Happy Yuletide 2015

Hello Friends,
Feeling festive? I'm just taking a few minutes between squidging up the chestnut stuffing ingredients & making pastry to wish all our friends a Happy Yuletide. The turkey is defrosting, a scary amount of sprouts have taken up residence in the pantry, everything is ready for guests & I have only macaroon mince pies & star biscuits to bake before applying my backside to a chair with a glass of something & a wodge of Christmas Cake.

Fellow cat-owners will know it's touch & go this time of year whether the tree remains intact for longer than the two hours it took to put it up. So far so good here, but we had a wobble yesterday when Albert Whiskers climbed up behind the tree so as to get a better paw to a large red bauble he's clearly taken against. After several bashings, he got one of his slasher claws stuck in the metal hook at the top of the bauble. His solution to this? Well, it's never the sensible option of retracting their claws back into their feet is it? No, he pulled & pulled, branches swaying about all over the place, then had the genius idea of trying to walk away claw still attached, until the Bigger Hairier Cat Handler in the Relationship somehow managed to get cat & bauble uncoupled. Was he grateful? If he was, he showed it by chomping his rescuer twice on the foot, before ambling over to undo my bootlaces with his teeth! He is refusing to eat the food we got in for him over Christmas. The blackbirds will be pleased, but I have to wonder if it's a ploy to get more turkey. We shall soon see.

Well, I'm going to raise a toast to you all, & send you a 'virtual' piece of Christmas Cake.

Whether you are celebrating the birth of the son of your god, the older Midwinter Feast of Yuletide as we do, or are simply looking forward to some much deserved time off work & routine to spend with family & friends, we'd like send our best wishes for a happy, peaceful time. I know many of our friends will be thinking of the  people who are having a horrible time at the moment - the winter seas are unlikely to stop desperate people risking their lives trying to escape from countries devastated by war, not to mention people in our own communities who have been brought low by one of the most cruelly devisive governments ever, including our UK steelworkers & miners who will be hoping to find work in the new year.
I don't know what 2016 will bring, but we all have a voice & we need to use it, remembering the quotation about evil triumphing because good people do nothing.
Well, friends, if you don't have your sprouts on now, you know they'll not be cooked by tomorrow, don't you? And I have to get that cake cut & the kettle on.
Yuletide Blessings from us here at the Peoples & Cats Republic. 
C , S & AW xxx

Yuletide visit to Hardwick Hall

Hello Festive Friends,
Winter Solstice Blessings to you all! Oh for a crisp twinkly frost overnight to set off the magic. Sadly more amorphous grey & the promise of plenty of rain later for us here at the People & Cats Republic. Despite the lack of winter, Festive Things have been going on, kicking off with seeing Jethro Tull at Lincoln Cathedral last week, & this weekend, we visited Hardwick Hall (Derbyshire) for their festive offering. The Hall looked fabulous. Such a lot of work had obviously gone into the flowers, trees & lights, and we felt 'proper festive' afterwards. 

So I thought I'd share my photos. It's the first year we'd been to see the Christmas trimmings at the Hall, but I think they take place every year, so if you missed it & are within travelling distance from Derbyshire (v close to the M1), then there's always 2016.

.......and not forgetting the servants' quarters......where let's face it, most of my ancestors would have been confined.......actually, that would have been a promotion, mine would have been stone-picking & crow-scaring out in the fields.....scrubbing floors for the aristocracy? Luxury!

These pictures don't really do the displays justice, as they were stunning, particularly the rooms & Tudor stone stairways which were lit only by candlelight. Do visit next year if you didn't get the chance this time.

We stopped off for a family visit on the way home & exchanged gifts. We were given a big bag of chocolates. I had no sooner tipped them out when Albert Whiskers jumped up & started bashing them about. I didn't manage to get a picture of him in action, but this was afterwards, refusing to come down. He doesn't eat chocolate, so I can only assume it's a protest about this particular purveyor's tax status.

He's been pretty well behaved with the Christmas Tree so far, but has been busted for nosing around the presents a bit more enthusiastically than strictly necessary. I, on the other hand, have not yet felt, prodded or poked a single present. Oh, hang on, not quite true, as I did try to have a squint down a gap in some sellotape the other day.

Hope people are starting to feel at least a bit festive, anyway.
Time for a caffiene top-up........but do I need a 2nd cranberry & almond biscotti? Judging by tightness of skirt this morning, perhaps not!!
C x

Yuletide wreaths & naughty cats........

