LEARNING TO CROCHET

I taught myself to knit last year when  friend of mine and his partner were expecting a baby and I wanted to send them something nice. I also wanted to make it myself and after a great deal of thought decided on some knitted beanie hats for when their little one was slightly older. Everyone gives expectant parents tiny baby things and pretty soon they grow out of them so I made the hats for around 6 months - 1 year old.

I picked up the needles and got started having never knitted before and after much cursing and being extremely annoyed I slowly got the hang of it and made several little hats. I enjoyed that greatly and have had a go at knitting a few other things since but I also wanted to learn to crochet.

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Hope you're all having a wonderful day or have had a wonderful Yule!

Here at Gaia Cottage, todays menu consists of slow roasted Organic Brisket, Roast Potatoes and Parsnips, Shredded Cabbage and Carrots followed by Hughs Pear and Almond Pudding Cake. Unusual Christmas fare granted but where is the law stating we have to eat turkey every year?

Brunch was a wonderful mixture of Toasted Waffles, Crushed (slighty sweetened) Organic Raspberries and a spot of cream washed down with some Bucks Fizz.

So it's time to break out the Christmas films here and Miracle of 34th Street is the first in the machine as we watched Patrick Stewarts version of A Christmas Carol yesterday. I adore that film in it's many re-makings and have watched the afore mentioned film every Christmas for the last few years! It has become somewhat of a Chrismtas ritual to sit down and watch it, I almost know the script by now but it never seems to lose it's magic for me.

Unfortunately all the snow has gone here in London so it's not quite the white Christmas we thought it was going to be but we're enjoying it all the same as it's our last Christmas in London as we are fast approaching the 8th January where we move into our new cottage in Cornwall!

All that's left is to raise my glass to you all, thankyou for reading my blog this year and I promise it will get better next year and wish you a Happy Christmas and a safe and prosperous 2010.

HARD PEARS!

No, not a greengrocers insult but the perfect ingredient for Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstalls Pear and Almond Pudding Cake... possibly the most heavenly of food I or everyone who had a piece of the one I baked had ever tasted!

So, move over Lemon Coconut Cake, I have a new love in my life and it doesn't contain lemon nor coconut infact it contains almonds, wholemeal self raising flour and hard pears which are sautéed in a spot of butter and sugar until softened... but lets get to the recipe shall we?

WELL GOSH...

Where has the month since I last posted gone?

Well, for us it has been a crazy frenzy of packing as we have finally gotten the thumbs up for our cottage in Cornwall. It's a beautiful two bedroomed, stone built cottage circa 1780's in a teeny, tiny place just outside of St Just. To say we are excited would be the understatement of the millennium and so on the 8th January we will be spending our first night in our new home.

We've been tentatively scoping out all the organic butchers and the farmers markets and it looks like we're in luck, there happens to be an organic butchers around 10 minutes away in one direction and our local farmers market is about 10 minutes the other way from us. Of course being so far out of the way brings it's own unique problems but we can fill in the gaps online but that said, it is going to take a bit of getting used to. No more nipping down to Seewoo for Chinese ingredients or Dadoos for Indian ingredients so it's going to take some planning to keep our stocks of spices and things like Dhals up.

That aside, we have been doing some more cooking despite having to rummage through boxes we'd packed because 'hey, when are we going to get time to bake a cake before we leave?'. Oh boy were those famous last words!