cut it apart at the seams & drew a smaller shape onto the pieces, zig zag stitched all around before cutting & then zig zagged the shoulder seams & ran them through the overlocker (at work so no luxury of one pass of 4 threads! I put one sleeve on by the same process & then unravelled enough yarn from a discarded piece to knit the neck rib - I kept the jumper bottom ribs as part of the new pattern so didn't need to knit them again. Took Joe to swimming lesson & furiously knit the neck. Back at home I stitched up the other side & voila a jumper only fit for an evacuee to be worn the next day.

What I cooked last week. The usual stuff such as pork chops braised in stock (or cider) with onions & apples. Left over sauce & bits in tray whizzed in the blender & frozen for use as gravy later. Very nice it is too. The anorak did most of the cooking - he's getting adventurous - coq au vin was on the menu.

What I cooked this week so far. Cup cakes - twice - they were eaten up rather quickly & I also have lots of eggs in the fridge! Pork chops - again - but this time roasted with potatoes, carrots & parsnip all in one tray. Lovely but a bit dry - I forgot to get the gravy out of the freezer! Actually this recipe should have had pears or apples roasted with the rest but I didn't have any. Blackberries in a sauce with this would have been nice too. Ooh I'm getting quite adventurous with my ideas.

What I'm knitting. Knitting the ribbing on the evacuee jumper made me decide to start something from the yarn stash I accumulated when I did lots of machine knitting in the dim & distant past. I still have my machines, & more acquired since, but nowhere to set them up for longer than a couple of hours so they no longer get used. Anyway I got a book out of the library & am knitting a hat. Not sure how it will turn out as I haven't hand knitted anything for simply years & years.

Shopping

Look - three have already gone from the tray!! Not sure who ate them!

I did wonder today if I should rename this blog to include the word frugal. I had £40 to do the weeks basic shopping. The couple in front of me with a toddler & a 6 month old spent £108. OK there were a number of organic purchases but there was also plenty of biscuits, cakes & jars of baby food. If it were me I'd be making the baby food from the organic produce - yes I used to buy jars of food for emergencies or days when I could be bothered but not in the quantity I saw today. Another retired couple had a trolley full of ready prepared meals & tins of meat, pop etc. Maybe they felt it was time to take it easy & not spend time doing the prep. Maybe I'm just jealous? No! I want to feed my family as well as I can but not at any price nor with a lot of junk. Which isn't to say I don't buy junk or ready prepared meals occasionally - everything in moderation I say. My purchases included meat & veg, washing powder, milk & yoghurt. I already have some basics in the house so it isn't the entire amount of food for the week, although my housekeeping varies between £30 & £50 at any given week depending on how much hubby earns a week so we have to shop carefully. But do we all use up the leftovers?
I started out with the intention of echoing the Reduce, Reuse, Recycle motto. I took my own carrier bags in a cloth bag I made specifically to hang on the trolley see Lakeland Limited's website for their eco bag. Lunch was homemade veg soup using the stock I made yesterday from the carcass of the chicken from the day before. Bread was a homemade roll topped with cheese. Tea was quiche with bacon & cheese, served with fresh green beans & mashed potatoes left over from yesterday but put in little pyramids, topped with cheese, on a baking tray in the top of the oven while the quiche cooked below. I used the left over pastry to make jam tarts as well.
So I reduced the waste from leftover food, was sensible using the oven for more than one thing & didn't take any new plastic bags from the shop by recycling the ones I got last time! I managed to fill us all up except for my son who is a lean mean eating machine at the tender age of nine. Well he's always been like this. I filled some more of the gap with cherry pie that Mum gave me a while ago that had sat in the freezer until today. Haven't we overdone the pastry today?!! Now I notice he's snacking on the home made choc chip cookies that I made today. I didn't mention that his late breakfast was homemade drop scones (Scotch pancakes) - a veritable bottomless pit! He'd be eating a banana as well but as per usual they were all green inthe shop today. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe tomorrow I'll get chance to read & drool a little more over Kaffe Fassett. Joe badly needs some more trousers I'll have to have a look through some back issues of Ottobre to see which I (he) likes best, being a stick insect bought trousers don't necessarily fit, even with adjustable elastic in the back waist. Custom made look better!