TARRAGON & THYME

I am always pleased when I manage to get either an extra preserve or products from the ingredients that I use regularly in the house i.e. when I make plum jelly  as I have the opportunity to make plum cheese from the pulp left over in the straining/jelly net.  That to me is making the most of what you have and reflects my philosophy of "Waste not, Want not"! I have a couple of projects coming up in the next week or so. I have some wine to make from kits, and I have Apricot wine made from dried Apricots to make as well.  The bonus from making the wine is that I will end up with a dried Apricot chutney as well.  I also have dried Apricot jam and Apricot and Amaretto jam to make as well.  Dried Apricots make a lovely jam.   I love Apricots and am looking forward to buying in fresh Apric ots which I tend to bottle in a very light syrup.  They are delicious served with croissants and cream cheese.  Yummy my mouth is watering at the thought. I am...

With OH now working from home, means that I have had to vacate the study/craft room to leave him in peace to work.  I am hoping therefore that I can get into a routine and set about each room in turn, find those items I no longer want or require and hopefully get that decorating done.  Whilst he keeps Missy company as well as working. I have had to start in the back bedroom because of sliding boxes, plus as I go from room to room there will be other items to store in there and to tidy up the rest of the house.  Once the back bedroom is sorted I intend to go on to the Pantry. The Pantry did not get done fully, when I hoped to get it done so that is first on the list.  It was partially done, but the decorating needs doing.  With me planning to slowly fill things up again (which was planned prior to all the current difficulties), I need to have a full detailed list of what I have and what I have not got before I go shopping.  So if the Pantry is dealt w...

Whilst the rest of the world is topsy turvy with this dreadful virus I have been working through another segment of my boxes trying to regain control and knowing what I have where. I have sorted through about 12 boxes today, sorting and re-packing and adding in extra things where I can.  The labels are helping enormously in this respect.  Every time I go to sort something, something else falls over (it was a bag of knitting needles earlier on) and I still have a large tin of ribbons and braids to sort out - that fell over yesterday.  This needs a little patience to say the least.   The boxes I have sorted were starting to collapse and were getting very unsteady so that is a job well done, but there is still plenty to go.   I have found a box of finished needlepoint that I have decanted into a box marked up to be finished.  A lot of it is vintage, not pieces I have worked but which will either be made into cushion panels or indeed for the wall. This...

Just to let everyone know that we are at the moment okay here.  It has been very strange for the last few days as OH is now working from home and has taken over the computer room, as his job entails a lot of computer and keyboard skills, but also telephone calls and live chats!  It also means I cannot get to the computer when I want to! Technically we have both been at home for the past three days although will have to go out for supplies on Friday.  Need animal food etc. so it will be essential shopping then.  Am trying to take advantage of this period in time to do things in the house although it is slow going.  A lot as been done though and very slowly I am starting to restore some kind of order.  I am trying to be organised.  Labels are going on boxes with a rough idea of what is in them and whether they are fragile etc. and in some cases the boxes are being re-packed.  I have also accumulated another box full of UFO items.  I will n...

I went out with a friend to an event, and when we got there it had been cancelled.  Bearing in mind no coffee shops were open we decided to go for a walk in the open parkland and gardens of Thorpe Hall in Peterborough.  It was a lovely way to spend some quality time with a good friend.  Something we shall be doing again.  It was lovely to be in the fresh air, blew the cobwebs away a bit.  Although the sun has been shining, it has been a very cold day. I did not sleep well as our Jack Russell Missy would not settle last night and was very restless. Every time I was just starting to fall asleep she moaned (usually this is because she is cold and wants covering again), but we could not get to the bottom of things with her last night. I was up at 6:00am as I needed to find the lead for my sewing machine, and also all my sewing stuff.  This meant going into the front room and tackling some of the boxes and bags in there.  I was extremely pleased to...

Now that OH is going to be working from home for the foreseeable future, I need to decamp from my desk and organise it so that he can work from this comfortably.   And as I have to go out for a little while tomorrow  - shopping again, this time for my step-son and his wife.  Both have self-isolated as his wife has been really poorly (not the virus it has been established but better to err on the side of caution). As they have not had the opportunity of getting any fresh supplies and will not leave the house or let anyone in, I hve offered to see what I can find for them. They had a delivery from Tesco's last week but every item had been changed to something else, and apparently it was not a good alternative.  I have therefore asked him to make a list of some of the items that they require, and I will do what I can for them locally tomorrow.  It is as much as I can do for them. However when I get home it has been planned that we are going to start work o...

