Felt Play-food Sandwich

Here is a little something I prepared earlier!…no seriously I had not a clue what to give a friends little girl who is turning three tomorrow, and after nearly breaking the bank to get the dog sorted out, it needed to be economical on the family purse.

Thinking about the things that the Tallest has really enjoyed playing with (and in some cases still does enjoy) over the last year or so, my mind turned to the rather large stash of play food and how much the Tallest gets out of playing cafes and the like…so….a few offcuts of the right coloured felt and some embroidery silks later and there you have it…

I’m sooooo pleased with the result, and a work colleague has even suggested that she might quite like a tomato as a brooch / badge as a gift for one of her son’s (who incidentally hates tomatoes – but whom she assures me would LOVE one of these!) Felt, for me at least, has always had such a tactile and appealing quality to it and these pieces are no exception.

The tomatoes and cucumber slices being the most successful (after the bread, which is stuffed with wadding) as there are three layers of felt in each piece, making them such satisfying things to hold, they have real substance and withstand being played with, which is I suppose the whole point!

Hopefully i’ll post the pattern up for these at a later date, but its all pretty self explanatory really.  Happy Snacking xxx

Log Cabin Patchwork

Our cushion covers are looking rather sorry for themselves of late, the corners have worn through as the fabric has worn so thin. So here is the first offering to the sofa,modelled very ably by the snoozing Tallest after a hard day at Nursery…

This one was made in honour of Mr GT, I am planning to make one for each of us according to what we like, evidently the girls cushions will be pink / fluffy / sparkly, but hopefully I’ll be able to make as tasteful offering as possible, so that Mr GT doesn’t feel the need to remove them to their bedroom!

The button embellishment works really well, and has fascinated the children, so I will definately be doing some more.

Happy Sewing / Growing

GT

Sunflowers in full bloom

As you can see the Tallest’s Sunflowers have come good in the end. We should of had four stems, but the Smallest when through a faze of pulling the heads of plants shortly after they were planted into the new border against the house! So only two survived.

She’s not sure whether she wants the leave them for the birds to enjoy or harvest them – I’ve yet to convince her that they are good to eat! Maybe we can all share.

The other stem is obscured by the car that is up on axle stands in the driveway. Poor MrGT has been spending any of his ‘free’ daylight hours taking out the old and putting in the new clutch, only to find last night upon close inspection that he has been sold the wrong part!… Will we make it to our visit to Clacton on Saturday? I think we might be taking the bus!

A hot afternoon for baking

Despite the hot and muggy weather that we have been experiencing, the Girls and I spent a busy afternoon in the kitchen, with some rather pleasing results.

Pardon the colour but it was taken at night using a mobile phone, not the best combination.

Everything that you see is gluten free, and I have to confess that the sausage rolls are a first time try, which have gone remarkably well, just a standard gluten free pastry recipe, but using Self Raising rather than Plain GF flour, to give the pastry a lighter texture, and I have to say that it worked.

Gluten Free pastry is notoriously crumbly and very good at falling apart when you touch it. This I am afraid to say is no exception, but while the texture will never be as good as ‘the real thing’ the taste is excellent, and by keeping the dough ‘dry’ rather than wet when working it it doesn’t go like sheets of iron once it has been in the oven.

I’ve eaten three already, I don’t think that rest will survive the weekend at this rate!

Getting there with the Rayburn

I’m currently in the process of sorting out the tiles that I want to use in the kitchen, as the Rayburn has to be backed against a fire proof surface. It’s been moved, I think that I am going to have to teach myself how to tile, and hubby is busy grinding certain sections of the smoke pot down so that he can repair them with a weld or two.

A very helpful chap came over, and he will be overseeing the installation for us. We’ll be doing some bartering with him, so at least it won’t all be cost cost cost.

Now we’ve ripped out the kitchen I’m beginning to wonder if it was such a good idea just before Christmas?

The rayburn is now where the electric cooker is, Hubby has ground away the wood flooring to make way for the Rayburn plinth which will sit directly onto the concrete floor. That was a noisy stinky job!

If I needed to get any extra exercise I’m certainly getting it now, as I keep walking to one side of the kitchen only to discover that the cupboards are now on the other side doh!

Does the girl ever sleep!?

Haven’t had a great deal to post of late, as things are fairly quiet here, and I have been trying to get some extra rest as the Smallest is waking every 2 and a bit hours during the night, as she is yet to recover from this horrendous cold and congestion that she has had for the last week.

Activities are mainly focused on the home right now, I will soon be making preparations for Christmas, and will be posting the recipes for a gluten free Christmas Cake – once I have made it myself of course! I am also trying to build up a little stock of hand crafted presents, so that we can really keep within the Christmas budget. We always try to keep it reasonable this time of year anyway, but everything helps – I have such a store of chutneys and tonnes of fabric to use up – so it’s a good opportunity to make good use of them. I’ll post some how to’s if I think that any would be good to share,

Time to go and square the house up before the Smallest wakes up again…

Busy, busy

Posts have been a bit thin but both children have bad coughs and the Tallest has croup.

