Greenlaces

Projects I'm rather pleased with

2009-02-16T07:13:00.001-08:00

You can't really tell from the picture, but by far the best are the little turquoise Mary Janes. Sweeeet!

Jenny's first Quilt

2009-02-12T05:15:00.000-08:00

You may remember that last year I wrote complete instructions for how to make an easy and virtually free patchwork quilt. I'm really pleased to report that Jenny has now finished her first quilt using the instructions. Here's the photo she has sent me:

The idea behind the quilt was to scrounge fabric sample books from curtain shops, which they often give away for free, and recycle the pieces to make a simple lap quilt.

I'm really impressed by Jenny's results - the quilting lines are nice and straight, and there aren't any wrinkles. The binding looks great too. I would give Jenny an A+. She says in her email that she is starting a new quilt soon. Can't wait to see the results!

I also had an email from a teacher requesting to use my instructions in her crafting class at school. It's nice to know that I can be of some use occasionally.

Role reversal

2008-11-03T13:28:00.000-08:00

Sorry for not posting in a while; the reason is that my sister and I have temporarily swapped roles. I've been knitting and she's been making chutney!

Anyway, I thought you'd like to see my latest project. I knitted this for a friend using Sirdar Big Softie, which is lovely and cuddly (and pretty good value in my humble opinion). I used almost a ball and a half of each colour, which is a lot, but I did 30 stitches accross and then sewed it up so it's basically a big tube. It's just straight stocking stitch, so you get nice curly ends. Incidentally, I read a pretty negative review of this yarn, so just for the record: I didn't have any trouble knitting with it, and I'm a pretty rubbish knitter.

(Sorry - colours don't come out too well here)

My next project is set to be rather more challenging, and it'll also require Rachel's hat felting expertise... Oh dear - I'll keep you posted!

knitting lessons on tap

2008-09-09T09:00:00.000-07:00

Hooray!

Vege chilli

2008-09-08T04:33:00.000-07:00

Hello peoples. Sorry this has been dormant for so long.

Here's what I'm cooking tonight. A friend made it for us a couple of times without the cornbread. It was delicious - I'll let you know how I get on.

Anyway, I was going to post a pic of an ipod sock I knitted over the weekend, but sadly it looks like a dog's dinner. Thanks again for the knitting lesson Emily! I have to admit, I have learned to knit before but have always got myself into hot water. The sock worked, even if it did look rubbish, I think because Emily wisely got me to stick to one stitch throughout. I got a bit over-excited over the breakthrough and when I got home I thought I'd do another one in stocking stitch (knit one row, purl one row for novices out there). Within 5 minutes I was back to being utterly confused, sticking my needle in the wrong way and wrapping my wool round backwards.

Any helpful memory links as to which way round the right needle should go in and which way round the wool needs to go would be gratefully appreciated. I think if I were to do all the stitches backwards it would probably work, but the inconsistent, incompetent look doesn't exactly do it for me...

Musical instruments on a shoestring

2008-06-14T08:13:00.000-07:00

Check out this and this (tuning not so great on this last one).

Where there's muck there's brass

2008-06-05T03:16:00.000-07:00

Our veg patch is looking superb at the moment. Everything is full of promise and bursting with life. We don’t use any chemicals or fertilisers on the garden so I’m constantly finding things to compost down to improve the soil. Even so it’s a struggle to make enough compost for the whole garden, especially the large impoverished looking borders in the front garden.

I decided to buy some bags of soil improving stuff from B&Q to mulch around the plants. I was amazed at the price! £4 for a small 50l bag of manure. I bought a bag and it barely mulched around 4 rose bushes.

Being the skin-flint I am I took matters in my own hands and called up a local riding stables to try and blag some manure at a slightly better price. ‘Of course!’ said the nice stable lady. ‘If you dig it out yourself you can have as much as you want’.

I admit, there was a moment when I nearly lost a welly through suction from the enormous dung heap that I wondered if perhaps £4 for a nice sterile bag from B&Q was the more sensible option, but now I am the proud owner of 12 sacks of lovely crumbly rotted manure for the princely sum of £0 I have changed my mind. What could be nicer than spending an hour digging on the world’s largest pile of horse poo on a sunny evening in June?

The son of the stable lady drove me over the fields to the dung heap, and helped me stack the sacks in my car boot so I gave him a fiver for his troubles. A small price to pay for what would have cost me the best part of £100 at B&Q.

Tips on collecting manure from a stables

Phone up first, and offer to dig it out yourself.

Ask which is the oldest poo and dig from that. If it still looks like straw and poo you don’t want it because it will burn your plants. The heap I was taking from was about the size of 2 tennis courts (I’m not kidding) and the stuff on one side was about 3 years old, compared to the younger stuff which was still very fresh and a bit stinky. The old stuff won’t smell at all, and should look black, crumbly and just like expensive compost. If it’s full of worms you know it is good stuff.

Take wellies and gloves. Dung heaps are the perfect environment for nettles who love a rich soil to grow on. If the heap is covered in nettles you know it will be old enough to have broken down.

Clear off any nettles and plants and remove the top layer to make sure you aren’t importing weeds into garden. The whole point of mulching is to reduce your weeding, not bring more in!

Use strong bags as manure is very heavy. Reusing old plastic compost bags is ideal as they are tough. Those woven plasticy mesh sacks you get coal in are also good. I had some very thick rubble sacks as well. Normal bin bags won’t be strong enough.

Free food no.3?

2008-05-08T14:35:00.000-07:00

Can anyone tell me how to identify Japanese Knotweed in the UK? Does it have any look-a-likelies this side of the pond? I know it's edible but all the sites I've looked at are US ones. All help gratefully received.

Free food no.2

2008-05-06T05:57:00.000-07:00

Dandilion leaves. I have nothing to report about this, as on our recent walk to the meadow I was forbidden from collecting them by my husband worrying overly that dogs had weed on them.

Of course they would have been weed on. If you were worried about that you wouldn't eat anything!

I was planning to put them in a salad... Maybe he'd feel better if I boiled/sauteed the hell out of them before eating.

Anyway, where we were, the flowers were just coming, and apparently you're best picking them before flowers appear. All is not lost however, you can also harvest in late autumn and even use the flowers (see here).

Free food no.1

2008-05-03T10:23:00.001-07:00

Don't these look lovely? Perhaps not, but stinging nettles are a powerful source of vitamin A, iron, calcium, flavinoids, the list goes on... They are of course also free. What's to lose?

Cover up well when picking them, and choose the top, young leaves (they're a more vibrant green than the old ones). Now is a great time to pick them before they get too old. I got my nettles from an obliging field in Wytham.

Here I am with my nettles in a bowl of water. I'm looking for intruders, discarding tough stems, black bits and curled up leaves.

Don't throw away the bits you have discarded. I'm told that nettles left in a bucket of water until they stink is nature's own plant food. And that's free too, although I think my neighbours might have something to say about that little project...

Here are my nettles, rinsed in clean water, ready to use.

I looked up a couple of very different recipes, and so in the end decided to make a veggie soup as I would normally make it, but without too many additions as I was interested what the flavour would be.

Onions and garlic...

Add a large chopped carrot and a few sticks of celery...

Don't forget some potato to thicken...

Add your nettles, stock and simmer for about 20 mins. It's this bit that kills the sting. At this point I had to change pans because of the non-wilting surprise (see below).

Whiz it up and season with salt, pepper and lemon juice...

