Or is it...

Knit knit knit purl purl purl knit knit knit?

Knit knit knit knit

Hedgehoooooogs!

They're in our garden, carrying around our leaves.

Yup, that's Who!

He's not 'my' Doctor, but he's certainly the snappiest dresser.

Guess Who

No frame of reference...

Odd things afoot. 

Oh... Hello...

                        

Up to something? Us... NEVER. 

Wrapping things up...

...for a while, at least. 

Makies are fun and fantastic and full of magic and awesome, but in the last few weeks I've just not had enough time for them as well as all the other things I need or want to do. Life is throwing many challenges in our path at the moment and unfortunately the thing that's gone boiiiiiiing is the time spent with the little printed people

In short, I've decided that updating this blog is not a priority for me right now, so it's a bit daft for me to pretend that I'm keeping it going. The existing posts aren't going anywhere and (who knows?!) there might even be the odd mini-scale musing, but I'm stating here firmly and for the record that I'm not going to be making any regular updates. 

That's not to say I'm not going to be blogging at all, oh no. There are plans afoot which mesh better with day-to-day Dr Duckie activities and I'm really looking forward to getting them off the ground. 

Anyway. You guys. Stay silly, stay bonkers, stay awesome. See you soon! 

                                     

Happy Hedgehogween!

Sausage Casserole

Adapted from the Hairy Biker's 'Special Cassoulet' diet recipe

Feeds 4ish dieting people or 2 normal people with a bit left over for lunch the next day. 

About 450-500 calories/portion

2-3 leftover rashers pancetta because they need using up

6 herby sausages, decent quality

1/2 an inadvisably purchased GIANT onion (or one medium one), sliced

2 cloves of garlic, walloped so's they split a bit

3 medium carrots, peeled and sliced

2 moderate leeks, topped and chopped

150ml red wine (drink the rest)

300ml and half a tomato tin of water

400g tin chopped tomatoes

1 bay leaf

1/2 tsp thyme

1/2 tsp chilli flakes

1/2 tsp caster sugar

Pepper, black, freshly ground if possible

1 tin-sized tin butter beans, drained and rinsed.

1. Pour relatively generous glass of wine. Read the original HB cassoulet recipe. Realise have forgotten to defrost chicken, neglected to purchase gammon and that the tin of canalli... cannol... camellini... Italian-sounding beans you thought were in the cupboard have metamorphosed into six tins of red kidney beans. 

2. Recall the ridiculous article in the Sun last week that stated 5 kidney beans can kill a man. Snort derisively. 

3. Get on with it. 

4. Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees C (160 degrees fan, gas mark work it out yourself)

5. In a fancy iron casserole dish, heat a little sunflower oil over a medium heat.

6. Twist the sausages in the middle and cut to make 12 sausagettes. Reflect that sausagettes is a better band name than (for example) "Wand Erection". Cut up pancetta into bits. 

7. Fry the sausagettes and pancetta for a few minutes until browning, then chuck in the onion. 

8. Add the garlic, carrot and leek, tin of tomatoes (swooshing out the tin with your 1/2 tin of water), wine, water, bay leaf, chilli flakes and sugar. Stir. 

9. Realise have forgotten to raid the thyme in the garden and it is now spookydark. Substitute dried thyme.

10. Chuck in some pepper. Stir again. 

11. Let it bubble, bung on lid shove into oven for 1/2 hour. Pour another glass of wine. Accept that today's calorie count may be a little forgetful. 

12. Remove from oven, stir in beans, shove back in oven for 1/2 hour. 

Serve with chunks of homemade sourdough and an air of domestic capability that you probably don't deserve. Fend cats off of leftovers so you have something to take for lunch. 

Chocolate Sables

Recipe via Edd Kimber, @theboywhobakes

200g unsalted butter, softened

100g light brown sugar

50g caster sugar

275g plain flour

3/4tsp baking powder

40g cocoa powder

1tsp flaked sea salt (ESSENTIAL for an amazing head-on salt-sweet collision, but probably take down to 2/3tsp next time)

175g dark chocolate, finely chopped (I used 65g of Green and Blacks Espresso chocolate, which was all I had but oh my, rawr)

Beat the butter and sugars together in a bowl until light and fluffy. You could do this with an electric mixer, I did just fine by hand.

Combine the cocoa, flour, baking powder and sea salt in a bowl, then mix this into the butter and sugar. You're aiming for a soil-like sandy texture, do not over mix. 

Add the chopped chocolate and briefly mix to combine. 

Turn the mixture out and press together into a ball, then divide in two and roll into 4cm diameter logs. 

Wrap in clingfilm and chill in the freezer for an hour; heat the oven to 180 degrees C (160 degrees C fan)

Once thoroughly chilled, cut the biccies about 1.5cm thick and bake for 10-12 minutes. Once out of the oven, place on a wire rack to cool. 

Take to work and be appallingly smug. 

