February Reads

I can't believe we are already fast approaching the end of the second month of the year, but that also means that Spring is fast approaching.   

I have read a further two books this month.  The first of which is my return to childhood favourite, this is something I like to do every now and then just to remind myself why they are my favourites from growing up in the first place.  I used to read them with my own children but of course they are all nearly adults now so I don't have that excuse anymore and my little grandson is a little too small just yet.

The Railway Children - Edith Nesbit

When Roberta, Peter and Phyllis's father is taken away and they move to a tiny cottage known locally as "Three Chimneys" set in the beautiful rural countryside. They spend their days playing in the fields and watching the trains at the nearby railway. We join them on their adventures as they befriend  an Old Gentleman who regularly takes the 9:15 train near their home and all those who work with the trains. They  prevent a railway disaster,  take care of a Russian exile, Mr Szczepansky, who came to England looking for his family and help Jim a boy they find in the railway tunnel after a paperchase who has broken his leg, only to find that he is the grandson of the Old Gentleman who eventually is able to help to prove their father's innocence, and the family is reunited

I have seen both the adaptations of The Railway Children with Jenny Agutter playing both 12 year old Bobbie and the part of the children's mother.  It is one of those timeless stories that I have always enjoyed reading not just for myself but it was also a favourite when my daughter was growing up. As the generations come and go I hope it is one of those stories that never becomes old hat and will continue be read by generations to come. 


My second read of February is 

White Nights (Shetland Book 2) by Ann Cleeves 




When Shetland detective Jimmy Perez finds a body in a hut used by fishermen it seems to be a straightforward case of suicide. He recognises the victim - a stranger with amnesia who had disrupted a local party the night before his death.

Yet this is no desperate act of anguish, but the work of a cold and calculating killer. As Perez investigates, he finds himself mired in the hidden secrets of the small Biddista community. Then another body is found.

Perez knows he must break the cycle before another death occurs. But this is a crazy time of year when night blurs into day and nothing is quite as it seems.






Having read Raven Black the first in the series of Ann Cleeves' Shetland novels I was really looking forward to getting to grips with book two, White Nights.  Set in the small Biddista community of the Sheltands at the time of year with the relentless light of midsummer. A body is discovered in a fisherman's hut on the island with no identification and nothing that links him to the island. Perez has the unenviable job of  investigating who this man is and why was he visiting Shetland. Then another body is discovered and so the story goes on.  The novel seemed to start off at a good pace with lots of twists and turns and of course all the secrets to be discovered of the Biddista community, all of which made you feel you were heading for a climatic ending.  Sadly for me this was not the case and I felt it came to quite an abrupt end with lots of loose ends and questions left unanswered.  It was almost as if the author had run of ideas of where to take this novel and seemed to cut it short. That said I have do enjoy Ann Cleeves novels and fully intend to continue reading the series as and when they rotate on my reading list. 


What have you been reading during the month of February and what are you intending to read through March.

Mx

Two Soups

Waitress is still one of my most favourite sketches written by the wonderfully talented Victoria Wood. For most of us this sketch will always be known as Two Soups, who can forget the fabulous Julie Walters who in her own inimitable style played the part of the elderly waitress serving Celia Imrie and Duncan Edwards how they managed to to hold it together long enough to get through that sketch without laughing I will never know.   

Definitely on my list of winter warmers is home made soup. When my children were younger if they were poorly the one thing they would want was mum's home made soup.  Didn't matter what type as long as it was home made. Even after they have all but left home the one staple of go to food we all lean towards when we are feeling under the weather or if the weather outside is cold and wet is soup and its nice to know they are all continuing the tradition in making their own, although these days they have soup makers something I don't have. My son and his partner have soup nights once a week during the colder weather and are busy working their way through recipes from both sides of the family.

