February Challenges. Small steps into Spring.

Hello everyone out there in Blog-land! How has February been treating you? Usually this is my least favourite month, but this year I am feeling rather energised. I think it is because of the mild weather and the scores of little spring flowers joyously pushing their heads towards the sun. I have been setting myself some challenges to take me through to spring. The main one has been to move more and eat less, I have been adding an extra couple of km to my daily dog walk and am saving up to buy some decent running shoes to attempt the couch to 5km. (Flip, I have written that down!) The eating less has been rather more difficult, I have to admit particularly this week with Shrove Tuesday and The Nippers off on half-term. The other challenge is to have a Facebook Free February.

I was idly scrolling through Facebook the other evening while watching a pot boil and some of my Facebook friends were listing the eight things that perhaps people did not know about them so in my head I started to compose my own list. However then I began to wonder why I wanted people to know yet more useless facts about me. What is it about Facebook that compels us to join in? Why do we need to share all this stuff? Serendipity prevails, because at that very same time an academic on a radio show was trying to convince me that social media is as addictive as a slot machine, this piece was followed by an  advertisement for a campaign for a Facebook Free February, Hmmm. So, I am having a break, a break from the habitual checking of the phone to see yet another cute animal video; a break from the cacophony of voices that seem to take up too much of my attention.

The thing about social media is though it is very user friendly and the more you use it, the more tailored the newsfeed becomes to your own personal taste and interests so it has only been two weeks into my challenge and already I'm thinking about it in the way I used to think about ciggs when I was giving them up. I especially miss the conversation from my Open University page and all the genuinely useful advice posted by my fellow students and all the stock up-dates from my favourite vintage shops. What happens if the perfect sofa appears at just the perfect price...Facebook is indignant at my departure and is stalking me with enticing emails to lure me back. What do you think of social media, love it/hate it?

Half-term has been lovely with plenty of sunny breezy weather to get us out and about, E and O played in the garden without coats for the first time this year! We have had some lovely walks, read some new and old books, watched a million episodes of The Simpsons, covered the house with Lego and did some Hama bead crafting.

And some crochet, this is going to be a blanket for little O inspired by a lovely Autumn walk and Bunny Mummy's Sunburst pattern. These wee circles are much nicer in real-life, I am no photographer.

And some baking. Today, (Friday) was very cold with grey skies.

 

 E was sniffling and begged for a pyjama day so we put our aprons on over our PJ's and cooked up some goodies.
Nutella Brownies.
Well, we needed to use up all that Nutella from Tuesday!
These are so easy - three ingredients.

O loves mixing and licking. He fizzes with excitement at the thought of all that chocolaty yumminess.
E loves jumping in at the end with a big spoon.
Next we made some Oaties. (I will copy the recipe for you at the end.)
This recipe is from my very tattered 2013 Good Housekeeping magazine, which is full of fool-proof and delicious recipes. I never buy this mag, don't know why I bought that one but I might buy it again!

Both of these recipes are very child friendly, just mix and pop in the oven. Do watch the Brownies like a hawk, mine took half the cooking time and are a bit overcooked but still very nice.

 

 

I love a cup o' tea and Observer food monthly!

 

Have a wonderful weekend everybody. What are your plans for Spring 2015?



 

Here is the recipe for the Oat biscuits, I did not add the chocolate as we were also having the brownies but I do recommend the chocolate version very very moreish!

 

Chocolate Oaties.

• 40oz butter
• 4oz self-raising flour
• 4oz soft brown sugar
• 4oz porridge oats
• 1/2 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda
• 1 tbsp. of golden syrup
• 4oz milk or plain chocolate

1.  Preheat oven to 180C/160c fan/gas 4 and lightly grease two baking sheets
2.  Mix together flour, sugar, oats and soda. Set aside.
3.  Melt butter and syrup. Add to the dry mix and combine.
4.  Divide and  squish into little balls, pressing them a little flat. Bake for 15/18 min until golden. Leave to cool for a few minutes on the trays and then transfer to a cooling rack.
5. Melt chocolate, dip biscuits halfway into the chocolate or paint on with a pastry brush.
6. Allow to set before the family descend like a flock of hungry gannets!

 

Frilly Frou Frous

Hello all out there in blogland. It has been very cold here, sometimes crisp and beautifully frosty but also that grey dampness which I think is particular to January that seems to penetrate down to your very bones. My poor feet are like mini icebergs! So we have been indulging in some cheery projects to keep warm and cosy.

