No idea what to call this blog, so have just dated it.
It is a miserable, cold, windy and rainy day - so the walk to Temple Newsam did not happen. Instead I pottered around at home. My one achievement? Making dumplings for the first time ever! I did a beef stew and dumplings for dinner. Thanks to Jamie Oliver - I followed (more or less) the recipe from Ministry of Food. I actually have purchased this book as one of Roy's Christmas presents but on leafing through it realised that in all my 40-odd years, I have never made dumplings and the recipe was there, so....
They were pretty easy actually and turned out well. As did the stew.
I also found a huge butternut squash in the garage and because I could not recall exactly how long it had been there (it looked ok) I decided to roast it and then I stood pondering over over to do with the pulp. Eventually I plumped for a butternut squash soup, with a base of onion, garlic and veg stock and spiced up with cayenne pepper and ginger. It is pretty good actually. I'll freeze some and use the rest tomorrow evening.
Still on the topic of food, in Tesco yesterday they were offering a "free" Green & Blacks chocolate recipe book when you purchased three bars of G&B chocolate. I needed no encouragement. I left with 2 bars of butterscotch choc and a bar of white choc (having stocked up on 70% dark choc last week) and my lovely new recipe book. And it is very lovely - there are some fabulous recipes and ideas in there. I can't wait to try some.
I just realised that I haven't yet updated about my lodger! Since early October, we've had my nephew Joe living with us. He's studying at Leeds Uni until the end of this year, and with it only being a sort term placement there, there wasn't much point in him finding accomodation elsewhere. We've enjoyed having him here - his girlfriend Kate is also in Leeds (but living in a shared student flat) and she is here quite a lot too. It's been fun playing surrogate parents! And probably one of the things that prompted back in to the kitchen and my recipe books...
