Emma Smith's cookies

Anyone who reads this who is a member of our Church will know who this women is. She was Joseph Smith's wife and someone who's life is an inspiration to me and to a lot of people.
She endured so many hardships for the Church and for her Husband but she always had her faith and she kept plodding on achieving beautiful things.
One story I love is about after the Prophet Joseph Smith passed away. She married another man who had an affair. The woman could not afford to feed the child and left him in Emma's care. Emma raised him as her own.

The reason for this post is because a few years ago my mother used a recipe which had been passed down through Emma's children and recently published. Mum made these cookies and took them to a Relief Society Activity and they were a big hit!

Thanks to the wonders of google I have found that recipe.

1/2 c. shortening or lard

3/4 c. butter

2 c. brown sugar

4 eggs

1/2 c. milk

4 cups rolled oats

2 cups raisins

2 cups flour

2 tsp. soda

1/2 tsp. salt

1 tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. nutmeg

1/2 tsp. cloves

2 c. nuts

Mix lard, butter and sugar together then add an egg one at a time beating well.Add milk and mix well.

In a separate bowl mix together the flour, salt, soda and spices then add to the wet ingredients. Add raisons and rolled oats and mix well.

Let the dough sit for a few hours (you can leave over night if you wish) and then spoon small amounts onto a baking sheet.  These cookies spread quite easy so a small amount should be fine. Place in an oven preheated at 190C and bake for about 8 minutes.

This recipe made us appox 60 cookies!!!

Pumpkins Pumpkins and more Pumpkins

 So it's that time of year again and months ago I decided that I wanted to make the most of the Pumpkins. It ended up being the longest messiest day of my life (slight exaggeration perhaps).

Months ago though I didn't know I was going to have a gimpy leg after some key hole surgery. Me being me I couldn't sit still as the idea was in my head and that was that, I would lose sleep over it if I didn't do it....and this is what I did!

Firstly I made some Pumpkin pie. Last years pumpkin pie did me proud it was perfect but this year was a different story. I kind of think it was the recipe I was using but I also forgot a vital ingredient until the last second. Milk. My filling was poured lovingly into the pie crust, which was a pastry attempt where everything went right and I was feeling quite smug when I put it in the oven. About 5 minutes later I had that sinking feeling that I had forgotten something and I had!! I waddled like a mad man to my oven and pulled it out spilling filling all over the dish which would later result in caramelized/burnt crust. I poured in some milk and gently mixed it in. It then was apparent that the pie dish I was using was not big enough for the filling and it started to over flow so when I put it back in the oven (with less milk then the recipe asked for) it over flowed and spilled in the oven. It then managed to take nearly an hour to set in the oven and when I pulled it out the crust was a dark brown and the filling had ballooned to about 3 times its height. Altogether a failure and not picture worthy. Luckily it tasted ok albeit slightly soggy.

I then decided to make cream of pumpkin soup. This did work out and is really easy:

2 tbsp butter
1 medium onion; roughly diced
4 cups pureed pumpkin
2.8 liter of chicken stock
1 tsp salt
1 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp curry powder
1/2 tsp white pepper
3 cups milk/whipping cream

1) melt butter and add the onion. Stir occasionally until onion softens.
2) Add pumpkin and salt and continue to cook for 15 minutes
3) add the stock, corriander,curry and pepper
4)cover and increase heat to bring to boil
5) reduce the her to low and simmer for 15 minutes
6) remove from heat and place in a food proeessor and puree until smooth.

The soup is very light. My advice would be to maybe add more pumpkin to thicken it up a little.

 THEN!!!! after carving the pumpkins so that the trick or treaters would know to knock on our door I started on our Cheesy Pumpkin Slice for dinner!

This was yummy!! Definitely make this again!