Myself and the kids had great fun making this sweet little pom-pom garland from this cool tutorial.
I have to say that these are so quick to make and so cute they become highly addictive. Miss E is planning to make a necklace and a bracelet and O wants a scarf for his toy dog. I think a long garland made in shimmery whites and frosty blues would make a lovely Christmas decoration. (Sorry, the very mention of the C word at this time of year does make me wince! )

Candle-light is so necessary for me at this time of year, warming and atmospheric, I think just a couple of well-placed candles and tea lights manage to create that homely feel beautifully. We especially need a little bit of soft focus here as we have yet to re-paint the house after its re-plastering, so we have super smooth walls but in a monotonous grey all over! I was actually re-visiting my pinterest albums one evening when I saw this simple make. It is a good use for those nice but empty candle jars that hover around without a true purpose and for my bag of coffee beans bought in error.

Finally, it has been marmalade season, I just love the brevity of the availability of these gorgeous sour oranges because it make one very organized and single-minded for a change. Marmalade must be made immediately! My local independent green-grocer, who is I think, the only supplier of Seville oranges around here, announces their arrival on his Facebook page and oh my goodness if you don't get a move on and hightail it down to his shop very quickly they just disappear for a whole year. Little O threw a bold tantrum when last years supply ran out so he had a lovely time perched up on his high stool watching me completely ruin the stove by letting the pot boileth over and laboriously ladle litre and litres of hot Spanish sunshine into warmed jars.

I followed the Darina Allen recipe that I found in this rather annoying article - so why even mention that marmalade making 'also appeals to guys'? Is the ancient art of preserving supposedly a predominantly female girlish occupation, until a huge chopper is to be welded with masculinity? Certainly the 'guys' in my house do like to munch the marmalade on crusty toast but are quite content to leave all the arduous hours of peel slicing and pip-squeezing to me, perhaps my knives are disappointingly feminine...

Apologies, I digress. I would indeed recommend Darina Allen's recipe and especially the whiskey version but I would be a little more heavy handed with the uisce beatha as I cannot really taste the whiskey in my marmalade. So, what about you? Any crafty or foodie plans for the weekend? I hope this weekend is a lovely one for you and that all your plans turn out great! xxxx

A study in Hibernation/Hibernia and Hairy Men in Flares.

Hello! Thank-you for coming back to Oriel. How fast this fortnight has flown. I have been sequestered at my desk, reading, reading reading and watching the rain. How dark and damp it has been, we have also seen pretty extreme flooding in these parts, thankfully not at the door of our home but elsewhere in the town which was fairly disruptive for a few days.

I have also been totally bitten by the crafty bug and have been waiting for a good light to share with you my works-in-progress. My big 'precious-yarny' granny-square blanket is nearly fully-grown, just six more squares and then I can tackle joining them all together. I am loving all the blanket making in the blogs, there is Lucy of-course, Bunny Mummy and Heather from Tiny Tin Bird all busily crocheting away. This long autumn certainly has been inspirational for gorgeous colour combinations and all those ladies are certainly a rich source of inspirational creatively.

I have also been knitting E a scarf-at a snails pace- but I do like the colours which remind me of a raspberry ripple.

I even started putting my skirt together, the McCall's A-line pattern, previously mentioned here and here and inspired by totally fabulous Lazy Daisy Jones blog.

Home has been such a comforting retreat, is has been very difficult to leave!  So much so, when my long suffering friend P called me up unexpectedly to go to the pub  I almost wailed 'Oh No!' I do fear the onset of a major inability to be spontaneous. Mind you, Mr S had just poured me a large glass of red and we were just about to sit down to a feast of pulled-pork from this recipe. These long evenings are perfect for slow-cooked meals like these.

I have been occasionally emerging from my cave for my music and driving lessons. I have written previously about my love/hate relationship with my violin, here. I have been making slow progress but was pleasantly surprised to find I had been promoted to 'Intermediate Fiddle'. Yay! Sometimes though my playing sounds so laboured and stilted I can barely pick it up to practise. Regularly, a new/rediscovered tune will bring a new energy to my practise, reminding me why I love Irish music so much. Last week we started this one:

I do so want to believe that this tune was the atmospheric battle-cry of the O'Neills of Ulster, a romantic legacy from the early-medieval Gaelic High Kings but a terse search of the internet can find no definitive source for this piece, perhaps it was composed by the brilliant Sean O'Riada  in the 1960's. Whatever its beginning this piece was incorporated into this piece of 1970's flamboyance:

 

 

These boys crack me up! I really don't know what was going on in the 1970's but I nearly like it ...then in the 1990's Ireland qualified for the world cup for the first time and some mad eejit did this:

 



I'm really not a fan of the football song as a genre but to me it shows the vibrancy of this music and how this wee tune has become almost embedded in our popular culture (and er the optimism of our football supporters) so it doesn't really matter if it is not an ancient song...and it is so much fun to scrape it out on my fiddle!

