a country mouse is nesting

This is the carrot harvest, nurtured and frequently spot-tested by Little R. We had to think of a suitably wonderful use for these very special carrots so we made them into muffins, using a recipe from a book introduced to me by my sister-in-law the cupcake queen: Baking Magic by Kate Shirazi. It's the best baking book I've found, with lots of recipes for muffins and also good basic advice. These were carrot, orange, walnut and cinnamon muffins, minus the cinnamon because I couldn't find it.

We are just back from visiting my brother, sister in law and their little girl in Hull. We had a great time there, hitting the beach at Hornsea, seeing sharks at The Deep and having too many late nights drinking wine as if we did not have to get up the next morning with small children.
I've noticed in recent years that when I get back home after a period away I want to do some intensive nesting, cooking homemade food and ironing everything in sight. It's a reaction to too much eating out when we're away, really, and too much living out of a suitcase. I overdid it a bit yesterday though with the carrot muffins (much washing, chopping and grating), then making blackcurrant jam with the blackcurrants (above) gathered by Little R and Daddy Mouse from the garden, plus chicken pie (below). The overexposed white shape on the bottom right is half an onion. It was a nice easy pie to make - poach the chicken with parsley stalks, carrots (yes, from garden), onion, a bay leaf (from brother's garden) and peppercorns then make a roux and gradually add the reserved stock to make the white sauce. Ready made pastry, of course, then straight into the oven.
And here is my haul from Hull. They have a great Waitrose down there and I know it's tragic, but it's something I really look forward to when I visit. My brother bought these for me, kind boy. I especially love the sunshine yellow mugs. The blue silicone spoon has been in use already, making the blackcurrant jam. That would turn a wooden spoon purple but the silicone one is as good as new. Welcome to the space age, country mouse.

a country mouse gets hooky in attic 24

I've been a follower of the famous Attic 24 blog for some time now and have finally given in to my wish to crochet a granny stripe blanket. I've been wanting to make a really big blanket for ages now, ever since Grandado Mouse swiped the one I made on holiday in Findhorn last year, and have just been waiting to find the right wool. This wool is Lucy's recommendation: Stylecraft Special DK. I'm on row 48 at the moment and am finding it hard to put it down. The colours are so vibrant and the pace at which it grows is very satisfying. It doesn't take much concentration so it's possible to watch lots of Sky Plus-ed Project Runways at the same time. Simple things make me happy!
I'm also being made very happy just now by these beautiful gerberas, brought by a thoughtful friend when she and her wee girl came over recently for a playdate. She also brought some caramel shortcake. I like visitors like that.
I have not yet posted about Little R's 5th birthday, which took place during my prolonged blogging dry spell. She had asked me to make a very particular cake and told me exactly what it should be like - a triple layer cake, lots of cream, one layer with blueberries, one layer with cherries and raspberries, thick chocolate icing and a princess on the top. And five candles. Under the thumb as I am, I duly delivered the goods, and here is the photographic evidence.
Now that my baby is 5 she will be going to primary school in August. I am putting a brave face on it but I know I am going to feel like my right arm has been cut off. I will miss her so much. I'm very glad now that I did blog some of the things we did together during those short pre-school years. The first hurdle is going to be dressing her in BROWN school uniform. I have bought most of it now and my goodness it has not been cheap. While stocking up on little blue polo shirts in Marks and Spencer this afternoon I comforted myself with the purchase of a measuring tape with roses on it and a Mrs Beeton book about making jam. Both were in the sale and so fell within my charity shop levels of price sensitivity. We have a lot of blackcurrants in the garden at the moment and my next project will be to make them into something yummy so I can feel smug when I look at jars of glowing jet black blackcurrant jelly instead of defeated, as I feel when I catch sight of the jars of gooseberry sludge. Maybe I should hide them behind the gerberas.

a country mouse gets sticky

Some friends came round last night for cake, chat and crochet. We get together every couple of weeks to do this and having eaten some superlative cakes at other girls' houses I felt obliged to rustle something up for my turn at being the hostess. It was a great excuse to get out the charity shop embroidered linen and play tea parties, too. I made sticky toffee cake and here, as promised to the girls last night, is the recipe:

Oven 180deg, grease and line an 8" square cake tin. Chop 6oz stoned dates and gently heat in small pan with 6 floz boiling water and half tsp bicarb soda for about 5 mins, without boiling, until the dates are soft. Cream 3oz butter and 5oz caster sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in one beaten egg, half tsp vanilla essence and the date mixture. Fold in 6oz self raising flour using a metal spoon, mixing evenly. Pour into prepared tin and bake for 40-45 mins. Then make the best bit - toffee sauce. Heat 3oz light muscovado sugar, one and a half oz butter and 2tbsp single cream or milk in a saucepan and simmer gently, stirring, for about 2 mins. Remove cake from oven and prick all over with fork then pour hot toffee sauce evenly over the surface to sink in. Leave to cool then cut into squares. I'd say be generous with the toffee sauce quantities as the more the better, really.

