Kilt Re-style

I am starting to get bored of my winter wardrobe.  I am also feeling frugal after Christmas, so I decided to make a lovely new skirt from some inexpensive fabric.  In the current weather, warmth is the order of the day, so I rummaged through my fabric stash and came across a few vintage woollen kilts that I have stored up in case of...well, you never know when you might need a kilt, we don't need to go into the wheres and hows of the fabric stash...

Anyway, I found one and quickly turned it into a pencil skirt, and I am going to wear it tomorrow, hurrah!

Here are a few tips if you fancy making your own!

Take one pure wool kilt, un-stitch the pleats and take off the buckles, chuck it in a wool wash, and iron the heck out of it once it's dry.

I like this pattern, although I would recommend cutting the size larger otherwise it sits quite high on the waist, and I like to be able to run up stairs and things so need to have leg space.

I lined it so it wont ride up my tights and hey presto, in just a few hours, a brand new skirt!

It fits like a glove, my bum is very toasty in it and it cost about £4.

I'll put a picture up of me in it at some point, as soon as I can get someone to take a picture for me.  Sucks not having Edward around, where is my photographer when I need him?!

The Shoedown

Distraction number 2: polishing the shoes.

I had the most delicious time polishing all my shoes.  Now they are all lovely and shiny, and most importantly a lot more waterproof.

Pre-polish

With polish

Mmm shiny and waterproof

This week has been full of lots and lots of little jobs and distractions and I have been flitting (hmm...sometimes, but mostly running) from one to the next all week.  Luckily there were plenty of lovely things sprinkled in amongst all the jobs!

I invited some of my lovely new friends round for a girl night.  We had pizza and a chocolately-peary-meringue-y thingy and drank wine and chatted and it was FAB.

I found a sunny 5 minutes and raced out for a walk to make the most of it.  

I finally plucked up the courage to use our new microwave.  We've never had one before and I thought it would be useful to be able to heat up one-portion meals while Edward is away without having to play with saucepans and therefore extra washing up.  We found one at a very bargain price in the sales after Christmas, but haven't used it yet as I have been soo nervous that maybe if I used it I would blow the house up with my terrible lack of knowledge and skills.  Armed with the instruction manual (which comes in large writing and pictures) I finally decided to take the plunge, and managed to make porridge without any problems...success!  It was delicious, it took two minutes, and it didn't end in porridge cemented to my saucepan.

Tea and scones on Friday afternoon was the perfect end to the week!

Oh dear, just re-read this and realised how sad my life is, why did polishing my shoes make me quite so happy?!

Home-made Instant Pot Noodle

Almost instant anyway; it does take fractionally longer than peeling a foil lid off a tub, but on the plus side it's completely good for you and contains no additives, preservatives or any other dodgy unknowns.

It is the perfect alternative to a sandwich for lunch in this cold damp weather and wont take much longer to prepare. 

You will need:

Any of the following vegetables:

Carrots

Sweet potato

Frozen peas

Peppers

Bean sprouts

Beetroot

Spring onion

Spring cabbage

Pak choi

Spinach

Sweetcorn (tinned or frozen)

Mushrooms

Fennel

Celery

Fresh parsley, basil, thyme

Cellophane/bean thread or rice noodles (or precooked vacuum packed noodles - ramen are nice)

Stock cube/granules/pot (one bowl needs about half a stock cube)

Optional extras:

Concentrated tomato puree (the kind that comes in a tube)

Indian or Thai curry paste

Harissa

Pesto

Finely grated fresh ginger

The noodles can be found at very reasonable prices in your local Asian supermarket.

Entirely up to you what proportion of vegetables to noodles you go for - the veg can be the main part of the dish or just enough to keep your mother happy...

Cut the carrot in three longways and peel into very fine strips using a vegetable peeler. (Do the same if using beetroot or sweet potato).

Frozen peas and beansprouts can go in whole, any of the other veg will need to be finely sliced.

(This is one of the mostly-veg-few-noodles types: I used half a carrot, a handful of peas, a few slivers of fennel, about an eighth of a pepper and half a beef stock cube.)

Put the noodles in a separate bowl, cover with boiling water and leave until tender.  Cellophane noodles need about 5 minutes and rice noodles about 10 minutes.  They are slightly interesting to try and break and get into the bowl, there is now a delicate sprinkling of noodles all over my kitchen...

Add the stock cube and any further flavours to the vegetables, cover with boiling water and leave for 10 minutes.  Add the noodles to the veg, stir well and eat!

New combinations to explore: one small teaspoon of tomato puree and a large teaspoon of pesto,

curry paste (to taste) and a tablespoon of dessicated coconut/splash of coconut milk,

pak choi, beansprouts, tinned bamboo shoots, grated ginger, splash of lime juice and soy sauce.

 You could add a poached egg or some finely sliced ham or salami for a more substantial meal.

To transport this/use as a packed lunch you can prepare the veg and the noodles in advance and put them in a kilner jar or sturdy tupperware, then all you need to do is add boiling water at lunch time!

Distraction Tactic Number 1

I decided on Monday that I needed an all consuming task to keep me busy and distracted.  I reckoned Cleaning with a capital C was what was required.  It was the perfect thing!

The house had suffered somewhat from a week of packing-for-seven-months-away and also I-refuse-to-do-anything-apart-from-spend-every-single-minute-with-my-husband so was rather the worse for wear...  I tidied away all the teetering piles of things, I organised, I dusted, I hoovered (including moving things instead of the usual quick-sticks hoovering around things...), I polished, and then I even cleaned the windows inside and out.