Next time...I brave the virgin roads of Dundalk for my pre-test practice...eek! Bye.xxxx

EDIT: So sorry but I have just discovered that the links may not work on some devices-I cannot seem to rectify that at the moment so here are the full links if you so wish. Apologies if some of the music gives you the Earworm. xxxxx
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wZblPr48OE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5G8AJf4Xzw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5PT65I2ny8

The Closet of Savage Mementos

(image from New Island Books)

 

This is going to be another post about books (and a wee bit of food!) I'm afraid.  Quite simply these long warm light summer evening are just perfect for lounging around with a great book and as the World Cup and the continued house renovations have employed most of Mr S's time, I have been taking the opportunity to escape into print, mostly fiction. There have been many recommendations that have passed around my book-club this year, but there has been only one exceptional novel that has achieved a consensus of enthusiastic approval.

 

The Closet of Savage Mementos is one of those books that will surprise and delight you with the skill and vitality of it's story telling. The characters continue to haunt you long after the final page has been read, you wish that it had been slightly longer so you could tarry a while longer in their company. Yet, there are no uneasy gaps in the plot, the characters have been allowed to have enough room within the novel to impart empathy yet retain a realistic unknowability. Nuala Ni Chonchuir tells a very particular story of love, the lightning-strike of passion and the impact of its absence but Lillis's story is also a universal tale, she is an everyman battling against exceptional circumstances to make her way in life, a life marked by great love and great loss.

Our book-club is lucky enough to have some very pro-active members, Pavlova Queen Fi who does all the Facebooking/admin and organising, Margaret who organises some great 'meet the author' nights and opens up her home and library to us and who blogs from here. Not forgetting, Lisa, who is a prolific blogger, bookseller, writer and book-fairy and who blogs from here. I just turn up occasionally and drink my coffee/wine and offer an opinion or two. In the past I have never really been that concerned to meet any authors, perhaps because they have always seemed very remote or perhaps being content with the book as a stand-alone piece of art.

However, last week when Nuala Ni Chonchuir graciously took some time out to meet us I was really looking forward to the evening, there was just something about that book! Having read it a good few weeks ago, I thought I better scan through, however it is so good I found myself properly re-reading again.We had a wonderful time chatting with Nuala, and getting some of the background to the novel, the process of writing and the experience of working with all the team who contribute to the process of publishing and marketing a book. I would recommend to any of you also in book-clubs to not only read this particular book but also to have a go and organise a 'meet-the-author' for yourselves.

As well as having a good natter, we always bring some food and drink to the hosts table. Cooking and drinking lovely wine in combination with book-talk - are for me - a sublime trinity of pleasure. For this night we had some dietary requirements to consider, one vegetarian, one person completely gluten-free and some other ladies trying to cut down on the amount of gluten in their diet. It was also a gorgeous warm summer evening. So a quick browse of the net, resulted in these two lovely recipes:

Pasta Salad with Haloumi and Lemon

I marinated the grated courgette for around an hour and a half in the dressing and replaced half of the olive oil with some camellia oil. This camellia oil is produced locally to me in the beautiful Boyne Valley and is apparently very high in omega 3,6 & 9 and has a delicious if slightly unusual nutty taste. I also replaced the pasta with a gluten-free alterative.

My sweet contribution is one of my favourite gluten-free recipes, these brownies are so scrumptious and just so easy to make. My kids go mad for these and of-course love licking the bowl after mixing. I didn't make the sauce as we were going to have a selection of goodies.
Nigella's Peerless Flourless Chocolate Brownies

Click on the titles for the links!

Enjoy-let me know if you try these! xxxx

 

Housewifery.

Let me tell you a secret. Sure you won't tell ANYONE? Ok, then. I quite like housework. Not all the time, obviously but every now and again I take the notion for a good auld scrub.
Most of last week was spent writing in the perplexing brain-curdling mist that was my penultimate essay for my OU module for this year, just one more short one to go then the big EMA which is like a mini dissertation and then summer freedom. Hurrah.

After a good sleep I was ready to tackle the cob-webby slovenly hovel that my home turns into with a couple of days neglect. There is something about sitting down with a steaming cup of coffee and home made Lemon and Poppy seed cake and admiring order, clean surfaces, sparkling bathroom and a washing-line billowing with clean linen and all scented with fresh flowers and furniture polish. I found this cute tutorial for a Land-girl style head-scarf on YouTube, great for bad-hair days and protecting those victory rolls while playing at house. I am so tempted to do the shopping looking like this!

 

Hello, to all of you that are popping over from Daisy's blog. I am so sorry if you were disappointed that there has been no sewing. I wanted to try and source the pattern locally or at least on the island of Ireland but I have had no luck. I capitulated and ordered it from Amazon this morning.

