Cooking up a Storm!

 

Hello Everyone,

Welcome a lovely warm and sunny Sunday afternoon.  I don`t know how much longer this warm weather will continue but I must say I`m enjoying the last vestiges of summer.  Jim is on a day shift today, he doesn`t have them very often, it`s usually just lates or earlies, so I`m sitting here with nothing left to do.  The ironing is done, the gardening is done, albeit by Marshal(more of that later!) so I thought I`d do my entry early in the afternoon for a change.

Yesterday I made an apple crumble, not just any old apple crumbe you understand.  I decided to push the boat out with this one and make it a bit special as I know it`s Jim`s favourite and I`m rather partial to it myself.  The apples we picked from the garden of the cottage in Dorset.  We are always being told to help ourselves as there are loads of them but this year is the first time that we bothered.  We gathered several pounds of cooking and eating apples, enough to fill a carrier bag, so I can freeze some of them for another time.  Jim picked lots of blackberries before we went away so the crumble filling was completely free of charge and pesticide-free too.  I cooked four large cookers and added a handful of blackberries, added demerara sugar and cinnamon.  I let it cool and put it in the fridge until morning when I made the crumble in the usual way, but instead of adding ordinary white sugar I used demerara and again added cinnamon.  When I`d spread the crumble on tip of the filling I added swirls of butter then sieved some more sugar over the top of it.  I popped it in a hot oven for 35 mins. then placed it under the grill to caramalise the top. Of course it was loaded with calories, but then again I`d cooked it so I wasnt going to stand by and let Jim eat the lot was I?  Though I say it myself it WAS delicious and Jim agreed...not that I`d have been too impressed if he hadn`t..lol!

Going back to the day we returnedfrom holiday, in amongst the pile of mail we`d received in our absence, I found a letter from the hospital.  Oh great, thought I, it must be a follow-up appointment to check up on my recent surgery,

 It was just that, only the was for the previous week that I was away!  I was not at all happy because we didn`t leave on the Saturday morning until the post had arrived so it wouldn`t have been delivered until at least the Monday morning when the appointment was for.  For all I know it didn`t even arrive then!  Anyway,  I phoned the hospital to explain and all I got was an answerphone so I left a message explaining, complte with my name, address, hospital number etc.  I still haven`t heard from them so tomorrow I`ll try them again and see if I can talk to a real person this time instead of a soulless machine.

Oh yes, Marshal and the gardening...I was going to tell you all about it wasn`t I?  Hmmm....Let`s just say me and that dog are going to fall out soon if he ever does it again.  This morning while I was doing the ironing I had to go down to the kitchen for something, when I passed the window I caught in digging up one of my azaleas!  I was furious and ran outside, using language that no respectable middle ages woman should ever utter ( most of it under my breath I might add!) The cowardly mutt then lay on the pavement with his huge paws over his head, he certainly knew he`d done wrong alright. I was just about to go inside when I thought I`d better do a check in case the damage went further than one plant....it did....sigh.  Five plants in all were damaged, FIVE!  Thankfully none of it was fatally though they look a bit ragged, I`ll just have to keep a closer eye on the mutt before he teaches Jake the bad habits that he`s grown out of.

I must go now and check on the dogs again, Marshal is confined to the kitchen while I`m on here while Jake is in the garden, unless Marshall, who CAN open the back door has got out...EEK!  I hope you all have a lovely afternoon.  Take care and Bye Bye for now. :o)