saturday afternoon

Thank you SO much, those of you who have commented on my last post already! As soon as I’ve written this I shall be popping to see what you’ve been up to. What a cheerful, sociable evening it will be!

Well, it seems blurting out that last post has freed my mind a little, and now I can tell you all about what I’ve been doing today.

Which has mostly been buttling around in the kitchen.

I bought us a slow cooker yesterday. I’ve heard so many good things about them, and been meaning to get one for ages, but we don’t eat meat and I wondered if it was worth it. Well, you can read about these things, but there’s only one way to find out…

My first attempt was parsnip soup, with some shriveled old half-price parsnips, carrots, cabbage, onion, garlic, and the last bit of my mum’s apple sauce. And goodness me, it was glorious! I popped out to the Women’s Institute this morning (missing the delivery of my new running gadget in the process), and when I got back the house was filled with a parsnippy-cuminy-appley smell that just made me want to stare in awe at the slow cooker. I’m not known for making tasty soups (in fact, I’m known for quite the opposite – taking tasty ingredients and rendering them almost flavourless) so this might just be life-changing.

While the parsnip soup was bubbling away contentedly, I made some more mozzarella. All I can say about this batch is – if you choose to heat it in the pan of whey rather than the microwave, don’t just let go right at the beginning or you might find your curds disintegrating and your lovely mozzarella vanishing before your eyes…

Remember the sourdough bread from last week? Well, I’m ashamed to say it never made it into the garden for the birds. I decided the best thing to do was make breadcrumbs, which first required the wielding of a meat cleaver.

Once the soup was ready, I set about the important business of making marmalade, which involved an awful lot of chopping and scooping.

I do like to have the radio burbling in the background while I’m in the kitchen, but it was all politicians and nonsense so I turned to a couple of Ted talks instead – JK Rowling talking about the benefits of failing, and Amy Cuddy on how changing your body language can make you feel more powerful. Next time you see someone practicing their power stance at the bus stop, that’ll be me.

Once I’d eaten the soup, and the breadcrumbs were in the freezer, the mozzarella in the fridge, and the marmalade in the slow cooker, I made some rice pudding.

Now I confess I’m rather tired. I ran 9.5 miles yesterday, followed by some serious napping, and then stayed up til 3am. Fortunately I don’t have many plans for tonight. In fact, my hot water bottle is filled, and soon I’ll be curling on the sofa for another snooze.

Not for long though – the marmalade is due out of the slow cooker and will need finishing off and putting in jars. I’m pretty sure I can do that bit in my pjs though…