I get so worried about our independent shops when browsing that site -no matter how many times I swear I am not going back I always do.  I am so consistently surprised at the range of items that Amazon carries, how can local retailers survive in this difficult economic climate? Last month, we lost our biggest newsagent in the town, Eason's have a chain of stores all over Ireland and while there were many faults with that particular shop it was a huge shock to lose them. We still have some gorgeous wee crafty shops hanging on my the skin of their teeth though, The Crafty Fox, Quaint, Breda's Wool shop and two of my absolute favourites, Kirwan's fishmongers and Sampson's Craft Butchers. I was a vegetarian for almost twenty years till I moved here...

Do you guys have any favourite shops? I wish I could go back for an hour or so to the weird and wonderful shops that we had when I was little. All family owned business and all so different even those the three I remember best sold the same stuff, groceries, sweets and newspapers. There was one shop that I cant even remember the name off, I don't think it even had a sign but it was run by this ancient old lady and her mother! They never took the dark red wooden shutter from the window and it was so dark inside but that is where my Gran got her newspapers and gossip and a comic for me every week. Twinkle, Bunty and then Judy. I still have some of the Christmas annuals of those comics and when I peek inside I forget I am a middle aged housewife and transported back to being a little girl with white socks and scuffed shoes again!

Consolidation Week

Last week on the Open University timetable was the Very Important Consolidation Week, a time for review and reflection on ones progress so far. What have I learned so far through this module? Actually it is all a bit of a weary blur so instead I  treated myself to a break from Solow, Ikenberry, Lenin, Gramsci et al.

Instead I consolidated myself with some slow time, time to ease oneself back into a frame of mind that is ready to take on the next 8000 words.
So we:
Walked and foraged,
in the beautiful tranquil Beaulieu Woods. Can you see all the wild garlic from my picture? Perhaps not but it was lush and bountiful so inspired by this article in Landscape magazine,

and gathered a handful and made a delicious chicken and wild garlic pie from the leftovers from our Sunday roast. Alas no pictures, we were far too hungry to wait but I am definitely going to try some more recipes with this fragrant and delicious little plant. (Of-course please act responsibly when gathering food from the country-side. Be certain that what you are picking is edible, you have permission to be on the land and that you leave nothing but a faint footprint.)

I have been crocheting and watching Shetland.
I am so glad that I began this project, it was inspired by this post by the lovely Kirsten and so soothing to work. I bought some gorgeous pure welsh wool from The Wool Croft in Abergavenny and it has been a revelation to use, so soft and fine, all my acrylics now feel too scratchy and scritchity. The Wool Croft is a gem of a shop nestling on the main street of the gorgeous market town of Abergavenny, I wish I had longer to linger and really appreciate all their sumptuous selection of yarn.

I was pointed to the excellent Ann Cleaves, Shetland series by Dovegreyreader via the equally enjoyable Lewis Man trilogy by Peter May which I devoured in a weekend, holding my kindle while I absentmindedly tackled various tasks completely transported to Shetland. The Jimmy Perez series, I am borrowing from our local library as they are returned. (For some reason in reverse order!) Is anyone watching the BBC adaptation of the Cleaves crime novels? They are very enjoyable, just the thing to settle down with by the fire and chill out with. The cinematography of the wild remote and ultimately mysterious island is beautiful but I am a little disappointed with the changes to the original texts.

Finally, planning and reading:
It has been so much fun planning our allotment planting, last Sunday we were there for hours, clearing, weeding and Mr S had so much fun digging, he snapped the fork! The kids picked out some bright flower bulbs from the garden centre, multi-coloured freesia for O and sunny yellow begonia's for S. In vain, I tried to steer them towards the chocolate and ruby dahlias which I have fallen in love with particularly after reading the completely marvellous 'Virginia Woolf's' Garden by Caroline Zoob.

This book is an absolute joy, a treasure for your favourite gardener or book-worm. It is a elegant combination of biography and garden design inspiration. Caroline Zoob's affectionate portrait of the Woolf's marriage and the construction of the garden is perfectly complemented by Caroline Arber's stunning contemporary photography, archive pictures and Zoob's delicate embroidered planting schemes. To sit in a quiet sunny room with a steaming cup of coffee and dip in and out of these pages has been one of the highlights of the week. I do wish you some great highlights of your own for the forth-coming week which takes us yet further into spring!

Wild Garlic and Chicken Pie
Caramelise some onions and garlic.
Add left-over free-range chicken from Sunday roast.
Add peas and chopped wild garlic.
Cover in Béchamel sauce.
Season to taste.
Pop into a piecrust made from shop bought frozen puff-pastry.
Cook until golden brown and bubbling.