Challenging Week

Well my life seems to continue on a fast rate. Tuesday was the return to work but also the day to get my tooth fixed. If you know me then you know I am a total whimp/baby when it comes to the dentist -  having spent a large chunk of the bank holiday weekend in a stew over this issue. So had to start work as the dentist did not open till after I started. Saws a few clients/patients and then phoned to discover the only time they could see me was during lunch time. So I had to cancel my clients and drive 2 hours to  Leeds spend 45 minutes in the chair, another 2 hour driving back to then see more clients!  Got home and waited for my adrenalin to crash but it didn't so mowed the lawn instead! I wish I was not such a baby and didn't shake soo much at the thought of the place. It's crazy but my brain doesn't work logically. Yesterday I berated myself because I gave myself a nasty burn from boiling melted sugar and oh that hurt, for the next few hours - then I thought it never hurt at the dentist, where's the sense in all this. Bizarrely my mouth is not happy with this different filling and seems to be trying to reject it!

 



Anyway enough of this topic - except that Mr P was so lovely to me and praised me for my bravery with some flowers.

Also he bought me this bottle of limoncello which is my favourite liqueur. I never buy it because it costs too much money and I only drink it. Oh but if you've never tried it then don't because once tasted you may get the bug for it!  Yes you are seeing right my messy freezer - this drink is kept in a freezer. Yum yummy. Note I have been good and only had one glass.













Then of course my other challenges have been the cooking or rather the lack of it over the last few weeks. So knowing we had visitors for a large chunk of the weekend I have made the most and managed to get through eight books!

Had some old manky looking bananas left so made two of these banana and walnut cakes.

I've had this book for some years but it has been very useful.

Knowing that my visitors like lemon cake I found this recipe. Note the recipes are only in pounds and ounces.

I'm not sure if this is the first or second cookbook I have ever owned. Think my parents bought it me.

























Saturday morning was an opportunity to try something different for breakfast.

Mmmmm it was certainly yummy.

Came from this lovely vegetarian cookbook - which I can thoroughly recommend.























I let the guests add their own yoghurt so that any leftover granola could be stored away. We also had pancakes with bacon and maple syrup.

Should say that the first lot of guests were No 3, hubby and Poppy (dog). Thought you might like to see what size "Nemo" is now. Getting bigger. But is it a girl or is it a boy? One of her colleagues said "your bottom has got so big it must be a girl!" I'm rubbish at guessing but I've just got this feeling that she'll be having a boy and No 2's wife will have twin boys! So that we may end up over run with boys!

















Anyway they left just before 11am to travel up to Leeds to stay with No 2 and wife. Three minutes later my dad arrives and I start catering again! Of course he's expecting a yummy lunch and I cannot disappoint him.

I think my interpretation doesn't look too dissimilar.

The beauty of keeping chickens is being able to have such wonderful eggs. That yolk is such an amazing colour.

This book I bought from a charity shop and I have to be honest and say I have seen it many times since in charity shops. I think that's probably being a little mean on Ainsley because I think it's not a bad book and I have used a few recipes from this book and from the next one I'm going to show you on this blog too.













Mr P played in his first cricket match this season - oh and they won. Dad and I ventured out to Uppingham, but sadly we did not see anything we wanted to buy at the right price. We like to scour the shops for Observer Books, baby clothes, cookery and craft books.

This dish was ok but Ainsley underestimates how long you need to roast the potatoes for. He says 15 minutes! Rubbish! More like 45 minutes!.

Oooh nearly forgot the pudding.

 It was cooking this recipe that I burnt my finger. Also I forgot to time how long I had this cooking in the oven and going on the final results it was rather runny. So guess I hadn't cooked it long enough, but it had a lovely flavour. So nice that I forgot to take a picture!

Going to make it again, because I want to prove to myself that I can make it right.

Again I can recommend this book, if it is still in print.


























 
Oh lets have a small break from cooking and I'll show you some flowers that No 3 and hubby bought me.

Aren't they gorgeous roses?

Strange I go ages without flowers and then find I have three vases full of them as dad came with some flowers too.

Golly are we not blessed by having a world created with so many wonderful flowers.

OK now onto the final leg of my cookery books.  For dinner I did something fairly simple as I did not want to spend the whole of the day cooking.

I cooked the stuffed chicken in bacon coats which we had with jacket potatoes and salad. In fact I did enough so that we can have this again tomorrow. YMCA - yesterdays meal come again.

This was one of mom's cookery books.
























And finally pudding.

Fancied cooking this eastern rice pudding. It was very easy to make and had a refreshing new flavour from what we are used to with and English rice pudding.

It was one of those books that I got from the milkman. Mom had to order a few extra pints of milk and I had to pay a pound to the milkman to get it. Haven't used it so much in the later years but used it quite a bit when we first got married.














So there we go eight books to deduct from the score.  Good job I've just finished writing this blog as No 3 has just sent me a text to say they will be arriving back here very shortly! Never a dull moment in this house.


  51 books used. 76 books to go. 232 days to go to the end of the challenge.