Hello Friends,

Give me strength!!.......All day with Albert Whiskers on 'wet playtime'. I've somehow managed to get most of my job list done, despite Cat Help. I've never yet found the performance of ANY practical task to be improved by the addition of feline assistance & I doubt I ever will. Despite everything (more of today's furred delinquency later), I've managed to make & hang my Christmas Wreath.

I always used to buy one, but having taken one apart to inspect construction, it seemed ridiculous not to have a go myself, as I have a garden full of greenery. I kept the frame from the one I dismantled & it looks like this:

A quick squish around the garden in the rain produced a basket of green........mostly spotted bay laurel, with some sprigs of manky conifer, holly, fir & 'shrub that looks like holly, but isn't'.......(not actually its botanical name!).

My other bits of high end equipment for this? A few foraged fir cones, some shiny red pound shop baubles & a roll of wired red ribbon from the same establishment..........all re-used from last year's supplies........ 

......& a roll of wire we had in the shed. That's it. It's the greenery that's key here. If you don't have much in the garden to use, get your wellies on & go for a bit of a forage. Good for the soul AND the wallet. Most cut evergreen stuff seems to last 2 or 3 weeks outside. I sprinkle mine with water if it looks like it's considering turning its toes up.
OK, so all you do now, is pick your most boring greenery to pad out the wire ring, cutting short lengths of wire to secure it where necessary. I used expiring conifer for that. Then continue to wire in pieces of green Yuley Loveliness, saving your best pieces for last, wiring on fir cones & baubles as you go. Finish with ribbons & hang. Greenery miles = approx.100 feet (though I concede that the pound shop ribbons & baubles were probably made in China). It isn't difficult because if it all looks as though it's going to fall apart, just stick a load more wire on it. Same principle as bras - underpins the action & keeps it all going in vaguely the right direction!

Anyone who saw Albert Whiskers in action today would quite rightly wonder how I managed to get anything picked, let alone knocked into a garland. This has been him today: I rushed upstairs to close bedroom door to prevent picking out of rancid claws on bed to find he was already on there. I swear he head-butted the cat-flap to fool me into thinking he'd gone out. Refused to get off bed. Had to lift him off & deposit him by the door where he reversed back & we had a repeat performance; Licked all the jelly off his breakfast & refused to eat the chunks; Meowed pathetically for my lunch. Was given some. Left it untouched on the sofa. Also meowed for coffee (x 3), a satsuma, crisps, a jammy ryvita & a tea-towel. Kept jumping on the yarn while I was stitching up a hand-knitted jumper (which is for a gift & has already been mended because he clawed it out of my knitting basket to play with). Meowed to go out of the front door (apparently cat-flaps are for wimps). I opened it. He ran upstairs instead. I locked the door back up again & had no sooner put the key away when he re-appeared & meowed to go out again. Opened it again. Ran out. Instantly ran round & sat under the lounge window yowling to be let back in. (Hard luck this time, matey, because I'm not moving!) He then proceeds to jump onto our front wall & meow piteously at all passers-by to let them know how badly he is treated, look its December, it's drizzling & I'm all alone out here because nobody cares & they don't feed me. USE YOUR BLOODY CAT FLAP!! Managed to get jumper finished. Head upstairs to wrap it. Checked I'd definitely re-locked the font door. He hears the handle & is there like a shot - meow, meow, meow, Oh please let me in, hard-hearted cat-hating one. I unlock & open the door. He just sits outside on the door mat & refuses to come in, & I swear he is actually smiling. No interest in coming down the garden with me to pick festive greenery....................until I'm back inside & the door is locked. Then, going in the back garden is suddenly his life's ambition, & no, he can't go through his cat-flap because he isn't a loser. Refuse to open the door. Start to construct wreath. For some reason, he thinks I'm serving up his dinner. Starts winding round my leg. No dinner forthcoming (those chunks are dry because YOU HAVE SUCKED ALL THE JELLY OFF!! I HAVEN'T SUCKED THEM. YOU DID IT!!) The leg-winding is now turning into leg-nibbling. Luckily I'm wearing jeans today, so it isn't as disconcerting as it is when I've got tights & boots on. However, I know from experience that a session of leg-nibbling can soon escalate into a chomp. Offered to play an impromptu game of Mousie to encourage him to burn off a bit of energy. Mousie is also apparently for no-marks today. Straight onto the windowsill instead to size up the cabling behind the TV unit. This is an area thoroughly verboten to cats, so naturally Albert Whiskers thinks it is some sort of magic grotto. He has also thought about going up the chimney. Now he is busy telling the Big Hairy Half of the Relationship who has just arrived home, how that I haven't fed him & he's almost starving away to a stick cat ........but it's consistent 'parenting' in this house today, because I've just heard the BHHOTR telling him that no new food is being opened for naughty jelly-lickers, so he'd better start making some serious inroads into those chunks RIGHT NOW! This is not unusual behaviour. This is Albert Whiskers on pretty much all wet days..........& some dry ones. <Sighs> 
Off to the kitchen to make a quiche now......give it 10 seconds & he'll be rocking up meowing for pastry.......
Hope you're all starting to feel at least slightly festive, anyway.....& that your furries are better behaved than ours.
Till next time,
C x

