Wild Rice and Halloumi Salad

When we stop at motorway service stations, we try to stop at one with a Marks and Spencer Food. I can always find something to eat in their offerings. Their Salmon and Potato Salad is a particular favourite. Yesterday, we sort of missed our mark and ended up at a service station with a Waitrose instead.

It took quite a bit of hunting, but I settled on a little salad of Wild Rice and Halloumi. "It will do, I suppose." were the thoughts going through my mind. Then, "Oh blast, I didn't pick up a fork!", but when I started eating all those thoughts disappeared. It was rather delicious and I want to try making my own version of the dish. 

The ingredients listed are: white rice, wild rice, onion, halloumi cheese (milk) (7%), chickpeas, orange juice, spinach, jumbo raisins, lemon juice, rapeseed oil, red chard, coriander, dill, parsley, sugar, salt, black pepper, cumin seeds, cornflour, cumin, turmeric, garlic purée, coriander powder, sunflower oil, cayenne pepper, and allspice.

In addition, I bought sour cream and chive Popchips. It was like eating thick Pringles. How I have missed Pringles!

Welcome to Gloucester

We have arrived! It is so good to be on holiday, a time to see family, and stop working. This Christmas we didn't get much of a break, but now we have 10 whole days before it's time for work again.

The travel felt easy this time. Sailing is so much simpler with a cabin. It's just a little bit more expensive than the lounge, but we all find having space means we are much more rested by the time we reach England. 

The last few times we have visited Gloucester we have spent quite a bit of time travelling to visitor attractions etc. This time around, we have plans to visit Margaret in Wales, and Cheltenham, and very few other things are planned.

We are after a gentle holiday.

Brutti ma Buoni

Ingerdienti

300g di zucchero

300g di mandorle tritate(non troppo grosse)

3 albumi d'uovo

Sbatterelo zucchero con gli albumi in un contenitore a bagnomaria fino a quando diventa un coposto bianco latte (lustrente).

Togliere dal bagnomaria e aggiungete le mandorle alla "crema".

Mettete l'impasto in frigorifero per 15 min.

Sistemare l'impasto sulla placa del forno a cucchiaini non occore che siano tutti uguali. Infornate per 15 minuti a 160°

Conservare in un contenitore sigillato.

Questa dose e per 60 biscottini.

Woolly Chewy

How best to keep warm on a cold winter's night? Snuggle up beside Chewbacca!

A good few years ago, I made a Cookie Monster hot water bottle cover for Stitch. It has served her well. Unforunately, her partner, Lilo has taken a liking for it, and regularly smuggles (or is that snuggles?) it.

The time has come for Lilo to have his own snuggly hot water bottle cover, and that's why I've just started knitting Chewbacca.

Shut Up and Write!

The blurb is "We’ve discovered that it’s strikingly helpful to write with other writers. See if it’s true for you at 11 on Saturday mornings. Be it a book, blog, script, essay, dissertation, resume, melody, poem or just plain work stuff, you are invited to write it with us. No one will see what you've written or give you unsolicited advice. Instead of just thinking about writing, come and get some real writing done."

The first meeting was on the 18th of January, and the second was the 25th. It's great meeting with others who write/writers, and taking the time to be creative. It's so much easier to do it this way than to carve out time whilst I'm at home.

As the 25th of January is Santes Dwynwen's Day, I decided to write a story around the bare bones of Dwynwen and Maelon as described below.

The history behind Dwynwen’s story is that she was the prettiest daughter of the Welsh king Brychan Brycheiniog, but she fell in love with a man named Maelon Dafodrill. Unfortunately, her father had already arranged for Dwynwen to marry someone else.

Dwynwen was extremely distraught and she prayed to God to ask for help in forgetting Maelon. That night an angel visited her whilst she slept and gave her a potion. This potion erased her memory of her feelings for Maelon and turned him into a block of ice.

But God provided Dwynwen with three wishes – her first wish was Maelon should be thawed, her second wish was that God would meet the hopes and dreams of true lovers and thirdly that she would never marry. As all of her wishes were fulfilled, she gave her thanks by devoting herself to God’s service for the rest of her life.


There were no problems picturing Dwynwen, Maelon and Brychan. They each popped fully formed into my mind. My problems came when I tried to describe Dwyn and Mae's first meeting, and how they fell in love. Everything I tried seemed to reek of Disney.

