A trifle for my sister

This was for my sisters birthday, a few days ago. Decorated with glace cherries and chocolate buttons.

It’s jelly with raspberries and port, strawberry blancmange, and whipped cream on top. This is something I usually make for birthdays ot Christmas. It is indulgent, but I use sugar free jelly and I use sweetner in the blancmange.

This can serve up to eight portions, so sometimes I make about half the amount if there are only a couple of us having it.

Upset

I hope it’s obvious what I’m talking about!

I won’t go into detail but I’ve lost 3kg over the last couple of days. I think I have caught a virus, and that and a damaged rib has made for a painful few days. I’ve not been out of the house in a while. Luckily a relative visited but I wasn’t on my own. But I ache all over and she made me small meals to keep me going. I’ve slept in an armchair because I couldn’t get upstairs or lie down. I just hope I’m feeling better soon.

Old pears.

My pear tree didn’t set any pears this year. I think it was in a sulk because my hubby passed away and I think I neglected it. He used to water the garden for hours but I can’t get the hose pipe round into the main garden.

Moving forward, I’ve been getting help trying to trim back the overgrowth. I still have tall trees but some of the lower branches have been cut to allow more light in. How will it progress? I’m hoping for a wildlife garden but with a few brighter plants to cheer it up, (and plenty of pears again)

Trifle

What food would you say is your specialty?

Not one of mine.

My trifle is based on my mother’s and her mother’s recipe.

It consists of a fruit and jelly bottom layer with a touch of sherry or port.

Middle layer? Blancmange (not custard). Either the same flavour as the jelly or something different like chocolate.

Top layer, a decent amount of whipped double cream, with possibly cherries, strawberries or raspberries on top or grated chocolate.

You can’t really go wrong with that X. Usually I make it at Christmas or for birthdays.

Scone

How do you pronounce Scone?

Is it sk-own, or scon?

Each is used in the UK

How do you serve it?

With Jam

With Cream

With Butter?

Or all three?

Etiquette matters!

Cream first

Jam first?

You can tell if someone

is from Cornwall or Devon.

I can never remember

which way they choose?

Just they do opposites

My way is butter, then jam

and cream on top. Yum

And with hot chocolate.

Although it should be tea to drink…

Dilemma time!

Garlic mushrooms

Tasty lunch, doubled portion (just flipped photos). It was very tasty with a fresh salad. I was taken out for lunch by my friends and I really enjoyed it. It’s been a while since I went out and socialised. I’ve been a bit up and down recently. This was at the Glebe pub in Stoke, Stoke-on-Trent.

Vesta meals

Tasty 1970s food before real foreign food was a thing. I particularly liked the chow mein vesta made (I don’t know if it’s still manufactured).

This is my faulty memory, I thought it came with prawn crackers but when I saw the photo I remembered they had a little packet of thin strips of noodles that you had to fry so they puffed up into little squiggles of crispy noodles. I’m guessing that the food was cooked In pans, certainly it was before microwaves, and it was unusual to have anything like this (except dehydrated mashed potato). I remember the jingle ” for mash, get smash!”

Hubbys chicken casserole

Write about your most epic baking or cooking fail.

One day hubby turned up from  his work at a pottery with a very large casserole pot. He’d bought it and wanted to cook for friends.

We decided to make a chicken casserole and invite a few friends over. I was working that evening so he said he would prepare it. I told him what to do, put the chicken in the casserole pot, add carrots, potatoes, onion and a clove of garlic.

I came home to hubby and our guests. He opened a bottle of wine and we decided to serve the food. Unfortunately the smell of very pungent garlic wafted from the pot. My hubby had put in a whole bulb of garlic in by mistake. We were only young and were not used to the strength of the garlic. The flavour was too strong for us. I think we ended up having fish and chips from the chips shop.