Fuel prices here, both gas and electricity, are larcenous. We already try not to use the central heating; we are lucky enough to have a woodburner, and that heats downstairs, and our bedroom above, and we put up with a cold bathroom. Having the fuel paid for in advance is nice, and I get a…
Category: general
christmas cakes 2013
Please excuse the chocolate dinosaur cakes. They were an experiment which clearly needs more work. No wonder the bloody creatures are extinct. I actually got round to doing my Christmas cakes reasonably early (for me) this year. And inspired by my friend Jane’s most excellent, if sporadic, food blog, I have done them slightly…
I don't *always* cook from scratch …
On the rare occasions we have Yorkie Puds, I make my own. But it’s faff, and fuel, and as there’s only two of us as a rule, it’s hardly worth an egg’s worth of batter. I had to pop (or nip) up to Jackson’s for a lemon this morning, thought “what the hell”, and picked…
breakfast frittata
Half a bag of spinach to use up … Diced two rashers of back bacon, a few mushrooms, half a green pepper* and half a red onion, and put them in the shallow pan of the Remoska with a little olive oil for 15 minutes (switched it on, obviously!). Beat four eggs with some seasoning…
stuff to use up today
Leftover haricot?ish beans, and some cheesy mash, both from last night’s shepherds’ pie.
Jacob's ladder
I’ve written before about our wonderful butcher, T L Norman of Princes Avenue, Hull. They’re an old fashioned butcher, and keep a lot of stuff out the back (not unlike Hilary Briss in League of Gentlemen, now I come to consider it), but of late he has installed a chill cabinet in the shop, and it…
home made firelighters
We are lucky enough to have a woodburner, and while most days I can get it going with newspaper and kindling, sometimes it fights back and I have to resort to a firelighter. I hate the paraffin wax ones – they smell, and your hands smell – so we tended to buy the quite pricy…
a mini slow cooker
We do a lot of batch cooking for the freezer, as regular readers will know. I have a big (6.5l, I think it is) slow cooker, which is great for cooking huge amounts, but useless for a meal for both of us. Fuel prices are becoming ever more ridiculous, so for ages I’ve been thinking…
a spicy plum crumble
A bit like bananas are in this house, are plums. In that I buy them, but don’t eat them. So there were eight going a bit scrotal in a bowl, and a couple of (very) wizened Bramleys in the veg drawer in the fridge. It was a cold day, Rainageddon was forecast (though didn’t arrived,…
leftover milk
(not quite sure why the photo turned itself horizontal – sorry). We quite often have leftover milk – neither P nor I have milk in tea or coffee, so it’s quite easy for us to not manage to use it up before it turns. But still, there’s always something to do with it, even…