I'm currently trying to think of as many clichés of love, just so I can avoid them!

Lemon Soap

When my daughter was visiting at Christmas, she raved about the soaps I have made for her. She has problems with eczema, and the soap do not exacerbate the situation, but helps. As we are going to visit soon, I decided to make some more.

One of the requests was to keep it simple. In a previous batch, I had great fun creating a rainbow of clear soap, set in white fluffy clouds. It looked great when it was first made, but the colours leached out into the white fluff, and it became somewhat muddy and less appealing. 

This time, I decided to make a clear lemon bar. A tad too much yellow colourant was added, but I thought I could get around this by making a white opaque layer on top. Then I thought, "Oooh, how about adding the white before the yellow has completely set?"  Great idea, but I was impatient, and poured the white whilst the yellow was too warm. The result has been a very gentle mottled lemon appearance rather than rivers of clear yellow and opaque white. Ah well. It looks nice. It isn't going to discolour, and it smells great.

Good Intentions

It had been my intention to blog every day, and make it an interesting read. It seemed appropriate to restart thing habit on the 1st of January. And, well, as the saying I've never heard before goes, "Good intentions are not enough. They've never put an onion in the soup yet."

My soup is distinctly lacking in onions! and it definitely needs them.

I liked the idea of restarting on the first day of a new year, the first day of a new decade, but I was busy. Then I was busy again, and again. Next came some illness, followed by busyness. 

Earlier today I was thinking about writing a heap of blog posts and backdating them. But how about I don't? This blog is primarily been written for my benefit. What benefit would I achieve through back filling posts. Nope. Today is a new day, and today get's a new blog post!

Endless To Do Lists

What's with all of the 'To Do' lists? I want to get back into regular blogging, but my brain is still a bit foggy due to recent illness. The 'To Do' lists give me a chance to keep track of what I need to do, and have done, as well as helping be back into blog-life. Actual content will return soon.

But first, a few To Do/Ta Das.

To Do
lay out clothes for Wednesday
Italian class
Quilting
wash and dry a load of laundry
declutter, clean and tidy metal utensils drawer

A New Day, A New Week

To Do
mend Ava's harness
This task proved a little tricky as I managed to leave it at work!

Ta Da!
mend Christine's wrist warmers
prepare for Italian class
prepare for Quilting Guild
lay out clothes for Tuesday

Today's Ta Da!

We have loved having the huge star light in the window, and weren't ready for it to be put away with the rest of the Christmas things. Instead, we have hung it in a corner of the sitting room. It's light continues to bring us joy.

To Do
(everything done!)

Ta Da
wash dishes
tidy kitchen
wash and dry a load of laundry
wash and dry a second load of laundry
put away Christmas decorations
tidy my corner of the sitting room
finish hat
lay out clothes for tomorrow

To Do - Ta Da! Today

I fear my body is battling with the nasties The Offspring is just recovering from. There's brain fog, tiredness, a little bit of a scratchy throat, and a deep, deep desire to curl into a ball and hibernate. Yesterday, I had two naps. Today, I'm aiming for one, and also getting some stuff done. There's no chance of that happening without a list or two. I tried going listless yesterday, but well, I was listless and nothing much got done until I started getting cranky.

To Do
put away decorations
tidy my corner of the sitting room
make dinner

Ta Da!
finish hat
take down Christmas tree
wash and dry a load of laundry
wash and dry a second load of laundry

His Loveliness made dinner instead, and I washed dishes and cleaned the kitchen. This left me unable/unwilling to tidy the sitting room, nor put away Christmas decorations. Ah well, this gives me something to make a start on tomorrow.

Double, Double, Toil and Success!

I was cranking away this evening, and found success with holding double knitting yarn doubled. 'Success' doesn't sound like a strong enough word. I am delighted with the results.  

Double knitting yarn makes up the bulk of my yarn stash. The fabric produced by the Addi Express with double knitting yarn was light and airy - it was like hand knitting produced on too large needles. My concern had been I would need to buy loads of aran and chunky yarns to use the Addi. This would be totally the wrong outcome.  Instead, I've found holding two DK strands together and looming with them creates a great fabric, not too tight, not too, but just right.