It was, amazing.

(haven't yet managed to get rid of the spare fridge in our dining room, annoying annoying)

I cannot recommend enough a bit of pre-Spring cleaning for making the winter gloom more bearable.  As if to prove the point, it was in fact pouring with rain when I took the photos, hence the blurriness.

So now the house is lovely and clean and tidy and smells of beeswax polish and I have been extremely busy and distracted for a whole three days.....yikes, what's next?! 

One Pan Macaroni Cheese

No messing about, this is serious.

No healthy eating blah blah, sometimes you just need a cheesey carby bowl of love.

This morning I took Edward to the dockyard and he clambered aboard and sailed off for an alarmingly long time (think months not days gaaahh), and I shuffled off home and had a teeny tiny meltdown.  So then I was extremely busy all day to keep distracted and then by the time it got to supper, I realised I was in desperate need of macaroni cheese.

This is officially the best recipe ever.  There is no point in comfort food that is complicated to make.  Here is an easy, one-pan, limited ingredients recipe for total cheesey glory.

Serves one:

2 or 3 rashers of bacon

400ml pasta (ish)

550ml milk

salt and pepper

Cheese, grated

Chop the bacon into small pieces with a pair of kitchen scissors and fry in a splash of oil until crisp.

Remove and place in the serving bowl.  Add the pasta, milk and salt and pepper to the pan and cook for about 15 mins until the pasta is done.  Stir regularly and add a splash of milk if it looks a bit dry at any point.

When the pasta is cooked, remove the pan from the heat and stir in your cheese.

Strong cheese is best, I used a 1inch x 1inch x 2inch lump of very mature cheddar.  Stir in the bacon, add freshly ground pepper, pour into a big bowl, grab one fork and wallow in the unadulterated glory.

A Little Cheery Inspiration

In the midst of all this wintery gloom I noticed these tiny Viburnum flowers still braving the cold.  They smell like heaven and are such a cheering gem of colour in amongst all the grey and brown.

The Hazel trees with their flock of gambolling catkins are enough to cheer even the gloomiest and greyest and their soft yellowy green goes beautifully with the pale pink of the Viburnum.

So I now have this gorgeous teeny tiny posy on my windowsill to admire while I potter about in the kitchen.  It's just what I need to motivate me when the grey damp coldness of January all gets too much.  I hope it cheers you up too!

Parsnip and Celeriac Mash

Apart from anything else, this is absolutely delicious.

It also happens to be low in carbohydrates which is perfect if you are on a post-Christmas recovery regime.

Parsnips

Celeriac

Mustard

Butter

Optional creme fraiche or milk

Peel the parsnips and chop them into fairly small pieces.  Place them in a pan of boiling water with a pinch of salt.

Peel and chop the celeriac and add it to the pan when the water has come back to the boil.  When both are soft, drain and return to the pan with a knob of butter, a spoonful of creme fraiche (you can use a splash of milk if you absolutely can't get cream, but cream is better!), a spoonful of mustard and freshly ground pepper.

Mash until creamy and smoothish, add salt to taste and serve hot.

We had ours with lemon sole (sadly fried in a sea of butter, so sort of undoing the whole health thing, but yummmm) and sauteed garlicky kale.  No marks for presentation - I was in a tearing hurry, but no matter, it was still delicious.

New Years Holiday

Having returned from all our Christmassy visits and gallivants, we settled into the second section of the holidays, which has comprised (thanks to the weather) mostly sitting by the fire with tea and cake and games.  It's secretly quite nice to have an excuse not to venture out too much, and we are making the most of hanging out together before Edward goes away to sea for a horribly long time in just over a week.

We had the loveliest New Year's Eve celebrations, just Edward and I in front of the fire.  I cooked a whole selection of delicious nibbly things to eat and we had bubbles and watched James Bond.  It was fab.  We had choux buns stuffed with goats cheese and caramelised onions, fois gras on toast, cruditees and dips, smoked salmon on baguette with lemony creme fraiche and .  We had to wait a bit before squeezing in some tiffin...

We did go out for the most fabulously blustery walk a couple of days ago, on a route picked out from one of our Christmas presents - a book of walks around Devon.  We left rather later than we should have done and ended up creeping about in near pitch darkness on the moor, hoping desperately to find the car before the beasts/Devil/any other of the creatures of the moor caught up with us.  We made it home in the end, and at least it didn't rain.

The weather has got viler and viler since then and we have only ventured out for brief bursts of cheek-tingling hair-ruffling, shrieking fresh air, only to hurry back to hot tea and squashy chairs.  The chickens stand about looking glum and rather like 3 little old ladies waiting for a bus.  They stand in one spot very very still for a while and then one will try and get even closer to the others and they suddenly look like one rather lumpy three headed chicken with lots of teeny tiny sticky legs.  Poor chickens.  I did take them some consoling porridge as a treat which perked them up a bit.

Just realised there is a distinct lack of photos...sorry, been too busy, er....drinking tea....oops.

A Very Merry Christmas!

Sorry for radio silence last week, I have been devoting myself entirely to my lovely family and wallowing in Christmassy loveliness.  Nothing much to mention really apart from to say that I totally love Christmas and that we had a fabulous time!

Sparkly London

Several parties...

and several mornings after...gah...

Fortnum and Mason's

Stockings in bed

Then off to the next family gathering for more Christmassy-family-ness.

A hilarious quiz

Lovely cold walks.

Quite a lot of general silliness...

And a delicious bread and butter pudding made with the leftover cinnamon buns to finish it all off.  Perfect!

Hope you've all had a lovely Christmas!