Roasted Butternut Squash was always a firm favourite  and all that is needed apart from a butternut squash is:  

2 carrots sliced with their skins on 

2 large sweet potato peeled and cut into pieces  

2 onions peeled and cut into chunks  

2-3 cloves of garlic unpeeled     

2-3 tomatoes halved  

Olive oil

1 tsp of dried mixed herb                   

2 litres of vegetable stock
and 1 butternut squash cut in half and seeds removed but no need for peeling       

                                                                                                                 

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas mark 4. Put the vegetables in a large greased baking tin and drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle over with dried mixed herbs. Bake for approximately 45 minutes to an hour until the vegetables are tender. Remove from the oven and allow to cool slightly.  

Meanwhile add the stock to a large saucepan and heat through. At this point you will need to scoop out the butternut squash then add it and the rest of the cooled vegetables to the stock and bring back to a rolling boil then reduce the heat and let simmer for 15 minutes. Using a blender or hand blender, blend the soup.

If it becomes too thick you can slacken it off by adding a little warm water to achieve the consistency you prefer. 

The title of this post is 'Two Soups' and therefore I better tell you about another firm favourite.

Mushroom Soup

200g Button or chestnut mushrooms
1 medium onion
55g/20z butter or non dairy alternative
1 tbsp of plain flour (gluten free if required)
2 litres of mushroom stock
1/4 pint/125ml milk

You can buy mushroom stock cubes but if you don't regularly have these as a store cupboard item as an alternative you can use vegetable stock.  I like to make my own mushroom stock by peeling the skins from the button or chestnut mushrooms adding them to 2 litres of boiling water and then simmer for 20 minutes then remove the skins and you have your stock. Pour your stock into a large jug ready to use later.




From here on in making the soup is easy.

1. You have already taken the skins off the mushrooms so all that's left to do is slice the mushrooms and leave to one side. 
2. Dice your onion and keep to one side. 
3. Using the pan you made your stock in add the butter to your saucepan. Once melted add the diced onion and allow to sweat off until the onions start to go translucent.  
4. Add the mushrooms and cook for 1-2 minutes 
5. Sprinkle over the flour and allow to cook out for 1-2 minutes but stir to make sure it doesn't stick to the bottom of the saucepan. 
6. Add your stock and milk
7. Allow to come back up to a rolling boil 
8. Reduce the heat and allow to simmer for 5 minutes 
9. At this stage your soup should have started to thicken
10. Remove from the heat and using a blender or hand blender blend your soup to a smooth and creamy soup.

On a more serious note, over the past two weeks we have had to contend with two rather big storms. Firstly Ciara who stole two roof tiles and brought with it wind, rain and even snow, followed closely by Dennis who also stole two roof tiles and threw anything that couldn't be put out of harms way around the garden.  We came off lightly in comparison to others, both these storms left areas of the UK in devastation with severe damage and flooding. If you have been affected stay safe and I hope you get sorted out soon.

Mx

Bobbins plastic v card

With so much in the media about our use of plastic these days there has been a lot of questions asked in the cross stitching community as to whether we are best using the plastic or card bobbins on which to store our silks.

When I first started cross stitching nearly 30 years ago, the only bobbins available were card. It made it easier to be able to write the number of the silk, or to add the symbol from the chart you were working on  Over the years I have collected many of the available DMC colour threads, which meant in time if I was kitting up a large project the initial outlay wasn't going to break the bank and as and when a new colour came out I could add to those I already had if needed for the next project.  But as time goes on I found the card bobbins started to bend or rip especially those that were probably 20 years old and has been re filled a few times and this made it more difficult to spot in the storage boxes.

It was by pure chance whilst kitting up a new project and needing some additional threads that I by accident picked up a packet of plastic bobbins. I immediately thought these would be better than the card because they were much more robust and certainly wouldn't rip or bend. The only issue I had with them was that they are not easy to write on and even a permanent marker doesn't seem to last over a long period of time.  You can of course buy a set of the DMC floss stickers for very little money but these really only come into play I feel, if you are intending to collect the whole set of DMC threads. 