Evolution of the Sourdough

Sourdough is, I am convinced, mostly made by magic. 

You need to care for it. Feed it.  

Astonishing it's just flour, water and (most importantly) time and patience.

And alright, a bit of salt and a lot of heat at the end. 

It has been a very zen thing to create. 

It actually feels like real creation. From simple things, I have made another thing. 

And it has combined to absolute freaking yeasty perfection and I am a very smug baker. 

Sourdough starter made as per River Cottage instructions. Baked according to the Yumblog.co.uk method. Eaten mostly by me. Nomnomnom. 

Fridge magnets are fun.

Midweek Dilys Update

Sourdough starter status: Frisky :D 

Things Achieved This Weekend

Aaah, a weekend of productivity! Excellent stuff, if you ask me. 

This weekend, I have: 

1) Made a good start of my medical education course. 1 task and the assignment to go for this module. 

2) Changed the beds.

3) Run my fastest 5K this year.

4) Mined the Laundry Heap and paired all the socks. 

5) Created Dilys, the Sourdough Starter... 

6) Hoovered EVERYTHING

7) Defragged the fridge

8) Made my first custard :) 

9) Made significant advances as Guardian H'minee of the Caretakers* with my mind worm army

10) Completely failed to do anything with my new fabrics

11) Nearly got to the bottom of the washing pile

12) Generally been a domestic Goddess. 

I shall count all of this as a WIN. 

* I suspect this will only make sense to a very small fraction of readers... If you are one of them, GET IN TOUCH. SMAC has to be the best turn-based-game ever made and I bloody love it. 

More hedgehogs!

Happily not in the context of us finding them underweight this time.

This hog has spent a lovely summer in the care of City Wildlife and is ready to go back into the wild. She weighs about 1.4kg! 

We made her comfortable in the hedgehog box after picking her up last night.

I think I saw her a bit later, snuffling around the bird feeder, but the boxes were both empty this afternoon so she obviously sought out more interesting accommodation. We did have a big hog visit tonight... but one hedgehog looks very much like another ;) 

Moshi Friday

Had a lovely time yesterday afternoon: left the cats and the long-suffering boyfriend to fend for themselves and went to meet up with the utterly lovely Hilary of the rather famous Moshi Moshi Blythe clothing range.

We went to Tredegar House, which is one of those places that I've lived rather close to for the last 5 years but I've never actually visited! It's a rather pretty place and does a very good National Trust cup of tea... It's also got a good collection of craft shops in the old stables so we had to go and have a look in Busy Bees, which sells a good range of patchwork cottons and other exciting trinkets. 

Of course, some of our small models came along too: 

I think Melchie felt rather underdressed! 

I managed to come home with some little bits of lovely fabric and a lot of tips on how to sew tiny clothing neatly. Given today is looking thoroughly rainy (although Fitbit dictates I *shall* go for a run at some point), I think I'll see what I can come up with... after a bit of Alpha Centauri, perhaps :) 

Wingnut

Finally got around to giving the 'nut a bit of colour.

Not entirely sure yet what I'm going to do with her body. I might decide to blue it up, in which case I'm going to give her Melchie's corpse (horribly stained in a sharpie-related incident). Decisions, decisions. 

Crumble!

I love Autumn. You can keep your cold frosty winters, gradually unfolding springs and steamy summers, I'll take crackling leaves and golden evening light and morning dews any day. 

Today I had a bit of a wander and managed to come back with about a kilo of these beauties: 

After a bit of a bath and some time for the resident fauna to wander off... 

Mmmmm. I froze 3/4 of them, and the rest I turned into a glorious crumble. Which is completely against the diet, but meh and blah, I don't care :) 

Here's the recipe! 

Blackberry and Apple Crumble

Serves 4, approx 350 calories or one 2.5k run per portion (eeks)

Ingredients: 

250g blackberries

450g Bramley apples

50ml water

2tbsp granulated sugar

180g plain flour

90g golden caster sugar

90g unsalted butter, cold

1. Heat your oven up to 180 deg C/160 deg C fan

2. Core and slice the apples. No need to bother peeling them. 

3. Cook the apples in a pan with the water and granulated sugar over a medium heat for about 5 minutes. Bung in the blackberries and let simmer over a low heat whilst you make the crumble. 

4. Mix flour and golden caster sugar in a bowl. Cut the butter into small pieces and rub into the flour and sugar using the tips of your fingers. Don't worry about lumps! All the better in crumble. 

5. Spread the fruit over the base of an ovenproof dish, then sprinkle the crumble mix evenly over the top. 

6. Bung in the oven for 45-50 minutes until the top is golden brown and the fruit bubbling up through. 

7. Add a dollop of your favourite naughty creamy adjunct and devour (low fat creme fraiche in this case, which works beautifully), whilst feeling very smug. 

Don't forget to tell the fitbit how bad you've been ;) 

Them cows...

...is obviously not happy living in a Sheepocracy.