a recipe for Turkish delight from the Narnia website! Tim loves the stuff so if it’s a success there’s his edible Christmas pressie sorted! (he has to have an edible pressie as well as a proper one….)

TURKISH DELIGHT

5 Tablespoons corn starch
1/2 cup cold water
1/2 cup hot water
2 cup sugar
1/2 cup orange juice
1 teaspoon rosewater (or lemon juice)
2 cup pistacios (or other nuts, if you like)
a bag of powdered sugar

mix corn starch with cold water
set aside

bring hot water, sugar, and OJ to a boil
add corn starch
simmer for 15 minutes
STIR OFTEN

remove from heat, add lemon juice and flavoring (whatever you choose)

stir in nuts
pour into buttered pan

when cooled and thickened (be patient!) cut into 1 inch cubes with
knife dipped in hot water

roll in powdered sugar.

one of the groups I’m on posted up this website for frugal cooking and I’m rather taken with it so far!

REcipes are SIMPLE quick (for the most part anyway) and CHEAP.

Today we had visitors and before the arrived I made the chocolate pudding using normal skimmed milk (instead of powdered milk) and orange extract (NOT orange flavouring which is a vile chemical concoction) instead of vanilla. It took very little time to make and worked perfectly (unlike some pretentious recipes I have known) It was like eating molten Terry’s chocolate orange. It was wonderful!

Later we made Snickerdoodles, well, I made the dough (in about 3 minutes) and then the small people rolled spoonfuls of it in the cinamon sugar and squashed them with forks to make the right shape. They took slightly longer to cook than the recipe said but that’s down to our oven, it’s not as hot as it should be and I am hoping this doesn’t mean it’s going to break any time soon!!!! Non of these survived for more than 10 minutes after they had cooled and I would have run up a second batch straight away had i got any SR flour left!

went to see my MIL today and we talked about crochet and so on for a while. She’s quite excited that I’ve taught myself to crochet and showed me how to make string bags taht fold up into themselves to keep them neatly stored when you aren’t using them. Guess what my mum will be getting for Christmas then

She has little note books for everything, well several of recipes but one each for just about every craft you could ever want to do. Most of them are yellow with age and falling apart, many of the instructions are in her own shorthand and not easy to read but given a bit of time someone could do it.

It made me think, what do I have to record patterns taht I’ve re-jigged, made up etc? scraps of paper stuffed into my tatting bag, computer print offs scattered round and notes scrawled on the back of envelopes in sewing pattern books. That’s before we get to teh row of recipe books kept for the sake of 1 or 2 well loved recipes (with adaptations and conversions for different sized trays scribbled in the margins)

I’m not sure hand written note books are going to be my style and A4 folders are just too bulky but I think it may be time to dig out the comb binder and print off stuff A5 and bind it, I can aways add to it over time so long as I remember to bind it front to back and I have some fairly large combs for the binder. I could get all over efficient and laminate the recipes to protect them from the ravishes of stray batter and soup and make the book stand up better….. now that would be worth the effort

But I also need to “back them up” somewhere in case of disaster. my first ever recipe book got lost when my mum loaned it to the neighbour. Bye bye strawberry icecream to die for recipe along with the good old favourites of baked treats, good things for sandwich fillings etc that I learnt at school. Somehow the pretty, pretty book that the lady replaced my much loved, battered, food spotted note book just never measured up and got flung years ago pretty much un-used.

I’m now doing a shawl for me! This one is in 4 ply so it’s lighter than the aran one I did for Becca and I’m using a 5mm hook so it’s *loose* not all tight and firm like the aran one. I want it just for a light cover for my shoulders rather than something to keep me *warm* so didn’t want it to be too closely worked. The pattern is chain 4, then 2 rows singles and 1 row half doubles increasing 1 at either end of each row. This is using the US stitch names as this is what I learnt with, must find the UK ones at some point!!!

Edited to add…. I changed the pattern after a bit as the wool is varigated and the rows of singles weren’t showing it off properly. Now I’m doing all half doubles and it’s much better. I’ve used up the first ball and will start the second ball (a different colour scheme but still varigated and high wool content) tomorrow.

next door neighbour gave me a ball of lovely thick fluffy yarn to make a shawl for Becca. Looked like there would be loads but it’s done something about the size of a headscarf Hmph!

So now I need to work out what to do with it. Either I can unravel it and use it to edge the aran shawl to make it all lovely and soft round the edges, I think it would make a 2″ band or so all round. Or I can find something else to go round the “headscarf” sized item. I’d like to do the former, i suspect Becca wants me to do the latter though…

Edited to add….. I ended up doing a row of half doubles all round her aran shawl. The yarn just made it and as it’s thicker than the aran it’s made it all “frilly” at the edges. She’s very happy with it!

Becca claimed the shawl so it’s smaller than I planned! Photo will follow when I find a camera… I made it with Aran yarn and a size 5mm hook. It’s very substantial, not at all lacy like the pic so obviously I should ahve used either a much lighter yarn or a much bigger hook to get the effect on the picture. BUT i like it, it’s a nice, practical sorta thing that would keep the chill off her in the evening if we were camping or keep her knees warm in the car. I want to run the pattern up in diferent threads and hook combinations and see what effects I get. Still want one in Snowflakes….