Not all about baking .. but ! (this post is!)

I know it seems like all I do is eat cake.  come to think of it there has been rather a lot of eating of cake! BUT to be fair I have also been doing some knitting too and will post tomorrow on the finished lacy scarf and another pair of lacy mitts to match from the remaining Rowan Felted Tweed yarn.  AND progress is being made on my stripe jumper - Tender - just rather slowly, but hope to finish 2nd sleeve shortly and tackle the finishing/neck!  I've worn the lovely little lace handwarmer/mitts and love them - just right!

Back to the kitchen.
From the library book I got out, The Hairy Bikers' Best-Loved Recipes I cooked their Roast Pork Belly with apples and sage and Braised Steaks with Gravy - both went down well with dh and no.2.son.  Still adjusting to cooking for 3, its not as easy as you'd imagine but I've managed to freeze some portions.

Last week no.2.son and I enjoyed the last of the Masterclasses from the Great British Bakeoff competition, and this weekend we set about making the seriously chocolately Sachertorte!  yummmm! is all I'm saying.  I confess that my waistband is starting to pinch and I fear that weight is piling on so after this we may hold off further baking of cakes especially as Christmas is now not that far enough way to not do serious damage to weight ahead of the Christmas cake and goodies am planning to frighten the family with! (friends will be thinking "mince pies" + paving slabs! ha-ha!!)

Ok, here we go, a set of photographs from our weekend spent in the kitchen!

onion, apple & sage ahead of the pork

delicious roast pork in cider/gravy

good enough to eat!

but we melted it instead!

apricot jam to seal cake before covering with chocolate

ready for the topping

scummily chocolatey!

no.2.son did the icing! what a great job?

not a slice, more a SLAB of cake - bliss xx

another pair of lacy mitts

OTN's last night: another pair of lacy mitts - ver.3 from the same pattern this time in grey Rowan Scotttish Tweed 4 ply (now discontinued but I've got LOADS! hurrah! loads of mitts!!)
Very very quick and easy this is a satisfying "watch with tv" portable project to have on the go and I've knit as you can see almost to the point of CO and then just the thumb to pick up off waste yarn and complete.
Quite why Kirsty knit the thumbs flat and then seamed, I don't know.  I've got my stitches on waste yarn and will knit in the round ..

We're looking forward to tonight's XFactor to see who the judges eliminate from their final contestants ahead of the public vote from next week - we've got a few early favourites we're watching keenly.
We like AmeliaLilly best, Janet Devlin, Craig Cotton, Sami Brookes, The Risk and Rythmix too. but not decided yet who will vote for!
Enjoyed the Jonathon Ross show, we've never really enjoyed his shows before but this series is pretty good and it made yesterday quite a long night starting with Harry Hill at 7pm - glad he's back! we love this programme!

Still waiting to get a full update and report on life-at-Uni from no.1.son we finally got a short email yesterday advising he'd joined a couple of political societies and the freezer is broken and how to convert gas.5 to electric settings, please? ..
we've sent him texts and emails to advise us on favourable times for us to ring him .. apparently there ARE no favourable times .. in the end I rang him! and managed to drag SOME info from him that they were going on a "tour" to the local town and he'd bought 5 books and spent LOADS of money!! eek ..

I'm going to ring him again today .. I know. I said I wasn't. but, welll .. thats what mums do best? ring and pester their children for their own good!?

The Great British Bake off Battenburg Cake

We we enjoyed watching this series of The Great British Bake off competition and we thought Jo deserved to win although we were fearing Holly might run off with it!  Poor MaryAnne didn't do herself justice on the final and would have been our 2nd to win if we'd been able to vote.
No.2.son and I have enjoyed watching this competition with interest more for the technical/bake side than the personalities although we did have our "favourites" and a few we disliked/found irritating it was the technical challenges we loved the most.
Last week we watched the first of the Masterclasses and decided to bake a classic Battenburg Cake! (I fancied the coffee/walnut but no.2.son was less keen and as we were jointly making - and EATING it we set about finding a recipe)
Luckily one of the library books I've got at the moment, the Hairy Bikers' Best-Loved Recipes, featured it and its also available here.

The cake was quite easy to bake and assemble and we enjoyed making it although I seemed to end up with the less attractive tasks such as washing/tidying up and rolling out the marzipan! between us we had a couple of hours of fun and the final cake was declare a success! and delicious.
Next week is the Sachertorte masterclass and I have a recipe for this in one of my books also so we plan to give this one a go!

separate the two cake mixtures to bake

the two baked sponges

checking the baking is done

slicing the fingers - sponge!

applying the apricot jam and assembling sponges

the finished Battenburg!

sliced and enjoyed with cup of tea!

