Hurrah for Easter (I think)!
Apr. 11th, 2009 04:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
blackberry444I feel fairly shattered today.
I spent all of yesterday making Gluten Free Hot Cross Buns and a Gluten Free Simnel cake. I can't believe it took me so long, but I get so tired nowadays that I have to keep stopping and taking a break.
I have to say that the Hot Cross Buns were totally Not Worth The Effort. They rose OK, but the dough was sticky and difficult to handle and the finished buns looked more like rock buns. They tasted OK-ish, but the texture was horrible, rather like a natural bath sponge and too chewy to be enjoyable.
The cake looks and smells right, but it is ominously heavy. I had to get Charles to put it under the grill and take it out for me, and John to carry it into the dining room in its protective box, because I was afraid I would drop it. It's true that my hands are particularly clumsy lately, but I don't remember a Simnel cake being that heavy before.
We had planned to have a Bull day today, but Charles had to go out shopping with John and no-one felt like starting housework at 3.00 pm, so John will clean the kitchen tomorrow morning (on Easter Day, bless him!) while I lie in and Charles will do the rest whenever. I shall blitz the bathroom sometime over the next couple of days. The worst room of all is my room. It's untidy and inches thick in dust and Charles keeps saying he'll clean it for me, but keeps forgetting, and I don't like to nag. Every so often I tidy it ready to be cleaned, but it just gets like a tip again really quickly.
I don't care whether the housework gets done or not, I want to spend time tomorrow and on Monday clearing out the yard so that I can get my pots ready for planting; surely we can't have another awful year like last year when it wasn't worth doing anything because the weather was so foul? Before I can do that, however, I have to go and buy a yard broom because the old one has fallen to pieces.
Oh goody! A trip to the garden centre tomorrow!
I also have to decide how to rearrange the tiny space available now that we have a blue recycling wheely bin as well as an ordinary green one. What with those two, and the compost bin, there's precious little room out there! I want to buy one of the plastic raised beds I've seen in a catalogue so that I can grow lettuce and stuff, but I can't figure out where to find the space for it.
One of Charles' books arrived this morning, but he's expecting another one and so am I; I'm also expecting a new pair of hair clippers so that I can do something with my awful hair. I managed to trim part of it before the old ones gave up the ghost, but not all of it, so quite a lot of my hair is far too long and it's worse on the left side than on the right, because I managed to do the right side before the clippers conked out. Even Charles noticed that it was uneven and cut a little off for me. It's not like Amazon to take so long with sending things out. Oh! actually, come to think of it, the clippers were bought on e-Bay.
Yesterday Charles went out for a browse round the city centre with his Mental Elf; I am so pleased that he was allocated to Christian. They're of an age and have similar tastes; they both like the same kind of music and SF books. Yesterday Charles bought a staggeringly expensive Limited Edition CD. I'm sure Mr Darling would approve his attempts to restart the economy singlehandedly!
Today we're having a small gammon joint. I've already cooked it in my new pressure cooker, bought from Amazon; Charles has soaked the split peas and is at this minute making pease pudden with the cooking liquor. I still have to bake the gammon, but it won't take long to do. I'm so glad to have a working pressure cooker again, I've really missed it. I must be extra careful not to destroy this one! For some reason I find potatoes cooked in the pressure cooker taste much better than boiled potatoes.
Tomorrow we're having roast beef with all the trimmings. John and I went to Sainsbury on Thursday and bought GF Yorkshires (Hurrah! No more hockey pucks!) and Sainsbury's GF fish fingers as recommended by Linz and Dave. Sainsbury had lots of nice GF things, so we came away with different sorts of biscuits and even Jam Doughnuts and Bakewell Tarts! Charles pronounced them all excellent, so we shall go there for GF stuff in future. Almost everything was Sainsbury's own brand and he said they were much better than the stuff we usually get from Morrison's; the biscuits were nicely crisp, I know because I tried a tiny piece of both kinds.
He and John went shopping today and Bless him, Charles came back with shop-bought Hot Cross Buns to make up for the disappointment of the GF ones I made.
Because I bought the gammon as an impulse buy in Sainsbury's, I'm not sure what to do with the nice big free-range chicken. I thought I might freeze it for next weekend, but Charles wants us to have it on Monday; I think I might be suffering from protein overload by then. On the other hand, I could try roasting it in my huge new slow cooker. I think it will fit in there. I wish the slow cooker book would hurry up and arrive!
Oooo! I do love Lesley Garret singing The Day Thou Gavest, Lord, Is Ended; it's my favourite evening hymn and I plan to have it at my funeral, but it's amazing how much better it sounds sung by her with a full orchestra. Oh dear! She's now singing You'll Never Walk Alone, which I've always loathed; even she can't make me like it! I love the CD though
Considering how little my weekend has gone to plan so far, it's amazing how happy I feel this afternoon.
