Unbought Delicacies: 13/10/2013

Thursday 17 October 2013

Shetland Wool Week

Some wonderful pictures here

http://jamiesonandsmith.wordpress.com/2013/10/15/wool-week-2013-at-js-in-pictures/

Wednesday 16 October 2013

Cream of tomato soup

- homemade soup that is :) , can't be beaten, especially at this time of the year. Today's lunch is cream of tomato soup

Fill a roasting tin with ripe tomatoes, drizzle with your preferred oil, teaspoon each of sugar and sea salt and some freshly ground black pepper, bit of chopped garlic. Roast in a hot oven until very soft ad just starting to turn colour. Turn the whole lot into a saucepan and add a chopped onion, simmer with the lid on until onions soft and cooked through. Remove from heat, then liquidise and pour back into rinsed pan. Heat to almost boiling point, then stir in a tablespoon of double cream and serve.

Ironically I was reading a copy of Lakeland's latest catalogue over lunch - their soupmaking machine is £599. Ok, so it makes ice cream and crushes ice too................... but where's the fun in that?

Tuesday 15 October 2013

My small contribution

The only way I can help at the moment - this pile of hats is ready to be packed up and sent off to a collection point to be taken to Syrian refugee camps, for the children over the winter. Please help if you can

https://www.facebook.com/SavethebabiesSyria

or via Save the Children

Monday 14 October 2013

Prickly customers

Here are my newly re-potted cacti :) I'm not a huge fan of cactus and succulent plants, truth be told, but I picked these up at the tip about 3 years ago, saving them from being tipped into the compost skip, poor things. They came in wee blue ceramic bowls, which they seemed happy enough in. I put them outside this year for the summer and they've really grown on well, so decided to re-pot them to see them through the next couple of years. I bought cheery wee striped buckets for them and think they look great. Not sure I'll ever be adding to the collection, but I like these well enough now :)

Sunday 13 October 2013

Might be time....................

....... to do some bottling!

Autumn kitchen

Hyacinths ready for storing away in the dark for a few weeks; tray of roasted tomatoes ready for soup making ( locally grown tomatoes in our local community shop, mixture of plum and round ); crochet snowflakes made in between cooking, from a free gift with my crochet magazine; Sunday breakfast

I have found such joy

I have found such joy in simple things;
A plain, clean room, a nut-brown loaf of bread,
A cup of milk, a kettle as it sings,
The shelter of a roof above my head,
And in a leaf-laced square along the floor,
Where yellow sunlight glimmers through the door.
I have found such joy in things that fill
My quiet days: a curtain's blowing grace,
A potted plant upon my window sill,
A rose, fresh-cut and placed within a vase;
A table cleared, a lamp beside a chair,
And books I long have loved beside me there.
Oh, I have found such joys I wish I might
Tell every woman who goes seeking far
For some elusive, feverish delight,
That very close to home the great joys are:
The elemental things- old as the race,
Yet never, through the ages, commonplace.

~ Grace Noll Crowell

Ideas for handmade gifts

Small knitteds - gloves, scarves, hot water bottle covers, hats, tea cosies, phone covers, little toys,,cushion covers, bags. Some of these can be felted/fulled for extra interest.
Edibles - chutneys and jams, pickles, nice teas in a vintage/retro tin, sweeties, toffees, mustard, home made wine and liqueurs, home dried fruits, ketchups.
For the home - trimmed tea towels, handknitted dishcloths, quilted wallhangings, small samplers, restored picture frames, pot pourri, lavender bags, covered coathangers, little scented bags for hanging on handles, framed photos of family,etc you've taken yourself, pincushion,needle book, scissor keeper, book of promises (eg babysitting, 1 hour's housework, the ironing, etc)
Bathtime - homemade soap, bath oils, bath salts, knitted washcloths, herbal bags for the bath, hand sewn toilet bags, trimmed hand towels, homemade lotions and potions packed in pretty jars and bottles.
For the garden - home saved seed in handmade decorated packets; homemade handcream, exfoliating soap, wheat bag for those digger's aches and pains!

Handmade books, personalised printed notepaper and envelopes.
Hamper of bits and bobs from the above lists, packed in a pretty lined basket.

I'll add some more as and when I think of them; These can be used all year round and easily tailored to the recipient - everyone loves a homemade gift. :)

Inspiring thoughts.............

I saw a man, an old Cilician, who occupied an acre or two of land that no one wanted.
A patch not worth the ploughing, unrewarding for flocks, unfit for vineyards;
he, however, by planting here and there among the scrub cabbages or white lilies and verbena and flimsy poppies, fancied himself a king in wealth, and coming home late in the evening, loaded his board with unbought delicacies.
Virgil

I had no theories to prove. I merely wanted to try living by my own hands, independently as far as possible from a system of division of labour in which the participant loses most of the pleasure of making and growing things for himself. I wanted to bring in my own fuel and smell its sweet smell as it burned in the hearth I had made. I wanted to grow my own food, or forage after it. In short I wanted to do as much as I could for myself, because I had already realised from partial experience the inexpressible joy of doing so.

Harlan Hubbard, Shantyboat: A River Way of Life

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