I have been making all of my own bread for over a year now. It was the mouse found in a loaf of Hovis that did it for me! I did consider posting the pictures, but you can search them for yourself. It is also much more cost effective in the long run to bake your own bread. I did invest in a trusty Bread Maker, which always feels like cheating, but it is very convenient and I love mine.
You can not beat the smell of bread baking.
The problem is gauging how much bread you will use. Without all of the preservatives the bread can go stale if it is not used within three to four days. If I run out everyone in the house complains to the management! The birds in the back garden are so used to eating the crusts my youngest leaves that they sit on the fence waiting. If I don't feed them they wait and wait and eye me up in disgust, Hitchcocks 'Birds' have nothing on mine. There is only so much stale bread you can feed the birds as again it is not cost effective. I try to use the stale bread for breadcrumbs for making stuffings, or coating food. I also use breadcrumbs to make Meatloaf. You can make Bread and Butter pudding, or the old favourite 'Bread Pudding'. This stuff sticks to your ribs and you could go and plough a field after you have had a piece. It is very easy to make and keeps well.
Ingredients
1/2 a loaf of stale bread, soaked in water (just enough to cover it)
250g of mixed dried fruit
100g shredded vegetable suet
100g sugar
2tsp of Mixed Ground Spice
3 eggs
When the bread is well soaked fork it over until it is the consistency of porridge. Add all of the other ingredients and mix well. Turn into a baking tin and cook in a medium oven for 40 mins to an hour, until it is nicely browned and starts to smell done. (Sorry for the lack of precision). It will feel soft to the touch but will firm up as it cools. Leave the pudding to go cool, or you will not slice it very successfully.
Kumihimo is a Japanese word for this craft (kumi = to braid, himo = cord). I first saw this technique for braiding at my first visit to my local Birmingham and District Guild of Spinning, Weaving and Dyeing. Most Guilds offer a varied programme over the year and many skills and crafts involving yarn are shared and taught, both formally and informally. This is something you can pick up in an instant, it is very quick and easy to learn, a great portable activity for adults and children alike. This activity is ideal for a craft lesson, 'camp craft', or therapeutic craft activity. It is very creative, below is a video link for the simplest syle of Kumihimo braiding, on a small homemade 'loom'. You can buy or make more complexed looms for a greater number of strands of yarn or thread, many bought kits include instructions. Many different effects can be achieved by varying your yarns and techniques.
The braids can have many uses, embellishing other crafts, key chains, bracelets, spectacle straps, laces and hair accessories.
There are numerous possibilites.
The resulting braids are very strong.
I use soft, flexible, circular plastic lids to make my own 'looms', rather than buy one. I like the idea of recycling something and putting it to creative use and I like the idea of saving my money for other craft pursuits. You can use strong cardboard but this 'soft' plastic is ideal and more durable. You can use the 'loom' again and again. I find they are easy to make with very sharp scissors, I simply snip little V shapes, these seem to hold the threads neatly. Also the slight lip on the lid helps to grip the loom and the threads.
Sometimes you do not have a suitable lid available and it is a shame because you have to go and buy a tube of sweets and eat them up quick, just because you need the lid!
All of the above braids were made on an eight space 'loom'. If you search the web you can see many different 'looms' and styles. It is possible to get a variety of effects by following different patterns and sequences of braiding, with varied threads and yarns. This afternoon I made my first sixteen space 'loom' to experiment with. I will let you know how I get on...
This has taken me some time to figure out how to post this document. This format is the only way I could figure out how to do it. It shows the flags of the countries from where individual members of 'Inthesky' blog's Audience come from. Just click on the link and take a look 28 countries to date...
(Update 7, 26/2/11) Visitors from 29 countries have read my blog so far, click here to see the National Flags
It amazes me in such a short time people from many different countries have read 'Inthesky'!
Cool!
My sons have both got coughs and colds, so they are not eating much and are in need of a vitamin boost. We were given 350g of strawberries yesterday. In the summer I often make smoothies as a way of 'sneaking' extra vitamins into the children. Smoothies make a healthy, quick and filling snack/drink. They are ideal for a healthy breakfast or a 'snack' at any time of the day.
Ingredients
350g of strawberries
2 bananas
50g of rolled oats
2 tablespoons of clear honey
1 large tub of Natural yogurt
Put all the ingredients together in a large jug and whizz until smooth with a hand blender like this:
To help me celebrate my imminent 40th Birthday, I would like to offer my 'Blog Followers' the opportunity to win one of 4 prizes. 1 for each decade of my wonderful existence. The prizes are very typically me and are the sort of prize I would be happy to receive and rapidly consume. A 'Lucy Style' Teatime!
Each prize will consist of:
A 'Time for Tea' China Mug
'40 Fine English Breakfast Teabags (A cup of tea for every year of my life!)'
A packet of traditional biscuits (One of my favourites)
A Tea towel, with which you can keep your highly valued, commemorative, keepsake in prisitne condition.
I will select four winners at random, by allocating each of my Blog Followers a number and employing an able assistant to 'do the deed' on Saturday 5th March. (To be in the competition you will need be registered as a 'Follower' by Midnight on March 4th). I will announce the winners on my Blog and as soon as I have the winners addresses I will dispatch the much coveted goodies ASAP.
Good Luck
I broke through the 1000 mark at about 8am 18.2.11. I am pretty sure it was my Blog friend Medha from India as she was leaving a comment at the time. (Medha I am still waiting for you to blog your potato recipes! I am getting hungry. That is why I have gone biscuit crazy!) I am a bit blog addicted at the moment, I love tracking pageviews and it amazes me that literally I get visitors from all over the world. Each day that a new country is on the list is another step toward Intheskys Global domination. I should work out a way of presenting this data, so far I save a picture of the national falg of each country, but I cannot work out how to make multiple picture, pictures, and scrolling through a list of flags, may be more interesting to some than others! lol. So far I have had visitors from twenty different countries.
