Sunday, 20 October 2013

20TH October - Nostalgia week - A GIANT LEAP

Well time to blog again for this week before Monday!

This week Kathi asked us to reminisce about Lifestyle changes in our lifetime and how things have changed  for us compared to our Mothers lives.

I guess technology... phones, computers TV and gadgets are the biggest change in my lifetime

I think we have all blogged about Telephones and the changes we have seen.  In 1967 when I got married,we manged to buy our house but then had to choose whether we had a phone installed or ran a car, so the first few months of married life we had no mobile(unheard of then!) and no landline either!!  Guess what?.....we managed!! We now have 4 phones aroundnthe house and 2 mobiles although Peter rarely takes his with him and can only make phone calls to numbers he knows. When I went to Egypt without him I taught him how to send me texts. Well I thought I had!! The first 2/3 were gibberish then I started getting perfectly written messages,......he was taking the phone to work and getting his friend Lesley to send me dictated messages and for her to open my messages and to read them to him ....no romance in those messages!!!

Computers arrived at schools in 80's for staff called BBc computers, big bulky machines and information was stored on floppy discs. We had training for these and found them quite difficult at first!!

Then next Windows arrived. Still only for staff but finally each class got 1 computer in each classroom!  Finally each school had a computer room with enough computers for half the class to use or 2 /3 children to a computer. It was rare for many children to have a computer at home in those days!!
As I was leaving staff were finally getting laptops to work on. I remember the laptop came home with me every night and I worked on it to the early hours of the morning and I would be on it at 6am working again, not online chatting to people....couldn't get online with work ones then!!

Central Heating is another change in most homes... if this winter people can afford to put it on!! Our first central heating came from a backfire boiler, a Baxi Bermuda fire, before that we had electric radiators electric bar fire and a fan heater we moved where ever we were sitting and of course an open fire in our house

Cars not many could afford new cars.  Our first car was a old Morris and then a Morris traveller and then a Wolsey which was grey but ended up having filler and pink paint where my husband had repaired the body work himself. Many people had old cars with rusty body work and they did their own repairs, no MOT's then!

Changes in my life compared to my mother's ...huge changes.
In my mother's life...
Not many woman worked until the war though after the war some continued to work. My mother didn't once I was born 1945 and never did
No bathrooms so a zinc bath in kitchen and bath night once a week!!
Outside toilets (we did have a toilet and wash basin indoors when I was a child)
No washing machines,everything hand washed using a wash tube, plunger and mangle.
Food rationing during and after the war especially on sweets.
Heating was from open fires, even in bedrooms though I never remember a fire in the bedroom, only the fireplace blocked up!
Hot water had to be heated up until the first gas boilers in the kitchen
No televisions, our first B&W television was at the beginning of 1060's The radio was their form of entertaining, Woman's hour each afternoon and the Archers every evening
No car until my father learnt to drive in 1965
My Mother had a household routine each week, Monday was baking day for the week. Tuesday was wash day, Wednesday and Thursday cleaning and Friday shopping and each day we always knew what food would be cooked. Thursday was the day when we made do until shopping the following day, so we could get soup and steamed pudding or egg or beans on toast and cake for our dinner.
Spring cleaning twice a year when cupboards were emptied, curtains taken down and washed etc
Freezers were non existent to my mother until 60's so we only ate foods that were in season.
Clothes were made by my Mother with patterns and a hand sewing machine and my Auntie did all the knitting for our cardigans and jumpers including for my Father too
Holiday were never taken away from our town except once to Cornwall when I was about 6/7yrs
No entertaining at home except with neighbours on Christmas day that was when they bought a bottle of sherry (Dubonnet) and a few Babyshams.
No eating out
Never saw a doctor or took anitbiotics!
Their only vice was-  they were both very heavy smokers indoors. Each smoked 60 a day until they both died at very early ages 60 and 63!!

So how different is my lifestyle to my Mother's
No set pattern of routine these days though when I first married and had children I copied a routine for a few years, No Spring cleaning every Spring and Autumn
We have newish cars, fairly uptodate with technology though it is slowly leaving me behind with ipods and iphones
Off the peg clothes that are never repaired (socks for example!)
5 TV's in a house for 2 people, though only 4 are new freeview!
We buy any foods out of season we want and foreign grown foods too. Shop whenever we want though I do have a shopping day
We eat out a lot, have alcohol in the home and entertain a lot, take holidays at home and abroad
Look younger than she did in her fifties when she did look middle aged!
Have managed to live longer than her and...
We do NOT smoke

Now to finish with some Autumn skies from las t week and this week



  and a morning sky with low mist over the town one day last week
Sorry I won't be able to comment during my week starting tomorrow as we fly to Italy Tuesday to Lake Maggiore and Stresa

20th October - Freshers flu! and CATCH UP!

So what happened between 9th oct and now....I caught a very bad cold and cough from the students!!

