Chitchat thread #24

[Nicos]

Flo, is it an idea to get some candles about the house( but obviously not lit when there are canine visitors ) ..and stick up some holly/ greenery behind pictures/ on shelves etc? Nice and simple Is often more cosy .
I’ve held off getting my greenery this year for a few more days and although all my decorations are up, it’s not looking very festive yet

Will certainly let you know how we get on Bren.

[greenishfing]

I'm quite amazed. The thing I ordered on Wednesday and got an email about this morning, saying it would arrive on Monday, is here!

I went out of the front door at about 12 o'clock and there was this large cardboard box with "live plants" written on it. It is a honeyberry plant. I now have to manage not to kill it before Christmas😱.

[rary]

Mornin n’alln’all
Pretty similar temperature here Rary. Not sure how much you want to spend , but would a pretty hot water bottle -or one of those microwaveable ones come in handy?…or a nice knee blanket for her to use in the lounge be the sort of thing yr Mrs might enjoy?

Nicos, when she has me why would she need anything else to keep her hot, sorry that should be warm😁
Actually she has one of those fleece blanket things that can be plugged in to heat her up, though she has never needed to plug it in yet

[greenishfing]

Good morning.

The breadmaker woke me up about an hour ago. It was much louder than normal and I knew something was not right. Eventually I realised what I'd done when I set it off on the timer last night. I'd got two recipes mixed up in my brain and put the wrong amount of some ingredients in. It was basically trying to knead a brick! Hopefully I've got it sorted now. Time will tell. I'll try for a couple more hours of sleep now.....very doubtful, I'm wide awake.

[Bren In Pots]

Morning

I'd not heard of a Honeyberry GF it looks interesting with those odd shaped berries. Hope your bread comes out OK any failures I get are called soup bread.

We just need a newspaper and a few bits from the corn merchant today.

Enjoy your day

[Snoop Puss]

Morning all.

Hope the bread works out, GF.

I had a bit of a daft afternoon and evening yesterday. Fell asleep in the chair and then went to bed without properly sorting myself out for this morning. Off out in a bit to meet a friend of Mr Snoop's, but got things I need to do first, which really required that I start them off yesterday. Oops. Mad dash to try and catch up, but more importantly sort out timings.

Anyway, looks like being a nice day weather-wise and socially. So I'm sure things will work themselves out. I'll just put the sourdough in the fridge overnight and Bob's my uncle. There sorted. Nothing like talking things out with friends for coming up with solutions. Well, one solution at least. I'll just ignore everything else.

No idea when the smiles left. The weather hasn't been that great recently, but there's a really hard frost and bright sunshine today. The perfect combination for them, so doubtless they'll have gone for a swoop and swirl around the spangly long grass before heading your way.

Have a great day, everyone.

[Nicos]

Mornin n’alln’all
We woke up to a heavy frost too and the sunlight sparkling off the crystals. Very pretty!

Both wood fires are lit and the house is snuggly warm and feeling more festive. Just need to get in more greenery to leave around the surfaces. I did find a hedge covered in red berries a few weeks back so I’ll go and check that out today. Fingers crossed the birds haven’t eaten them all. I’ve just made myself feel guilty now…so I’ll take some bird seed to scatter nearby in exchange

Sausage update….
Oh yes…..we’re hooked! We’ll stick with the 10€ grinder from Lidl for now but I can see we’ll be getting a larger one with a choice of grinding blades eventually.
We made the mistake of not soaking the casing for long enough to start with as it kept splitting.
We went out for an hour and came back with the idea that the casing was too narrow for the nozzle, so had one last attempt before giving up, only to find it was absolutely fine. My back up plan at that point was to use a large, unused() large syringe with the end cut off for filling them - but that plan wasn’t needed!
Having read up even more ( always a good idea eh?) we should have used warm water and leave the casing for more than the 45 minutes someone had recommended ( more like 2hrs), and then put a few drops into the casing before attaching it to the nozzle. Also , as the kitchen was hot, keep on splashing the unused casing on the nozzle with water as it kept drying out ( Yeh, we were cautiously slow)
I think using chilled meat rather than room temperature would have helped and probably more fat as we’d intentionally mixed belly pork with turkey breast for a lower calorie product.
I guess it’s trial and error, but most importantly writing down weights of ingredients for future comparisons.
We did fry a small amount of mix before using the rest of it in the casings to check out the flavour which was a useful tip.
As we’d used defrosted meat for the experiment, we can’t re freeze the sausage - so last night we ate the sausage and left over mince ( we weren’t sure how much casing to soak ) we are having tonight as spicy burgers.
The casings cost 10€ for 50 m and we used about 1m and they rest will keep for months in the fridge as they are salted.

