A Lovely Week & A Peanut Butter Biscuit Recipe

I’ve had a lovely week.

It started last Saturday when I woke up early and sat outside watching the sun rise….it was stunning.  In just under an hour it went from darkness to daylight.  This is something I have never watched before….nature is so beautiful:

On Saturday myself, Mr Thrift and my daughter went on the ‘Bradgate Park’ dog walk again with Judy.  I am still amazed that less than six months again she couldn’t go anywhere near dogs without barking and lunging madly at them and yet now we can walk for a couple of hours with lots of other dogs…….and as you can see in the photograph below, she is chilled out enough to even lie down when we stop.  I am so proud of her:

.

Also this week I saw the most amazing rainbow whilst I was walking Judy in our local park.  The colours were really bright and it looked as though both ends of it were in the park…..(so I will keep a look out for a crock of gold over the coming weeks).

.

And this week it was my birthday and I had some lovely cards and presents.  My daughter also made me a gorgeous cake.  She spent ages making it into my kitchen garden and even put ‘pretend’ mud on the vegetables…..and it tasted delicious!

.

.

This week in my kitchen garden:

.

I picked the rest of my sweetcorn this week as the weather is turning colder and I was very pleased with it.

I blanched the cobs and froze them so we can enjoy them over the winter:

I then cut all the sweetcorn down so I can start to prepare this area for next year…

.

I also removed the dead leaves from around my curly kale and cabbages as these can harbour pests like slugs and snails etc.  I gave it a good weed and it looks much better now.

I picked my last white summer cabbage and I left four red cabbages to harvest another time:

.

I also picked some more parsley to freeze….

and some spinach so I could make a spinach and poached egg florentine and it was really nice:

.

Unfortunately I also had to cover the overwintering onions and garlic that I planted last week, as the local family of squirrels (that one of my neighbours insists on feeding) keep digging in this area to hide the nuts they has been given:

And finally I harvested my first few mizuna leaves from the seeds I sowed at the beginning of September.  Hopefully I will have many more leaves to follow over winter:

.

.

This week in my kitchen:

.

I’ve been very busy in the kitchen this week.  I started by making the crab apple jelly from the crab apples I was kindly given last week:

I also decided to make some things in advance for my freezer, to help save time when I prepare meals over the next few weeks.

I made a big portion of spaghetti bolognaise sauce and we had some for tea, but the rest I froze in portions ready for another day:

I also made a double portion of white sauce to use half in macoroni cheese and I froze the other half after it had cooled completely.  It is really easy to reheat in the microwave and then add cheese for a cheese sauce:

I made pastry this week for a pie with some leftover chicken and vegetables.  I made a big portion of pastry so I could freeze three portions for a quick pie another time.  It defrosts quickly when I need it.

I also made another load of passatta out of tomatoes that I picked at the end of last week:

This week I ran out of cheese, so I bought three big blocks and grated it all in my processor.  I then froze it in bags of 250 grams so it is easy to defrost a pack each time we run out.  I find grated cheese seems to last much longer when I grate it, as it’s so hard to cut thin slices of cheese when it’s left in a block…..and also ready grated cheese costs more money to buy than cheese in blocks:

And I also made a double load of chocolate ice cream and separated it into individual portions…. again I find it goes further this way.

All the above things help to save me time or money, which has to be a good thing!

.

As you have probably guessed by now, I really don’t like to waste any food in my house and this week I found some peanut butter lurking in the back of my cupboard that really needed to be used up.  So I made some peanut butter biscuits, which really are one of the easiest biscuits to make and they tasted absolutely delicious:

.

.

Peanut Butter Biscuits Recipe:

.

150g smooth peanut butter

150g granulated sugar

1 egg

.

Preheat your oven Gas 4 / 180C / 350F

Put all the above ingredients into a bowl and mix together:

Put large heaped teaspoons of mixture onto a baking tray (there is no need to grease the baking tray):

Bake in your oven for 10-12 minutes until golden:

Enjoy!

Thank you for reading my blog today.  I will be back next Friday as usual.

Have a good week!