The previous day, Little Granny, Little R and I visited Greenbank Gardens, using my newly acquired National Trust for Scotland membership. It's £5 a month and easily pays for itself with just one visit somewhere. We had a really lovely afternoon, kicking off with coffee and cake (of course) in the converted stone barn tea room then setting off for a wander round the grounds. We came upon this fountain, above, inside the walled gardens. The statue is called Foam. Fortunately for Foam, the sun soon came out. Little R had a rare tear, dipping her toes in the water, running in circles round the edge, crouching down and guddling for terrified goldfish and taking photos of the flowers with her all time favourite toy, her birthday present Kidizoom camera. All of this was done with Little Granny's hand firmly clamped on her arm lest she join Foam in the pool. I had a nice relaxing time sitting on a bench observing the fun from a safe distance.
We started with a forest walk around the grounds, led by Little R ("I'm an expert on nature, follow me"). Lots of amazingly tall trees and unusual specimens. We then spotted the walled garden but could not figure out how to get into it.
And then we found the way in - GASP. It was a physical shock to the senses to go from the forest to the manicured straight lines and curves of this garden. It looks a bit wonky in this photo, and I can see some bald patches on the lawn in this view, but once inside it was absolute perfection. Not normally my sort of thing in a garden, and certainly not in my own, but the grass was so lush and velvety that I took off my shoes for the sheer joy of walking on it. It was a memorable day, having gone from a rainy morning to a glorious afternoon and from a shadowed forest to a secret garden. Well worth the direct debit.
Finally, here is my attempt at gooseberry jam using the gooseberries from our garden. Having spent a hot afternoon topping and tailing 3kg of gooseberries I came out with 5 jars of gooseberry sauce. I didn't have any preserving sugar and thought that as gooseberries were high in pectin it would be ok to use ordinary sugar, but it wasn't. Oh well, we'll just have to eat it with ice cream instead. It's a hard life.

a country mouse goes to the farm

Little R and I are just back from a lovely weekend at our friends Lynn and Annie's farm. We had an empty as their menfolk were in Norway, throwing snowballs in the blazing sunshine. It was so good to have lots of time simply to be together and talk properly, rather than the rushed catch-ups we usually make do with. We also managed a trip to Portobello beach where, hardy sons of Scotia that we are, we were thoroughly exfoliated by the wind-whipped sand as we ate our picnic. We then retired to the Beach House cafe, above, to eat cake.
Like many farmers, our friends are diversifying. Their latest venture may be to cold press, bottle and sell oil seed rape oil using the crop in the field above. Apparently cold pressed oil seed rape oil is incredibly high in omega oils 3,6 and 9 and, unlike extra virgin olive oil and other cold pressed oils, can actually be used for cooking as well as salads without losing its omega properties. I think I've got that right. Anyway, it sounds like pretty amazing stuff and I applaud their entrepreneurship. The photo below shows the farmhouse nestled amongst the fields and trees. It's such a peaceful place. If they could bottle the atmosphere they would make a million.
And here are their hens, who gave Little R and I a parting gift of six freshly laid eggs. Buck buck.
Some horsey people stable their horses on the farm and we were thrilled to meet this handsome specimen below. As we approached he lifted first one front knee and then the other. Sadly I didn't have so much as a polo mint for him. His grumpy old face says it all.

We also got to pet and feed carrots to Jimmy, a miniature shetland pony the size of a labrador, and a year-old pony. Hens, horses, dogs, cake, beaches. We did not want to leave.

It has been a very long time since I posted on this blog (life has been busy and complicated) and I hope not to leave such a long gap in the future. Apologies to anyone who has been checking for updates, and thank you for your patience.

a country mouse has a big day out

It has been ages since I've found the time to update this blog so I've given myself a big kick up the bottom and am now going to tell you all about my lovely day out this weekend. I had not seen my dearest friend of 20 years' standing since October, yes October, so we organised that she'd leave her little ones with her mum and come over to the mouse hole for a sleepover. We parked at Shields Road Underground station and headed for the West End.

