Stocking up

Hello, hello, I hope you’ve had a lovely week!  It only feels like five minutes since I was chatting with you – hasn’t the week gone past quickly?

My week has disappeared amongst

💜   chats with not so small daughter about her upcoming trip to Tanzania (less than two weeks now!).  The plans are coming on well and she’s pretty organised.  She just needs some new trekking socks to complete her kit … well, she doesn’t actually need any new socks but she’s getting some and I’ll show you where I’m up to later.

💜   food shopping, because that food just keeps on disappearing out of the fridge!

💜   my piano lesson … I don’t mention these often but have been taking them for years.  There will be no grand concert any time soon, I just like playing music and chatting to my teacher 🙂

💜   clearing out the airing cupboard looking for a sleeping bag that will be going to Tanzania for not so small daughter to sleep in.  I started this yesterday and it’s unlikely I’ll be finished today.  My husband asked if I was at the “worse before it’s better” stage and I had to tell him that I was at the “I think I’m just going to leave it and go downstairs and do something else” stage 🤣

Honestly, it was like one of those tricks where someone pulls miles of handkerchiefs out of their coat sleeve – the stuff kept coming out!  I think we must have half the world’s supply of bubble wrap (always useful, not adding to the plastic waste whilst it’s still being reused), enough IKEA bags to start selling them back to IKEA and a new towel for nearly every day of the week – for four of us!

I know it’s not a good idea to take out more than you can reasonably deal with in an hour or so, but I was lulled into a false sense of how long it would take me after watching Sort Your Life Out.  I love this programme.  The premise is that a family with too much stuff gets to see it all laid out in a warehouse so that they can choose what to keep over two days (two days for a whole house full of stuff!) and at the end of the programme, the TV team have helped them declutter and done some nifty DIY in their house so that their life is sorted out.  I love how the families go from having too much to having just enough and it always makes me want to immediately start going through cupboards and boxes … and then I end up with a landing that looks like a bomb’s hit it and I think it will take me the whole seven days just to clear this up! 🤣

(And just in case you are wondering, no, I would not apply to be on this programme.  The thought of having to make immediate decisions about what to keep and then see it taken away when I might change my mind when it’s too late brings me out in a cold sweat.  I will be sorting my life out at a much more reasonable pace.)

💜   and today, I have been making apple pies to stock up the freezer.  I’ve been feeling the need for home made apple pie for some time and bought a bag of apples from the supermarket last week to do just that.  They’ve been looking at me from the worktop ever since and I’ve kept telling them I’ll get round to it, but today had to be the day as some of them were looking distinctly past their best.

I used to make fruit pies and crumbles regularly for after Sunday dinner, but over the years my husband decided that he didn’t want to eat them any more and then the girls were too busy for dessert so left the table and would go off to do their homework or whatever and gradually, I just stopped.  Now, you are probably wondering why I didn’t make them for myself and that is a very good question.  It simply didn’t occur to me.  It’s only been since not so small daughter went to university that I have finally realised that it’s OK to make family portions of things and freeze what’s left so that I can get them out and save myself cooking for just two of us that evening – and why can’t I make myself the things that I like and nobody else wants to eat?  Duh!  In my defence, I would say that when you’re moving at top family speed, you tend to think about what’s best for the family and not necessarily just yourself but as I am now in the process of re-finding myself, I say it’s OK to make apple pies because I like them!

I bought myself some individual pie tins (Amazon link) a while ago and they’re about the same size as the Hollands pies that were not so small daughter’s favourite when she was going through her pie obsession during her A levels (she would have looked like a pie if we had let her eat as many as she wanted!).  I do make savoury pies to go into the freezer – cheese and onion are my favourite, although I’m intending to have a go at butter pie very soon.  Butter pie is a traditional onion and potato pie, often associated with the county of Lancashire, and I first had one quite a few years at a yarn talk evening at Northern Yarn in Lancaster when they were out on the buffet table – oh my goodness, I couldn’t get enough of them!  I left the shop with a couple of pies that had been left over, intending to share them with the family but I will be truthful and tell you that they didn’t make it home.  Yup, I shovelled All The Pies on the journey back and I’m not sorry.  They were so good!

Anyway, back to my apple pies.  I buy the pastry from the supermarket.  I know, you’re going to tell me that it’s not hard to make and I have made pastry before, but it’s so easy to unroll it and drop the filling in and it reduces the chances of me procrastinating because I “don’t have time” to make pastry so I buy it.  Sometimes, you have to make life easy!

I don’t think I left it quite long enough out of the fridge before unrolling it which is why the two on the left look a bit split, but by the time I was ready for the apples they were OK.

