You know how it is when you find the perfect dress, it fits well, you love the fabric and the design. My favourite dress at the moment came from Joules – it was a bit of a treat when I bought it because it cost over £80! So, as I love it so much I […]
New Sewing Project – McCall’s Dressmaking Pattern M6163 Read More »
If you are lucky enough to have plenty of blackberries growing in the hedgerows nearby then you, like me, probably still have a freezer full of berries from picking last autumn! As I was rapidly running out of freezer space I decided that it was time to deal with the backlog of berries and turn
Bramble Jelly Recipe Read More »
Until I had discovered how simple (not to mention thrifty!) it is to make fresh chicken stock, making gravy had never been an issue – you simply spooned the granules out of the tub into a jug and poured over boiling water…nothing could be easier. But then I did make stock and it was a
At the moment, chickens really do seem to be very good value. Waitrose (not often thought of as a bargain supermarket!) are currently running a ‘Half-Price’ campaign across their stores, which does include medium size birds. So a chicken of about 2kg is costing less than £3.50 right now until the end of January! So, with
Making The Most Of A Chicken Read More »
For years I have always used stock cubes whenever I needed to cook anything that called for ‘a little fresh stock’. Making it from scratch seemed such a fuss and not really worth the effort but, as we had recently bought so many chickens to cut up into joints for the freezer (see the post
This simple very tasty Sausage Flan recipe comes from one of my favourite cookbooks Cooking Is Fun from Good Housekeeping. It is incredibly easy, needs only a few ingredients and, although it maybe won’t win any prizes for it’s looks, it is incredibly tasty – not to mention very cheap to make!
Sausage Flan Recipe Read More »
Now that Halloween and Guy Fawkes Night are behind us, it’s time to turn our attention to the joys of Christmas baking! Naturally, the first things to be made are the pudding, cake and wonderful home made mincemeat – all the flavours of Christmas!
Christmas Pudding recipe Read More »
A little while ago, while browsing around our local antiques shops and markets, we came across this little kitchen table in the corner of the shop. Straightaway, we knew it would be perfect in our kitchen as a breakfast table, but quite honestly, it had seen much better days. We knew that with a bit
A New Look For An Old Table Read More »
Saving jars is second nature to anyone who enjoys preserving, whether it’s jams and jellies or pickles and chutneys. The problem is though, how do you get those really stubborn labels off. It can be really frustrating when you have soaked the jar to remove the paper label only to find that the glue holding
How To Remove Stubborn Labels From Jars Read More »
…Well, 2 tins of paint anyway! Last year, just after Christmas when all of the sale adverts were bombarding us with great offers for brand new kitchens, I must admit I was very tempted to rip out our old kitchen and invest a few thousand pounds in a new one. When I started looking into
A Brand New Kitchen…For the price of a tin of paint! Read More »