Voila!

The first thing to say is that it doesn't wilt like spinach; nettles are quite a lot more robust. So actually making soup like this I had too many nettles, or too little stock base depending on how you look at it. Next time I'll definitely start with a little grilled bacon for flavour. Having said all that, it is surprisingly nice and the flavour is definitely unexpected. I'll serve this up to my guests tomorrow with a swirl of cream in the bowl.

I think I'll go nettle-picking again next weekend. I want to make nettle tea and nettle omelette (you boil them for a few minutes before adding them to the egg to avoid nasty surprises).

Roasted vegetables with satay sauce

2008-04-23T11:41:00.000-07:00

I've not made satay sauce this way before, but it is delicious. It's somewhat on the salty side, so when you are dipping your vegetables in, just dip a toe in! It's so tasty a little goes a really long way.

A good 'detox' dinner!

Roasted Vegetables...

My favourites with this are red onion, butternut squash and mushrooms. I also do a couple of potatoes. Aubergines, carrots, parsnips, tomatoes... anything in season works well! So they aren't swimming in oil, cut them into finger-sized chunks, brush them with a pastry brush dipped in oil and put them on a baking tray covered in greaseproof paper, then into a hot oven.

...and satay sauce

In a pan, mix together 3 generous tbsps smooth peanut butter, 3 tbsps teriyaki sauce, 2 tbsp soy sauce and 5-6 tbsps water, heating gently. Keep stirring with a metal spoon so it blends.

For maximum eating pleasure, eat with your hands, dipping each bit of veg in the sauce as you go.

Yum.

No more rice porridge - hooray!

2008-04-21T07:14:00.001-07:00

Follow my instructions for perfect basmati rice every time.

For best results use a non-stick pan. Failing that, heat a little oil in your pan prior to putting the rice in and spread it all over the bottom.

Now rince your basmati rice in a sieve.

Add it to the pan with 1 1/2 times (that's right - not twice!) the amount of water. Keep a lid on it for the rest of the cooking process.

Keep the heat on high, and the moment it starts to boil (not just simmer, but boil properly) turn it right down to low. Now you can just leave it without any attention until all (all, mind) the water has been absorbed. Best to leave it too long rather than too little, and as your heat is on low you don't need to worry about it burning.

Fuss free, perfect rice.

Easy and virtually free patchwork quilt – Part 8 THE END!

2008-04-16T05:45:00.000-07:00

Binding

At last - we are at the final stage!

Read part 1
Read part 2
Read part 3
Read part 4
Read part 5
Read part 6
Read part 7

This is the kind of thing that is so easy to show but very hard to describe, so I've drawn little diagrams to try and explain. There are lots of different ways of binding the edges of your quilts. I am showing you this way because it is totally machine sewn, therefore very fast, and doesn't involve tricky mitred corners.

First cut your 2 inch wide binding strips. Don't use a very thick fabric for this. Use a light cotton, maybe some of your left over sheet backing. Fold the strips as follows:

Iron the creases in really well. Open out the strip again and position it as shown

Turn over the quilt and fold back the binding strip along the fist crease, like this:
Fold in the right hand edge, and then fold it over again down the centre crease. Sew through the whole lot as neatly as you can close the the folded edge of the binding. Trim off the ends. Thats one side done! Repeat on the opposite side of the quilt

For the other 2 sides position the binding strip as before, (face down on the wrong side of the quilt) but this time with 1/2 an inch extra at the ends.

Again, turn over the quilt and fold back the strip

To neaten up the edges, fold in the ends like this:

As before, fold in the right hand edge, the fold again to close up the binding. Sew close to the folded edge. The corners will be bulky so go slowly and don't panic.

Other binding tips:

Use up scraps by sewing together off-cuts, then cutting out the 2 inch strips.

I never pin, but fold and position as I go. Try it and see.

Percieved wisdom says that your binding should be darker in colour that your quilt top, but I don't heed this advice. I use up scraps, or go for a contratsting colour to create a frame.

If you don't like the effect with the stitching on the front face then the traditional way of binding is to place the strip face down on the right side of the quilt first, sew down the crease, then turn it over, fold in the edges, and hand sew it down. You can do mitres too but I don't usually bother unless it's a really special quilt.

So - thats it! You've finished your quilt. That wasn't too hard was it!

Aubergines!

2008-04-07T05:32:00.000-07:00

I don't know whether I made it clear, but I think aubergines are great. If you salt them at least 30 mins before using (do it in a colander, then you can rinse it off) it not only draws out the bitter juices but also makes the flesh stay firmer during cooking, making it a great meat substitute if you're into that sort of thing.

There are loads at our local market at the moment; I think they're just beautiful to look at!

Any aubergine recipes will be gratefully received (I don't have many) and I'll post them if that's ok. Best one gets entered for the annual greenlaces award thingy.

White aubergines and the like

2008-04-07T05:12:00.000-07:00

Jane had me looking up aubergines after her comment, and I've learned some very interesting coffee-break sort of facts.

Firstly, aubergines are a fruit. (I think I should have known that - but it would make a good odd-one out-exercise).

Secondly they can be all sorts of pretty colours. Here you can buy seeds to grow lovely pale green ones in your own garden.

Apparantly early varieties of aubergine were smaller and white, a bit like eggs, hence 'eggplant'. I bet you didn't know that. I learned that here.

Anway Jane my advice is 1) be adventurous and 2)make some friends. We used to live by a huge african market and lots of shops here. They sold some wierd and wonderful things. Stand and look lost (and European) for long enough - about 5 seconds in my experience - and plenty of fellow shoppers would be only too glad to tell you what things are, give you cooking advice and recipes, tell you how much to buy, how long it will last etc etc. To be honest, it used to restore my faith in humanity apart from anything else.

Just remember to take a pencil and paper, and be prepared for linguistic misunderstandings. It took my red raw hands three days to feel even remotely normal after cooking with seemingly innocuous african peppers, and I'm sure someone did try to warn me...

Hearty Red Bean Stew

2008-03-27T06:33:00.000-07:00

I know I said my next post would be chocolate brownies, but I tried this last night and it was deelish. And let's face it, you'd only get fat on chocolate brownies.

Maybe I'll post chocolate brownies dependent on demand. Then maybe I can up my quota of comments (Rach, this is war).

Back to business. This recipe very kindly comes from my friend Emma.

Hearty Red Bean Stew

1 tin red kidney beans
1 tin chopped tomatoes
half a white cabbage, chopped
2 or 3 carrots, chopped (the original recipe I got from a friend had green pepper but I much prefer carrots)
1 onion, chopped
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp chili powder
enough stock to cover the veg
coconut milk/creamed coconut, as much or as little as you like

Fry the onion in a little oil then add all the other ingredients except the coconut. Bring to the boil and then simmer until the veg is cooked. Add the coconut and continue to cook for a further 5 minutes (Emma often make this ahead of time and then add the coconut when she's reheating it). Serve with baked potatoes, rice or crusty bread.

This is a really odd mixture of things, or so I thought until I did a little research. Apparantly the soy sauce/coconut mixture is an island (particularly Jamaica) thing, and by gosh is it yummy. Of course Jamaican recipes use black-eyed or pinto beans (along with goat...) rather than kidney beans.

I forgot to put stock in it and put in more soy sauce for flavour (just until it was salty enough). I'll try it with stock, but I wonder whether it wouldn't be better this way.

Right, all you who want to reduce your meat and up your pulse consumtion: get cooking!