1kg Pumpkin cut into 3 cm pieces
6 cloves of garlic
 large onion, cut into wedges
2 tbsp olive oil
75g wallnut pieces
pinch of pepper
sprinkle of nutmeg
few sprigs of fresh sage
1/2 small bunch of flat leaf parsley
100g Creme Fraiche
2x150g cheese
shortcrust pastry

1) Heat the oven to mark 6/200C and roast the Pumpkin, garlic onion and olive oil for 40 minutes
2) stir in the rest of the ingredients and season well. cool for 15 mins.
3) lay one sheet of pastry on a baking tray and top with the filling leaving a border around the edge and lay the second sheet of pastry on top. seal the edges with a form and bake for 40 mins.


This is a lovely recipe and tastes so Autumnal! I highly recommend it.

To top off my Pumpkin fest I roasted some Pumpkin seeds in butter and salt for a healthy snack...well, it's healthier then chocolate anyway!

Love ya

Knee Operation :(

So here I am extremely drugged up and sleepy after the Arthroscope on my knee.
It wasn't anything major. I have had Chronic Knee Pain for 4 years and the Doctors didn't know what it was.
They took out something called a Plica which had swollen to 3 times its size and was a bit of a mess.

The day at the hospital was soooo long!
We sat in the waiting room from about 9:30 am to about 3 before I had the opp and the only thing there was a TV that was on BBC news. I can almost quote word for word the news reports for that day!

After the opp I have so far had 3 weeks off work which have been really boring.
I love spending some extra time with my Hubby and he has been an absolute gem cooking all the meals and playing nurse but as its my leg I have spent all these 3 weeks on the sofa reading books and playing a computer game trying my hardest to not resort to Jeremy Kyle!
I read 4 books in one week and then Robert got me playing Zelda: Ocarina of time which I completed in just under two weeks.

I went to the doctors today and have been given another 14 days off work. Sooooo not fun but really needed!

Thank you for all your kind wishes and flowers and the help you have all given me!

Love ya

OH FUDGE!

I recently discovered the small amount of effort it takes to make fudge! so naturally I had to give it a try! I was so excited and was positive it would turn out yummy and be easy after all there are only 4 ingredients and 2 steps!

Here is the recipe:

275g Caster Sugar
100g Muscovado sugar
225g Clotted cream
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1) put all the ingredients in a large pan and heat gently, stirring until the sugar dissolves. Bring to the boil. Cover and boil for 3 minutes. uncover and continue to boil until the temperature reaches 116C (uh-oh!!! what!!?)

2) remove from the heat and beat until the mixture becomes thick and creamy. Pour into a greased square tin. Leave for 30 mins. Mark into squares with a knife and leave until set. Cut into pieces and store in an air tight container.

My first mistake was using granulated sugar instead of Caster....woops! but then what the heck! I need a thermometer!? When I read that my dreams of making fudge went out the window and I knew that I was walking on thin ice!

I poured the beaten mixture into a baking tin where it set immediately, this is wrong, very wrong, also rather freaky as the malton sugar looked like it was breathing as it made itself comfortable in the tin!

I left it for half an hour anyway but when I went to mark my squares I had to carve pieces out! certainly not as creamy as I was hoping. I cut it up and decided it was the moment of truth......it was solid there was nothing fudgy about it except the vanilla! This was something else, something rather disapointing! a little taste of failure perhaps!?

The short recipe fooled me into a false sense of security at how easy it is to make fudge but you actually need to keep a really close eye. Make sure you bring it to the boil gently and have your thermometer at the ready. This is not guess work!

Anyway now I have quite alot of crumbly squares of sugar. Yum :-(

Shortbread..mmmm

So I decided to do it, make biscuits! The only recipe I could find that wasn't American Dumplings were shortbread! 
I took some photos of a few steps but I must apologise for the lack of makeup!


So here we go!
Armed with my new Pampered Chef apron I followed this recipe:




2 cups of butter
1 cup of corn flour

1 1/2 cups plain flour

1 cup of icing sugar

a pinch of salt

1) Cream together the butter and sugar then add the sived(?) flour and corn flour and salt. Mix well.