At this point I will confess that the first time I went on the London Underground I thought it would be just like the Glasgow clockwork orange, so called because it's orange and goes round and round a small circuit, and that if I just got on the first train that came I would eventually end up at Embankment. I really shouldn't be let out unsupervised.It became clear to my friend that I do not get out enough, supervised or otherwise, when I took a photograph of the wallpaper in our lunch venue, The Bothy in Ruthven Lane. That settled, we began easing ourselves into a zinfandel state of mind.
Ambling (shambling?) along Byres Road afterwards we came upon this fantastic shop, above, called Demijohn. They sell spirits and liqueurs and various exotic olive oils which are decanted into very covetable apothecary type bottles. We had a wee sample of black cherry liqueur (friend) and elderflower vodka (mouse) and I can tell you I won't be wasting my elderflowers on champagne this summer.
Tanks topped up, we continued our wanderings, heading up Great Western Road and along Otago Street then down this secret little lane to my favourite book shop, Voltaire and Rousseau. The yellow door opens into a different world.
This is what's inside. It's a secondhand bookshop and the grumpy, be-cardiganed owner just keeps buying up books and chucking them into ceiling-high piles. You can barely fit between them and it's been like this since I first came across the place at least 25 years ago. Also, there are several reeking calor gas fires and a big fat cat whose litter tray is kept right beside the desk where you pay. I spent £4.80 on The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster and Beyond Black by Hilary Mantel to add to my already overloaded bookcases. All I need to recreate the Voltaire and Rousseau ambiance in the mouse hole is a cardigan and a fag.
Then off we went again, further down the secret lane and round the corner to Tchai Ovna for a reviving cup of tea and a cake. My friend had carrot cake (she reckons it's healthy as it contains a vegetable) and I had a warm chocolate brownie and a tea named Mary Poppins, which was just as soothing as it sounds. My friend fell so in love with the cup and saucer her tea was served in that I bought it for her for a birthday present.
We went out for dinner that night too, to a fantastic restaurant in country mouse village. We both had the most outstanding galette with caramelised onions, loads of wild mushrooms and some goats cheese on top and then a kind of deconstructed rhubarb crumble with custard tart, served on a square slate. The restaurant building was a school for orphans in Victorian days. I wonder what they'd have made of us, sitting where their desks were and eating our puddings from the things they used to write on. Perhaps a hundred years from now the race of giant cockroaches which will inherit the earth post-apocalypse will wonder what we would think could we see them dining on rhubarb (it will certainly survive) from chi-chi i-Pads. Hmm, too much zinfandel?
The next day my well-watered friend set off to retrieve her children via the Balamory boat. We promised not to leave it EIGHT MONTHS before we get together again. All together now, Ba La Mo Ree...

a country mouse tries to be good

I do try to be good, but I've always loved the thrill of skipping something that I should really be doing. I'm always looking for a partner in crime too and now I've found one: my daughter. She was only too happy to skip nursery on the first sunny day after the snow to head for the beach at Lunderston Bay. We giggled and guddled and just generally had a ball, then went to the cafe for juice and a biscuit. A golden day.Tea this evening was Sophie Dahl's chicken stew with fennel and green olives, which I have made many times before and written about on this blog. I made it in a spirit of solidarity with poor Sophie, who is being pilloried at the moment for daring to have a cooking show. I haven't actually seen the programme yet but I'm a big fan of her cookery book, Miss Dahl's Voluptuous Delights. The gripe seems to be oh she's a "big" model, she's not a chef, what does she know about food except for how to eat lots of it, and other such nastiness. Well, anyone who can dream up that chicken stew is a cook as far as I'm concerned. We had it with the homemade bread, below, inspired by the bread baking feature in Country Living this month.
Still on the subject of eating, the photo below shows the wonderful spread of homebaking made by my friend Sally to raise money for Shelter. The event was called Cake Time so there was a good turnout of cake-loving mums eager to do our bit for a good cause by scoffing everything on this table.

http://www.caketime.org.uk/downloads/shelter_CakeTime_BROCHURE.pdf

I was in the mood for more worthy charity-related deeds when I came across Kiva (www.kiva.org). What an amazing idea. You and other charitably inclined people lend a sum of money, at least $25 to "the working poor" of various struggling countries and they use it to fund the set up or expansion of their businesses. They pay it back every month and then once you have your money back (default rate is something unbelievably tiny) you can either have it paid back to your bank account or re-lend it to another entrepreneur. You choose your entrepreneur from a really detailed list so you can choose something that is meaningful for you and that you would particularly like to support.

