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:
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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).
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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!
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This week in my kitchen garden:
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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…
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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:
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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:
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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:
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This week in my kitchen:
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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!
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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:
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Peanut Butter Biscuits Recipe:
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150g smooth peanut butter
150g granulated sugar
1 egg
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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!
A belated happy birthday to you Lisa! I have a quirky habit of sending people cards when it is their birthday telling them how many days old they are! It causes much amusement & sometimes horror as the years go by.
You have been busy this week, but then you always are it seems.
Not a peanut butter fan but those biscuits look lovely, might give them a go.
Have a lovely week.
Best wishes,
Angela ( Devon)
Thank you Angel, I think your idea of counting days is fabulous!
Like you I hate to waste any food , I was interested in the peanut butter , if you ever have mice in your greenhouses , cold frames bait the traps with peanut butter they love it , I keep a plastic plant label to put it on with .
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Yes my neighbour had a rat in his shed at the beginning of the year and I brought a rat box (like a big mouse trap in a box so the dogs couldn’t get in to it) and it suggested using peanut butter (which I did), but it did surprised me.
Belated Happy Birthday !Absolutely love your posts.
Thank you Angela and I’m so glad you enjoy my posts
Is there just sugar, peanut butter and egg in the biscuits please? No flour? I love peanut butter and would like to try these : )
Yes that’s right, there is no flour….it’s quite amazing they come out the way they do isn’t it. Hope you like them….let me know
A very Happy Belated Birthday to you and many Happy Returns.
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Thank you Mum and I hope you are well
Happy Birthday to you Lisa .Glad you had a lovely Birthday! That cake was amazing ,your daughter is very clever & so thoughtful to make it for you ! Im going to try your peanut butter cookies they look scrumptious!.I had a recipe for peanut butter cheesecake that was so good (think it was a Nigella one !)It always makes me put things into perspective looking at beautiful natural phenomena like dawn & sunsets.We do a bit of astronomy in the garden with a telescope & my husband has done some amazing shots of the Milky Way ! Another great harvest & a busy week of cooking for you well done -I dont know how you do it ! Youre Superwoman !!
Have a good week Carrie xx
Carriet I know you do an awful lot yourself too…it’s not just me! Have a lovely week
Happy birthday to you, what a wonderful cake your daughter made. It is so good to have the freezer stocked with things you can quickily put together when it get busy, i find myself stocking up at this time of the year, with all the excess stock of vegs etc. Have a great week.
Sue
You too Sue XX
Happy birthday to you…what a fantastic sunrise, rainbow and cake….they say it happens in threes; for you I’m glad it was ‘good’ threes! X
Thank you HelsBels. Have a great weekend
Happy belated birthday,I really enjoy your blog.
Thank you Gina and I am really glad you enjoy reading my blog.
What a lovely artistic cake from your daughter! Love your news updates on Judy, you must find her good behaviour very rewarding – a friend for life! You will have some great meals to look forward to in the coming winter months that’s for sure.
I really do find her behaviour rewarding and my heart leaps every time she meets another dog and is calm with them….I’m so proud of her and I love her so much.
I absolutely love your blogs they are inspirational. A belated Happy Birthday to you my dear, what a delicious looking birthday cake you lucky mummy and your little friend Judy looks simply adorable!
Yes she is adorable now Sharon and I am so proud of her!
a belated happy birthday to you my friend. the cake looks wonderful,your daughter is a great artist!! another busy week in your life! i made this week a big portion tomatoe sauce,for the freezer.
tomorrow i will bake apple cake and muffins for the freezer.how do you make the pastry ?thanks for this post.
have a nice week,
hugs regina
Hi Regina, hope you are well. I have just realised that a pastry recipe isn’t on my blog…..when I next make it I’ll put it on my blog….it is very easy
Your sweetcorn harvest looks amazing! Love your birthday cake too.
Thank you Sandra…the cake my daughter made me was really tasty!
I missed commenting here, and it was your birthday! What a beautiful cake your daughter made for you – a belated happy birthday to you.
I did not know that white sauce could be frozen – that’s something to remember! Your pie looks beautiful, too. Since I started making an oil crust I find it hard to make it look nice – I have to be content with good flavor only. 🙂
I think flavour is much better to have than looks…..I only put leaves on mine as I have bits of left over pastry and I can’t bear to throw them away lol
I’ve just discovered your website when researching soapnuts for dishwashers. It was such a helpful blog and has inspired me to try it out. Thank you so much for this great website. The step-by-step pics are so helpful and I’m going to try the peanut butter biscuit recipe.
Hi E and thank you for visiting my blog and I am so glad you have enjoyed reading it. I always found alot of websites hard to understand so I have been very careful to give as much information and photo’s as possible on my blog to help anyone who wants to have a go at my recipes etc. so I am so glad that you have told me this helps.
Let me know how you get on with the soapnuts