Sock knitting - thinking of having a go?

Hello Friends,
Well, it's been over a week since I promised a number of people who asked that I'd post some pictures of my latest hand knitted pair of socks, so here we are. 

It's hard to explain self-patterning sock yarn to people who haven't seen it. It's fab stuff. You buy it looking like this.....

.......this one is Regia 4-ply, Design Line by Arne & Carlos.....a Nordic-inspired range....& it knits up into this.......

without you having to do anything other than simply ordinary knitting.  You don't even need to do 'knit a row, purl a row' as socks are knitted in the round so stocking stitch is automatically formed by knitting every row. I've knitted heaps of socks over the years, for gifts, for myself & for sale. I must have made at least 70 or 80 pairs in total, from teeny tiny ones (they make a nice gift for a new baby) up to clod-hopping massive pairs to fit the bigger hairier half of the relationship. I've knitted a few plain pairs, or plain with contrasting ribs, heels & toes, but mostly I've used these self-patterning yarns, such as Regia, Opal & King Cole 'Zig-zag' so as to obtain maximum funkiness of sock for minimum effort. This is one of the most impressive sock yarns I've ever used. It really does look as though I've been slaving away over a fairisle chart for hours, when it really is just knit stitch & the cleverly designed yarn does all the work!

Now I have to admit that my first attempt at knitting socks many years ago was not a success. In fact, it ended in an impressive tantrum on my part! I managed to knit the first sock, but was unable to repeat this for the 2nd one which went hideously wrong. After 3 attempts at frogging & re-knitting, I ripped it off the needles, jumped on it (imagine a BBC bleep-style machine in overdrive & you'll have an idea of the language....), grabbed the first one, stomped to the door, marched out & hurled them both into the bin! Didn't try knitting them again until 2 or 3 years later when my good friend Hel bought me a ball of self-patterning yarn, a set of double-pointed needles & a sock pattern! This time, success! The trick is to start with a straightforward pattern to allow you to concentrate on learning the structure of the sock. Once you've mastered this, then it's time to try some lacy, textured, frilled or more arty pairs.

 If you've never knitted socks before, you don't need much gear - just 100g of 4-ply sock yarn (usually 75% wool & 25% polyamide) a set of 4 double-pointed needles (DPNs) in size 2.5, a row-marker (a little, usually beaded charm which sits on the needle so you can see where each new round begins or you can use a safety pin slipped onto the needle in the same way) & a darning needle. These socks are seamless, so the only sewing is to darn in the tail of yarn at the beginning & end. 

While socks look complicated, it really is just a case of not over-thinking it & following a pattern. To knit a simple pair of socks like the ones pictured, you need to know how to do the following:

 Cast on & off, knit, purl, decrease, count & measure (!). Every part of sock knitting uses just these or  simple variants of these skills.

100g of 4-ply sock yarn is sufficient to knit a pair of adult-sized socks. Even if I knit the biggest size, which is 10 -12, I still have sufficient yarn left to knit a pair of baby socks too. They make nice gifts because they're warm in winter, but the high natural fibre content allows the feet to breathe so I know many of the people to whom I've gifted hand knitted socks wear them all year round.

So find a pattern, have a look at all the lovely self-patterning sock yarns available & cast on a pair of warm lovelies for winter.

I should just add that if you've got one of these........

.........then do first make sure it is otherwise engaged. 

Sorry it took me longer than promised to get these pics on. I don't know where the last couple of weeks have gone. Off to make macaroon mince pies now. 