I managed to go for 3rd session last Monday but cancelled the Thurs session and went to bed at 7pm.
The 3rd session was homemade pizza v bought basic pizza and different toppings


Sorry Anne I failed to finish your letter challenge last week but here is the Margerihta potato base recipe
MARGHERITA (potato base) PIZZA FOR 4
RECIPE
For base
6 large potatoes (peeled and diced)
6 spring onions ( finely chopped)
2 eggs (beaten)
Salt and pepper
Fry light
For Topping
2 garlic cloves or puree
1 onion (finely chopped)
350g tin or packet tomatoes
1 tsp sugar
150g basil leaves (chopped)
Mozzarello cheese or cheddar cheese (grated)
Salt and pepper

METHOD
1. Boil potatoes until tender, drain and mash. Leave to cool slightly
2. Place mash potato, spring onions and 1 egg in bowl, season and mix with your hands. Leave to chill so mixture is firm
3. Prepare topping. Place all ingredients except cheese in saucepan and simmer until mixture thickens 15-20mins Season and remove from heat
(Both potato base and topping can be made the day before)
Preheat oven 200C /gas 6
4. Line  baking sheet with baking parchment
5. Place potato mixture in centre and press down and make base about 10”/25cm circle  
6. Beat remaining egg and brush over base, then spray fry light and bake for 10-15mins until lightly brown
7.Spread topping mixture over the base, add cheese, return to oven for another 6-8mins until cheese has melted. Take out of oven and scatter some basil leaves and cut into wedges and serve

CHANGING THE POTATO BASE

·         Use sweet potato, swede or butternut squash instead
·         Swap the spring onions for chopped herbs
·         To make it hot add chilli flakes!

DIFFERENT PIZZA TOPPINGS to add before cheese

·         VEGGIE SUPREME – sliced peppers, courgettes, mushrooms, spring onions and sweetcorn
·         FUNGHI – sliced mixed mushrooms
·         MEDITTERANEAN – sliced peppers, black olives, and mixed herbs
·         CHICKEN DELUXE – 70g cooked shredded chicken per person, sweetcorn and sliced peppers
·         HAWIIAN – 80g diced ham per person, fresh pineapple or canned pineapple chunks added after cooking



Wednesday, 9 October 2013

9th October - Exhausted after 2 sessions!!

Well the 2nd session went well and a few more students have learnt a new dish, whether they try and cook remains to be seen.

NUS got some funding to show those in hall (approx 60) some healthy eating recipes after last year's freshers said they would have liked some lessons!!

So last night was Risotto, I am afraid that is my letter today Anne, cheating this week!!
 Here is Dan a 3rd year student who is working this year for NUS and is my 'soux' chef and washer up, a great bloke!!

Here are the 2 risotto dishes being left for them to eat for their supper. No plates for some of them just forks and they got stuck in LOL!!
I had 1 male too byu he disappeared!!
And the 2 recipes

 This one is a SW recipe I gave them too
Off the subject of food, I had to take a photo of this car outside our house yesterday, love those eyelashes!!!
 Instead of sunset (nosunset tonight just dark and grey) I took an early morning photo of the sun and mist together over the town
No more cooking sessions until next Tuesday but will try and think of some food I like with T.W.F and S during the week!

Tuesday, 8 October 2013

7th October - Monday madness and SILVER LINING week- I for IRRESISTABLE is the word and food !

It is Anne's SILVER LINING week and we now have 3 letters left in the year long challenge.

I FOR IRRESISTABLE.  What can you find irresistable, def certain foods! So we have to find food and recipes for the days of the week

Well today I have started delivering a cookery course for freshers in hall of residence in Hastings Campus for Brighton Uni. There will be 12 sessions, 2 a week delivering recipes and ideas to each floor in the hall twice.

It went well apart from getting a flat tyre in the new car as I parked and having to deal with the AA and getting it repaired whilst a started the first session, anyway it went well and though the photos aren't very good (had the camera on the wrong setting !)
The draft recipe book cover
 Floor 1 group in their kitchen where I demonstrated, 6 grew to 11 during the 2 hrs!
They were left the food to eat for their supper


M for Minced beef Sauce that can be made into other minced beef dishes by adding different ingredients, Bolognese sauce, cottage pie, Creole hotpot, chilli etc
Forgot to take a photo of the one finished dishes until they were attacking it to eat as if they had never eaten in their life!!
The Basic recipe

Spag Bol on one of their plates!!
Tuesday I am demonstrating Risotto dishes!!

Sunday, 6 October 2013

6th October - Scrapping at last!!

Today it was really warm and a lovely sunny day and I was indoors all day at our monthly crop!!

I managed to do the weekly challenge on UKS. We had a great choice to get our points.
I chose the given sketch for 10pts,
showed change in the photos 10pts
used metallic embellishments on photo corners and the word enjoy 10pts
so I earned 30pts for my team Dizzy Dots
I managed to finish a class LO which I started at our last crop in September!

I came home to this lovely sunset once again tonight


Saturday, 5 October 2013

5th October - Autumn is here!

As we wintered our garden last weekend and the Willow tree had a haircut from Peter there was no sign of the leaves changing colour but in a few days, here is our fence and side wall this morning!

We had a spectacular night sky again last night but very different, the clouds were pink all over the sky, north and east too! thought it would be a sunny day today but although warm the clouds are there hiding the sun:(


I am off to scrapbook a LO for UKS challenge using a photo I spied on DIL's page on FB!! Taken this August.
Thank you Jennie and Anne for this week's challenge and for all your lovely comments about our new to us car, It is more basic than our last but we love it and it is def a 'SHE' car!!!

No more blogging for this week as once again it is our monthly day crop tomorrow, don't the months fly by!

Wednesday, 2 October 2013

2rd October - View challenge week and a new car for us!!

Excited,com here! Our new car arrived on Monday and we said farewell to our old car. We had the salesman put the car in our garage as we couldn't drive it until the new tax started on 1st Oct!! I  had to take Xanthe to playgroup for 9am through work and school traffic and we have gone from a manual gears to automatic, we love it!!
Today we had a day out taking turns to drive it and reading the manual and stopping to find different things we had read about in the manual. We also did some shopping and had a late lunch at Eastbourne marina sitting outside in glorious sunshine, though the temp was only 18C
Here is a collage of the new car, old car and Xanthe in the new car going to playgroup!
Peter waiting for his lunch
 Views of the Marina

As we left these baby seagulls flew in for our left overs!!