Reflections on the puddle of life

So today I've been making things, and I thought that as I was in the mood for creating, or constructing, or whatever, I'd make myself a blog, having deleted the old one.

But....

it's all still there. So instead of just making I'm reinstating, which is kind of nice. Don't know how much I'll blog here, blogging is kind of like having a diary everyone can read, but it's nice to know that all the earlier work is not entirely lost, no matter how hard I tried to make it so. I guess it's still true that what is done cannot be undone. Sometimes that's a good thing, sometimes not.

Anyway, I wanted to blog about my making things day. It's a wet dribbly, grey day. The wind is slapping the rain around, slamming it into window, doors, faces, all the exposed places; and it's cold: damp, unpleasant cold. A perfect day for staying indoors. So this morning I have shopped and posted a book I'm swapping via an online swap site (www.readitswapit.co.uk). And now I'm home and today is going to be a day of cooking.

At the moment I'm between jobs; I'm waiting for some chicken thighs to defrost, and some butter to soften, and in between I'm writing this. We're trying really hard at the moment to cut back, or perhaps not so much cut back but more waste less. So most of what I'm making today is store cupboard stuff. The soup is chicken, bacon and potato in a creamy stock and I've been able to use some chicken thighs we had in the freezer (chicken thighs are messy but tastier than breast. Perfect for soup), streaky bacon also from the freezer, and potatoes we always have in stock anyway. So for that we only had to buy cream which at 84p makes it a bargain meal.

Accompanying the soup is some home made brown bread (ok, the bread machine is making it today ) for which I had all the ingredients in already. Kind of worried about the bread as I've had to put it on rapid bake and rapid bake is notoriously temperamental, but if it goes wrong there will still be time to make some handmade ciabatta, so all is not lost.

Afterwards we're having dense chocolate loaf cake. Had to buy sugar, butter and chocolate for this but, again, everything else was in stock. Currently the butter is softening and once the chicken has defrosted and the soup is on I'll make a start on that. Real easy cake to make and always goes down well (except with the waistline!).

So, I'm feeling quite proud of myself today. Just thought I'd share that with you


****EDIT****

It all turned out okay! Bread is fine though a little lopsided (like me )


(you might notice a shiny bit of paper in the background. This is a certificate my daughter received at school for being 'star of the week', specifically as a result of her skills in throwing and catching. She is 4. She received the certificate in assembly in front of the whole school. She is very happy about it, see )



Soup



and Chocolate cake (cooling in the tin)



My daughter helped me with the chocolate cake and did an excellent job. I'm sure she will do an equally excellent job helping me eat it