Despite the odds, I have managed to get a few supplies together to give us meals for the week. This  is despite the fact that I had a limited supply of cash.  However, I have been sensible and have tried to make sure that we have a hot meal for each day. It has taken some doing but I am relatively content with what I have managed to locate, despite the shop shelves being continuously empty.  Mind you as a consequence of that, I have been out shopping a lot longer than I normally am in an effort to locate meat for the main meal of the day. I certainly have not seen chicken in any of the shops for about three days or so. I have been shopping for a week only, and hope I have not been greedy (I don't think I have), but I have tried to get a few bits of everything, especially in relation to the veg as so much can be done with this. I went to the veg shop first thing for a tray of eggs.  Unfortunately they are unable to get replacement supplies at the present, and so ...

I went to my local Waitrose last evening and I have never been more astounded at the lack of stuff on the shelves.  They were bare.  No veg; limited amount of fruit; no frozen stuff; no meat at all.  Some fish but not necessarily what you would buy. I went for some bread flour - no flour at all - hardly anything.  Tinned stocks had also been depleted.  No milk; no bread.  Even at Christmas when the stores are usually hit mega hard From there I went to M & S.  Same situation there. Needless to say I am very fed up and disappointed. No doubt I am not the only one. When I got home I nipped to the Co-Op round the corner from where I live.  There were people queuing up for the reductions counter here.  As I went by I heard a conversation between some of the people in the queue, bragging about what they had got, that they had had to buy an extra fridge and that was now full and that they were sending other members of their fa...

We heard via an associate this evening that some progress has been made in USA with a possible treatment for the Coronavirus pandemic that is currently with us. The link is here if you would like to read it. Coronavirus possible treatment That made interesting reading to me as from what I understand the medication I am on for all my associated immune disease is a form of quinine, which is often used for the treatment of malaria i.e. Hydroxychloroquine Sulfate 1 x 200mg tablets twice a day. I hope that this will be a viable treatment for all those concerned. Keep safe and take care Pattypan x

How many toilet rolls can you use at a time!   I had to nip to the shop last night (they only let me out at night when the bats come out to play)!  I needed a couple of tins of cat food for the moggies for their supper. I was surprised just how clear the shelves were and was talking to one of the assistants.  I asked her how she was as I know her and the others in there relatively well.  The young assistant indicated that it had been extremely stressful.   As fast as stock was coming in it was being cleared and then other customers had been going in and playing hell and blaming the assistants.  She indicated that apparently it has not helped either because they have put a limit of three items of one particular thing and the customers are even more disgruntled because they cannot have what they want.  Now how selfish is that.  This is an effort to make sure that everyone gets a fair share.  The shop has even offered to the regul...

A lot of us have equipment in the kitchen which we do not really use to its full potential.  Many pieces of kitchen equipment can be used in other ways too.  In this particular instance I am dealing with baby sterilisers.  People just think that they are for "sterilising baby bottles".  Yes that is what they are marketed at, but take out the word "baby" and you have "sterilising bottles".  When you put things into perspective that is exactly what we need to store preserves long-term on the pantry shelf.  This process is in effect hot water bathing or in England is also known as bottling which is a process which preserves fruit in syrup or tomatoes in the form of pasta sauce.  It works by removing all of the oxygen out of the bottle to make the bottle air-tight.  In the states when jam has been processed and bottled it is then subjected to water bathing to ensure that the longest shelf life is achieved for that particular product....

Over the years, I have managed to accumulate some lovely individual items for my home including lots of drinkware and entertaining pieces of different styles and patterns but which can all be loosely used together.  For me that premium time of the year to use these is Christmas.  Although most of the items have been gathered together, every so often there is an extra piece that takes my fancy and joins the collection.  I look for items throughout the year, and keep an eye out for pieces I think will be useful. Somewhere in the stash I have a proper cocktail making set including the shaker and the cocktail glasses but at the time of typing this I do not have a scoobie where they might be located.  I know it has all the gadgets with it.  What many of you may not be aware of though is that I have over the years collected many different lead crystal decanters in all shapes and sizes as well as different glasses for different types of drink, both lead crystal, cut...