I had to add extra butter to my mixture it just wouldn't stick but they were perfectly fine.

2) knead the dough on a lightly floured surface and then divide into two. Roll both into a sausage and wrap in clingfilm. Put into the fridge for about 30 minutes.

3) Slice your sausages (dough) to make circles and place them on a baking tray. Sprinkle sugar on them.


4) Bake until slightly brown o a medium heat.


 Keep an eye on them because when they come out of the oven and cool they will go harder. I did 3 trays full and the first tray was in the longest and was abit too crunchy!


Practice makes perfect! Happy baking! 

xx

Pampered Chef

Wow! is all I can say about one of these parties...wow!

I used to be a Body shop at home consultant and I do enjoy those kinds of parties. If you have never been to one, basically a consultant comes with a bunch of products of whatever company they are with and they demonstrate them. With Body shop I would give people faciels for example and people can try out the products.

With Pampered chef its recipes and Kitchen gadgets!!! So I hosted my first one last night and it was great!

Inviting people and getting people there was an absolute nightmare but the demonstration was absolutely fantastic!!

She displayed all of these beautiful products on a table along with the ingredients that I had bought for one of their recipes.
We made Yorkshire puddings which turned out beautiful and my guests and I all made a Curry together. We got to use all the gadgets and eat all the yummy food that we made!

One of my favourite things about hosting these kinds of parties is, as a host, you get a tonne of freebies. I said before that I did the Body Shop for awhile and they are the same, you get a bunch of freebies and offers for hosting but nowhere near to the extent that Pampered Chef do!

You get tonnes of stuff! It's all based on points and sales to see how many items you get for free or half price.

I achieved one half price product, a free apron (a super cool apron may I add) for my pre party sales, and a couple of thousand points which should get me some ace freebies! I am then left for a few days now to gather as many points and sales as possible to get even more freebies!
Plus I get 20% off everything in the catalogue and 10% off for a year!

I would definately recommend these parties to a friend! Love it!

Marmalade and a new kitchen necessity

I have been thinking about making jams, chutneys and marmaldes for awhile now and last night I had the oportunity to make some!
I met up with a bunch of crafty friends and we set about chopping up some delicious smelling lemons, grapefruits and oranges.
All were squeezed within an inch of their life for juice and the skins were sliced into small chunks (waste not want not)
We soon have the beginnings of our Marmalade! I know...very exciting!
This wonderfully citrus goodness was then put in a jam pan and boiled rapidly. The citrus smell slowely turned to an overpowering Lemsip smell (yak) which wasn't at all pretty but it's ok, this is what is meant to happen!
After adding the sugar and gratefully seeing it turn syrupy (2 hours of boiling later) these were poured into sterilized jars and cute little circles of material placed on top.

A sigh of relief came over me as I realised how easy it was to make. We did a drop test, which is just where you put abit on the plate and if it wrinkles its ready if it doesn't you need to leave it on the heat for abit longer, and dipped in our pinkeys to have a taste and........I forgot how much I don't like Marmalade! Gutted! It fools you into a false sense of sweet security with the amount of sugar until your taste buds alert you on just how tangy and sharp it is!Hopefully my Husband likes it!

I did realise however that as I fully intend to make Jam and Chutneys in my married life a NEED for my Kitchen is a Jam pan! a stock pot is just not big enough for that rapid boiling bit! I wonder if I can pursuade Robert with the fact that it would be alot less washing up???

Here is the recipe:

3 Fruit Marmalade

2 grapefruit

4 lemons

2 sweet oranges

6lb sugar

6 pints water

3 fruits add up to 3lbs of fruit

Scrub fruit and squeeze out juice & pips.

