Queen & Country

Today's been relatively eventful/productive. Dotty's been to the vets and been spayed, as well as getting her microchip and rabies jab, which means she's got a passport! Yay!

She's extra dopey now she's home and not all together herself. I'm sure she'll be fine, she may be a wimp but she seems pretty brave when she needs to be!

I've also bought all my Christmas cards and written about half, as well as Joe's anniversary card!

I know, and it's only November!

So, for this post I'm gonna share a little of my personal recipe book with you all, show you my latest kntting projects aaaaaand put a little collection together of my favourite interior styles at the moment!

So, lets crack on.

My little black recipe book doesn't look like much but it's full of goodies that I will share with you lucky lot.

Well, only a couple, I'm not THAT generous!

(Please note that I've gathered these recipes over time, and although I've tweaked them myself I probably didn't come up with them to start with. I can't remember where these originally came from so, regretfully, there is no original source.)

My homemade black pepper bread

(use white or brown bread flour as you wish)

My Brown loaf

My white loaf

Ingredients

500g strong bread flour

7g fast-acting yeast (sachets are normally 7g)

300ml warm water

1 tbsp clear honey

2 tbsp olive oil

2 tbsp cracked black pepper (optional)

2 tsp salt

Method

1. Mix together the flour, yeast, salt and black pepper in a large bowl.

2. Make a well in the centre and add the honey, oil and warm water.

3. Stir until the mixture comes together , it should be a bit sticky.

4. Flour a clean surface and pour out the dough.

5. Knead for 5-10 mins, I needed to add a bit more flour to make it non-sticky.

6. Place on a greased tray (I just use a good baking paper).

You can now shape this how you want, into rolls if you like.

7. Place a clean, damp tea towel over and place in a warm place for 1-2 hours to rise, I put this in an oven (switched off).

8. After it's completely risen preheat the oven to about 220 degrees, all ovens are different, most recipes say between 200 to 250 degrees celcius.

9. Bake for 25-30 mins for a loaf or 15-20 for rolls.

You'll know when it's cooked when you can tap the bottom and it sounds hollow!

Best ever banana loaf recipe

Ingredients

6oz Sugar

(I use half caster, half dark brown sugar, the dark brown sugar makes it more toffee-ish)

3 Ripe bananas, the riper the better, mashed with a fork

4oz Butter (marg will do but butter is better)

8oz Self raising flour

2 Eggs

Add 100g's worth of nuts, if you like. I don't but people like them apparently.

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180-200 degrees celcius

2. Grease your loaf tin

3. Cream the butter and sugar together until smooth

4. Add eggs and mashed bananananana

5. Sift in flour and mix until combined

6. Put in the oven for 1 hour, turning the oven down to 150 degrees after 30 mins

Take it out and eat it warm with a cup of tea!

My latest Knitting projects

My little antler hat!

Original pattern from the beautiful Tiny Owl Knits

It was relatively easy, as I'm not that expert! It's a basic hat, and as I can't use DPNS or do the felting, I basically winged it. I made the basic hat and knit the others accordingly.

Finger-stache!

Original pattern from Crafster