Chicken Satay

2008-03-20T01:41:00.000-07:00

Sorry, the recipes have been somewhat thin on the ground recently. I'm back with new vigour!

Anyway, this is Alex's absolute favourite. It's my corruption of a West-Indian dish a friend used to go on about.

I've given you a recipe using chicken breasts, because it's healthier I suppose and I know what the cooking time should be. But I much prefer using chicken joints. Increase the simmering time accordingly.

Chicken Satay (for 4)

3 or 4 chicken breasts, cut into chunks
1 large onion
a few cloves garlic, crushed
a little oil for frying
2 carrots (or 1 if they are really big) cut into small pieces
2 different coloured peppers, cut into bigger chunks
1 tin tomatoes
1 squirt tomato puree
1 chicken stock cube (and no, OXO won't do)
a good glug of lemon juice
chilli (fresh, dried, sauce, whatever. Depends how hot you like it!)
3 big tbsp peanut butter (or more...)
salt, pepper

Fry up your onion and garlic for a few minutes, and add you chicken. When it has gone white add your carrots and pepper and continue frying for another few minutes. Add your tomatoes, tomato puree, stock, lemon juice, chilli; cover with water (it looks too much, but it will thicken with the peanut butter) and simmer for 20 mins. Stir in your peanut butter, season to taste and serve with rice.

Deeelicous.

Coming soon: chocolate brownies (the best you've ever tasted).

Felt hat disaster

2008-03-18T08:35:00.000-07:00

I attempted to make a felt hat last night. It didn't work.

I was being ambitious, and tried to make it from scratch: laying out the wool fibres, felting them together, shrinking the felt sheet over a bowl, then shrinking it more it over a hatshaper until it was stiff and held it's shape.

Felt Hat making: Hard Lessons Learned no.1

When laying out your wool fibres make sure they are teased out thinly and run in all sorts of different directions. I didn't do this very well and the layers of fibre felted only within their own layers, so I ended up with a sort of 4 ply felt that peeled apart easily. The top layer of felt kept peeling and rolling up like bad sunburn when I was shaping the hat.

Felt Hat Making: Hard lesson learned no.2

Don't be so keen to get it on the hatshaper - let it felt up and stiffen quite a bit first, rolling it lots in your bamboo mat or bubblewrap. It's much quicker and effective than hours and hours of shrinking by hand on the shaper. My hat did eventually shrink to fit, but it took about 3 hours. My hands were like prunes.

Felt Hat Making: Hard lesson learned no.3

If the instructions say 'leave to dry naturally on the hatshaper' then follow this wise advice. My hat was looking a pretty good tight shape (apart for the peeling areas) but then I got impatient and put it in the washing machine for a spin cycle. When I took it out it was lovely and dry, but enormous and more like a Sou'wester than the neat little cloche I had prior to the spin.

There is a good little video of how to do it properly here. Scroll down the the bottom of the page and click on the moving pictures. (Sorry I couldn't get it to link properly.)

I will be trying again tonight, and will let you know if my technique improves. I am determined to make a wearable hat before it gets too warm to wear it.

Very easy project for beginners

2008-03-16T11:29:00.000-07:00

Here's a project for everyone:

Find your local chinese supermarket.

Now you just have to be prepared to look fairly silly as you spend ages trawling past shelves for something you recognise.

I only had the guts to go in mine fairly recently and I'm hooked - things that I would buy in Tescos (creamed coconut, soy sauce, ginger, sesame oil... the list is endless) are so much cheaper, but on top of that I've only just begun to discover delicious new things. My latest favourite is Thai Green Curry paste, which will feed about 12 hungry people per jar without being stingy, and is fabulous when you want dinner on the table in 20 mins (I use frozen fish for minimal fuss and its mouthwateringly good).

I still wander around in hopeless disorientation, but I do plan to get a book and start being adventurous (green curry doesn't count, I know).

Apparantly the one in North London sells things half to the third of the price of the one here. I can smell several bargains...!

Easy and virtually free patchwork quilt – Part 7

2008-03-11T06:09:00.000-07:00

Read part 1
Read part 2
Read part 3
Read part 4
Read part 5
Read part 6

Machine Quilting

Quilting is necessary to hold all 3 layers of the quilt sandwich together. Traditionally you would do this with tiny running stitches. I have hand quilted one quilt in the past. It looks lovely, and was therapeutic, but it took a long long time. Now I only machine quilt - much faster!.

There are loads of books available to tell you how to do this, but let me bust a myth. It’s just sewing lines. The only tricky part to it making sure your 3 layer sandwich doesn’t slip about. That’s why good basting is essential.

Decide on your pattern of lines, and colour of thread you want to see. The quilting lines will become a beautiful feature if you use a contrasting colour. On this quilt I used white so that you could see what I was doing.

Use tailors chalk to mark up your quilting pattern. Use a ruler if you want straight lines. As this quilt is supposed to be an easy project I opted for simple straight diagonal lines.

If you don’t want to buy tailors chalk, try this: line up the edge of your presser foot with the seams of the pieced blocks. By doing this you will sew a line that is a nice consistent distance from the seam and is always straight. Most of the quilting I do is wobbly and wavy on purpose so that I can skip the marking up step. I’m aiming for the ‘naïve’ look. Works for me!

Another way to keep the quilting process simple is to run your sewn lines off the edges of the quilt to avoid having to pull through loose ends and tie them and tuck them inside. The above diagonal pattern does exactly this - I start at one side and sew right across to the other. All the end of the threads will eventually be tidied up in the binding.

Before you start, layer up some scrap fabric and wadding to test how the quilting lines will look and to check the tension on your machine.

When you are ready, dive right in and get quilting. A nice play on Radio 4 is the perfect quilting entertainment.

After I had finished the diagonal lines I decided it needed more quilting so I kept adding more and more stitching. Personally I am a fan of quite dense quilting. This part is up to you though – be creative.

Tips for successful machine quilting:

Manoeuvring such a large thing through the machine can be hard. Roll up the sides of quilt if you are fighting with it, and it should fit better through the machine. I use bicycle clips or safety pins to keep the roll together.

If your quilt is large, place your ironing board on your left hand side, adjusting it so it’s at the same height as your table. You can then rest the quilt on it, which takes a lot of the weight from your left arm.

Try not to pull the quilt through the machine, or allow it to drag back. Let the feed dogs pull it through naturally.

Use your fingers to gently spread and flatten the quilt as it goes under the needle. This will help avoid any wrinkles and puckers. I find that I always get more wrinkles on quilts with thick puffy wadding than I do when I use the flatter wadding, which is why I don’t like to use the thick stuff.

To keep the middle layer of wadding in place in the long term you should ensure there is not more than 6 inches between the quilting lines. Otherwise you will get lumpy duvet syndrome. Yuck.

My machine has a walking foot attachment which is perfect for quilting. It has feed dogs (the little caterpillar tracks that grips the fabric) on the top as well as the bottom meaning that the quilt sandwich feeds through evenly. Having said that, I have made loads of quilts with a normal foot.

If you basted using safety pins take them out as you go. If you used running stitch wait until the end and then pull them out. If you used spray you don’t need to do anything!

Practice makes perfect. You will get better as you practice, and the stitches will come out more even and straight.

The final step is to finish the edges and you're done. Come back soon!

Project Perseverance Awards

2008-03-11T05:07:00.000-07:00

As Eleanor mentioned, we are pleased to award the first Project Perseverance Prize to Jenny, who has been making her very first patchwork quilt by using my instructions.

