Pick a Plum, Bake a Plum, Eat a Plum

Morning all!
Yesterday was a horribly grey and wet day. Some days you wonder what to do on those days, curl up in front of the fire, patchwork, read a much loved book or go into the garden with the parentals and a step ladder and pick plums off a very wet plum tree. Yup we did the latter. I was not allowed up the ladder... Humph!
We managed to get most of the plums off the tree and amazingly this year the plums are the most delicious little mouthfuls of purpleness. The past few years if the tree were to be honest with itself its crop has not been a tasty one at all.

So what to do with all the plums... well the Mothership took some home to freeze as our Granny Ivy freezer is too teeny tiny. I on the other hand decided to make a crumble. I don't know why I thought this was a good idea as we had decided to go on a pudding ban after the weekend and you have to have cream with crumble. Shame!

So to the crumble. I like doing crumble. It's something I can do sitting down. You just sit and crumb all the dry ingredients together while the plums soften down in the pan.

For the crumble topping you need:
75g of chilled butter, diced,
175g self-raising flour,
110g Demerara sugar.

Pop the softened plums in your pot. Pop the crumble over the top. Pop the lot in the oven until everything is golden brown and bubbling. Serve with lashings of cream and try to be patient so you don't burn your mouth. We failed... enjoy!

P. S. Any spare crumble can be popped in a bag and popped in the freezer for the next crumble day.

The Flame!

Well hello there my loverducks, 

No posts for a few days, life has just run away with itself over the weekend, having people to stay is hard work isn't it? Just getting out of bed is hard enough for me most days!

Anyway I'm back and I have exciting news. Firstly my lovely friend Em is coming for tea, the pizza dough is rising by me in bed, the recipe said a warm place, so we're both tucked up under the duvet! Secondly we saw the olympic flame! 

Photos taken by Mr Lardshow

Now I'm not really one for joining in with the crowd and cheering along madly but there seems to be a wonderful feeling falling over the country at the moment. We all, myself included, are feeling a great sense of pride that the Olympics are taking place here in our beautiful land. There's also the knowledge that this may be the only opportunity we will have in our lifetime to see such events. 

Saturday morning and the alarms went off extremely bright and early, thanks to my Mother's amazing navigational skills we travelled in convoy and avoided all the traffic and closed roads and managed to get a nice little pitch next to a roundabout in Streethay. Mr Lardshow's mum and I rested our weary legs from the short walk on the camping chairs we'd taken, we had some funny looks off the local policemen but I think they were a bit fearful of what would happen if they told us to move. So we were ready and waiting, the buzz from the crowd was amazing, there was an incredible sense of anticipation in the air. 

After a while the convoy started to pass by us and eventually a coach with the torch bearers stopped in front of us. Panic set in, were we going to miss the flame? I say panic set in. Several of the crowd started to move to make sure they wouldn't miss anything. I didn't! I'm a professional when it comes to sitting in a chair, you sit in it and let others panic around you, you don't move, ever! Thankfully there was no need to panic because amazingly we had managed to position ourselves in the perfect spot.

We were sitting directly in front of where the torch was going to be passed on. Our torch bearer was a young lad called Jack. He was brilliant! Full of confidence, posing for photos, letting small children come and have their photo taken with him and the torch. 

The look of pride on Jack's face when his torch was lit was just a joy and a privilege to see. I'm so glad we managed to get out and see it. It was well worth it. Who knows maybe one day I'll be able to tell my granchildren that even though I didn't get to compete in the Olympics I did get to see the Olypic torch. 

The torches

Can I urge anyone reading this, who has the opportunity to still see the torch relay to go. It really is a spectatcular sight! Go, you may never get the chance again...

Jack

A big thank you to Mr Lardshow for letting me use his photos from the day, if you'd like to see some more of his amazing pics, please feel free to have a look. Just click on the link below.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lardshow/

I cooked a chicken (but forgot to take any photos)

Good evening my lovely readers,
Well I am cream crackered! It's been a busy couple of days and (don't tell the pain management ladies) I haven't been pacing at all. I've managed quite a few things that I'm really proud of. I drove on my own for the first time in months yesterday, I went to yoga, I did a shop, I went to pain management and today I cooked a whole chicken!

Mr Lardshow's parents have come down for the weekend for the first time so I am in a house full of Lardshows and meat eaters, the cats are in heaven! So after much debate about what to cook for them we decided on a roast chicken. Up to this point I have got away with just cooking pieces of meat but today I bit the bullet (not the chicken) and had a go. After trawling through my cookery books I found a nice simple recipe from the voluptuous Nigella. Mr Lardshow was dispatched to a good butchers and bought a high quality free range chicken. Hopefully the chicken had a happy, clucky life.

The happy chuck was popped in the oven with lemon, potatoes, shallots and a whole bulb of garlic sliced in half with some olive oil, thyme, salt and pepper. Lots of mathematical doings were done to calculate how long it needed to be in the oven but in the end I opted for going and having a bath and leaving the responsibility of the chicken to Mr Lardshow. As Baldrick sort of used to say 'I had a cunning plan'!

So, by the time I got out of the bath the chicken was done and all we needed to do was put the Yorkshire puddings in, warm through the mash and steam the veggies. Dinner was done! As is now the norm, I spend all of dinnertime staring at people's plates quizzing them on whether the meat is cooked and hoping it tastes ok. Tonight though I had the added bonus of Mr Lardshow senior constantly offering me random bits of chicken to taste for myself...I declined!

Anyway dinner was a success, our bellies are full and we've collapsed onto the sofa to watch the end of the tennis.

It's nearly bedtime now, I'm really tired and I REALLY want to have the energy to go and see the Olympic Flame in Lichfield. I want to be a part of it in my 'Official Team GB' hoodie in spite of the pain. Cross those fingers! Night Night all xBx

Sun Tea for Miss Adele

I was chatting across the ocean to my lovely Canadian friend Miss Adele and she gave me the inspiration for this post. She said all you needed was a teabag, a jar and some sun. Not a problem you might think but that big, glowing ball in the sky has been rather elsuive of late...

This morning the sun came out! I was out in my garden with my Parentals and I found myself shielding my eyes from the sun, such a surprise and finally a chance to try out Miss Adele's idea.

So the idea is you take any teabag of your choce, the fruitier the better and you pop it in a jar with cold water. You then place the jar outside in the sun. As the sun's beams hit the jar they warm the water and help the tea to stew/brew/mash.

My sun tea is still brewing outside, I'm not sure how warm it's going to be as the sun has gone and all we're left with is a cloudy, muggy day. It was fun taking the photos and watching the water gently change colour. I'm really enjoying developing all my photos.

So what sun tea will you make?