Cut peel into small bite size pieces, removing the centre and ends

Put in pan with juice and pips

Put pips in a bag

Add 6 pints water

Cook gently for about 2 hours until peel is soft and liquid reduced

Remove pips. Squeeze out the juice from the pips and add sugar

Stir until dissolved

Bring to boil

Boil rapidly for 15 - 20 mins until setting point

Pour into warmed jars

Cover with a wax disc seal when cold

Yield 10 lbs

x

My Big Sisters Wedding

My wonderful sister Becky got married this weekend!

It was such a lovely event and it was the best feeling in the world to see her so happy! seriously, I cried buckets!

most romantic first dance ever

It was also my first wedding at a Hotel!

It was a great setting for a wedding and the people running it were very efficient (always a plus) although it didnt stop any stress the day before and morning of!
I have no idea what song it was that they walked down to. But it was so sweet! " I couldn't live a day without you".

The flower girls were my two youngest neices, then Beckys Daughter was a Bridesmaid. She looked stunning which is just not allowed. I am going to be batting the boys off her!
It was then her best friend of 18 years to go down next and then finally! The beauty herself! looking incredibly nervous but like an absolute angel! my Sister and my Dad walking arm and arm down the aisle infront of family and friends to her wonderful husband!


The main reason I am doing this post is because now all of us Wiles' children are married! All four of us!I think that is worth mentioning! (and I am completley gushing about the recent wedding)

Married life is pretty crazy no matter your situation! We all have very different lifestyles from eachother. There is Laura who is a mother of four beautiful children. She is a full time mum and is married to Daryl who has a job with computers (it's recently changed so not sure what he does anymore). Matthew is a merchandiser for Asda and loves his job. He is married to Kerry who is a make up artist! Then there is me. I am a Legal Advisor / Jewellery maker and I am married to Robert who is a full time student! Becky has two children and is now married to Bry and they run a successful Pub together.
Despite the different stages in our lives we all have a great relationship.

Isn't it a shame that it is no longer the norm to be married and to come from a nuclear family? (two parents who live together with children). Robert has been in college when people have described this as a fairytale notion and that it doesn't happen. I find this so sad and I hope that things get better for them soon. Our family are proof that this can happen!
I know that our parents must be so proud. It must be a great feeling and now this weekends wedding will go on their wall of fame in its rightful place.

I am so happy for Becky and Bry and wish them a life time of happiness.

Brand new!

Hello!

It came to my realisation a few weeks ago that I am abit of a dreamer! because of this, I have tried alot of things, whether this be traveling to a new country, Falconry or recipes. Sometimes my new dreams work out sometimes they don't but it happens so often that I have alot to talk about!
In light of one of my recent attempts at something different, a 365 day photography blog, failing I thought to myself...why cause myself stress with the responsibility of a daily project! so instead I am going to write a blog when I have done something worth mentioning or when I just want to rant.

So as I just mentioned I have recently tried to do a 365 day project. I am completely shutter happy but I don't have the best talent in the world when it comes to taking photos. I thought this would be a great idea if Robert, my husband, did it with me. Easy peasy and what a way to keep track of what you have done that year. Whoever thought up these challenges is a genious...or so I thought.
I started off with all the will power in the world to do it! Armed with my camara and a blog on my belt no one could stop me!! Robert got bored of the idea quite soon and so it was left to me to take the daily photo and load them up on the blog for my 50 something viewers. Gradually it came more and more apparent that my journeys to and from work are not very interesting and I became more and more annoyed at the absense of a photogenic member of the public walking by oblivious to my clicking camera. Then! the final straw! after 60 odd days of carrying my camara with me everywhere I went, it broke. It decided it was no longer going to do things by itself (auto) and that everything would have to be manual. We realised this whilst on holiday in fact, there is a photo of me having a sulk because of my camara which Lightroom managed to turn into quite an arty shot!
So, I decided to quit while I was ahead. The project wasn't for me, I hold a grudge against it for breaking my lense and I want to try something new!
I may make a recipe book........