Author: Sarah

No time to lose. No, time to lose. Make time to stand and stare.... Did you see that?

Frozen milk

We woke to the telephone. Being the first day of half term no-one had to be anywhere at any particular time and Cyclo decided that a bike ride was out of the question, so we hadn’t set the alarm. It seems the plumber had been up for hours and it was before 9am. I suppose it wasn’t surprising since the temperature was pretty low last night, down to -14c in some places. Anyhoo, the plumber was ringing as I had left a message last night – for a leak unrelated to the cold. The shower pump – again.

I got up and bought in the milk which had frozen and spilled out into small globules on the doorstep, then took a tray of tea back up to bed, where it was warmer.

Pippi-long-Stocking, the cat, enjoyed eating the milk globules Continue reading “Frozen milk”

This one makes its own custard

I’m not a big maker of puds, though the chaps would eat one everyday… but somehow with yesterday’s weather I thought maybe a pudding would be appropriate.

The main course being duck, I thought an orangey pudding would fit the bill (sorry, I couldn’t resist) and I altered a recipe to take into account the ingredients we had. And here it is:

Orange Surprise Pudding Continue reading “This one makes its own custard”

A little something for the weekend?

Saturday:

The snow was forecast. We had been warned. And so it was, at about 4pm, a few small flakes fell as I came back from the shops. Not enough to stick. Not at first. But it was pretty cold.

By the time I had come in and made a cup of tea the snow fall had thickened a little: I could see that the bonnet of my husband’s blue car had a coating of icing sugar.

By supper time when we looked out at the patio we saw this

and laid the dining room table.

Continue reading “A little something for the weekend?”

A tad nippy

After class (adult-learning evening class) we sometimes used to go to a pub in Summertown called ‘The Dew Drop Inn’ – (what an awful pun) for a glass of a favourite tipple and a debrief: but the name came to mind this afternoon on the way back from work when I stopped for a photo of the trees hung with Christmas decoration style icicles…. I think they caught my eye because of the sun’s position in the sky.

Continue reading “A tad nippy”

Order and chaos

A civilised cup of tea (Earl Grey) this afternoon at my Aunt and Uncle’s house provided the photo opportunity I needed to enter the current photo competition here on the Chariot. A chance ray of sunshine lit up the water vapour as it streamed up into the air above the teapot spout as each movement in the room changed its shape and momentum – and after the tea was poured more visible clouds chaotically formed and dispersed in the sunshine.

Continue reading “Order and chaos”

Marmalade: reduced sugar.

I had a difficult mathematical calculation for a woman of limited mathematical ability: how to calculate the right ratios for a ‘reduced sugar marmalade’ (without resorting to sugar substitutes) from the existing figures!

I had the specific amounts of ‘sugar to fruit’ from Earlybird, who had success – then googled to see what recipes were out there. Not many. I didn’t have the amount of water I should use. And anyway I had a different weight of oranges than any of the recipes I found!

Anyhoo, maths and estimates done, this is what I came up with:

Reduced Sugar Marmalade

2kg Seville oranges, 4 litres water, 2 lemons, 2.75 kg sugar.
(My original recipe has a ratio of ‘fruit to sugar’ of 1:2: so 2kg of oranges would require 4kg sugar- so the reduction in this recipe is significant) Continue reading “Marmalade: reduced sugar.”