a busy domestic blog of knitting, sewing and all kinds of needlecrafts, cooking my garden produce and preserving it

Friday, 25 January 2013

Lunch from the Lottie - #10 - with the help of some stock



Two Lottie Lunches this week; the first using tomatoes and broad beans from the freezer with the last of the parsnips







and the second with stock, potatoes, leeks and dried peas.....


Normally after Sunday's big roast I have bones to boil for stock but this week's pork was boneless. All I had left to boil up were some lumps of overcooked hard meat - surprisingly it did look and taste like stock after boiling.


 I remembered this time to do my advance planning  by soaking dried peas overnight. These are home grown and dried and this is the first time for testing them.


After their 10 minute rapid boil, I cooked them in the stock with the, now softened, meat scraps and our potatoes and leeks.



 A really thick pea soup for a cold winter day.



Thursday, 24 January 2013

Knitting - finished project and plans for next.

 First the finished project - a long scarf knitted in 'ostrich' yarn, so nice and fluffy but maybe not too warm. Being plain stocking stitch, it didn't take long to make but would have taken less if I hadn't decided it was long enough, cast off and then changed my mind. Undoing the casting off and picking up the stitches seemed to take forever because of the nature of the yarn.
Anyway, it's now finished so on to the next thing...



.....this necessitated a day or two immersed in pattern books with yarn spread out everywhere.

 I wanted something lightweight and fitted, suitable for wearing indoors, rather then out, in the current cold weather. I have a huge stash of 4ply Jaeger washable wool - but only 5 balls at most of any one colour, so I was looking for striped or fair isle.

 I've settled on re-working this Rowan pattern from Magazine 28, using 4ply instead of double-knit, 5 colours instead of 4 and making a cardigan instead of a jumper! The swatch looks good I think but I may also alternate the colours round to use them up evenly.

Friday, 18 January 2013

Ways to warm up the kitchen

This last week has been freezing cold with snow lying on the ground so I decided to stay inside and warm the house by replenishing our marmalade and jam stock - unbelievably, we were down to the last jar!
First I raided the freezer for blackberries and redcurrants to make a batch of jam. Then hauled the left-from-Halloween pumpkin out from the hidey hole under the stairs to put with frozen squeezed out lemons for marmalade. Because the lemons need to soak and soften, this recipe involves boiling on two days - not a plus point of the weather is at all warm but this week it was very welcome.

Thursday, 17 January 2013

Lunch from the Lottie #9

 It's a while since I posted anything under the 'lunch from the lottie' banner, mainly because there isn't a lot to be picked there right now. What we DO still have are potatoes - starting to grow spindly roots - and leeks. Add to that the freezing weather today and the time seemed right for leek and potato soup!

Sunday, 13 January 2013

Packing Christmas Away

The tree was taken down and all the Christmas decorations
 put away last week
 but I still had bits and pieces to sort
 through to see what might be useful.


A pile of cards, of course, to use probably for tags
 but some may be large enough for tiny boxes

But more exciting for a hoarder like me are all the bits that come from crackers and wrappings.
I'm sure to find new uses for these next year.