the inconsistant blogger!

It's true, once the sun shines we tend to drift  far away from the computer, forget to take the camera out with us, and forget to blog.  We have been enjoying the sun, I'm sure you all have too and we decided that this year we would bake our own hot cross buns

I've done it once before, a long time ago all alone but this year I had a little helper (who did most of the work).  We used the recipe from this book.  My copy has a few errors in it, half a pint of milk and water was translated as 125mls which is only a quarter of a pint.  Stupidly I suggested we go for half a pint and see if it worked!!  So we were adding extra flour!

but they tasted delicious and worked despite our messing with the recipe

MY knitted hat was finished and immediately stolen!  I love it though, it keeps my ears warm and feels very 1920's.  It was from this lovely book

and I have begun some very scruffy crocheting with some gorgeous gorgeous Manos del Uruguay wool classica.  I am sort of aiming at something like this but need more luscious yarn so a trip to St Ives is in order, once the holidays are over

Hope you're all enjoying the sunshine and maybe getting a little crafting done too.

a little bit of cooking

things have been very hectic here lately so we've slowed up in the evenings to do a bit of cooking.

not from this book but from the tv programme on 4od

I really want all the children to be able to cook for themselves by the time they leave home and these meals are even uncomplicated enough (but interesting enough) for my seventeen year old so I'm going to buy him the book for the next time he's home alone (he can cook meat to his heart's content then!)

we cooked this. 

I should point out that this is a picture of Jamie's pie not ours as ours was eaten too quickly for us to photograph it

It was utterly delicious, the best recipe we've tried (we had to use puff pastry as we had no filo, so not authentic but delish anyway)

and today classic school cookery, rock buns, I don't think I've eaten these since I was school age!  We used the recipe from this book which I love despite all the meat recipes.  She just has some great ideas for people like me who are never organized!

We're away celebrating J's sister's 40th this weekend so we will have to wait until next week to make Jamie's mushroom risotto!  Yum!!