Skip to main content

The Cure

Goodness, but I was in a proper fuggy bog over the weekend. I started off on Saturday morning all energy and cheerfulness, caught up in planning my Grand Pickly Cook Up and having a girly catch up chat with Darling Daughter, but come lunchtime I was slipping into full zombie mood. So I parked myself on the sofa in front of a couple of films and knitted my way through the grumps. One of the films was ‘The First Wives’ Club’ with Diane Keaton, Bette Midler and Goldie Hawn. It’s a good film and I love Goldie Hawn. She’s one of my Top Five Gals of All Time. Such a babe. Anyway, I made the best of a miserable mood, had an early night, and decided Sunday would be different.

And it was. Just about. I did loads of writing, including the first 1600 words of this year’s Christmas Story. I avoided cooking, save for knocking up some scrambled egg at lunchtime and an apple crumble for dinner. Yup, forget the first course - straight to pudding on a Sunday evening. Such a renegade, eh? Did some more knitting. Made a shopping list. Chatted to a friend on the phone, or rather, she chatted and I listened. I’ve been watching the series ‘Us’ which is on Sunday’s at 9.p.m, and have seen two of the four episodes but last night I really couldn’t be bothered with it any more. I didn’t care enough about any of the characters to want to know what happens to them. They can all drown in the Venice canals, I really am NOT ‘bovvered.’

This morning I launched into The Grand Pickly Cook Up! Dashed to the shops first thing to grab the contents of my shopping list, then set about measuring, chopping, grating, mixing, stirring and cooking in an epic session which lasted a nudge short of four hours. Forget going to the gym for muscle building exercises - just make a batch of carrot jam! 


This is the mixture for the plum and apple mincemeat. It has to sit overnight before being sozzled in brandy and spending two and three quarter hours baking in the oven tomorrow morning. But it already smells pretty amazing. 

And here is the carrot jam...


I halved the recipe, mostly because I would have expired from carrotitis if I’d had to grate three and a half pounds of carrots PLUS two pound of onions. I think five jars is ample for our requirements, though, and I can always make some more because it’s a very easy recipe, if somewhat time consuming. Strictly speaking, it is a carrot, orange and ginger jam. I tried a little teaspoon of it, you know, for research purposes, and blimey - it’s good stuff! If that doesn’t keep the Winter germs at bay, I don’t know what will. It will also encourage veggie-phobe Andy to eat something healthy. Anyway, it is cooling in the kitchen and then has to be stored for a month before we can crack one open and try it properly. 

Onion marmalade next. And then red chilli jam. 

Keeping busy - that’s the answer to climbing out a fuggy bog! 

Comments

Anonymous said…
Straight to pudding is always the best way. Or cornflakes for dinner and then straight to pudding if you have a picky person in your midst 🙂

Carrot jam, now that sounds interesting. I regularly get unwanted bags of carrots from school and there is only so much carrot soup we can eat. Did you find the recipe online, may I ask?
Hx
Anonymous said…
Never heard of Carrot jam either, intrigued. A friend of mine once advised me to listen to the flight attendant when they says put the oxygen mask on yourself first and apply that to the rest of your life. A little time on the coach and some knitting is a health booster!
KJ
Denise said…
H, I shall blog the recipe for you and anyone else who is interested in making something zingy to go with their cheese. Or quiche. Or cold meats. Or anything else come to that. I am also intrigued that you regularly bring home carrots from school. Please tell me you work at the Lord and Lady Bunnikins School For Rabbits!?

Absolutely right, KJ! Sometimes we spend so much time looking after other people we forget to look after ourselves. And, even worse, we find it difficult to give ourselves permission to occasionally put ourselves first.
Anonymous said…
School for rabbits? 🤣🤣🤣 Sadly no - just an ordinary school for little people. Government gives them all a piece of fruit or vegetable every day. Half of the ingrates won’t eat it so sometimes we get it. If we don’t eat it, at the very least, we compost it 😢 Mind you, sending every child a radish to eat the other day was a bit much. I mean, who wants to eat a radish at morning break?
Denise said…
H, a radish? A radish?? How bizarre. I can understand an apple or tomato, a carrot even. But a radish? They’re a bit of an acquired taste, I think, and not the sort of thing tiddlers are fond of. Still, I’m sure the sentiment behind the project is well meaning. But still - a radish??

Popular posts from this blog

The Frosted Dawn Enigma

The decorators are in at the moment. Stairs and landing. Given my previous history of 'Hoo Ha Occurring on Stairs ' - reference the Trapped Under the Sofa Incident and the Foot Wedged Between Bookcase and Stair Rise Debacle - I thought it wise to pay for professionals to decorate the stairs and landing rather than get myself in a mix with ladder and plank combinations and achieve the Magic Three of staircase accidents. The decorators are a father and son combo who go by the  names of Craig and David. This automatically causes me entertainment. 'Came in on a Monday, prepped, filled and undercoated, back on Thursday, first top coating, by Friday finishing touches...' Okay, not as frisky or well-scanned as the original song, but you get where I'm coming from. Anyway, before they started the job Craig asked what colour I wanted for the walls. 'Same colour as the downstairs walls, please,' said I. 'Dulux Frosted Dawn.' And then white for ...

Day 1 - Decisions Are Made Beyond the Author's Control.

‘Well,’ I say, looking at the expectant faces gathered around the huge table in the Great Dining Hall of Much Malarkey Manor, ‘I didn’t think it was going to happen this year, but it is!’ There is a sharp intake of breath as everyone wonders of what I speak. I’ve been muttering about all sorts recently, and I’m not talking liquorice here either.   ‘The Much Malarkey Manor Annual and Traditional Christmas Story!’ I say, and wait for the expulsed air of relief to settle before I continue. ‘I thought we had done it all. I thought we had covered every Christmas story there was. I’ve been wracking my brains for a full two months now, trying to come up with something we haven’t done before and then it hit me! We haven’t done a version of one of the Great Christmas Films of Yore!’ ‘Your what?’ says Mrs Slocombe, who is more interested in the selection of pastries I have brought to this breakfast meeting, because that is what one does, isn’t it? Eat pastries at breakfast...

Sun Puddles

A few weeks ago, I met up with a dear friend for a meditation and healing afternoon, both of us being light workers on the spirit pathway. It did me good to re-engage in a bit of focused energy channelling (because I have let my practice slip somewhat) and during the afternoon the words ‘sun puddles’ popped into my head.  Now, I know this wasn’t my human brain thinking these words because I have never heard the phrase before; when I arrived home, I looked it up and said to myself, ‘Aaah, you mean sun spots!’ This is a sun puddle... ...there! That thing that Flora is lying on. No, not the sofa - the warm patch of sunshine on the sofa. Here are Flora and Bambino sharing a sun puddle... This proves that no matter how much they scrap with each other and try to denude each other of fur all over my rugs, they secretly share a mutual and fond admiration. I think. And here is Bambino on a sun puddle that has come to rest on my legs... It’s his casual, ‘I’m so cool’ pose. Metaphorically coo...