She has been doing so well she emailed to say that she had caught me up and was waiting for the next batch of instructions so she could carry on! Now that's perseverance!

Here is a snap of her quilt top, ready for basting and quilting. It looks absolutely fantastic to me. It's flat, with lovely straight seams and perfectly aligned corners.

Well done Jenny!

Jenny is now eligible for the big Greenlaces Annual Award, for which there will be an excellent prize (to be announced.) Emma is also entered, after making falafel, but with a cunning twist.

If you want to be considered all you have to do is email a photo or tell us about your efforts to info@rachelsimons.co.uk

Easy and virtually free patchwork quilt – Part 6

2008-03-11T04:14:00.000-07:00

Read part 1
Read part 2
Read part 3
Read part 4
Read part 5

Basting

Now you need to ‘baste’. Nothing to do with turkeys you’ll be glad to hear. The idea is to temporarily hold the 3 layers in place so you can pick up the whole thing to quilt it.

Lay the backing on the floor (right side down) and smooth it out. If you are on your own sellotape the corners to the floor. If you can get a friend to help it’s much easier. Lay the wadding over, followed by your pieced quilt top and smooth out any wrinkles.

The traditional way to baste the quilt is to use large running stitches. Start from the middle and sew a line of large running stitches across the whole quilt.

Repeat with more lines about 6 inches apart until you’ve covered the quilt. Then do it all again perpendicular to the first lot. Frankly I can’t be arsed to do that. My knees can’t take it. I either use safety pins, or for the true speed merchant, quilt basting spray, which is essentially a spray on glue. Quilt basting spray is marvellous but for a larger quilt you definitely need a helping hand or you’ll drive yourself batty trying to get it stuck down straight and flat.

For the safety pin method I use quilter’s safety pins which have a cunning kink in them which helps you to pin while keeping the whole thing flat on the floor. Put the safety pins about 6 inches apart right across the whole quilt keeping all the layers smooth.

When it’s all basted trim off any excess wadding and backing so it’s about an inch bigger than the quilt top. You will neaten up the edges later.

Now you are ready to quilt your masterpiece!

(Or in Jane's case, another gin.)

How to Clean your Oven...

2008-03-10T06:30:00.001-07:00

...without needing to fumigate your kitchen afterwards.

This is surprisingly fun and very satisfying. It's a bit like something you did when you were five, along with potato printing. Remember to ask an adult to help you.

You will need....

1 cup white vinegar
1/2 cup bicarbonate of soda
1/4 washing detergent (I think this may be optional, but I haven't tried it without so wouldn't like to say)

a bowl and spoon
a painty thing (a pastry brush is perfect, if not just use the spoon
a scrapy thing (a fish slice is perfect, or a spoon...)
a 'clearing up' thing (hoover is best, or dust pan and brush)
a cloth

Put your oven on high, and while it's heating up mix up your ingredients in a bowl. It should make a paste. If it's the wrong consistency, add some flour until it is. Put your bicarbonate of soda in slowly, or it will fizz everywhere...

When your oven is hot, switch it off, open it and paint the whole of the inside with the paste, using your painting implement of choice. Close the oven door and leave for at least an hour.

(Here's one I painted earlier)

Now it should be dry and cooked, and you get to scrape it all off. Scrape away the grease! You'll get powder all over which is why it's handy to have a hoover on standby. If your oven is black, make sure the door or something you can see is really gross so you have the satisfaction of seeing all the cooked on horribleness disappear.

Now wipe out the inside with a damp cloth to get the rest off.

Hooray!!

I'm conscious that Rach's posts are more interesting than mine because she uses more pictures. So here you are:

(Don't try this method on this type of oven)

This month's awards

2008-03-10T04:09:00.000-07:00

This month's Greenlaces Award for Project Perseverance goes to:

Cousin Jenny, for her quilt (pics to follow)

And the award for Entrepreneurship goes to:

Colleague Emma, for her black-eyed bean felafel (which she said was very nice, and a bit pink)

(round of applause)

Please send all nominations via comments for our next round of awards. There will of course be a round up at the end of the year (can we cobble together a prize Rach?), so get busy!!

The best houmous/hummus I've made...

2008-03-02T11:40:00.000-08:00

... was this recipe.

Try it as a must.

And since we appear to be on something of a chick pea theme at the moment, I just wanted to let you know that soaking and boiling a huge vat of chick peas and then freezing them in small batches works really well. You can just run them under the hot tap to defrost them as you need them. Readers will remember my earlier chick pea mistake... I don't plan to go back to tinned, and given that my freezer is kept on anyway (and apparantly they function more effectively the fuller they are), I think this way uses a lot less energy than tins, even if you recycle them.

(The tins I mean, not the chick peas.)

Easy and virtually free patchwork quilt – Part 5

2008-02-27T06:21:00.000-08:00

Read part 1
Read part 2
Read part 3
Read part 4

Before we get on to assembling the quilt, you need to organise some supplies. A quilt is a 3 layer sandwich:

The quilt top - the pretty bit you have spent ages making.
The wadding - the soft fluffy insides of a quilt that makes it warm.
The backing – usually plain fabric.

Wadding and backing basics

There are loads of different types of quilt wadding. (Americans call it batting) Some is made from natural fibres like cotton, some from polyester, and some are a blend.

The polyester wadding is inexpensive, and comes in different thickness. It doesn’t shrink when washed. I used 2 inch polyester wadding in the first quilt I ever made. We use this quilt everyday on the sofa and it has turned super soft and snugly.

The cotton wadding gives a more traditional flatter look, and generally I prefer this, especially for art quilts that hang on the wall. It will shrink a bit when washed so either pre wash it, or embrace the antique puckered look you'll get in the future. The cotton wadding is more expensive but lovely.

There are more expensive alternatives like wool or even alpaca if you want to go for warmth.

If you buy wadding on the internet it is generally sold in pre-cut bed sized pieces, so you will probably get quite a bit of wastage. Most fabric shops will sell quilt wadding by the metre and this is your best bet for avoiding leftovers. John Lewis also sell wadding.

I bit a rather expensive bullet a while ago and bought a whole bolt of cotton wadding. It seemed a big outlay at the time but it was sensible because I make alot of quilts. I haggled the price down with the fabric shop man because the wadding had gone a bit bobbly.

Extra thrift tip: Keep all scraps of wadding, however small. It makes very good stuffing for soft toys.

For the backing you need another piece of fabric just larger than your quilt top. My local fabric shop sells bed sheet seconds for £2 so I often use those for backing. Also I use cream calico quite a lot as it’s very reasonably priced. Recycle an old bed sheet if you have one spare. If you don't have a spare I bet your Granny has. If you want the backing to co-ordinate with your top you could buy some matching cotton.

Your quilt will probably be wider than your backing fabric so you will have to join 2 or 3 lengths together. It might seem like a waste, but put the seam down the middle, not to one side. I know it means ending up with 2 thinner off cuts, but an off centre seam looks like a mistake. You can always use your off cuts in another patchwork project!

Similarly if you need 3 widths to make up the desired size, put your seams symmetrically like this:

Of course if you are using a bed sheet no joining will be required!

Hope you like my little diagrams! Please don't reproduce them without asking me first.