I did however come up with a money saving solution and one which I have been using ever since. I now cut the number from the label wrapped around the thread    

and attach to the bobbin with sellotape which means the label doesn't get damaged and therefore the number doesn't wear off. It also means you can refill the bobbin with the same colour over and over again or remove the label and recycle back into your empty bobbins to be used again at a later date.

It took away the need for purchasing of any stickers and means that if you have to purchase more than one skein for your project you will have a ready made label to add to your bobbin. 

Although using the DMC stickers has worked for me in the past I am finding this new way of keeping my silks to work much better. Some stitchers prefer to use Anchor threads, some choose to use both depending on the type of project they are working on. Either way this system would work. 

So my initial question posed by the cross stitching community was whether the traditional card bobbins were better than the plastic or vice versa.  And if plastic were deemed to be better,  with us being so conscious about the use of plastic whether we should be using them. In this case my answer has been. I would definitely advocate for the plastic as they will last forever or at least the remainder of my lifetime at which point they will be handed onto my daughter and therefore I will continue to use them going forward. I am not going to go completely mad and change all my bobbins over at once but as and when the opportunity arises I will swap it over which could possibly take me the next the 30 years.

Hope this is helpful to any seasoned cross stitchers or to those who are new to this wonderful hobby.

Mx

Apple & Blackberry Crumble

How many of us started off the New Year with all good intentions of not eating any cakes or having  any deserts only to  fall at the first hurdle.  Oh good not just me then.....

January was a month of coughs and colds and generally one or the other of us in the household not being very well and spending the majority of our time tucked up in bed.  Yet another birthday came  and went for me without me even noticing. Hey ho another year older not necessarily any the wiser as my old mum always used to say. We did eventually have a belated birthday treat when I was feeling a little more human.

Probably due to the fact that I had been so poorly and had felt so dreadful I was able to get through the month of January without actually partaking in any cake but come the 1st February I'm afraid I succumbed.

Well I did have to give my new Stand Up to Cancer apron a try...  Excuse the awful photograph but I had been poorly...

Growing up my family lived with my grandmother Nellie. The one abiding memory of my grandmother is that she always wore an apron or pinny as she called it and it always had pockets. We used to call it the pinny of many pockets because no matter what you wanted you could guarantee she would have it in the pocket of her pinny. Anything from a plaster for a grazed knee or a boiled sweetie to make to make you feel better.



I love the fact my apron has a large pocket on the front but I have no idea what I'm supposed to keep in there.  Any suggestions??

My grandmother was bought up in the North East of England, a miners daughter and her parents grew everything they could to feed their family of seven children. She loved her garden and had no end of fruit bushes and trees and certainly during the autumn and winter months there was an abundance of fruit crumbles or pies for desert.   A lot of things I make are the things that my mum and grandmother taught myself and my sisters and I loved making them for my own children when they were growing up and still love making them now even though there is just the three of us at home, it just means we get bigger portions and seconds.



Towards the end of the summer a friend of mine gave me a carrier bag full of apples and a big container full of blackberries from her garden. I cored, peeled and quartered the apples and divided the apples and blackberries into portions for the freezer.

I have always loved crumbles of any description but apple and blackberry crumble has always been one of my favorites from being a little girl and its one of my top ten winter warmers.


Crumble topping

225g/8oz plain flour or gluton free plain flour
175g/6 oz butter or non dairy spread
55g/2oz caster sugar
25g/1oz demerara  sugar
1/2 tsp ground ginger

• put the flour and ground ginger in a bowl and mix together 
• add the butter or non dairy spread and rub together until resembles bread crumbs. 
• add the caster sugar and stir together and leave to one side.

Filling

1 eating apple (cored, peeled & quartered)

2 Bramley apples (cored, peeled & quartered)

250g Blackberries

175g/6oz soft brown sugar

1 tbsp of lemon juice 

• Pre heat the oven to 190C/375F/Gas Mark 5
• Place the quartered apple pieces and blackberries in an oven proof dish 
• add the brown sugar and lemon juice and mix together
• spoon over the crumble topping 
• Sprinkle the topping with the demerara sugar 
• Bake in the oven for 30 - 40 minutes until the fruit is soft and the topping golden brown with juice from the fruit seeping through the top at the edges.