So…if in doubt and sort of fancy giving it a go, I’d definitely recommend going for it. We’ll certainly be on the look out now for reduced or fresh meat offers from now on….and start being on the look out for a different grinder which gives more options of surface depth it can be attached to and a selection of different grinding coarseness. I like the idea of hand grinding rather than electric too.
And yes, it does need two people until you become an expert!

OH is already thinking up different ingredients- nettles, wild garlic, spinach, chilli , dried and fresh fruit, homegrown leeks and onions, beetroot leaves, fresh herbs from the garden….left over cooked veg and rice, roasted veg….it’s opened up a huge potential!
Hmmmm…left over Xmas dinner sausages…there’s a thought!

Well…there ya go!…our first attempt ( and problems we faced) shared with you
I’ll post piccies of them in my next post.

[Nicos]

[Florence Fennel]

Good Morning All. Sunny here. Sausages look brill Nicos. Glad your Uncle Bob is on track Snoop. Have a good day All

[bramble]

Good morning all
Late on parade as we had a very late night.
It's a lovely bright morning so I am going out for a walk,
Taking a bit of a breather today after a busy week.
Have a good day all.

[Bren In Pots]

Afternoon

Thanks for your write up Nicos, it’s something I’ve been thinking about ever since our local butcher closed. They do a nozzle attachment for the Kenwood chef mincer but mines an old one so I’ll have to keep checking eBay for one.
Those sausages do look good.

[Nicos]

Thanks Bren they tasted good too!

I didn’t try and do link sausages as I guessed I’d get in a tangle
…fingers crossed you find the attachment soon

[greenishfing]

Nicos, those sausages look great. I can practically taste them.

Fortunately the bread is now fine.

My next job is to mix some Christmas puddings. I've been putting it off. The part of the job that I hate is grating frozen butter. I don't actually know which is worse: grating it by hand (risking my fingers and hard work) or grating it in the food processor and then having to clean the food processor. Usually the food processor is easy to clean but not when I've grated butter in it.

[rary]

Good afternoon, cold and blustery today with occasional slever in the wind, had a walk up the town for some messages, then home to wash down the kitchen tiles and cupboards, was going to wash the floors but decided to leave that till mid week, got a washing done but had to use the drier as its too damp outside, I then started to prepare potatoes for the tea and every potato has been frosted, they are all black vained inside, I had bought a large bag of potatoes for over the festive season, we will have all the family for Christmas dinner and the boys always seem to manage to arrive just as we are going to have something to eat, so a plate of chips with whatever seems to keep them happy, anyway I put one into a poly bag and headed for lidils where I bought them, showed it to the manager and he told me to go and pick up another bag, I asked him if he wanted me to bring the other bag back in, but he said not to bother, and apologised for the inconvenience, I know I am entitled to usable produce but the young man couldn't have been any nicer about it, so very pleased with the sevice
Looking at that picture of the coil of sausage Nicos, I am wondering if you have the mix right, I think you should post a box (big) to me, just to check. Have a good evening Folks and remember to pass on you smiles

[Nicos]

Rary…you are welcome to turn up here to share your thoughts on the sausage!!!

I made a big batch of ginger thins today using ikea’s pre-made dough. It’s absolutely wonderful…roll it thin and stick in the oven for 5 minutes.
I made over 20 then went to take a photo so we could share them…only to see there are just 6 left I know I had 2 but it seems like it’s a faulty batch yup- Mr Piggo has clearly been quality controlling them

We finally got our second Xmas tree up today - plus I made three wreaths out of bay branches and the cut off branches from our Xmas trees. I dried the sliced oranges a couple of weeks ago. Not taken a photo yet as it’s dark.
I gave one to my neighbour too who was pleased, as she’d asked for one last year after she’d seen mine!
Still not collected the red berries but hopefully that is for tomorrow
Yup - it’s starting to feel festive!