Felafel

2008-02-26T22:40:00.000-08:00

After my first post I was asked to put up some more recipes using pulses. Here's a great one - home made felafel. I made this for a large group of people, fried them up before they came then kept them warm in the oven. They went down a treat, despite being really odd shapes because I'm a rubbish fryer.

Actually it's because I have a phobia of deep-fat frying (yes, I shallow fry my felafel). I've honestly never done it in my life. It's directly related to learning how to put a chip pan fire out in Guides. I had nightmares for ages and to this day have to actively not think about it.

Right, if you don't have similar ailment, here's a brilliant video showing you how to fry neat little balls.

However I was appauled to see her using packet mixture! Appauled and surprised, because I think her little videos are really good.

So here's a recipe for making your own mixture. I love this kind of cooking. It smells wonderful as it all combine and mushes together. My mouth is watering...

Felafel

1 tin chick peas*, rinsed qnd drained
6 spring onions
1 egg
grated zest and juice of half a lemon
1 clove of garlic
a handful of fresh coriander (about 2 tbsp if it were chopped)
1 tbsp tahini
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp cinnamon
pinch cayenne pepper (or chilli I guess for a bit of kick)
salt and pepper
oil for frying
enough flour/alternative to make it the right consistency (my recipe says '30g fresh white bread' but the first time I made this it had to be gluten free so I improvised)

fresh coriander to garnish

For the sauce

4 tbsp plain yogurt
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp tahini**

Whiz it all up in a blender, leave to sit in the fridge for half an hour and then fry. Serve in pitta bread with sauce. I've given you quantities for the sauce, but it isn't an exact science and you might want to leave out the yogurt to make it vegan (funny people, those...).

(My silly sausage sister said I should put up a picture of a fire in a chip pan. What a truly horrid idea. Any readers that are interested can google chip pan fires for themselves.)

* apparantly they're called garbanzo beans in the states
** sesame seed paste

Easy and virtually free patchwork quilt – Part 4

2008-02-26T03:40:00.000-08:00

Read part 1
Read part 2
Read part 3

As I mentioned previously I am making this quilt at the same time as photographing and writing about it. It's the crafting equivalent of Jack Bauer and 24; it’s happening in real time, as it were. Not quite so many terrorists involved though. I’m telling you this so you realise that I’ve not forgotten the rest of the instructions. I haven’t – I just haven’t completed the next step yet!

The result of my lax attitude is that this is not really an official 'part' - I just wanted to show you my finished quilt top:

I’ve sewn together all the blocks as described in part 3, and pressed it all nice and flat. It will seem to shrink slightly as you sew because you are losing fabric in the seams. The more seams you have the more it will shrink in overall size.

When you are pressing the quilt top don’t be afraid to use the steam iron to your advantage. If it is a bit puffy in places keep pressing and gently pulling until it’s flat. If after intensive ironing it’s still not totally flat don’t worry, the quilting process will help to disguise the problem.

So far this quilt has been free and fully recycled. The next instalment will require a small financial outlay, so get saving those pennies. Back soon.

I’m really pleased to report that I’ve had an email from Jenny who has decided to try this project and make her first patchwork quilt. If anyone else is planning to give it a try, please let me know! It gives me incentive to carry on writing. Jenny said she went to a curtain fabric shop to ask for a sample book and they gave her 4 enormous folders full of fabric. There is nothing like the thrill of getting something for nothing!

Chick Pea Casserole

2008-02-24T10:50:00.000-08:00

Chick Pea Casserole - the ultimate in very cheap, very healthy food. Oh and it's vegan.

This recipe comes (I think with permission from) the ever great Gillian Cromar. Must check I've got her name spelled right.

1 onion (2 if it's small)

crushed garlic

a little oil for frying

grated ginger (or 1 tsp powdered)

3 or 4 carrots, chopped (more if they are small)

1 tin chickpeas, rinsed and drained

1 tin tomatoes

1 stock cube

3 tbsp worcestershire sauce

4 tbsp vinegar

2 tbsp brown sugar

2 bay leaves

hot pepper sauce (how much? It depends how hot it is silly!)

Fry up your onion and garlic, add your carrots and chickpeas and continue frying. Stir in your ginger and put in an ovenproof dish. Put all the other ingregients in the same pan, warm through and pour into the ovenproof dish. Cover and cook at 180 degrees for an hour or so. Serve with rice or something even cheaper if you are feeling poor.

It goes without saying that this is one that goes in my slow cooker. The first person I met makes this with a couple of rashers of grilled bacon (put it in with your onion at the beginning) instead of stock for flavour: both are lovely. Oh and other thing is, for goodness sake don't forget to reduce your sugar if you are using balsamic vinegar with it being so sweet.

mistakes

2008-02-22T15:13:00.000-08:00

I had a big load of shopping delivered the other day. It's great - for only £4, Tesco will deliver all your tinned tomatoes, tuna, bog roll (not generally packaged in tins), fruit juice, red lentils etc for the next 6 months. Fantastic if your sole mode of transport has only two wheels (and no motor) and you have space to store it all. I've not done it before and it's a slight pain the first time trawling through the site (but also great fun - food shopping of one of only two forms of shopping I can really enjoy) and you have to be a wee bit careful: I am now the proud owner of 10kg of dried chick peas...

(Don't get me wrong, I love chick peas - recipes to follow - but I'm not a purist and the whole 'soak overnight and then boil for 1h30' is such that I did mean to order tinned. Interesting to work out how much I saved then factor in energy boiling them. Sounds like a Rach project though...)

The great diesel experiment

2008-02-21T02:16:00.000-08:00

We've all seen the price of petrol and diesel creep up recently. If like me you need your car to get to work, then spending £50 to fill up your tank every 2 weeks is enough to make you weep.

Over the past few months I have been conducting my own highly scientific experiment aimed at discovering the most efficient way of expending my diesel. I would recommend you undertake the same experiment - you will be amazed. (The experiment requires your car to be able to display the Miles per Gallon statistics)

Control stage

With a full tank of diesel I reset the trip computer so that the miles per gallon (MPG) was blank and ready to go. Then I drove around as normal. By normal I mean that I drove observing the speed limits of 30mph in town, 60mph on single carriage roads and 70mph on the motorways. My drive to work consists of 15% town driving, 50% single carriage A roads and 35% Motorway. I would accelerate away from and brake at junctions normally.

My tank of fuel lasted for 11 trips to and from work, at an average of 54.6 Miles to the Gallon.

Experimental stage

Again, with a full tank of diesel I reset the trip computer. This time I really tried hard to drive ultra smoothly. At junctions I would accelerate fairly slowly, trying to keep my revs as low as possible. Coming up to junctions I would try and anticipate them in advance, allowing the car to slow down naturally, rather than driving along at 30 and then braking at the last minute.

On the A roads I would try and do the same, keeping a long distance between me and the car in front. This meant that if they braked I could slow down gradually. Also I kept my speed down to a maximum of 50mph.

On the Motorways I reduced my speed to maximum of 60mph. This seemed really slow at first, but I soon got used to it and realised that loads of people drive like this. Lorries are only allowed to go at 60 so you are happily in the flow of traffic. I find myself regularly driving at about 57 or 58, and my revs never go very high.

Result? My miles per gallon shot up from 54.6 to 69.7 and my tank lasted an extra 3 days.

