General Chat

It's nice when the children pay you unexpected compliments, isn't it? When mine were teenagers, we had a holiday house and they were always bringing their friends to stay for the weekend. We were happy that they bothered to be with us - although we didn't kid ourselves - our boat was a big attraction.
One evening, we had a barbecue and there were leftovers, which I used next morning with anything that was either already open and/or plentiful, along with more bacon, eggs, baked beans, etc.
One of the friends complimented me on the breakfast, and one son said "my Mum always cooks a mean breakfast". The word 'mean' meant 'great'....then another son added "Mum always cooks mean meals". That made my day! It's nice to feel appreciated.

Greetings from a very soggy wet Wales,

It poured with rain all night and most of the day, and has only now begun to dry up. The garden is soaked, but needed it.
I declared today a non working day, so no work has been done. Instead went for a walk along the beach in the rain, with my old dog, who has no sense of humour, and grumbled all the way. The sea and the mountain were covered in a thick sea fog, so there was no view today. I did spot a few oyster catchers, and some cormerants.

Linda that raspberry jam smells delicious - memories of freshly made scones, raspberry jam, and clotted cream - oh dream on.

CC.......You sound like a useful pair of hands to have around the place, so I will bear you in mind next time I review my staff vacancy list. Sorry but Linda the Kitchen Goddess has taken the cooks position.

Sue - Stop picking on CC, she is only little, and extremely sensitive.

Oh well, lazy day over. Dinner is in the slow cooker today, so I must go to check if I've ruined it again.

Hope everyone is ecstatic today.

Tec.

I had better drag the thread up from page 2.

I love cooking CC, unfortunately I like eating it too.

I have made lots more Raspberry jam and Blackcurrant as well. there are loads of Blackcurrants ready for picking,so I will get some more tomorrow.

Good morning/evening to you all

CC, many thanks for your email, the lawn ornaments were great!

Tec, I don't use a slow cooker: I prefer the ones with a little more intelligence :0))

Well it was mild here yesterday and we didn't need to ligh the fire. Storms forecast for later today, wind, rain, thunder the whole works!!

Linda, OH used to make jam many years ago but that was when we had access to the 'pick your own' strawberry fields. That was the same period that I was making a beautiful wine using rose petals.


Allan

You can send your storms here Allan, or Tec can send his rain. We desperately need it for the garden. OH went for one of his bike rides today and when he was about five miles away he got drenched in a torrential downpour, but we didn't have a drop.

Good Morning/Evening,

Linda I shall be making damson jam, assuming the one solitary annual damson ripens this year on my tree.

Allan - my slow cooker is fairly intelligent - just a little slow, a bit like me really.

CC.......I did pork fillets with fresh apple rings, a spoonful of honey, served with brown rice and a little salad.

Tec.

That sounds nice Tec, I just made some vegetable soup using some of the yellow courgettes from the allotment. I am not keen on the green ones, but the yellow ones have a nice creamy taste

Good evening Tec.

I did a beef and guinness stew yesterday (with left-overs for today)

I was going to make it as a pie but couldn't be bothered so OH made some herb dumplings and added them to the mix.

We just buy cheap cuts of beef, cube them and cook them really slowly either on the hob or in the oven at a very low regulo setting!

Allan

Good evening and good morning everyone. I'm up a little earlier to-day, because I've been awake since 2:30am, so I'll probably sit down to watch something on TV after my lunch and drop off to dreamworld - and mess up my sleeping habits again!

Linda - how is little Eve? (and her mother, too, of course). Hope both are doing well by now.

Good morning Berona.

TV these days is enough to send anyone to sleep!! :0))

Allan

Alan, if I want a steak, I like to buy the best I can afford - but for stews and casseroles, I buy either chuck or shin beef because I think they have more flavour than the other meats.

I would think the yellow courgettes would be nicer in with the soup - haven't made soup for a long time, it's so much nicer than bought tin stuff.

Strange you didn't have any rain, we've got more coming tomorrow, I'll send you some.

Tec.

I agree with you about the TV. I rarely watch it at night. I record what I want to see, then play it over next afternoon and FF on the commercials.

We eat lots of home made soup, i have a stick blender so just stick it in the pan to give it a quick whizz. With home-made bread, it makes a meal in itself

Eve is coming along nicely. the Jaundice levels are staying down and she is back to her birth weight. the only problem is that she is too lazy to suck properly,so my daughter is having to express the milk, then feed it to her from a bottle. Hopefully she will learn how to feed properly soon to make things easier for my daughter

What are courgettes? Are they those tiny little marrows?

Good Morning Allan, and Berona,

Berona it's even worse waking so early in the winter months because the nights are so long - I was walking around the garden just after 5 am the other morning, but at least the sun was up.

Alan, I got a slow cooker especially to use the cheaper cuts of beef etc, makes excellent stews too, which can of course be cooked slowly in a conventional oven just the same, but the slow cooker is more economical.

Tec.

Berona, we do the same with TV, although OH must have her nightly fix of Home and Away.

We also do the same with our meat, buy the very cheapest for slow cooking in stews and hotpots, but buy the quality meat for having as a stand alone meal

Allan

Of course, Home & Away is an exception. I both watch it and record it - in case I get interrupted.

Berona, courgettes are the same as zucchinis. I found that out the other day when i was looking at a recipe in an English Cookbook

Allan

They are indeed zucchini. OH calls the green ones a waste of space, I gather he doesn't like them lol. The yellow ones have a much nicer taste, well i think so