#Everybitcountschallenge Day 10, 10 August 2022 Bay Leaves

It is too darn hot....as it is for everyone.  I was awake at 5am this morning and then got  up at 6:30am whilst it was still cool to do stuff.  I am cleaning, de-junking, re-organising.  I am also trying to sort food items out for my Pantry as per the #everybitcountschallenge.  It is long overdue the reorganising sorting etc. but I am plugging away at it, bit by bit.  It will be good when it is all bottomed out and squeaky clean.

I am so pleased I got up early to start doing stuff.  It is now starting to warm up in the house to what it was.  We have kept to the house as best we can as we find the heat debilitating.  We are also conscious of trying to keep the animals cool as well.

At the moment I am sorting and re-arranging my Welsh Dressers in the dining room.  Whilst I have been recovering after surgery, things got left a bit.  Today despite the heat I feel a bit more energised than I have done for a while.  The dresser I am working on holds a lot of my jars and bottles with foodstuffs in them. The ones that will not go in my Pantry. So have been cleaning, sorting through them and replacing where necessary.  This is the precursor to the Pantry sort out, but this room as it is the through room needs doing first as otherwise it ends  up being the general dumping room.

I have two 6 foot Welsh Dressers, and a corner dresser, as well as the dining table and chairs.  Things are a bit tight space wise.  Although this is a three bedroom house storage is not particularly good, but there we are. I use this particular dresser for storing a lot of food stuffs that will not go in the Pantry and I also use it to prep stuff and to dry stuff.

Today's contribution to the #everybitcountschallenge, is naturally dried Bay Leaves.  I have a Bay tree outside of my kitchen window, and as I have run out of dried Bay Leaves I thought that it was about time I did something about it.  The Bay tree has put on a lot of growth this year, and so I have only given it a mini clip as I like to use the Bay for decorating the house at Christmas.

I am naturally air drying the Bay leaves.  They will not take long to dry and I have therefore broken the bigger branches down into small sprays of Bay and then wrapped the stems with string and then tied it to a string running along the front of the dresser and held in by drawing pins!  As I add the Bay sprays, it will end up making a make shift garland for the front of the dresser, but equally is out of the way to dry safely.  Once it is dried, I then decant into large storage jars.  I also have a basket of single leaves which are also drying.  I am thinking about making some Bouquet Garni with the whole leaves and some other freshly dried herbs.  This is just the prepping process for that.

I use Bay leaves a lot in my cooking.  They add a subtle flavour to gravies, stews, roasts, casseroles, hams, etc,

Therefore only a little item today but extremely useful.

This evening it got too hot in the house and I had to get out so into the garden where the giant triffids have grown whilst we have been away.  A couple of hours later, and I have managed to tidy one corner of it.  I intend to spend a couple of hours a day until I get it sorted again  It is a lot cooler first thing or later of an evening.  At least I have made a start.  It is a full moon tonight so I may well go into the garden and sit in the fresh air for a while to see if I can see the Moon.  Not always possible to see it here.

I have also managed to load the two photos that would not download last night of the Star Anise Five Spice Honey.

Catch you soon.

Pattypan

x