Cooking Day

Cooking Day 

When the weather turns colder My thoughts turn to cooking!!

About 2 weeks ago I had bought apples and treacle meaning to actually make an apple pie and also a treacle pudding.

Apple pie

 2 weeks later both were still in the cupboard. So today I got to it, and actually made the apple pie. I make an awful mess when I make pastry as anyone will tell you, with flour and implements all over the place. So today I found a video of making pastry in a food processor and decided to do it this way. Not difficult and more control. The pastry tasted just fine but did I make a mess? Yes. I still had flour everywhere especially as my new bag of flour just wouldn't all go in my flour bin and my trying to squash it in didn't actually work. Still I cleared it all up and the apple pie smelled and tasted great especially with a big dollop of ice cream.

Cauliflower Cheese

Mike, not to be outdone, had found a recipe for cauliflower cheese with ham which he made. It was a different recipe from the one he usually uses. He wanted me to say which recipe was best but until I have a taste test with both on the same day, I don't think I want to choose. This recipe today was very nice.

No time or room left in our stomachs to make and eat a treacle pudding, I'll do that on another cold day.

Mrs Kimble by Jennifer Haigh

Mrs Kimble by Jennifer Haigh

A very interesting work of fiction of 3 ladies all called Mrs Kimble. They span the years from the 1950s up to almost the present. 

This is a book of relationships between husband and wife , children and their parents and siblings. All are related through their husband ,Mr Kimble.

This book in fact could have been called the 3 Mrs Kimbles as they are all married to the same man but do not realize it. The book develops slowly and at first you think it will revolve around the son Charlie of the first wife but in fact it develops as Ken Kimble leaves one wife to go on to the next.

This is one of those books that the more you read the more interested you become in the story,

November 5th, Guy Fawkes Day

November 5^th, Guy Fawkes Day

Remember remember the fifth of November
Gunpowder, treason and plot.
I see no reason why gunpowder, treason
Should ever be forgot...

A treason plot that went very wrong and a traitor who got what was coming to him ( or so they say). 

Guy Fawkes day in Britain these days is no longer a state holiday as it once was but now more a social day of bonfires and fireworks.

I didn't much care for this day and celebration in England when I was growing up. It comes in November and it is often a wet, cold, foggy time. I did not care for the boys throwing fireworks around and I am always a bit wary of fires.

One thing I do remember is we would make a GUY up of old clothes stuffed with newspaper and then go around saying.” Penny for the Guy' It got to be quite a competition in my street.

My Dad loved to have a bonfire and I think it was him who helped us make the bonfire and burn up the guy.( and a lot of other junk as well).

“Guy Guy string him up on High!!”

Photography Tip- Check the Background.

Photography Tip- Check the Background.

Like a lot of people these days when I take photos I just whip out my little pocket camera , turn it on and snap away not really composing the shot as I might do if I was trying to take a “beautiful” or “artistic” photograph.

I am sure if I had a cell phone that took photos I be even more”snap happy” than I am.

Often you see photos that people have taken on facebook or on the web and you can see they were “snap happy” as well. Some turn out to be hilarious because of the weird composition or added item that should not be there.

What I mean is, the scene comes into view, you take a photo and sometimes this can happen.

Fortunately for me I usually take a couple of quick snaps and my second one was MUCH better.

Tip : Check the background carefully to avoid these kind of mistakes or the meaning and or feeling is quite changed!!

Changing the clocks

Changing the clocks  

Twice a year because years ago someone thought this was a good idea certain places decided to put the clocks either back or forward an hour.

Now depending entirely on where you live this still happens .In the Spring or Fall we go through the routine of changing the clocks.

I really think it is a bit silly. Do you want dark mornings or dark evenings? It depends on your lifestyle. If you like dark mornings why not leave the clocks set on Summertime. If you like the dark evenings set it on standard time. Have a vote and I can almost guarantee it will come out 50/50.

So now we go on from year to year.

The most sensible clock in our house

We have many more clocks these days and some are very difficult to reset. I'm glad I don't have to do it as I am sure I'd leave most of them the same way and just remember that those clocks run an hour late or fast. Maybe I'd only have one clock except for the one on the computer which seems to reset itself. Wonderful!!

I know twice a year my poor dogs and cats think I am definitely not going to feed them today as the time comes and I don't get their food ready. They hover and meow until the correct hour for feeding finally comes and they can relax. This goes on for quite a few days until their interior clocks get reset .

Now is this really fair to the poor pets??

Lily on the pond

my not very successful painting

This month's painting challenge on http://paintanddrawtogether.blogspot.com/  was a photograph of a beautiful water lily on a pond. It looked simply enough until I tried it.
I thought I would have a change and do an oil painting on a larger canvas but didn't reckon on the oil paints having dried out considerably during the hot summer months when I had been painting with mostly water colors. I had left the oil paints out on the side and in my hot studio room with only occasional air conditioning ,some of the paints must have become so hot the tops came right off and the tubes went hard. I didn't think an oil paint would do that. Also my linseed oil had gone into a jelly like mass so even though I started the painting I gave up pretty quickly with it.
So I went back to the water colors and really just didn't like the results I was getting. The reflection on the water was difficult to do and no way could I find the correct pink/mauve color for the lily. 

Original challenge photo

So this is not one of the painting I like very much.
There's always next month's challenge to look forward to.

Washington -on -the Brazos

Mike entering the museum

Last weekend on our way to COTA( Circuit of the Americas) we stopped off to visit the place where the Texas Declaration of independence was signed in 1836 when it became a republic ,breaking away from Mexico.

It is in a lovely area close to Brenham in a rolling area of pastoral fields and hills just a short way south east of Austin.

Early settlers in Texas

It was well worth the trip. It is set in the State park and we spent most of our time in the beautiful Museum there. It is in a lovely building and is one of the best museums I have been in because it has gathered the main artifacts of the time, historical and social and put it together so that it is interesting and very informative with out being boring or overloading the senses with too much information and exhibits.

Theme exhibits

 It is set up as a time-line so it it easy to follow the course of history. There is a short video, which is well done to give you an overview of the time in case you didn't know it ( we didn't) . There is a special area for the kiddos if they come so that they will have things that interest them. I gather from the pleasant volunteers we talked with that this is a place many children visit in the summer when their families stay at the park.

If you are down this way at all it is well worth the visit.

The main part of the Declaration of Independence