Country Mouse is now an international financier, having lent to a group of women with a sewing business and a timber selling business. This link tells you a bit about the women and what they do:http://www.kiva.org/lend/184680?_te=j Humbling stuff.

I promise to stop being worthy now, right after I've reminded you about the WWF Earth Hour on Saturday 27 March, when we switch off our lights for an hour. Sign up at www.earthhour.wwf.org.uk

Is that enough compensating for my Ferris Bueller day at the beach? Back to being a naughty little mouse again tomorrow.

a country mouse is snowed in

There is a new florist/gift shop in the next village and I can see already that I am going to have to stay well clear of it. It is one of those beautiful little shops you occasionally get that is full of things you want to buy but know are not exactly life's essentials, like embroidered wool cafetiere covers, tiny knitted mice, candy coloured crockery and those little sets of drawers for bits and bobs with mismatched glass and ceramic knobs for handles. Not to mention the flowers. It was Little Granny's birthday so I allowed myself the joy of a browse and came out with a huge bunch of yellow tulips for her, for an unmentionable price, and also this little posy of snowdrops, above, for the much less adrenalin-inducing sum of £1.50, which fitted nicely into my new bud vase (formerly a cayenne pepper jar).
We were snowed in here at the mousehole for 4 whole days so by day 4 the house was tidy, the washing and ironing was done (see what it takes for me to achieve that state of affairs?) and I could sit down with a crochet hook, some charity shop DK and a clear conscience. The crocheted thing above is a case for my camera as I'm sure it's not good for it to be unprotected at the bottom of my bag or in my sand/conker/old bits of twig-filled jacket pockets. I recently read a blog post in which friends were turning out their bag contents and photographing them but unfortunately I can't remember which blog it was to refer you to it. Anyway, the contents were things like Gucci keyrings and Lancaster sun lotion (the lucky blogger was on some exotic beach - I started to feel ill with envy). I'm looking at my bag right now and it contains a purse full of receipts (no money), a bashed pack of ibuprofen, some stones, a dead leaf, some crumpled drawings done by Little R, Grandado's ipod, lots of hankies and a chocolate ladybird, which chimes nicely with the ladybird button on the camera case, I realise as I write. I got the ladybird buttons from a charity shop cardigan and would have paid almost anything (well, up to my £7 charity shop all-time max) for it because my little brother had the same ladybird buttons on his blue dressing gown when he was a very small boy and I am always in the market for a sentimental trip down memory lane.
I also made this apron, above, for Little Granny's birthday using a pattern that I came across through Pomona's blog, Little Cottage Comforts:

http://littlecottagecomforts.blogspot.com/2010/02/making-content.html It is the second thing I have made using my new sewing machine. The pattern is billed as an apron in an hour but I had a pretty good idea it was going to take me rather longer than that. The pattern is very straightforward but I still managed to make many mistakes. If you have a go at it, the important thing is to ensure that the 3 pieces you cut/tear the half yard piece into must be equal lengths. If you do that and if you can work a sewing machine then it is probably very easy. I will definitely make more and perhaps next time I will try a lighter weight fabric as the machine could not go through all the folded hems and there were two exploding needles and much snarling of thread and snarling by me.
Being snowed in also meant I had to make do with what I could get from the cupboards and freezer for feeding Little R and Daddy Mouse, hence the store cupboard muffins, above. They are apple and cinnamon and didn't last long. Little R is catching the blogging bug too. She arranged her lunch very carefully the other day (that's a slice of the date cake, by the way) then asked for the camera so she could take a photo for her blog. I note that her focus and composition are on a par with mine and look forward to reading her content.
Having just about emptied the cupboards and freezer during those 4 days, the timing was right for me to come across The Kitchen Cure:http://cure.apartmenttherapy.com/2010/kitchen-spring on Lucy's Kitchen Notebook blog: http://kitchen-notebook.blogspot.com. I really must learn how to put these links in the text. I think I did it once and have never managed it since. Anyway, the idea of The Kitchen Cure is that you and 2500 other followers do four assignments, and at the end of it your kitchen is completely ship shape. The first assignment was to clear out your cupboards of all the out of date/will never be eaten food and it started last Friday so I'm behind already but is seems very worthwhile so I'm definitely going to give it a go. Despite your groans, I will keep you up to date.