Till next time,

C x

Pea & Beef Kerala - something nice to cook on a soggy winter night

Hello Friends,
Where are the crisp frosty mornings this year? I'm always far more inspired to get outside for walks or gardening on a really cold bright day than I am in this warmer but deeply soggy weather. By evening, I'm more than ready to close the curtains on yet more rain, switch on the fairy lights in the kitchen, find a CD & settle down to cook something good, so this week, I'm sharing a recipe we both enjoy eating. Pea & beef kerala - it's easy, tasty & reasonably healthy too.

I've collected recipes since I first started cooking in secondary school. I clip interesting sounding recipes from newspapers & magazines, scribble them down from library books, cut them off product packaging, make notes from TV programmes, print them from websites - anything I think I'd enjoy making or adapting is added to my collection. When I can no longer shut the lid on my green box, the recipes are sorted & the best ones transferred to books for keeping. Any for stuff I've totally gone off the idea of making are composted (like anything that sits around in this house for too long, such is my evangelical zeal for making scrummy free plant food out of now't!)

I received this large recipe notebook as a Christmas gift in 1991 & use it at least weekly. It's so rammed that there are even recipes on the end papers, inside covers & titchy ones squeezed into margins. This is my 'go to' book for old favourites such as my tuna fish pie, for pear cake, lentil roast, BBQ sauce, carrot & garlic chutney & tons of others. Then I moved on to my 'Garden notebook', also now full, before starting a Christmas edition to allow me to scrapbook festive favourites like my mini-sausage pies, a rather slurpmongous cranberry vodka & the 'house' Christmas Day sauces & stuffings. 

I tend to pick up new recipes from almost anywhere. This week's share actually arrived in the post years ago as a piece of unsolicited junk mail before we registered with the Mail Preference Service. I used to chuck most of it straight in the bin (does anyone ever buy that giant single heated slipper or battery-operated ear-wax hoover?), but on this occasion, for some unknown reason, I'd been singled out for a booklet from a British pea-championing organisation! Yes, a free booklet of 'Things I may never have thought to do with frozen peas' was mine. Most of the recipes were things I could make without a Very Helpful Booklet, but I copied out the recipe for pea & beef kerala. I've barely adapted it since then - simply to swap the suggested rump steak for the much cheaper & thinner frying steak, which cooks quickly & makes excellent strips. 

Pea & Beef Kerala (Serves 4)
1 firm medium cooked potato, cut into cubes
500g frying steak
2 garlic cloves, crushed
2cms fresh root ginger, grated (you need about 2tsp)
1 tbsp red chilli, finely chopped
2 onions, peeled & sliced into half rings
75ml beef stock (a cube is fine)
2 tbsp tomato puree
1/2 tbsp soy sauce
1/2 tsp chilli powder
Juice of 2 lemons
3 tomatoes, peeled & chopped
200g frozen peas
salt & black pepper
Oil
Fresh coriander if you have some

Using a sharp knife or scissors, cut the steak into small thin strips. Put in a bowl & add garlic, black pepper, ginger, chopped chilli & mix till coated. Can be left to marinate at this stage, but it's fine to crack on straight away. Heat a little oil & fry the steak strips in batches over high heat. Remove from pan & set aside. Add onion & cook till soft & golden. Remove & set aside. Add stock, tomato puree, soy sauce, chilli powder & lemon juice to pan, bring to boil, reduce to simmer. Now add onions, tomatoes & peas. Cook for 2 mins. Add the steak & cubed potato & stir until heated through. Taste for seasoning. Contains stock & soy sauce, so won't need much salt. If you like a bit of a green flourish, add some chopped fresh coriander before serving.  
We usually eat this with plain rice, but you could do a flavoured one if you were feeling a bit creative & la-di-dah fancypants in the rice department.

OK, so there's an easy warming recipe from my collection of Very Useful Stuff amassed over the years. Why not give it a go? It's a good 'fakeaway' dish, when really, you fancy a takeaway but are baulking at the potential calorie armageddon & the £30. And it's easy! So for non-cooks....no excuses!

Hope everyone is so far avoiding too much in the way of seasonal sniffles. The Big Hairy Half of the Relationship went down with a slight cold last week (very unusual for his tungsten steel constitution) but unusually, I didn't get it. I am, however, keeping the hand-gel industry afloat!
Till next time,
C x