Serve warm with cream, custard, hot or cold, or a large scoop of vanilla ice cream. 

Now all that's left to do is sit back and enjoy

Mx

Little Women - Louisa May Alcott

Some years ago I decided to revisit some of the books from my child hood. Those that have stayed with me throughout my life.  One of my favourites and that of my daughter was Frances Hodgson Burnett's  The Secret Garden.  As we approached the New Year I thought it might be nice to do this again and continue revisiting some of the books that may or may not have influenced me growing up. 

With all the publicity about the new version of the Little Women film at the cinema I decided that revisiting Louisa May Alcott's Little Women would be good place to start. This version is The Complete Little Women Series available through Amazon for just 49p on the kindle at the moment and contains all four books written about the March family.  I haven't seen the latest film version but the version I remember best was the one of 1949, which thankfully remained faithful to the original books. Although called Little Women  the film did in fact span across the first two novels and in true Hollywood style the film had a different ending to that in the book.  

Little Women-Four sisters live with their mother, facing Christmas without their father as the American Civil War is underway. The family is settled in a new neighbourhood, living in genteel poverty after the father lost their money. Meg and Jo March, the elder sisters, both work outside the home for money to support the family. Meg teaches four children in a nearby family, while Jo aids her grand-aunt March, a wealthy widow whose strength is failing. Beth helps with housework, and Amy attends school. Their nearest neighbour is a wealthy man whose orphaned grandson lives with him. The sisters introduce themselves to the handsome shy boy, Laurie, who is the age of Jo. Meg is the beautiful sister; Jo is the tomboy; Beth is the musician; and Amy is the charming artist with blond curls. Jo is impulsive and quick to anger. One of her challenges in growing up is to control acting out of anger, a challenge that also faced her mother, Marmee. Marmee advises Jo on speaking with forethought. The boy Laurie enjoys his neighbours, joining the family often in play and home theatrics written by Jo. His grandfather, Mr. Laurence, is charmed by Beth, and gives her the piano used by Laurie’s dead sister.

Beth contracts scarlet fever after tending to a family where three children died of it. Her poor condition forces her sisters and the Laurences to call Marmee back from Washington, where she has gone to tend her husband, who contracted pneumonia. Beth recovers, but never fully. Jo tends Beth in her illness. Amy, not yet exposed to scarlet fever, is sent to live with Aunt March, replacing Jo after Beth recovers. Jo has success earning money with her writing. Meg spends two weeks with friends, where there are parties for the girls to dance with boys and improve social skills. Laurie is invited to one of the dances, as her friends incorrectly think Meg is in love with him. Meg is more interested in the young tutor for Laurie, John Brooke. Brooke travelled to Washington to help Mr. March, staying there when Marmee comes back to tend Beth. While with both March parents, Brooke confesses his love for Meg. The parents agree, but suggest they are both too young to marry, as Meg is just seventeen. They agree to wait. In the interim, Brooke serves a year in the war, is wounded, returns home and finds work so he can get a house for their upcoming marriage. Laurie’s need for a tutor ends, as he goes off to college. The war ends.

Good Wives -Three years on from Little Women, the March girls and their friend Laurie are young adults with their futures ahead of them. Although they all face painful trials along the way - from Meg's sad lesson in housekeeping to Laurie's disappointment in love and a tragedy which touches them all - each of the girls finally finds happiness, if not always in the way they expect


Little Men/Jo's Boys the little men of Plumfield are now grown and making their ways in the world. But even as their pursuits take them far from home, “Mother” Jo March continues to play an inspiring and steadying role in their lives.

Through adventures great and small, Tommy, Emil, Demi, Nat, Dan, and the rest of the March children experience love and loss, but never forget the lessons they learned from Meg, Jo, and Amy March—the little women who have guided them from childhood.

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It was a pleasure to revisit this little series of books.  Following the stories of each of the four girls from their childhood into adulthood and beyond.  

Mx