Slow food for a wintry day

There is something about the smell of smell of home cooking isn’t there?   And especially on a cool winter’s day – although the sun was shining, there certainly wasn’t much warmth coming through.  So this morning after a leisurely Sunday breakfast of bacon and eggs, expertly prepared by Robin, I decided to get busy in the kitchen.  I had planned on lasagne for our evening meal, which meant several steps in the preparation.  First, make the meat sauce, then cook the lasagne.  I cheated with the cheese sauce and used cottage cheese instead.  Assemble all the layers, top with grated cheese, cover and place in fridge – there, all done.  Perhaps a pudding to cook at the same time?  I prepared an apple and rhubarb crumble (fresh cut stalks from our rhubarb patch) and popped that in the fridge too.  And since I will be using the oven, I decided to mix up a spicy apple cake to cook at the same time. 

All this early food prep meant that I could sit down at my sewing machine after lunch, knowing that the meal was ready to pop in the oven at the required time.  I’m pleased to say that my shaggy quilt is coming along quite well.  It’s still all over the floor, but I’ve been pinning and stitching the floral blocks together all afternoon.  Just as I thought, I needed to make some more light floral blocks to fill in the spaces.  That done, I’ll just keep stitching them together, knowing that I don’t have to stop early to prepare the evening meal.

I can look out the window from my machine and see the little native birds outside.  Greenfinches and waxeyes have been feeding all day on the bird pudding hanging from one of the trees, while the pretty little yellowhammers and sparrows like to perch on the seed container and daintily peck at the wild bird seed inside.  And I’m pleased to find that my daphne bush is in flower too.  Now we are past the shortest day – roll on Summer!