But surely your trip takes much longer?, I hear you ask. Strangely enough, not really. You can bat down the motorway at 80 and then the lights in town turn red and your 2 minutes of advantage is lost. You feel like you are going faster, but the actual difference in time is hardly anything at all. We've all noticed the boy racer types who zoom off at traffic lights only to have to brake suddenly at the next set while we pull up gently beside them. They have made alot of noise but saved no time and expended twice as much fuel. It's the same principle but over longer distances and time frames.

An added advantage is that I am convinced it make me a safer driver. Aside from the speeding issue (an offence of which I have been caught on camera twice in the past and have no desire to rack any more penalty points on my license) simple things like increasing the distance between vehicles on the road has got to be a good thing.

If you try this yourself, tell me how you get on.

Mother's Tip No.2

2008-02-21T01:58:00.000-08:00

This next tip from Mother is on a topic very close to her heart, in both the metaphorical and literal sense...

Invest In a Vest

Invest in a vest and turn down your home heating by at least one degree. I know you may be thinking that vests aren't the sexiest garments ever but there are some nice little numbers in black silk or jewel colours and even some thermal ones can look quite alluring . They really do keep you warmer too by trapping a layer of air next to your skin.

Think of the effect we would have on the planet, not to mention our heating bills if we dressed a little warmer in winter, particularly when indoors.

Sexy Vest. (Apparently this is a thermal one. It looks like it's trapping more than a layer of air. Ouch)

Not so sexy Vest

Really quite unsexy vests, but boy do they look toasty warm!

Hmm, despite being my mother’s daughter in many ways, I don’t have any vests. This is actually ridiculous – my house is freezing, and I would definitely benefit from this unloved article. My personal variation on this is ‘carry a cardigan’. I have a cardy in the hall that I don the minute I walk into the house. It is usually warmer in my car than in my house so extra layers are essential!

Air Freshener

2008-02-18T07:46:00.000-08:00

This is the ultimate green cheap tip, and I got the idea from Anthea Turner's Perfect Housewife, which I have to say I've never seen in my life. I did however, while it was on, get her handy weekly tips off the internet. I don't often admit to that.

Ok, so if you are using Air Freshener regularly, you are a) fairly gross and not very clean, or b) you live above chain smokers that fry bacon and don't ventilate. However, if Anthea needs it then what hope is there for the rest of us? This is great to have on hand when you've just had fish for tea, or have just been to the loo and people are arriving in 2 minutes....

Green Air Freshener

1 tbsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 glass cold water

Put it in a squirty thing (also recycling!). You could also add essential oils to smell nice, but this is all you need to neutralise nasty pongs. If it's really nasty, you will need several squirts, but you can do so with a clean conscience knowing it's super-green!

Easy and virtually free patchwork quilt – Part 3

2008-02-14T05:17:00.000-08:00

Read part 1
Read part 2

Assembling the quilt top

Time to sew this baby together. Start with the top row. Grab the top left block and it’s neighbour. Flip the second block over and position it on top of the first block so the front faces are together. Sew them together down the right-hand side. (Sorry if this is a bit obvious) You can pin the pieces together first if this helps you.

Speed Tip: You don’t need to reverse the stitches at the beginning and end of the line of sewing like you would in dressmaking.

Usually with patchwork you sew the pieces with very small 6mm seams. This avoids wastage and lots of bulk. In this case my fabric was very loosely woven and fraying like a bastard, so a 6mm seam would pull apart in a jiffy. I used a 1cm seam. If you are unsure what to do test a bit using the scraps you trimmed off earlier. Yank it about to see how it holds up.

Open out and iron the seam flat from the back. Don’t faff around opening out the seam - I always iron the seam over to one side like this:

Now attach the third block to the second in exactly the same way.

Keep adding blocks until the top row is sewn together in a long strip. Iron all the seams to one side, and all in the same direction.

Now start on the second row. Do exactly the same, but this time iron the seams in the opposite direction. This is so that, when you eventually sew the rows together, there isn’t too much bulk where 4 blocks meet.

Stitch all the rows in the same way, alternating the direction you iron the seams. Put each row back in it’s position when it’s done so you don’t get them in a muddle.

Now it’s time to join the rows together. Take rows 1 and 2 and lay them face to face. Pin them together so that the join of each block on row 1 matches up with the join of the blocks on row 2. Put a pin at each join.

Sew right along, removing the pins as you get to them. Make sure your carefully pressed seams stay in the direction you made them. Twisted seams don’t look very nice but if you get one by accident don’t worry. Press the bejeezus out if it with a steam iron and you’ll be ok.

Keep adding the rows in the same way, and don’t skip the pinning part here. It will look 100 times better if your corners at least vaguely match up. I am the world laziest pinner, but even I pin when I want the corners of blocks to match. If you have lined up the joins, and pinned properly you should get perfect points, like this:

And on the back your seams should look like this, going in opposite directions:

Turn it over to the front and press the whole thing again while admiring your handiwork.

Well lookie here – you completed the quilt top. Well done. Have a large G&T.

Easy and virtually free patchwork quilt – Part 2

2008-02-13T05:46:00.000-08:00

Read Part 1: preparing and trimming the curtain sample fabrics.

Designing your quilt

So, by now you should have all your blocks cut to the same size, and with nice square corners. (we'll do purposely wonky pieces another time, square is much easier for now.)

Now it's time for the creative part. Lay out the blocks side by side in a combination that pleases you. In order to get a rectagular quilt you might have to ditch a few. I had 41 blocks in total, so I could have made a 5 x 8 or a 6 x 6. I plumped for a 6 x 6 as there were a couple of colours I didn't really like, so omitting 5 blocks was no hardship.

If your sample book has only a few very large fabric pieces, consider cutting them in half to give yourself more options.

Anyway, this is what I did:
First I pinned them up in the order they were fixed in the book.

Then I shuffled them about a bit:

Then I rearranged them all starting with the palest colours in the centre moving to the darkest colors at the edges. This is my favourite layout:

In my studio I have a wall covered in polystyrene so that I can pin up quilt pieces when I'm designing. Before I had this little luxury I used the floor.

Now you are ready to sew it all together. That's part 3 though, so come back soon!

Biscuit Basics

2008-02-12T14:07:00.000-08:00

Warning: this post could potentially make you very fat.

When Rach asked me to do a post on 'Biscuit Basics' it took me a while to realise what she was going on about. Then it dawned on me: on holiday in Dunquin, Ireland last summer I made biscuits every day. This is because no sooner would they be out of the oven than they'd be gobbled up by my greedy family and they'd be demanding more. There were no scales and no recipe books in the house we were staying in, and the nearest little shop was a half hour drive away. Necessity is, as they say, the mother of invention, so it was time to improvise. I should start by saying that the one thing we had a steady supply of was butter, without which you'd be fairly stumped (but not entirely - see below). But all other biscuit ingredients, I believe, can be conjured up by rooting through cupboards and being adventurous.

Here's a good basic recipe to get you started. You can't go wrong. I certainly recommend following this or another recipe closely until you've got a good idea of mixture consistency and how much they spread during cooking (the following recipe won't too much but others will) before you start to play with it.

Simple Biscuits

250g butter at room temperature, plus a bit more for greasing

125g caster sugar

300g flour (my recipe states it should be self-raising; I don't think it makes a scrap of difference)

Grease a couple of baking trays. Put the butter in a large mixing bowl and beat with a wooden spoon to soften. Beat in the sugar then stir in the flour. This is where you get to roll it out and use your favourite pastry cutter (or just an upturned glass) or if you're like me you'll just roll it into small balls and flatten with the heel of your hand (or a fork for a pretty pattern). Bake at 180 degrees for 15-20 minutes, until golden.

