Time for tea

Today my parents popped up to Havant to visit us. It's not often we can coincide on a weekday visit between people working and DD in being in preschool 3 days a week.
 We took the opportunity to have a little look around the town, mooch some charity shops and check out a new tea room that opened a few weeks ago.

 Mum and me choose to have a cream tea. As you can see the fruit scone was a delicious crumbly homemade affair. There was plenty of cream and jam for spreading and a huge pot of tea to share.
Grandad choose to have a cup of coffee and a piece of chocolate cake, and DD had a glass of milk and little sample of everyone's food on her own little plate.

 While we were finishing our tea the waitress popped over and asked if DD would like to see their playhouse in the courtyard. The playhouse is in fact an old coal shed that has a little old fashioned window and wooden door fitted. It even has curtains in the window and a little welcome mat.

Inside are a little table and chairs for tiny teas, a blackboard wall to draw on and a whole host of toys to play with and books to read with a comfy beanbag to sit on. It was so sweet watching DD play house while we enjoyed 10 minutes peace. She's already asked to go back again.
 With some delicious food on offer and somewhere fun for DD to play I will definitely be returning here soon. (I'm actually rather jealous and want to move into the playhouse)

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Foody Sunday

 Yesterday was a bit of a foody day at the FHMH. First I made 2 huge quiches using up the last of the chicken. I bunged it some onions, chives, cheese, potato and sausage as well for good measure.

I really should make quiche more often, it is so easy and uses up all the ends of things nicely.

 

I have also started an experiment with my chestnuts. Marron Glace - they are very popular in France but I've never heard of them until I saw them on River Cottage. They take ten days to make but don't involve anything more strenuous that boiling them over and over in the sugar solution.

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And last but not least, check out Project jumper. The back panel is almost complete and I'm almost ready to start on the final section - with Rudolf's face.

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Mr W Bargains.

 Guess who's been shopping in Waitrose again?  It's my second home come 4pm most days. And its great for stretching my food budget in a way that lets me feed my family organic meat, prime cuts and exotic treats I couldn't usually afford.
  So how much did this little pile cost me?

That's right just £5.02 . The chicken is huge and will make three or four meals easy enough. I'm cooking it tonight and will pick it over in the morning when it has cooled. Just need to keep hubby from snacking each time he passes it. 

 

Perhaps I can use these two to distract him. Don't believe this photo though, the pair of them have been grumpy horrors all afternoon.

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Knit your part

  The photo above is the knit and natter group I attend each Thursday. Yesterday we had some very special visitors to pick up our donation of knitted hats for all the local troops headed out to Afghanistan soon. We have been knitting them now for a year or two and donate around 150 at a time to a local barracks.

They also appreciated our offer of a cuppa, and soon everyone was chatting like old friends. No one took up the offer of a knitting lesson from us though, maybe next time eh?

But they did enjoy modelling a handful of the various designs and picking their favourites. So now our store is empty it's time to get knitting again for what we're told could be the last lot to head over in May. We will have to get our thinking caps on about who to knit for next! Any suggestions?

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Tarts with Hearts

 Today has been wet and miserable for the most part, so we decided to get baking and make some yummy treats for Daddy. A lack of eggs meant we needed to think a little on the clever side, but we soon came up with Jam Tarts. We used our newest jam, Grape, as I had a quarter filled jar from misjudging amounts when I made it.

 DD loved rolling out the pastry and cutting out the circles and hearts. Most of the jam made it into the bases but I'm sure more than a little disappeared mysteriously between jar and baking tray. 
 As you can see above I need to label my plain and self raising flour in a more obvious fashion! We lost a lot of the jam in each one to the bottom of the oven. Luckily I picked up a frugal tip years ago about lining it with a bit of tin foil so the clean up took seconds.

And finally today I managed to take a good shot of the family all together on my phone. But if we are ever murdered in our beds I recon it was Baby D that did it based on this photo and that deadpan stare. She is usually the smiliest, happiest thing you have ever seen, I promise!

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Getting in the Spirit of Halloween

 Today has been pretty fun. I decided on Friday that I need to get back on track with our shop. With everything that has piled on top of us these past few months it is time to stop feeling sorry for ourselves and get on with stuff.
 So over the weekend I made a little pile of Halloween decorating things. The end of a roll of crepe paper from Christmas, a pack of Halloween invitations I picked up for 15p after last years event, and a handful of cotton wool.A quick hunt on google found me some free printable templates for ghosts, bats and Pacman characters.
 Today I decorated the window and had enough left over for one of our main display cupboards that desperately needed updating.

I cost me nothing but time to get our shop into the Halloween spirit. It has already prompted several conversations about the ultimate spooky game and horror movie. Both of which have led on to sales, so I am feeling pretty pleased with my get up and go.

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Frugal fun on a Rainy day

 It's been pouring it down here all day. So when I spotted a bag of Marshmallows in Lidl for £1 I got the inkling of a fun afternoon activity. Nabbing a tea light candle from my stash, and a handful of forks, we were ready. Toasted marshmallows all round.

It was a great opputunity to show DD just how hot and dangerous fire can be, but at the same time how it can be a useful tool if we treat it with respect. DD cooked several marshmallows on her own and was really pleased with herself.

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