In the kitchen

Just as a change from Lucy, I thought you might like to see what else is going on here at my place.

Although I'm off work with something respiratory I have been able to get on a do a little bit in the kitchen. Tony as you know is partial to some home baking and has been known to devour a whole slice in less then 16 hours!

I'm happy to say this latest slice is in to it's second day.

I wonder if he hopped on the scales recently?

This tasty wee treat is called magic slice.

It's one of those recipes where you pretty much dump everything into the tray and let it sort itself out.

Very tasty. It was a new to me recipe and will be a keeper. I'd better have a look about and decide what to make next as it is almost gone now.

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A friend recently asked if she could have a baby off my spider plant. The plant was pretty heavily laden and many babies broke off easily as I tried to prise out just two or three pieces. So I popped them all in to water. They only took a few days to grow roots.

A job for today will be to get them potted and ready to go to new homes. 

There are still plenty of babies on the mother plant, but it is getting a little late in the season for propagation, so I'll leave them where they are until spring. 

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Before I get all green fingered though a must do job today is to use up some tomatoes.

The weather this summer has been changeable to say the least. Hot one day, cold the next followed by a few days of mediocre. A recent spell of warmer weather brought on a whole bunch of tomatoes.

Added to the few that were already in the pantry I have enough to make a batch of relish and also a small batch of sauce. Hopefully Tony will volunteer to help chop and stir again today.

With frosts forecast for next week we had better make the most of what we have as I don't think there will be many more batches of sauce or relish this year.

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It was good to see those of you who made it into Chookys impromptu zoom session on Saturday. I still sound weird and get out of breath over nothing, so will be on to the Doctors office again tomorrow. (Monday) Though I did sound almost normal when I was talking to Tony early this morning.

Well that's my news, I'm off to get busy in the kitchen. 

Hope you're all having a good weekend. 

Still Isolating and Lucy is Growing.

 So even though I do not have Covid, I'm still doing the right thing and staying at home, isolating.
I managed to see a Doctor on Monday. That was a mission. I phoned and asked in my croaky tweenage boy voice if I could see someone, after explaining that I had called last week and been sent for covid tests and had since returned three negative RATs. 
The receptionist said I should go for a test! 
So I explained again that I had negative tests and have been ill since last week, I really need some help please. 
She said that they could arrange a telephone appointment. 
I asked her how the Doctor was supposed to look at my throat and ears, and listen to my breathing over the phone?
 Her response was, "well we don't want sick people in our waiting room."  
I asked if not their Doctor then where sick people are supposed to go? How can a Doctor diagnose something he cannot see?  What did she suggest? 
She got snarky with me at that point and said "I suppose we could do a carpark appointment." 
So I saw a Doctor in the pouring rain in the carpark.  I parked as close to the door as I could get. I wasn't too bad in my car, but the poor Doctor got soaked. 
His diagnosis? There is definitely something going on in my glands, I need antibiotics and I did the right thing insisting on seeing him in person. I guess his receptionist had complained about me.
I wasn't allowed in to the pharmacy either, so the lovely lady ran outside with my prescription and the card machine. At least she had a brolly. 

Thank you to everyone who sent lovely get well thoughts and wishes. A couple of days on antibiotics and I'm improving. I still sound a bit odd, but way better than I did. And I made it through yesterday without naps and snoozes. But I still slept late this morning. 

So what have I been doing to keep myself busy, while not snoozing?

Working on Lucy of course.

I've been removing papers as I add blocks, so that I could make up more white pieces. I spent some time last night removing more papers, so today I'll be basting more white fabric and I do still have plenty of blue squares I could make up. 

That's about all the excitement I can manage at the moment, so I'm off to make a cuppa and settle into my armchair to play with fabric. 

Thank you once again for all the good wishes.

Weekend progress

Thank you to those who sent get well wishes. 

We've established that it is not covid!

But what ever it is, it got worse since Fridays post.  I sound like scooby doo, or a tweenage boy.

It's making me just ill enough to sleep in past nine and run out of energy very regularly.  But I have been able to carry on crafting. I thought about playing some more with my rulers, but decided that required too much brain power, next I thought I might try cross stitching, but that just didn't appeal. In the end I spent some time with Lucy, it really does not take much thought or effort to cut and baste plain white honeycomb pieces. So I did that, until I ran out of papers.

Next I started sewing some blue squares together, and adding white honeycomb pieces. After joining the first row of crosses together on Friday, I was able to free up some more honeycomb papers. It feels a little like robbing Peter to pay Paul, but at least I was able to make progress.

