Monday 28 October 2013

Ahhhh .. The Smell of Starch .....


Hello there ..
hope everyone is safe and well ... here in the UK we have had a huge storm.
Luckily we saw little of it here on Anglesey .. but some poor people haven't fared so well ... the reports on the news are upsetting.

Mother Nature can be a nasty piece of work at times.

So today ... 
I've been washing and ironing ... ans starching some lovely lacy linen.



I bought a boxful from one of the clearance guys .. it was all crumpled and a bit grubby ... but it was cheap enough. 
The clearance guys don't know what to do with it .. they are happy to move it on quickly.


So I cart the box home and sort the good from the bad .. and give it a good soaking .. and a good boil wash ... and iron and starch it up ... then its all ready for sale 
... ready to grace someone's table this Christmas tide.



 A lot of work ... but its nice to bring these lovely old linens back to life .
It looks a bit like a chinese laundry 
... and probably smells like one
 ...I just love that starchy linen smell.

In between washing and ironing I had to do something with all these bags of fruit from out of the freezer.


 It being a bumper year for fruit .. the freezer is full of the stuff ...we only have a smallish freezer (there only being the two of us ... that being the logic a couple of years ago .. when we were 'simplyfying ' things!).

Anyway .... Sunday trading was good for us ... and we talked of stocking up for winter with meat ... sacks of spuds etc.
I stopped at the butchers van as he and we were preparing to pack up ... and got a bit of a good deal.



 Loads of meat for my £25 ...
As you can see ...  Black Pudding (a huge one ) a tray of Tomato Sausage ... 6 chicken breasts ... 7 pork chops .. a good 'dinner' of minty lamb chops (Hubby P's favourite ) and a small joint of nice looking beef.
Wonderful ... bargain!

But where to put it all ....? 
So thus we come to the pan full of frozen fruit ... it had to come out of the freezer to make room for the meat.
At least the fruit wont be wasted ... I just tipped it all in the pan together .. it was mostly apple and gooseberry ... and jammed it.


I just about had enough random looking jars ... I made quite a 'loose' sorta jam and not too sweet 
... it still has that nice tartness you get with gooseberries. 

I will eat this as a jelly/sauce with meat and cheese as well as all the other useful things jam can be put to.

For tea .... well I had to try the tomato sausage .. so I made a hearty 'toad in the hole '... I had one carrot left and a stump of a cabbage .. so that was veg. 
Its trading day tomorrow so I will see my friendly greengrocer and see what he has that looks good .. or cheap!

I tried a bit of the new jam with my toad in the hole... very nice ... not that anything would persuade Hubby P to eat jam with sausages!

Are you a jam and sausages type of person ...or is it just me...!?

xx