TARRAGON & THYME

Yep I still intend to make more Marmalade.  I obtained more Seville Oranges at the weekend; this time for a batch of Ginger Marmalade.  I am very partial to Ginger in all it's variants so for me finding this recipe kinda kills two birds with one stone The recipe makes about 10lb in weight Ingredients 1 1/2 lbs/750g Oranges; sweet or Seville Oranges 1lb/500g lemons 1oz/25g fresh root ginger peeled and chopped 6 pints/3 1/2 litres of water 6lb/2 3/4 kg of Sugar 8oz/225g preserved ginger finely chopped Method Was the Oranges and Lemons and cut in half.  Release the juice from the fruits by squeezing on a lemon squeezer or using a reamer.  Squeeze the juice and pour into a large pan.  Tie the pips and root ginger into a muslin bag and add to the pan.  Slice the Orange and Lemon Peel into thin shreds without removing the pith; add to the pan.  Add the water to the pan and then bring to the boil.  Reduce the heat then simmer gently for ab...

At present I have no vegetable garden and have been unable to harvest crops from the back yard.  But that doesn't mean it isn't on the agenda or that I cannot do a little bit to help eke out the fresh produce that comes my way.  It means a little bit of work, but then anything worth doing is worth that little bit of extra effort.  So I live in a City; I am lucky in that I buy most of my fresh vegetables from my local greengrocer or from the main market in town.  I do on occasions cherry pick items that I am after from the supermarkets but most of my shopping is for the best part done through the Greengrocer and the Butcher and spotting the best price between the supermarkets for specifics although I tend to use stores like Lidl and Aldi and then if I cannot get what I want there - go store hopping.  I use own store brands where I can and I use a lot of pasta, noodles and rice. I quite often freeze those vegetables or items that I buy and which we do not get ro...

I didn't get up very early this morning and my dream didn not continue from yesterday's rude awakening.  When I did get up I had a sprawl in my jim jams on the settee with a hot mug of tea and I then went blog hopping.  I found a tutorial on patchwork that I got quite into and which has inspired me to have a bash at some of the projects i.e. squares to do a sampler quilt.  It was a video tutorial and what I saw I was very impressed with.  Time flew whilst I was having fun and then real life kicked into play and OH delivered a bacon sarnie with a nice hot cup of tea.  I then got a wriggle on and got baking. I have made two loaves of the Brack  they are cooling on the freezer at the moment but they look and smell very nice.  I then made two loaves of the malt loaf that I have made before, and it smells delicious too.  Both these recipes were cooked in the oven together with two x 2lb loafs on each shelf and took about 2 hours or thereabouts at Gas ...

Last night before I trod up the wooden stairs to Bedfordshire I prepared some mixed dried fruit by soaking it in some hot extremely sweet tea (me thinks this is a good way of using up some dried fruit that is perhaps getting a little bit by its best). Today I am going to finish it off when I put the cooker on later on and hopefully produce a couple loaves of "Tea bread" for eating as a snack with some cheese and an apple or spread with some butter. In effect a cut and come again cake.    I am also going to make some of the Sticky Marmalade Tea loaf as well, and I will freeze any extra loaves for future use. My family have always made this type of loaf, primarily round Christmas when my Nan used to make them and give them to family members; a role which my mum has taken on in recent years.  Ever mindful that I have someone at home who will not always get himself something to eat or snack on when he is hungry for fear he takes something that I could make a meal out of (...

This morning did not start with an auspicious start -someone thumping on the door downstairs and by the time you get something on to cover your modesty, and get downstairs of course the culprit has scarpered.  However he had poked through a delivery card for collection from the main sorting office counter!  To make matters worse it wasn't even for us! I really had not wanted to get out of bed - I was in the middle of a delicious dream and now for the life of me can't remember what it was all about.  You know when you have a feeling that things were good and you can't shift it.  That's the feeling I have been left with all day.  I wonder if my dream will continue tonight!  Needless to say once roused I could not go back to sleep so I got up.  This all happened at 8 a.m. It has been a beautiful sunny day here in Peterborough.  Cold but at least the sun was out.  It says something when you go outside and it is perishing and then you come back ...

Well what a song and dance.  They knew there was a leak and could not locate it.  The plumber has just gone.   It has been a little bit of a devil, but all is sorted and we now have the heating on Arrgh. Phew is more like it he has had all sorts of pipe work apart in the process.  However it would stem from a problem at the gas meter.  A couple of years ago it was replaced and one of the British Gas engineers replaced the meter.  However it would appear that instead of changing and replacing the joint that was in there he has bodged it and it has only just come to light because that is where it was leaking.  The poor old plumber (he is 72) has had a heck of a game with it.  But we now have the heating on and OH is cooking some egg, sausage and bacon, to be swiftly followed by a mug of tea.  The best part is we have not smelt any gas in the house at all and this has only cropped up during a routine yearly maintenance review.  Well al...

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