I spent all of yesterday making Gluten Free Hot Cross Buns and a Gluten Free Simnel cake. I can't believe it took me so long, but I get so tired nowadays that I have to keep stopping and taking a break.
I have to say that the Hot Cross Buns were totally Not Worth The Effort. They rose OK, but the dough was sticky and difficult to handle and the finished buns looked more like rock buns. They tasted OK-ish, but the texture was horrible, rather like a natural bath sponge and too chewy to be enjoyable.
The cake looks and smells right, but it is ominously heavy. I had to get Charles to put it under the grill and take it out for me, and John to carry it into the dining room in its protective box, because I was afraid I would drop it. It's true that my hands are particularly clumsy lately, but I don't remember a Simnel cake being that heavy before.
We had planned to have a Bull day today, but Charles had to go out shopping with John and no-one felt like starting housework at 3.00 pm, so John will clean the kitchen tomorrow morning (on Easter Day, bless him!) while I lie in and Charles will do the rest whenever. I shall blitz the bathroom sometime over the next couple of days. The worst room of all is my room. It's untidy and inches thick in dust and Charles keeps saying he'll clean it for me, but keeps forgetting, and I don't like to nag. Every so often I tidy it ready to be cleaned, but it just gets like a tip again really quickly.
I don't care whether the housework gets done or not, I want to spend time tomorrow and on Monday clearing out the yard so that I can get my pots ready for planting; surely we can't have another awful year like last year when it wasn't worth doing anything because the weather was so foul? Before I can do that, however, I have to go and buy a yard broom because the old one has fallen to pieces.
Oh goody! A trip to the garden centre tomorrow!
I also have to decide how to rearrange the tiny space available now that we have a blue recycling wheely bin as well as an ordinary green one. What with those two, and the compost bin, there's precious little room out there! I want to buy one of the plastic raised beds I've seen in a catalogue so that I can grow lettuce and stuff, but I can't figure out where to find the space for it.
One of Charles' books arrived this morning, but he's expecting another one and so am I; I'm also expecting a new pair of hair clippers so that I can do something with my awful hair. I managed to trim part of it before the old ones gave up the ghost, but not all of it, so quite a lot of my hair is far too long and it's worse on the left side than on the right, because I managed to do the right side before the clippers conked out. Even Charles noticed that it was uneven and cut a little off for me. It's not like Amazon to take so long with sending things out. Oh! actually, come to think of it, the clippers were bought on e-Bay.
Yesterday Charles went out for a browse round the city centre with his Mental Elf; I am so pleased that he was allocated to Christian. They're of an age and have similar tastes; they both like the same kind of music and SF books. Yesterday Charles bought a staggeringly expensive Limited Edition CD. I'm sure Mr Darling would approve his attempts to restart the economy singlehandedly!
Today we're having a small gammon joint. I've already cooked it in my new pressure cooker, bought from Amazon; Charles has soaked the split peas and is at this minute making pease pudden with the cooking liquor. I still have to bake the gammon, but it won't take long to do. I'm so glad to have a working pressure cooker again, I've really missed it. I must be extra careful not to destroy this one! For some reason I find potatoes cooked in the pressure cooker taste much better than boiled potatoes.
Tomorrow we're having roast beef with all the trimmings. John and I went to Sainsbury on Thursday and bought GF Yorkshires (Hurrah! No more hockey pucks!) and Sainsbury's GF fish fingers as recommended by Linz and Dave. Sainsbury had lots of nice GF things, so we came away with different sorts of biscuits and even Jam Doughnuts and Bakewell Tarts! Charles pronounced them all excellent, so we shall go there for GF stuff in future. Almost everything was Sainsbury's own brand and he said they were much better than the stuff we usually get from Morrison's; the biscuits were nicely crisp, I know because I tried a tiny piece of both kinds.
He and John went shopping today and Bless him, Charles came back with shop-bought Hot Cross Buns to make up for the disappointment of the GF ones I made.
Because I bought the gammon as an impulse buy in Sainsbury's, I'm not sure what to do with the nice big free-range chicken. I thought I might freeze it for next weekend, but Charles wants us to have it on Monday; I think I might be suffering from protein overload by then. On the other hand, I could try roasting it in my huge new slow cooker. I think it will fit in there. I wish the slow cooker book would hurry up and arrive!
Oooo! I do love Lesley Garret singing The Day Thou Gavest, Lord, Is Ended; it's my favourite evening hymn and I plan to have it at my funeral, but it's amazing how much better it sounds sung by her with a full orchestra. Oh dear! She's now singing You'll Never Walk Alone, which I've always loathed; even she can't make me like it! I love the CD though
Considering how little my weekend has gone to plan so far, it's amazing how happy I feel this afternoon.