So here is a whole weekends progress, in between naps and snoozes. There are a couple more square blocks that were completed, but I forgot to take a picture of them.

Honeycomb papers are hard to get hold of in NZ at the moment, everywhere I look has them on order and is awaiting delivery. So in order to free up some more, I'll have to finish the row of squares and add another row of crosses. 

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It wasn't all about Lucy. 

On Saturday I made a batch of tomato sauce for the freezer. Well I ended up as more of a supervisor really, I set out with good intentions but after chopping all the onions, a carrot and some celery, Tony helped out by chopping the massive bowl of tomatoes and volunteered to stir the pot while I had a rest.

On Sunday I made a flapjack. Tony helped again. Weighing all the ingredients as I read them out.

Although I've made flapjack many times before this is a recipe I had not tried previously. 

It was a little dry, maybe I'll tweak it and try again.

It must taste good, there are only three pieces left!

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Well that's my news. How was your weekend?

 

An armchair, a cat, some rulers and Lucy.

When I was out op shopping with Debbie last week, we spotted the cutest wee arm chair. We both tried it out and agreed that it is very comfy and perfect for a shorty like me. I walked away thinking about it and had a chat with Tony. We agreed that if it was still there on Monday morning I should buy it.

And it was still there. As it's only little, we were able to get it into the back of Debbie's car and brought it right home. It fits beautifully in to the corner of my sewing room. It's predecessor was a little on the large side, but this one is perfect. 

Even Belle approves!

My blanket fits nicely over the back and the sewing caddy that Janice made for me fits on the arm and I've refilled the pockets with all those useful little items. Belle is all curled up on my old dressing gown, she loves it and if I leave it anyplace other than the back of the bedroom door, I know I'll find her on it. I am supposed to be making it into a bed for her, so it was lying in my room, waiting. I'm sure she thinks I put it on the chair just for her. 

On Tuesday my awaited Ruler foot for Sally Skyline arrived but I didn't get a chance to play, until yesterday. I had fun practising making pretty flowers. 

This was flower number 2. There was a lot more experimenting, but no photos, sorry.  A little more practise methinks. But it was fun and easier than I thought.

I have crumb blocks all ready to play on. They will make good placemats for Tony and I.

I didn't spend all day playing with my rulers, I moved to the sitting room to prepare more papers for Lucy. And ended up getting a little carried away.

I've joined the first row. 

Not the best picture, taken at night in artificial lighting with a reluctant quilt angel holding it up for me.

I was rather pleased with it last night and looking at it in daylight this morning happier still.

I'll need to hop online and buy some more papers for it. Why do they sell packets of papers in such tiny quantities, when you need such huge quantities for even a small quilt top? 

I'm off work sick for a couple of days. I'm pretty sure it's just a head cold, but I have to do RAT tests anyway and I don't want to share even a cold with the residents at work. 

More time to sew.

A foodie post

 I often think to myself  while I am baking...

'I should get a photo of this and blog it'.

And then I usually forget.

I know many of you do post blogs about food, especially new recipes.

Recently I have been remembering to get photos while I was creating in the kitchen. Here are the last two days worth.

Yesterday was Shrove Tuesday, or pancake day. I'm not really a religious person, but do like to note some of the tastier traditions, and pancake day is one of them. I made a yummy batch of buttermilk and bacon pancakes for lunch.

Tony very much enjoyed them.

Prior to making the pancakes I had made an ANZAC slice.

It's always a winner too.

We had a slice each after lunch, while it was still warm.

Then I tucked the remainder in to the red baking box, before heading off to work.

By the time I got home from work at 10.30 pm, there were three slices left!!!

Tony said he wasn't sure if it was up to standard and had to carry out extensive trials.

LOL

We polished off the last slices for supper.

So today I needed to refill the box. I had some buttermilk left over from making the pancakes, so used it up in some cheesey scones.

Another of Tony's favourites, I wonder how long they will last?

Then as a reward to myself, I made myself a chocolatey treat.

Do you like chocolate?

How about hot chocolate?

Do you like these little treats?

This is a new to me recipe.

I really don't recall where I saw it, but someone on the WWW suggested warming some milk and dropping two or more of these little balls of bliss in to it.

It doesn't have to be the red ones, it can be any of the flavours, but my fave is the red.

YUM!

I find that the boxes and sachets of instant hot chocolate have added sugar or sweeteners and they are just too sweet for my taste, but two of these is perfect.

What a yummy treat.

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A day off work.

Tony will not be home for lunch.

What's left of the day is mine.

I'm off to sew.