Pineapple Carving

I'd really love to have a go at wood carving, so that may be something to explore in the coming year.  In the meantime, I have attacked two pineapples and ended up with 5+ jars of delicious chutney.  I've posted the full recipe and technique on my other blog!

In a Vase on Monday - Late Harvest end of November

I have no greenhouse or cold frame..but I am happy to play the game of moving plants around to gain the greatest benefit for them, from a window sill, to the conservatory to the patio.  A few years ago I bought a chilli plant from Waitrose, and kept it going for three years, then last October just scattered a few seeds at the base of the mother plant.  A few seedling were potted on, and all except one given away.  The whole plant was covered in ripened fruits, but with a sign that some greenfly were starting their assault on the plant.  Before tackling the infestation, I picked all the fruits.

A few roses are surviving the winds and rains.  Cathy who hosts this meme is also featuring roses this week.  In the vase at the back is Shropshire Lad which is not opening well, but in the foreground is Crown Princess Margareta.  Both plants were acquired in the Winter of 2013, and are only slowly adapting to their new homes.  I am really pleased at how Crown Princess Margareta is performing in the low light...David Autins's site does say that it is ideal in shade, so I am beginning to think that it is well suited to these low light days.  I placed the roses in my narrow vase, but then just put that in my pot on the Kitchen Window sill in which I usually have a pot of basil growing.

I moved the arrangement to Conservatory where there is better light, and still the beautiful deep apricot blooms of Crown Princess Margareta glow in the low winter light.

Christmas Morning Breakfast Bread

In recent years we have had panettone for Christmas Morning Breakfast and I have enjoyed making several versions.  This year I felt like a change, and was really happy to find Orange & Anise Snowflake Bread on Domestic Gothess's blog, and Hannah has cleverly organised things so that there is als an easily printable version.

As Mr S was away at a show today, and I had this damp and dreary Sunday to myself, I thought it was just the time to try this. The one I am freezing is the better one which I shall finish off on Christmas Morning, in the oven, and will freshly apply melted butter and icing sugar on the day.

I started off with warming up the milk, and to cool it down, poured the 100ml straight onto my weighed and chopped orange and lemon candied peel mixture...I did not have sufficient candied orange peel, so added some of the lovely candied lemon peel from a different batch.  In the meantime I pondered about the Star Anise.  I have the whole ones, and I have ground Anise, but no ready ground Star Anise..so into my little spice grinder I added two whole star anise and some of the sugar and ground that down together.  This worked rather well.

I then drained off the milk, and added the 80g bread flour, and the fast action yeast....after doing the clearing up of the breakfast things, the Starter was Ready to Go!

The orange had just a few tiny dark dinks in an otherwise lovely skin, so I cut them off before grating the zest off directly into a larger bowl to make sure I caught all that lovely orange oil.  To this the egg, orange blossom water from my lovely little brown bottle from Nielsen Massey, my organic cold pressed rapeseed oil rather than the olive oil of the recipe, and two eggs, and the sugar and anise mixture.  After a good whisk round, I then added the flour and the Starter.

With no bread kneading machine except for my arms and hands, it all went onto the worksurface, and with my scraper in one hand, I managed to work the dough beautifully, and after ten minutes stretching, then softened butter was added and kneaded again, before finally the chopped candied peel was added.

After resting the dough...it was time to shape it, and I followed the instructions...but got rather carried away or was it just a mistake, but I cut too many times, and ended up with an eight armed snowflake..but the second one had the six as per the recipe.  So not a snowflake at all since all snowflakes have six points only, and they are made of frozen water, but oh so pretty, and so tasty.

After resting again they were brushed with egg glaze then went into the Oven at Gas Mark 4, half way along the cooking time, I swapped them over in the oven, and also turned them round on each shelf.

Maybe a little more pulling to get the star shape as good as Hannah's.  Tomorrow my little taster is coming round with Penny, so I am planning to have some left to have then.  Just now, I am off to make Sunday Afternoon Tea with a taster of Christmas Breakfast Bread!

The second loaf is going into the Freezer...which I defrosted and cleaned out today, ready for the Christmas stash of goodies.  The one I am freezing is the better one which I shall finish off on Christmas Morning, in the oven, and will freshly apply melted butter and icing sugar on the day.

