Well the best laid Plans of Mice and Men

 Have gone totally to pot today.  I am very tired again at the moment and ache.  I am putting this down to the change in the weather, the lack of vitamin D and a bit of flare with the arthritis.

The pills from the Doctors arrived today. They are massive - like Horse pills!  I am going to have to chop them in half to get them down.

The meal plan went all to pot again because of the tiredness and I ended up with a cheese and onion bun.  Am not particularly hungry in any event and just about to pop the first Horse Pill (have to have with food).  So we will see how we get on.  Hopefully the pills will do the trick and put things back on track healthwise.

Hopefully will get on back with the meal plan tomorrow.

I have peppers to hand, onion, potatoes, tomatoes.  However need to get some courgette to add in. (since acquired).  Might even add a bit of pumpkin as that always roasts up nicely.  That is for the Italian sausage and roasted veggies that we are definitely having tomorrow night.  It is a nice easy meal after the preparation has been done that involves one pan, so minimum washing up.  It makes a very tasty meal.

Another couple of cupboards in the kitchen have been sorted out.  I have one more to go but whether I will get to that tonight or not is another matter. I have a cupboard with mostly saucepans, preserving pans, my pressure canner and some of the saucepans and strainers all sorted out.  It is lovely to be able to find things. I will still need to move things about to get to them but rather that, than having stuff here there and everywhere.  

The other cupboard will have quite a lot of my mixing bowls and preparation equipment in it.  I have a little basic cupboard with all the stuff I use on a regular basis, measuring cups, measuring spoons, measuring jugs, my Tala vintage measure, rolling pins, colanders in and one of the graters is in there.  I found both of the graters yesterday.  I am going to put the other one in the new cupboard that has been ordered so that we have a couple of options for locating them. Some of my more regular electrical equipment will go into the new cupboard.  I do have some appliances on the counter in any event.

I have also bought some black plums to bottle in syrup.  They were a little pricey but the right size for bottling.  I have been paying £3 a kilo from the vegetable shop but the plums were massive.  I am hoping to get them bottled up tomorrow night together with some pears that I have bought.  I would also like to get some mixed fruit salad put up as well.  I might make the sugar syrup up this evening and then store it in the fridge in preparation for tomorrow night's "bottling" (Bottling is the English term for water bathing high acid fruits). I also have some fresh Cranberries and this time round I want to make a few jars of Cranberry Sauce.

I suspect that I will be in the kitchen again for most of the day tomorrow as well, but needs must.  I am sorting stuff from the dining room into the kitchen as well, so there is quite a lot of transfer of items one room to another.

I also finished off the second batch of Cranberry and Apple jelly tonight.  I have nine more jars of bright red jelly cooling down on the kitchen sink.  Once cold they will get labelled up and popped out of the way in the pantry.  It is good to have more precious items to pop on the pantry shelf.

The juice (there were 4 1/2 pints of juice) to which I added 4 1/2lbs of sugar and then bubbled it up.  There was a lot of foam with this one, and I had used butter but it did generate a lot.  Bought it up to the boil and then kept testing with a cold saucer to see whether set had been achieved.  It happened very quickly today ad you could see the jelly floating on the tpp of the jelly.  Sometimes it takes absolutely ages to achieve the set.  I suspect it takes quicker if like me you add a little apple.  Lovely clear jelly though, beautiful crimson colour.  I managed to get 9 standard jars of precious preserve for the pantry shelf which I am extremely pleased about.

There were nine warm bottles sat on the kitchen sink.

Catch you soon.

Pattypan

x