Now, in a perfect world, you'd always have a recipe to follow for whatever kind of biscuits you want to make, and scales to hand. But if not... Here are my personal favourite additions/corruptions:

Mixed spice: Always, always have some in your cupboard (or separate pots of cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger, but remember mixed spice also contains cloves). Rach's favourite were mixed spice biscuits when we were kids, and I used to have a fabulous recipe (that was in one of those great brown 60s recipe books) that I of course can't find now, but a spoon of the stuff is always a yummy addition, and particularly good with brown sugar or...

Golden syrup: remember to use less sugar! And be careful to bind them well or leave plenty of space between them on your baking tray as they'll spread more during cooking.

Cardamom: I list this seperately because unlike all the other spices I like in biscuits it isn't included in 'mixed spice' you can buy in one jar. Also delish in rice pudding incidentally.

Oats: a healthy addition! Lovely texture and will stop them spreading too much during cooking.

Custard power: you may laugh, but the ones that got the highest accolade in Ireland were made with oats and a tiny bit of flour (because I ran out) and flavoured with custard powder I dug out the back of a cupboard.

Flour: well, obviously. But do try using brown flour and any kind of flour to hand really. It's not like you need them to rise or anything. There are of course loads of gluten-free alternatives you can use.

Peanut butter: my preference for all cooking is the one with bits in. This is the only substitute for butter that I can think of.

Vanilla/Almond etc essence: I recently made brownies (which I'm afraid you do need a recipe for) with almond essence in them and they were delicious! A principle worth carrying over. A nice idea if you are using coffee is to have two doughs of different colours, roll them both flat, brush one with milk and put the other on top. Roll the whole thing up and chill for 30mins, then cut into slices and bake for stripy spirals!

I won't insult your intelligence by listing things like dried fruit, nuts and chocolate. Please do leave comments if you have any more ideas!

So I hope its clear that you can make biscuits, even fancy ones, from things you have lying around in your store cupboard. No need to rush to the shops in a panic. And a top tip: a run of home made biccys can easily and quickly made into a posh dessert by adding a dollop of ice-cream/yoghurt/mascarpone; fresh or stewed fruit (kept on standby in my freezer); chocolate shavings or a dusting of icing sugar etc etc. The list of possibilities is endless....

Easy and virtually free patchwork quilt – Part 1

2008-02-11T02:14:00.000-08:00

Don’t be overawed by the thought of making a quilt. It won’t take you 2 years like in the olden days, and it’s not hard if you have half a brain. You don’t have to make a huge monster for your bed either. For starters I would advocate making a smaller ‘lap quilt’ which you can use on the sofa. This not only looks good folded up over the arm but is lovely to snuggle under if you are trying to reduce the amount you spend on your heating bills.

The following instructions are for very beginners. However, I’m assuming you’ve got (or can borrow) a sewing machine and can figure out how to sew 2 bits of fabric together in a straight line.

Buying all the fabric you need to make a quilt for your bed or the sofa can cost a bomb, and collecting scraps that match can take forever. Do not fear though. When I am strapped for cash I head on down to the local curtain shop and beg for their old sample books. In most cases they tell me to look by the bins because they normally just throw them away. What a waste!

This is a quilt I made a couple of years ago using a salvaged curtain sample book and a bed sheet second that cost £2. The one we are going to make here is even simpler, so don't panic.

The advantages of using curtain sample books as that the fabrics will be of the same weight, and will coordinate beautifully. The disadvantages are, for a beginner, they are more tricky to sew with than quilting fabrics as they are thicker and usually more coarsely woven, so fray easily. Don’t be put off though, who cares if it goes wrong? It was free.

Step 1: Preparing the fabric and cutting the blocks.

This is my sample book. Yours wil be different in size, but it won't matter, the principles are the same.

First, you need to prepare the fabric samples. Lever off the bindings with a screwdriver to liberate the fabric. The books are held together with dangerous spikes, so I asked an adult to help me with this part.

If there are paper labels on the back these are best removed by soaking in a bowl of warm water. I would also advocate washing the fabric at this point, but if truth be told I very rarely do this. (True quiltmakers would be horrified by this admission.) It is prudent to avoid any nasty colour running accidents or ugly shrinkage in the future. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Hang the fabric out to dry then press them flat.

Right. Now you are going to trim the pieces so they are all the same size. I can’t guide you here – my sample book here is quite small, yours might be massive. It doesn’t matter as long as the blocks are all identical at the end.

Some samples have a sort of plasticy glue down the edges to stop fraying. You should remove all of this in the trimming process. I also cut off the tops of my pieces where the spikes had punctured the fabric. I use a rotary cutter (like a pizza wheel for material) and a cutting mat to trim and square up my patchwork pieces, but scissors work just as well.

I’ll be back with part 2 later in the week, when I’ve trimmed me bits, so to speak. I’m making this quilt and writing about it as I go, so I hope it doesn’t go horribly wrong!

Mother's Tip no.1

2008-02-09T03:15:00.000-08:00

With age comes wisdom. Who do we know is both old and wise? Mother!

We have invited our Mother to impart some of her pearls of wisdom. Here is her first effort:

Rediscovering The Library.

If you haven't been in a library since school or college , or since your mother took you to Storytime on a tuesday afternoon, can I urge you to walk through the door and register for a library ticket.

They are changed places.

Firstly they are noisy and bustling and all the lending rules and renewal systems have improved beyond measure. If, like us, you have no more room on your book shelves, it has got to be the answer. Also, all that recycling and rereading of books must be better that buying new cheap paperbacks every time we need something to read. Think of all the trees we could save.

Here in North Lincolnshire, I can take out 6 books at any one time. They can be renewed online and can be returned to any library within the county. I can request books online too and an e-mail will tell me when they are ready for collection. My mother and grandmother were great library users but it is only in recent years that I have gone back to borrowing books and I now realise what a fantastic resource we have. Library budgets are being cut however, all over the country.

So let's make a real effort to get borrower numbers up before it is too late and help save then planet into the bargain.

Love Mother x

Bravo Mum! I agree with this, and although I admit that there is something magical about opening a brand new crisp book, the library does have the answer for avid readers trying to save a bob or two. I get all my non fiction books from the library, and spend many a lunch hour browsing the shelves. I have learnt how to knit, make curtains, candles, quilts, upholstery, topiary and countless other things from books borrowed from the library. Get yourself down there!

Soup by accident

2008-02-08T15:23:00.000-08:00

Every wednesday I make a big vat of soup, because an unspecified number of people turn up for lunch. As I generally go shopping on wednesdays, this is a true make-do-with-what-you've-got/don't-waste-old-veggies soup. This week's was really yummy, so here's the recipe below. I didn't use any stock because I didn't have any, hence why I sweated out the celery with the onions and garlic (along with using lemon juice or balsamic vinegar depending on your other ingredients, this is my top tip for bringing out flavour). I figured chilli and coconut would give it a full enough flavour on top of that, and I was right!

1 large onion, chopped
few cloves garlic, finely chopped/crushed
a few sticks of celery, chopped

a bit of butter
2 carrots, chopped
1 large parsnip, chopped
handful red lentils
1 big potato chopped
chilli sauce

creamed coconut

salt/pepper/lemon juice

Sweat out the onion, garlic and celery in the butter. Simmer the whole lot together (I leave soup in the slow cooker on high for a morning) and whiz (I mean use one of those hand-held food processors- I'm aware that in various parts of the country this word means pee). Technically I suppose you should put your creamed coconut and seasoning in last.