But to just fill in we are:

making cider

making apple sauce

baking

boiling ham

and brewing beer

when I have two hands free to put some decent posts up I will. It’s a busy time of year just now!

Grandma Marshall’s Green Tomato Chutney

This is an adapted recipe, that my Paternal Grandmother used to make. It is loosely based aroung Mrs Beetons, but has been altered to suit her tastes. My Grandma passed away when I was a very small baby, so making things that came directly from her really make me feel that I have a connection to someone that I never really knew.

Made now, as a consequence of clearing out the unripened vines to make room for overwintering crops, this will be mature enough to use at Christmas, and a jar can make a nice little gift for someone.

You will need:

10lb Green Tomatoes

1lb Onions

1/20z Black Peppercorns

1oz Salt

2lb Sugar

2pts Vinegar

1lb Raisins

1lb Sultanas

1 Small Marrow

1 Good Pinch of Garam Masala

• Slice (or chop, depending on how coarse you like it) the tomatoes and chop the onions and mix together in a basin with the peppercorns and salt. Cover this with a clean cloth and leave overnight for the juices to extract.
• The next day boil up the sugar in the vinegar until it has all dissolved, then add the raisins and sultanas (which may be chopped too if you like). Simmer this for 5 minutes
• Then add the tomato and onion mix, simmer and stir regularly until the mixture is thick. It is ready when you can reveal the clean bottom of the pan as you draw the spoon along and the mixture just slowly comes together again.
• Put into clean, warm sterilised jars. (I tend to have mine in a low/simmering oven whilst the chutney is cooking) Never put hot food into cold jars as this will have disasterous consequences
• 

This chutney goes great with the usual suspects such as bread and cheese, but also makes a lovely fruity addition to lamb casserole.

Waste Weigh In

So far the current running totals for rubbish over the last few days are:

Wednesday: 50gms – mainly milk bottle tops, jar lids and a pasta bag

Thursday: 40gms – more milk carton tops and a couple butchers bags

The biggest distinction between this week and last is that there is no dog muck going into the bin, due to the new dog poo digester, I have got photos of this to post with the instructions on how to make one using an old bin, but things are a little busy here right now, so I’ll do that when I have more time one night.

The uncooked food waste either goes into the wormery or the fire, as at this time of year the worms ability to eat large amounts of kitchen waste diminishes with the cold weather. If we didn’t have the fire we would collect it up and take it to the allotment compost heap – there isn’t enough garden for one at home.

I (being the main cook in this household) have made fantastic inroads into reducing the amount of cooked food waste that we have. What we do have left over is more often than not possible to recreate into a new meal, and what doesn’t generally goes into the dogs dishes, but even then there are certain things that they can’t eat – or won’t eat – which as we are having fires is wrapped into newspaper and burnt. Its not a great amount but we are working our way towards not needing to find other ways to dispose of it, although I’m sure that there’ll always bit a little left over for the hounds. At some point (nudge nudge the DH) we will have our rayburn fitted, and that will be our main source of heat and cooking in the house so waste can be dropped into that as it is a solid fuel one, so a few scraps won’t do it any harm.

As a family we aren’t big consumers so waste in regards to purchases is pretty minimal, although the Tallest had a friends birthday, we managed to find a toy in a cardboard box, Tallest drew a picture on her own card, we recycled the envelope and wrapped the gift using an old paper bag decorating it with coloured paper and the Tallest did some more drawing on it. So when the friend gets it home, everything bar the envelope can be recycled (they have an open fire so thats that dealt with I think).

All in all we are doing pretty well, although that bar of chocolate I had yesterday added to the pile – you can’t recycle the foiled paper – so for yesterdays sin I had better be saintly today.

Recycled Crayons

Following on from something that the Tallest and I saw when looking for a bit of inspiration at no time for flashcards

We made some new crayons from all the old broken ones that any precocious three year old just cannot lower themselves to use!

Put bun cases into a bun tray, and place all your broken crayons into it, making sure that all the paper has been taken off so that it doesn't burn.

Put them in a low oven 120* or after you have done some baking and turned the oven off. Let them melt and when the surface is shiny and smooth take them out - any longer and they will scorch. Turn them out and remove the paper cases.

You may find a little crayon residue underneath the cases, this washes off easily with hot soapy water, to reduce the amount that you find, make sure that the crayons are well in side the cases before you ‘cook’ them.

The Tallest loved doing this, and now has some fabulous ‘new’ rainbow crayons to use, I’m sure that other shapes could be made with a little forethought, giving a new lease of life to something that she wasn’t interested in before.