Not gone away

I have not disappeared but have been busy sorting out another blog.  My DH's blog on a blog system called blogsome suddenly ceased working last week and its been a real problem trying to recover all of his data.  I am using Google cached pages to get the text back and luckily all the photos were backed up, not so the blog... my fault I'm afraid, but then I did not expect the plug to be pulled....So the moral is back up your blogs. However, I must admit I feel safe using blogger because its Google. So no photo today but just to let you know that I hope to be back here in a few days when I have finished fixing his very important blog all about O Gauge railway modelling.

Peshwari Naan

The filling added and the coconut milk brushed on the edges

Recipe Ingredients
Made up white bread dough and filling

Filling
Ground almonds 4 teaspoons, ground pistachio nuts (about 20), 1 tablespoon chopped Californian raisins, mix together. Plus an apple for grating on the top if you like apple.

coconut milk for brushing the edges and binding, clarified butter called Ghee for frying

I make these to have with chicken curry and I know you can buy them in the shops but try these as they are much better and fresher.

I make up my normal white bread mix nothing fancy added at all just dried yeast, Carrs Strong White flour and 2 tablespoons of olive oil plus the warm water. Use any of your favourite recipes for white bread dough and it should be fine but try and use good olive oil if you can.

Next I let the dough rise as usual and then I knock it back and pull off a piece about the size of a golf ball.  I roll this out into roughly a 7-8 inch round but a bit bigger is ok, see the photo above. I add 2 teaspoons of filling and then grate on some apple including the skin which in this case was red. Brush around the outside with coconut milk and bring the sides into the middle and press them down so they keep the filling inside. Then I turn them over and leave them on a plate until I am ready to roll them and cook them in my Remoska cooker. I use a small amount of ghee in the cooker and cook the first side for about 3 - 4 minutes then turn over and cook the other side. It really depends on your method for cooking as you could use a heavy cast iron frying pan just as well.

Filling inside and waiting to be rolled flat.

They don't last long before being devoured

White stuff purchase

I have been so busy in the garden during this exceptional fine weather.. phew its actually been hot and sunny now for a week and today looks like the last day, sigh.

Anyway, I bought a new top. Its lovely for sunny days and it was actually available in my local store; because sometimes I see something on the net and then go down there and they don't have it....

Well this is really only a quick posting as I don't want to waste a second of this sun seeing as the weather forcast for the weekend is less cheerful and then I think there might even be a night frost in the first half of next week, gloom....

Sorting out the garden

Yesterday and today I made a start on restoring the greenhouse to pristine condition, the garden needs doing as well but DH has been making a good job of clearing away loads of dead leaves and old plant stems. So its coming along and I bought a new vinyl cover for the greenhouse table too and cut it to shape so it all looks clean and tidy. We had our first lunch of the year inside.

Are you sure you plumped up these cushions, woof.

Bella showed a great deal of interest when I replaced the cushions on the Ercol sofa and plumped them up as you can see.

Its much more like spring here at the moment and I have a few more jobs to do like planting seeds or there will be no tomatoes this year. Is it me, or are the cost of seed packets soaring? I could not believe that some of them were nearly £3......

Another look at the workstation

Its going to arrive on Thursday and I am on schedule for tidying up ready for it. The new monitor arrived on Friday and is great, it has already made a difference to my productivity and has made it so much easier to design KR's leaflet for our guided walks.  I am not sure if my arrangement of items will be quite so tidy as the one they show above, but you get the general idea.  As I use a laptop it will sit on the desk pullout bit and fold down when not in use. That means the cpu cupboard on the left might house a spare sewing machine...ha ha.

Getting my act together

Thinking back to the last couple of weeks, I can't recommend getting the flu, ha ha....

Anyway, all is over and I am nearly A1 again, but need to get the brain cells working as well as the fitness thing so decided to splash out on some new kit.....hmmmm

A monitor so I can see what I am doing when I use my graphics capabilites would help I thought as I have for too long been subjected to a 15 inch laptop screen, not good when 3 years ago I had a really serious monitor for my DTP and stuff. So I have a 23 inch arriving tomorrow. Not an expensive one either but it does seem to be a good screen; at least I spent half of yesterday doing my research. When you live in the country aka Cumbria its difficult to see anything in the flesh except of course sheep....... So pouring over reviews is the only option I have: way back when I was head of computing at a local college it was what I used to do when I had loads of dosh to splash around, (¼ million once I seem to recall.) Anyway, I have only spent £138 so I don't expect it to be an all singing and dancing model but I do expect my screen to double in size and for that I am truly grateful. If the resolution improves enormously too so that I can see what I am doing in my graphics program that will be wonderful. So here is the beast, let me introduce you to......

AOC i2353Fh

This is the link if you want to read the review yourself.

But you would think that was enough.... no I am serious when I say I am getting my act together because what with my interests in quilting and sewing and computers and being a mountain leader, my desk is a tip but not my sewing table which I sorted about 4 years ago.  Now that was a decision which changed my sewing from haphazard to bliss, so I thought about that too. Result, a new desk was also researched and is on its way from Ayrshire in Scotland to me in Keswick, yesssss.

Its a proper desk not what I am using at the moment which is a Heath Robinson affair. So let me show you the beauty.

Its all inside those cupboards, believe me it opens out into a wonderful place for printer, paper, router, keyboard (in my case laptop) and all the rest. I am not sure when it will arrive yet but before it does I have some clearing up to do, can't let it down by introducing it into this room without a mass sort out.

Meanwhile, my other jobs are pressing, i.e. the button on KR guided walks which is supposed to launch some script and go to an online booking system is not working yet so I have work to do.