And before anyone accuses me of not being thrifty because I use creamed coconut, I buy it from the chinese supermarket where it's 40p a packet. I think I only use about a 1/3 of a packet in this. So ner.

Intelligence undermining

2008-02-08T15:15:00.000-08:00

Hello again. My friend, quoted earlier, has chosen to remain nameless on this blog, but has given me permission to pass on tips I have nicked from him/her. Whatever... Anyway, he/she did point out that when making dahl and baked potatoes, if you cut your potatoes in half they only take half as long to cook (this 'aint rocket science) which is more environmentally friendly. It would of course mean that if you want you dahl ready more quickly you'd have to do it in a pan. I felt that this was entirely obvious, but apparently it needs to be said, and my brother-in-law did say I shouldn't assume too much intelligence on the part of the reader. Tony, you appear to be our only reader (at least commenter) so far, excluding family. How clever are you?

Easy hot water bottle cover

2008-02-03T02:48:00.000-08:00

For the first crafty post, here's something anyone can make, whether you feel you have talent or not. It needn't cost you a penny, embodies the notion of recycling, and is a perfect thing to make on a cold Sunday in February. I don't claim to be the first to think of this idea. I've seen it around in various forms for yonks.

You will need:

An old jumper
A hot water bottle
other fabric scraps for decoration (optional)

First raid your wardrobe, or in my case my Husband's wardrobe, to find an old jumper. The garment donated to me (under slight sufferance) was not the most cheerful of colours but beggars can't be choosers. By the way, the best jumpers to use for this are knitted ones with nice ribbed cuffs.

OK, stuff your hottie inside the arm of the jumper with the bottle neck at the cuff end to test for size. Chop off the arm of the jumper an inch or so below the bottom of the bottle. In my case I decided to leave lots of extra space at the cuff end so I could turn it under to make a sort of polo neck effect.

Now turn the severed arm inside out and sew along the cut edge. If you are doing this on a machine then also zig zagging over the cut edges will avoid any fraying.

Essentially that's it. Told you it was easy.

We decided to embellish ours with some felt shapes. Sew them on or use fabric glue.

Because our sleeves weren't very stretchy we made cute little ties for the neck. To do this cut off either the neck band of the jumper or the waist band. We sewed on little felt covers to the end of the ties to stop fraying and to co-ordinate the colour scheme.

Insert your empty bottle through the neck hole, and tie the waistband ribbon around the neck to finish. Ta daaaaa!

Eleanor doesn't really do crafts at all - she's the foody one - but even she managed to make one of these with my instructions. We each had a sleeve of the jumper. She complained that mine looks better than hers, but for a first attempt at something like this I thought she did brilliantly.

Below is Eleanors hot water bottle cover. She went for explosions instead of flowers. What would Freud say about that? (Actually the real reason is that Eleanor is left handed and struggled to cut with my scissors. She needed a shape with straight lines!)

Comfort food

2008-02-03T00:53:00.000-08:00

Here's a stolen idea, with a tip thought up entirely by yours truly. Ahem. Jacket potatoes filled with red lentil dahl covered in grated cheddar cheese.

This is so yummy you won't believe it, but the best thing is that it takes about 5 minutes to cobble together (and that includes getting the potatoes in the oven) at which point you can go out for an hour and a half and come back to instant food. It does worry me that I should use a word other than 'dahl' as this is probably a totally unorthdox way to eat it, let alone make it (done properly, you'd stir the onions, ghee, mustard seeds etc through the lentils once they're cooked). But doing it in the slow cooker (my tip!) means you don't have to watch the stove, and the lentils don't break up during cooking.

Incidentally, I always have plenty of red lentils on hand in my kitchen. An incredibly cheap source of protein, they also don't need soaking as other pulses so you don't need to have planned ahead. On a hot stove, they'll cook in only 15-20 minutes. Buy them from an indian shop instead of the supermarket for extra thriftiness, and always buy in bulk as they'll keep forever.

Cheat's Red Lentil Dahl

Red lentils

Onion, chopped

Garlic, finely chopped/crushed

Butter to fry

Curry powder or mixture of spices to your taste (in this I like more body and less chilli)

Vegetable stock

Salt

Lemon juice

Fry the onions and garlic in butter, stir in the spices, and put in the slow cooker with lentils and very hot stock. In my slow cooker (which is small and hotter than Rach's) it cooks to perfection in an hour and a half. Add lemon juice and salt to taste.

Put in jacket potatoes (maris pipers are well worth the extra pennies!) and cover with lots of cheese.

Yum.

Sorry, I have never weighed anything for this recipe and have no idea of how much I use of anything. So: don't be afraid of using plenty of red lentils, but do be aware that they swell up and absorb plenty of liquid (they'll need covering in stock).

Ok Rach, your turn.

Photo by Justin Cormack

Let's start at the very beginning - pastry.

2008-02-02T10:29:00.000-08:00

Where to start? I feel my first post should be something that encapsulates our reasons for starting this blog, wows you with our domestic insight or at the very least is truly original. But I get nervous at the very thought of having to live up to such great ambitions, and so here's just what I was doing this afternoon. It's not original, it's not all-encompassing, but this is something that will save you time, money, and from having to eat rubbish.

I was making pastry (recipe below). Have you seen what goes into shop-bought frozen pastry? Truly disgusting. Make it in big batches and then freeze it in quiche/pie size balls so next time it just needs de-frosting and rolling. Make jam tarts with leftovers (use up jam that you've had to scrape mould off - it's going in the oven at 200 degrees so don't worry!). But here's the best bit: instead of faffing with baking beans, put your rolled pastry in it's dish into the freezer until it's gone hard. Then you can either bake it blind just like that and it won't collapse (as long as your oven is properly pre-heated) or just stuff your filling in and bake it all together. Something about the very cold to the very hot means that it will go crispy on the bottom. Brilliant. All credits to my friend (who has to remain nameless until I've asked her!) for this fantastic tip.

Here's a piccy of dinner just before being popped into the oven, compiled by my brother-in-law using my pastry and eggs from the chickens in the garden. Scrumdiddlyumptious.

Basic Shortcrust Pastry

Essentially, you need half the amount of fat to flour, and a little water. Easy. The following amounts will line a flan dish to feed 4-6. Sweet pastries will add more butter, egg yolks and sugar, but this is good for starters.

75g butter (well chilled)

150g plain flour

2 tbsp (roughly) water

Cut the butter up and rub into the flour until it's like fine breadcrumbs. Sprinkle the water over and mix gently with a table knife. Add more water as needed a little at a time until it starts to bind. Stick your hand in the bowl and gather into a ball, kneading very lightly. Roll out using a bottle if you haven't got a rolling pin on a floured surface.

The above picture is goats cheese and grilled pepper quiche, and was cooked for about 40 minutes at 200 degrees.

Welcome!

2008-02-02T01:10:00.000-08:00

Eleanor and I have always been slightly eccentric. Now we've decided to embark on this blog as a way of passing on some of our eccentric ideas to you.

I love making crafty stuff, and stuff for the house. Eleanor loves making food, and supremely delicious food at that! Not only this, we like to do it cheaply, and with a nod to helping the environment too. How worthy of us.

So stay tuned, and we'll be back with some great ideas of how you too can love green, and live cheap.

Hurrah!