Busy weekend

We have had a very busy weekend

I made 3 jars of lemon curd
Delia's recipe http://www.deliaonline.com/recipes/cuisine/european/english/lemon-curd.html

Then I had to make some pastry for the lemon curd tarts. I have been keeping house and cooking for 32 years - gosh that sounds a long time, what that really means is that I have been with MOH for 32 years- and in all that time I have never mastered the art of pastry. My mum used to make it all the time and it was lovely. When I read on several blogs that the easiest way to make it was to just put everything in the processor and pulse it, I thought I would give it a go and guess what it worked perfectly. This time I made flan pastry with milk, rolled it out very thinly - too thinly according to MOH and made small lemon curd tarts. I had about the same amount of pastry left over, so I made some Mince tarts, they weren't pies because there was no lid.I have been making my own mincemeat for about 10 years as we cannot buy it here. Whenever I serve mince pies to my French friends or clients they think it's disgusting to make mincemeat and keep it for so long but when they try it they say it's good. I make the weightwatchers version of mincement because it doesn't use suet and again that's not something we can buy here - well not the Atora suet anyway. So I had a couple of jars left from last year and I made a tray of mince tarts which were all eaten before the end of the evening!! Sorry no pics. Will take some next time.

I finally cleared and cleaned out all my kitchen drawers and cupboards. We have had some little visitors (mice) over the past few weeks and after setting traps for them we caught 4 in the space of an evening, so I wanted to be sure they had all gone before I cleared all my kitchen.
Yesterday I pulled everything out of the drawers, cleaned and disinfected them, then the same with my cupboards and to my horror discovered that my general dry goods cupboard had been attacked by the little moths that get into things, so all of the packets and jars were emptied into a large bucket with the dirty oil from the deep fat fryer, mixed together and given to the pigs. I'm really glad I'm was not sleeping with them last night - there would have been a bit of gas around I would think!! They did enjoy it though.
Then I put all my kilner jars in the dishwasher to really clean them. this is the first time I have used my dishwasher since the 1st September. They are all sitting on the side waiting for the chilli jam that I will start to make today.


I also made a very posh - well posh for me- coffee and nut sponge cake with coffee butter filling and coffee glacé icing. Just a few calories! This we had for tea on Saturday with a lasagne I had made last week and frozen


I need some more work on my icing I think, but it was the lighest cake I have ever eaten. I whisked the eggs and sugar over a pan of simmering water.

MOH was busy too, he put up two outside lights that come on automatically when you walk past them. We do not have any street lights here, so it's dark in the evenings and early mornings, particularly when he goes to feed the pigs at 7 am.

Will add another post later about our trip to Tours on Saturday morning.

I am working from home today so I can get more things done without interruptions. Well apart from writing my blog!!
Have a nice day