I'll be cabling in my sleep!

It hasn't been the craftiest of days. DH has had today off work and I've been attempting to do an impression of a busy little housewife - LOL! I managed to squeeze in a bit of sewing.

A dear friend of mine is going through a very bad time at work and is under a lot of stress. I considered buying her some flowers but then realised something to bust that stress might be in order.

A Dammit Doll to take it out on:


She was very pleased with him and is going to share him with her colleagues next week - poor little guy won't last 5 minutes! (You should see my kids when they get hold of one of these - the pent up aggression is scary!)

It was a very soggy and grey afternoon so I hit the kitchen. I used all my leftover veg to make a big pot of soup. A bizarre combination of veg went in but with a little tweeking it ended up being very tasty and wonderfully comforting.

It included an onion, two carrots, a parsnip, half a savoy cabbage, the end of a marrow, 4 mushrooms and some leftover sweetcorn plus veg bouillon powder. Before I blitzed it in the liquidizer it resembled watery cabbage soup -mmmm.

Ever done the cabbage soup diet? - I never have but I've witnessed it (M-I-L!), including the (raw looking) minced beef 'soup' (?) day and the bananas only day - yum!

The kids loved my soup - even when I told them it included (gasp) mushrooms.

I made my best ever bread too. I ignored the quick bread recipe on the flour pack and went for the slow option. I used easy yeast but let it 'grow' with the warm water and sugar:

Isn't yeast wonderfully weird.

Then I mixed and kneaded and left the dough to rise. I then knocked it back, kneaded and left it to rise again on the baking tray. I was so excited as it came out like a real 'bloomer' loaf - just like Tesco's! (is that a good thing?) only much, much, better and with just 6 ingredients.

My beautiful babes loved it and the Sausage Monster informed me it was the best bread he'd ever eaten (have I told you just how much I love that little man?)- DH said it was v nice.

I only tend to get compliments on my culinary expertise from DH when I've done something complicated like cook some oven chips and fry an egg - or made beans on toast. I suppose being asked by your wife every 2 seconds if you like the soup/bread/cake might not help with spontaneity in the compliments department!!!

I needed to bake a cake this afternoon. I found a recipe for marmalade cake from my Mum's very old Good Housekeeping cookbook. I always seem to end up with some leftover marmalade in the fridge so this seemed like a good idea.

The recipe calls for orange marmalade. I used grapefruit because it's what I had. It also called for glace icing made with oranges.I used lemons because that's what I had. I am so like my Mother sometimes it scares me :-) She was an amazing cook but she never followed a recipe to the letter. Her daughter is just as fearless - wow do I live life on the edge ;-)

I recklessly put the cake in to bake just before going to fetch the kids from school. When we got back it was done. If we'd been another 5 minutes it would have been overdone. Another 10 and the kitchen could have started smoking!! See above - life on the edge - you don't know the half of it!!

A slice of this was our dessert tonight. My beautiful beautiful (easy to please) babies loved it - and were totally disgusted when their father snuck out to the kitchen a couple more times for an extra slice or two. He tried to pretend he hadn't but the crumbs and hamster cheeks totally gave the game away!
That surely is compliment enough - but I may have asked once or twice more if he liked it! I'm like a little old dog desperate to be told what a good girl I am! See I'm sitting up and begging too...

In keeping with the recklessness of the day I even dared to bring out my cable knitting before the kids went to bed. They were watching Lord of the Rings - The Two Towers (against my better judgement - according to DH cert 15 doesn't necessarily mean you have to be 15 in order to watch something) and being reassured it was 'just a story' and 'just men in suits' or 'just computer graphics'.

So while my three kids (DH included here) were goggled eyed I cabled - and cabled - and cabled. The pattern is repeated over 12 rows and I did about 36 which, for me the cabling newbie, was pretty good going. I've about another 10cm to go on the back of the jacket and then to the fronts and sleeves.

The pattern has finally clicked with me, which helps, although I still have to keep note of which row I'm on - but I have sped up a bit. Who knows the Minx might even get to wear it whilst it still fits!!

I also coloured my hair today - plum (had me down as blonde did you?). Every time I've looked in the mirror - which was often having just coloured my hair - my Mum's voice said 'I prefer your hair lighter than that - it looks a bit too dark' and I've looked back and said 'it's my hair and everyone else really likes it!'. It's amazing how you can miss someone so much - and she always was bossy :-)

I'm not sure what the weekend will hold blogwise. Saturday is swimming, dancing, football, a bit of food shopping and Sunday - well Sunday might be tricky as it would have been my Mum's 71st birthday. DH is going away on Sunday - up to North Wales for his job interview. I'm also taking the kids to a friend's birthday party. I may/ may not blog - we'll see.