Having eaten some, I must say that the 'bread' is more sconey than I would like, so having had some advice from Jane Mason, I shall try it with less yeast next time, and allow for a better longer first rise.  The flavour is excellent, but I need to work on the 'mouth feel'.

New Hat

When we were away in Cambridge, and the cold wind was blowing Mr S started to look for a new woolly hat since he had not brought one with him.  We looked and looked, and suddenly he looked at my hat, and said he wanted one similar to that.  When we got back, I got out my STASH of yarn, I have one that is rather on the large size, however we just could not find the right manly shades, and it would have to wait!

Last weekend we had a drive out to Notcutts Garden Centre at Solihull on the pretence of going to look for slippers at the Moshulu Shop, but sadly discovered it had been closed some time!  Of course if there is a Wool Shop there is always the need to pop one's head in.  So after we had a turn round all the sheds...we popped into the very big shed 'Cedar Cottage' housing Stitch Solihull.  Ana was away so instead her Mum helped me...we got out the tape measure, measured D's head, compared other patterns, and decided that one ball of 100g Aire Valley Aran from West Yorkshire Spinners would be sufficient.  Mr S chose the colour called Autumn Forest.  I also bought some new double ended needles.  Normally I use fixed circulars as these usually have the best bonds for lace knitting.  However with this yarn I would need a 5mm size needle, so decided to try out the needles with an interchangeable 50cm cable to give the right size.  However on the decreasing I reverted to my double ended needles.

The autumnal colours in the Aire Valley Aran are gradually blended giving a nice graduation which shows up well in the ridges of the Scrunchie Hat.  It looked by the end of the fifth ridge that the hat would turn out quite dark, so I found the other end which was russett, and started to knit from there.

I have been a great fan of West Yorkshire Spinners for some time now, as their sock yarn is beautifully made and comes in some great colours.  Its great to support British Wool, and British Manufacturing...

Today we went back to Notcutts again.  This time it was to buy a Christmas Tree.  We have been using the same old Christmas Tree which is brought down from the loft each year, since I don't know when.  It has had several washes under the shower, and last year, some of the little bits that you have to straighten out started to break off!  I have been looking closer to home all week, and we did pop into a garden centre, but there was nothing that we liked or real trees which had been pot grown.

When we had come out the yarn shop last week, we started chatting to a family with a young boy.  His excitement at choosing his own Christmas Tree was infectious.  They had been looking at these trees, and we had joined in with their discussions.  When we arrived there this morning we were not disappointed...the trees were as good as we remembered.

We then popped back into the Cedar Cottage, and this time Ana was back, and Ana's Mum and Pop were in the shop too, and Mr S proudly modeled the hat.  They have a great selection of fabrics, and I notice they also run some interesting workshops.

There are comfy sofas too if you want to stop and knit...

This time, I could not resist the new WYS sock yarn called Festive Holly Berry, since it brings some of my favourite colours: lovely greens, a rhubarb/cranberry red and cream into a pretty self patterning yarn.  For those who have not heard of this term, it means that the yarn is dyed in a sequence of colours so that when you knit it up, it comes out in a pleasing pattern reminiscent of fairisle knitting.

Tidying up in the Garden

With rain forecast, I grabbed what I thought would be half an hour or so, to go and clear some leaves off the heather bed, and I ended up spending a couple of hours clearing up some of the old debris in the back garden.  I have already noted a couple of plants which need moving, and now that the green bin is full, its time to come in.

One of the bonuses from my stint in the garden this morning, is that I found a couple of name labels for the two Dahlias that I planted this year.  I had some queries about the blooms' names in my vases which I posted during the Summer, so here they are:

Dahlia Phil's Kelpie was the first to flower.  It was smaller than the other Dahlia, and had loads of medium sized blooms.

Taller was the upright and strongly growing, and very pretty Dahlia Kiwi Gloria.  It is classed as Small Cactus.

Again another very floriferous specimen, a little later to come into bloom.  I guess I could have grown huge blooms if I had disbudded, but I love smaller flowers.  The colour is exquisite and goes well with blues, whites and violets.