Elsewhere on the hob was my popular corned beef stew bubbling away to give us some comfort food for this turn of weather we're now having - this is a favourite of dh and no.1.son (who isn't here, at Uni presently) and no.2.son is not keen so I took advantage of this and prepared a batch which I ate half and froze other half while cooking "chips" for no.2.son which he was pleased/relieved with!!

A quick and easy and filling warm "stew" this is one that I remember from my childhood that my LateMother used to make and we call it "corned beef stew" the only addition I make is to add chilli! I love chilli! and since dh favours it too, now its just the two of us I added twice as much! hot-hot-hotter! but yumm!

bubbling away

to become a thickened stew

That followed by a slice of cake with cup of tea and a large G+T later on while watching tv marathon of Harry Hill, XFactor and Jonathon Ross it was a great way to spend a Saturday!

my "kate" shawl

NOT a very flattering photograph - this is about the best I could bring myself to share!!
No.1.son was too tired it seems to stand up and most of the other shots were of me either blinking! or grimmacing! or shouting to him!
Anyway, here is a photo of me wearing my "kate" shawl which has had two outings already.

Domestic Adjustments

minced beef'n'onion pie

The difficulty with preparing meals and shopping for me is that now our no1.son has gone to Uni (read further on for post on that/pics etc) its left ME with the problem of adjusting to catering for 3!
Really no.2.son.16yrs doesn't eat a "full" portion (particularly where vegetables are concerned!) but where dh is confident we'll see a reduction in costs for grocery shopping I'm not convinced it will be that much!
Most recipes tend to serve "4" so I think I'll have to do some portion control and use the freezer a bit more!!  so far dh has gained a few lbs as HE has ended up with extra large portions this week!!
The problem will be for things like the pie above.  it is sized and worked out for "4" where the portions are already in my opinion quite generous but it will be difficult to adjust it down to 3.
If anyone has any helpful tips or suggestions please comment!!

Free knitting pattern to celebrate new-look Simply Knitting!

Free knitting pattern to celebrate new-look Simply Knitting!

This lovely pattern is available for free from the current issue of SK and I've knit one pair of ver.1 and plan a pair of ver.3 in grey for myself.  A really quick and easy pattern to knit this was done in a few hours (mind! there are no fingers! nor thumbs!! ha-ha!)

I've knit this pair for my sil who expressed some interest in fingerless gloves as she often has to work outside on her farming/fishing business and finds it a nuisance to remove gloves to handle cash and tickets - this is the 2nd pair I've knit for her, the other a pair of fingerless gloves

OTN's today was a lacy scarf pattern from the same issue of SK also by Kirsty McLeod - only I've hit a problem and feel there are errors in the pattern.  I will update if there are corrections but for now am keeping it OTN's but not knitting any further until I have confirmation.

.

My 2nd sleeve on jumper is very nearly complete and as the weather has now "turned" autumnal I shall resume knitting!

A busy week and no.1.son has gone to Uni!

Well I say its been a busy week.
I've tried to keep myself busy.
To avoid the fact that Ive spent most of the week glued to my pc pressing the reload button wondering WHY it wasn't delivering me an email! and switching my mob.phone on and off and getting EVERYONE to send me a text to prove that it IS working its just that HE is not COMMUNICATING!

Right. I said. with confidence! RIGHT. we WON'T I said, we WON'T be pestering you! we KNOW you've got a lot to sort out and settle in and get used to so we WON'T pester you for information, updates and calls/emails etc .. we'll leave it to YOU to set the pace and we'll respond to YOU .. ok?

right.
up to the point where I've sent him 8 emails, 2 texts and 1 failed call and had 3 arguments with dh over WHO is going to NOT PESTER no.1.son again ..
I practically launched myself out of the moving car under a passing bus in temper after another petty "row" over whether we turned "left" or "straight on" and dh insisted it was the latter and I - LEFT! grr! Not sure who had the biggest shock US or HIM! 
Anyone who has taken their first "child" off to Uni some distance away, and left them there all alone and driven home will know exactly what we are going through ..
So. won't bore you with the details ..

well this is nice!

dh trying to look composed and happy!

hmm .. bit .. boring!

dh trying not to look bored

can we go now?

SIT! we're not GOING YET!

oh well might as well check the football score!

dh resigns himself to SITTING STILL and awaiting instructions!

I really am rubbish at taking photo's I've got about 10 of dh sat on the bed and several of the bathroom/shower and NONE of the lovely building and surroundings of the campus! bah!

the shower!

see? I'm not joking!

no.1.son connecting his laptop

checking the football score?

We took our son to Uni last Sunday and left him after unpacking and sorting him out - its going to be a long time before WE adjust to our son leaving home there is a huge gap already ..