Dogs & Ducks

Hmmmm......Why does a dog destroy it's favourite toy? Maybe it is a sign......I'd better go and buy some bones....There are a few pot holes out in the garden too! I've ended up with a dog who is so like my first dog I ever owned, a hole digger. Not to worry she is just a bit bored, and she's only little (in age that is, not size!)

R.I.P. Duck!

New Year Lights

This is my bird tree....the last one up for the New Year....

This one is staying up till it's the time
to take them down......I don't want bad luck 

This one down....it's so big it gets in the way!

I'm Having a Weird Font Day.....

Can I get my original font to work on my browser?  No.......so I've changed it for now. But that's okay I will figure it out eventually with a little help I suspect. So if you see lots of font changes it's me trying to fix things LOL!

Boiled Cake Baking

I have too many dried sultanas and I don't know what to with them......so it's cake baking time!
This is a very old recipe I'm not sure where it came from....... it's just written on a messy scrap of paper  stuck in my baking book (it's not even in metric measurements). It must be fifteen years since I made this cake so I have forgotten whether I let the sultanas cool before adding the rest of the ingredients. I settled for warm sultanas and hoped the sultana cake wouldn't go heavy.......It didn't it was a success and looks rustic, messy, yummy and perhaps just little bit too too tasty!
Boiled Cake Recipe
Ingredients:
1lb of sultanas
1/2 lb butter
3 eggs
1 teacup of sugar (I use 1/2 to 3/4)
21/2 cups flour
1tsp baking powder (mine was heaped)
1 tsp vanilla (I used a cap full)
Method:
Cover sultanas with water and boil 5 minutes then strain.
Cut in the butter (put in with the sultanas, it melts)
Beat egg and sugar then add in the sultana butter mix.
Then fold in the rest of the dry ingredients.
Cook at 325 degrees for 1 1/4 hours
I cooked my cake at 180 Celsius for 1 hour

Baked in a round cake tin

The Sewing Cat

Oh it's sad...... my pin picking cat is not pin picking any more (that's a bit of a tongue twister). He only pinched one pin out of the couch and lost total interest in the rest, he usually picks them all out......He's getting old now and is on his last legs, mind you I've been saying that for years......

See the pin in his mouth.....
Very freaky you always think he will swallow it

Gherkins I luv These

As you can see not much sewing is getting done at Eastgate Hill. I think I'll let the fates decide today where my thoughts and actions wander off to....Here is a good recipe I found on a blog called Sew Darn Cute. I've lost mine and homemade Dill Pickles/Gherkins are such a treat, much better than the shop bought ones ( bottling is my preserving method)......Not many calories either if your diet conscious......

Sew Darn Cute: Homemade Dill Pickles: I grew up in a home where we canned everything. I wasn't always a fan of the process, but I am a fan of the results. My FAVORITE thing to ...

Crazy Cooking

I'm getting a new sewing machine isn't that so exciting?  In the mean time I'm cooking, and I hate cooking......I try to ignore it most days, but you know someone has to do it and I am the chosen one. For my recipe of choice I made an Egg and Bacon pie minus the top pastry. 

Of course I couldn't just make Egg and Bacon pie and make my life easy.....I substituted grated cheese and sliced tomatoes for the top pastry. I also had no spring onions so I added dry onions ( they are not good as they give you a rumbly bottom) to the egg and bacon mix, then I chucked in some peas. Now that would have been all very nice except I decided to throw in a couple of dollops of sour cream......Well that impulsive action took away from the egg and bacon taste and left the pastry soggy..... No worries there though, I just cut up some slices of pie and popped them on a pizza tray with holes and crisped the bottom....


The salad well that was not much of an effort either. I'm into effortless...all the greens came from a bag and I soaked avocado in lime juice and was so impressed that for once I cut the avocado up nicely...I'm glad yesterday is over. Tonight I'm off out at dinner time so I won't be cooking....

The bacon sunk it must be the sour cream....

That's not dirt on the bottom it's pepper...