Apples next … they’re a bit battered in places and just starting to go brown after peeling (they went brown very fast!) so not the best photo, but here they are, ready to go …

I chopped all the apples and used what I needed in the pies before putting the rest into a big pan to make stewed apple.  These were eating apples rather than baking apples so I didn’t overdo the sugar but there’s cinnamon in there as well … mmmm!

Finally, pastry lids on the top and that’s my pies done!

Previously, I’ve baked the pies before freezing them but I thought this time I’d try freezing them unbaked so that’s what I’ve done – although they’re now stuck in my pie tins so I can’t make any more pies until I’ve eaten these ones.  I should have thought that one through, but there’s no point in filling the freezer if you’re not going to eat the food in there, is there?  I will be having apple pie on a regular basis now!

 

Also on my mission to fill the freezer with handy portions, I froze some bechamel sauce from the other day when I made a lasagne.  Ooh get me, making my own bechamel sauce!  If you’d caught me on another day, I’d have confessed to cheating and buying that too, but I didn’t have any and I wanted lasagne so home made it was.  It was actually very easy to make so I probably won’t bother buying it in future.

Look at that!  Bechamel sauce icebergs! 🙂

I found a website called The Batch Lady a few weeks ago when I was on my eternal search for a hummus recipe that I can get to taste like hummus.  There’s not much to the stuff, I think it must be me rather than the ingredients but it’s starting to feel like my nemesis and I WILL work out how to make it properly!  The Batch Lady saves food in giant ice cube trays which is such a good idea so I got myself some of those (I bought these ones – another Amazon link.  I know people have issues with Amazon but it’s an easy way to show you things whether you buy from them or not!) and that makes far more sense than trying to put them in little cubes like I used to do with baby food.

Two of these big blocks is about a portion for me – well, of this sauce, anyway – and I can experiment with other foods to see how many I need.

This is my stewed apple, and I think I will probably only use one iceberg cube of this to go with some ice cream or perhaps a little sponge cake for a dessert.  It’s made of silicone which brings up issues with plastic but solves issues with wasting freezer bags – it’s all a balancing act, isn’t it? – and it’s got a lid that clicks on tightly.  I particularly wanted the lid after a messy incident with Katsu curry sauce (this Batch Lady recipe) and non-covered freezer trays and so far, it’s working a treat.

My next plan is to sort out the freezer – although I’ll have to move a bit faster with that than with the airing cupboard!

 

What’s next?  Oh yes, socks!

Last week, I had cast on for the second sock of the dark green pair of trekking socks that I’m designing for not so small daughter.  Here’s a reminder of where I was up to …

This week, I am delighted to tell you that I am almost at the toes of this sock – and I’ve run out of yarn.  I didn’t expect that!  I think I’m so used to knitting for my narrow UK size 5 that I hadn’t remotely thought that I’d run out of yarn for not so small daughter as she’s a tall drink of water – but I’d forgotten that she has bigger feet than me.

I had a couple of options – to use the leftovers of the ball of Spruce yarn (this yarn is West Yorkshire Spinners Signature 4ply in Spruce, held double) that I had in my stash and risk that the colour might be slightly different, to try to get another ball of the same dye lot or to use contrast yarn for the toes … and maybe even take the socks back to knit contrast heels as well.

I consulted not so small daughter.  I couldn’t get another ball as it was sold out at the place I bought it from, and I didn’t really want to risk the colour change.  Not so small daughter said she’d be happy with contrast toes (and maybe heels) so that’s what I’m going to do, although I haven’t decided whether it’s just toes or heels and toes yet.  Less than two weeks until she travels and I’ve still got a pale green sock to knit as well … I did what you might have done if you were me and abandoned the Spruce sock to start the pale green (Sage) one whilst I have a think about it!

There seems to be a bit of a deadline looming and I had not intended that with these socks!

 

Talking of deadlines, thank you so much for all your thoughts on Christmas knitting.  It’s been really useful to know that so many of you start so early and it’s been interesting to read that there’s a split between those of you who knit very deliberately for certain knit-worthy people, and those who have a general stash of knitted socks for gifts that people can choose from.  Both of those are wonderful ideas – I am very biased and think that socks make the very best gifts so I know that whichever is your method, your socks will be much appreciated!

My “up my sleeve” plan is progressing and I’ll have more to tell you about very soon!

 

For now, it’s back to sorting out the bomb site that is our landing and I really hope that by the next time I’m chatting to you, all will be clear and tidy!  Have a lovely weekend! xx