Chitchat thread #24

[Florence Fennel]

Afternoon All The Parkin is in the tin gathering flavour for Bonfire Night, or thereabouts. It finished up being a bit of guesswork - 8 oz butter, sugar, SR flour, oats, syrup/treacle and a tbsp of ginger, one large egg with a bit of milk. It looks ok, so hope it's not dry.

[lottie dolly]

mmmm yum yum come to my tum,GF you go for it girl,you cannot beat having something new in one's life,especially when it gives you great pleasure,my loaf is good again,they seem to sink a bit in the top middle,but that does not reflect on the eating quality ,am also getting better at slicing it up into thinner bits instead of chunks,

[Nicos]

Mornin n’alln’all
After lovely snuggles with Hibou, I’m now wide awake
Boy, these pets have us well trained don’t they?

Anyone fancy a brew?…I’m guessing it’s a tad early for most of you!…sorry…will tiptoe around in the kitchen….
The fire stayed in overnight which is lovely. Tis nice and cosy downstairs.

Whats everyone up to this weekend? We have friends coming next week so I need to start thinking of tidying up and preparing a few things for them. We have rain forecast for today, so I’ll try and get on top of the domestics. Then it looks like a lovely dry weekend so hopefully I’ll get a lot of gardening sorted. Still got lots of crafting to do but fresh air and exercise are still important, even if it’s just an hour or do.

Have you been tempted to taste your Parkin Flo?
I ended up making two different recipes. One was more of a ginger cake but with treacle and oatmeal. That one is starting to moisten up and should be ready for when are friends are here.
The other I’ve not tasted yet but it felt much stickier just coming out of the tin. I’m guessing that’s going to be my favourite.
Greggs used to make the best ever Parkin…then they stopped making it. Pity really .

Lottie- apparently I’m rubbish at slicing bread…too skewiff. Seems fine to me!
My granny used to tuck her loaf up against her chest, butter it and then horizontally saw off a piece
No idea why?

Anyway…the kettle is hot- do help yourselves. Porridge and stewed mirabelles for breakfast if anyone is interested?
Enjoy your day….

[greenishfing]

Good morning all.

Not a bad sleep. I'm happy to say I was still in the land of nod when you were making breakfast, Nicos
. Mr GF did try and talk me into getting up at 7am, but I talked him into getting back into bed for another hour until it got light and warmer. I did get out of bed to turn the thermostat up.

I really enjoyed last night's orange lollies.

[Snoop Puss]

Morning all.

Excellent looking lollies, GF.

As for the buttering technique, Nicos, I wonder if it was because the crumb holds together better if there's more of it when the butter is cold.

Rain forecast for here has gone back up again, due to start this afternoon. Mr Snoop not best pleased... I sent the smiles off this morning, telling them not to try and come home for a week, as the rain is much worse in the evenings and overnight. Sounds like you might get more than a few stopping over with you, Nicos, given your parkins.

Better get a move on. Got absolutely masses to get through today. I'll be glad when it's bedtime tonight, that's for sure.

Have a great day, everyone.

[Bren In Pots]

Morning

My colds gone it only lasted a few days I feel perfectly fine while MrPots still has his, as for tissues GF I'm with you I must have gone through a box full.

Love the info about lollies and I'd like to play but won't do until next summer when its nice sunny and warm.

Porridge and raspberries here for breakfast Nicos.

Of to catch up on the vine.

[Florence Fennel]

Good Morning All Foggy here, but not too cold. Have a good day

[Nicos]

We’ve just got back from having our flu jabs.
It was a spur of the moment decision, and it’s now sorted Hopefully nothing more for another year!

And… oh dear…..the pharmacy/ nurse is just across the road from a patisserie- so we came home with a croissant, pain au raisins and a chocolate twirly thing. So…we’re just having a second breakfast( in lieu of lunch)

[Florence Fennel]

I would call that a well earned treat Nicos! I think I might try the Parkin today after all - if it is dry, I'll have to make another one. I've wrapped it in foil so I might change that to cling film while I'm at it.

[greenishfing]

Flo, I hope your parkin turns out better than my one attempt, a few years ago. I have lovely memories of it as a child. My sister gave me a recipe from one of our long dead relatives recipe books. Either it was the wrong recipe or my baking skills deserted me that day. The birds enjoyed it.

While setting the slow cooker off I decided I ought to see if I can get a replacement pot for it. It's an oval aluminium pot which is brilliant because it can be used on the hob for searing first and is really lightweight, but it is scratched to death and a bit dented. I looked about a year ago and they were out of stock/discontinued. I looked again today. Eureka! They're supposedly getting some in in November. I've told them to email me when in stock.

Nicos, you deserved something nice for having your jab.

[Nicos]

Funnily enough- those ^^^^ were my very thoughts gf

My recipe seemed to have half a bucket of treacle, half a bucket of golden syrup, half a bucket of sugar and half a bucket of butter….all for one tiny cake!
The only ‘healthy’ thing in it was the egg, organic flour and organic oats.
I was thinking of working out the calories but I guess that might dampen the joy of munching it and spending the next few hours sucking my teeth!

[lottie dolly]

Afternoon all,you all busy in the kitchen,Nicos it would have been a sin not to pop in the shop and come out with yum yum yums,i have not long come back from a lunch date,very nice,otherwise done nothing,only smile

[Nicos]

Mornin n’alln’all
Supidly early…again…I’ve spent the last hour tidying up in the kitchen and bagging up several kilos of stewed apple for freezing which I prepared yesterday.
Now sitting down, enjoying a brew and listening to a couple of male tawny owls nattering away. Can’t imagine them arguing over territory…more like two old blokes down the pub discussing their day….
Do help yourselves. Porridge with cinnamon apple is today’s offering.

Good find there gf with the pot. Will you keep the old one if only to abuse it?

No real plans this weekend for me…just more preparing the house for friends, sewing and some clearing up of leaves and a bit of weeding. Might make the spag Bol for Halloween and freeze it ….

I was actually woken by rain bouncing off the window. I thought the last of it was yesterday evening….clearly a straggler rain cloud. Then we’re ‘supposedly’ having a week of warmish dry weather…our friends don’t really have a garden and they keep suggesting we sit outside with the firepit one evening….so I best hunt out me thermals!
Which reminds me…..clocks go back tonight don’t they? Nearly forgot!

Enjoy your day peeps - I have a feeling I’m going to, especially as I don’t seem to have reacted to that flu vaccine I had yesterday! Yippee!

[Bren In Pots]

Morning

A sunny-ish cool day here a good day to be out and about.

Its so much easier doing the clocks now most of them are automatic, we still have 3 old chiming clocks that's stopped working over the years a shame really we should see about having them fixed.

enjoy your day

[Nicos]

Urmmm… more rain!…well, that certainly wasn’t forecast!

Bren , we have my MIL’s wind up clock needing repairing. We took it to a local shop specialising in clocks and watches ( sadly now closed down) only to find they couldn’t fix it as it didn’t have a metric sized mechanism inside.
We really should get it fixed- it had a lovely slow, gentle tick.