Stepping out on My Own

Well I had a go at making the same Lemon Drizzle Cake today that I made with the lovely Frugal Queen yesterday.

8oz Eggs, 8oz, flour, 8oz sugar and 8oz butter, plus the rind of two lemons, with lemon curd filling. It's definitely not as light and fluffy as yesterday's cake and the two halves are much flatter. Don't get me wrong, it's going down better than anything I have made so far, but it's not as good somehow. I did follow the steps exactly, so I am confused as to why.

I also bought two 22cm metal pie tins for £1.99 each today, ready for the Chicken & Chorizo pies. Just waiting on next week's shopping to arrive for those ingredients. I didn't think that was too costly.

I had a lovely morning helping to teach at Sunday School earlier today. We were learning about Daniel and the lions with 5 to 9 yr olds, mine included. The kids are fabulous and they come out with the most amazing things. It is slightly frustrating that your own child seems to want to mess about and show off when you are leading though. I'm sure he's not like that during someone else's month.

Update on the Crochet Blankets - work on Crochet Blanket 1 (the colourful squares), has stopped while I try and get Crochet Blanket 2 to look like I have done anything on it at all. It has gone from a very thin long strip to a marginally wider long strip. It feels like it is taking forever to make any progress and I think maybe I should not have gone so wide for my first/2nd project. I am currently contemplating making the width, the length instead. I am slightly concerned about the edges as they are not very even, so I think I will have to learn how to do some proper edging before I can finish it off. What do you think?

Weather forecast for tomorrow, "Rain clearing away allowing a few bright spells in the morning, but soon becoming cloudy with showers, often heavy and maybe thundery in the afternoon. Maximum temperature 14 °C". So much for doing something special for the Bank Holiday! We were hoping to go for a bike ride or moor walking, but it is likely to be pretty miserable around here. Shame!

What have you got planned for your extra day off?

Lots of Love Arwedd xx

Can Cook, Will Cook

I have had the most absolutely fabulous day learning to cook beautiful food with a beautiful , kind and most generous Frugal Queen. I can't believe she had the patience to put up with all my daft questions and my cack-handed knife skills, but she was utterly brilliant.

We started by making my ambition of a white sauce, well actually a Cheese sauce, and we did it  with a Microwave. Hey, I can "do" microwaving! I have to be totally honest and admit that I didn't realise there was flour in a white sauce. I'm not sure what I did think there was, but it's only 3 ingredients, plus the cheese, of course.

Froogs has all the details of what we made and how we made it on her Blog here, but all in all there was:-

 a huge Lasagne and a Canelloni, with lots of hidden vegetables. I'm trusting all of you not to tell the 'boys'.

Loads of veggies that were very small and disappeared in the sauce.

Large Lasagne & Smaller Canneloni

A Carbonara, which we ate straight away for lunch so didn't get time to take photo, but I can tell you it was gorgeous with we had with salad and dressing.

Two Chicken, Chorizo and vegetable pies, using her method for making pastry here:-

and a beautiful lemon drizzle cake, which also had to be tried straight away. It was very lemony with the lemon curd filling, but Sons don't like buttercream or icing, so I think it will be perfect for them. If I got it right?, I could also do the same cake mix but put some golden syrup with it for a Treacle sponge type cake, aswell.

Froogs garden was lovely and we sat in the summerhouse and on the patio in the sun for coffee breaks which was so peaceful and relaxing. Her DB was just lovely too and very industrious.

I have realised that I do need a few pieces of kitchen equipment before I tackle the recipes on my own. I am now on the lookout for a free/cheap food processor, some family size oven dishs and some enamel pie tins. However, hopefully it won't be too long before I am tooled up and able to show you the results of my efforts, so watch this space!

I also got a close up look at Froogs handmade quilts and they look even more fabulous in real life than on her Blog. A very talented lady.

Thank you ever so much Frugal Queen. Not only have I learnt that I can cook, and I know that I will cook, but you have given excitement for the journey ahead and for that I can never thank you enough.

It's a new dawn
It's a new day
It's a new life
For me
And I'm feeling good
I'm feeling good

And this old world is a new world
And a bold world
For me

Lots of Love Arwedd xx

Food DIary updated.