The Untied Kingdom? - the British thread 2021

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  • la vie en rougela vie en rouge Circus Host, 8th Day Host
    Key lime pie?
  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host
    Piglet wrote: »
    I'm not sure whether to cut down the time, lower the temperature or both, but I'm willing to give it a go.

    If you’re not doing this already, it might be worth investing in an oven thermometer from your local Home Hardware or equivalent to make sure your oven is running at the advertised temperature.
  • @Piglet I'd second the suggestion from @BroJames.
  • Baptist TrainfanBaptist Trainfan Shipmate
    edited March 29
    Piglet wrote: »
    After cooking for the time specified, at the temperature specified (minus 20° to allow for the fan oven), it still came out a bit blackened (and the baking dish will probably have to soak for about a week), but the flavour wasn't bad, and I think I'll try it again.

    I'm not sure whether to cut down the time, lower the temperature or both, but I'm willing to give it a go.
    We had the same problem when we moved into this house. I bought an over thermometer (they're not expensive) to find out what was going on, and discovered that the temperatures were wildly erratic. We could have "got a man in" to look at the thermostat, but the oven was nearly 20 years old so we bought a new one instead.

    (Having written this screed, I see someone else has made the same suggestion).

  • MiffyMiffy Shipmate
    Boogie wrote: »
    Bugger the clocks going forward. We hates it, we hates it forever.

    Me too - it gives me a weird sort of jet-lag feeling for days. 😡

    To every cloud there is a silver lining. Now the time has changed, the dogs are sleeping for another hour before giving their morning alarm call.

  • AravisAravis Shipmate
    I regularly make Nigella Lawson’s squash and sweet potato curry in bulk; it needs lime on the top so I usually freeze half a lime with each freezer portion. Then all you need to do is squeeze the defrosted lime over the curry portion when you reheat it. Limes don’t seem to freeze so well separately - they get weirdly hard and mushy at the same time.
  • SojournerSojourner Shipmate
    Lime curd?
  • FirenzeFirenze Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    I think Honey Lime Chicken is currently leading the field. I may throw a chilli in there as well.
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    Guacamole uses lime juice, doesn't it?

    Thanks for the oven advice; I think I'll pop over to Fork Handles at the weekend and see if they have any thermometers. It seems OK for doing bread, and for the salmon thing I do - maybe I didn't add enough liquid (I was dividing the recipe by 2 - maybe I shouldn't have reduced the amount of liquid?
  • FirenzeFirenze Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    Piglet wrote: »
    Guacamole uses lime juice, doesn't it?

    It also uses avocado which in our case we have not got.

    The oven here when we first moved in seemed to have only two settings - Off and Black Smoke.

  • Ethne AlbaEthne Alba Shipmate
    edited March 29
    @Firenze you have my deep sympathies-our oven has fluctuating behaviour and we are due an episode of uncertainty Any Day Now. So the biscuits were baked last night.
    Last time this occurred the coffee and walnut muffins were cremated on the outside and runny inside, all within 3-4 mins on a medium temp.
    I cried.

  • It was my wife, rather than this thread, which inspired me to Clean Our Oven this afternoon. It's a nasty job, but I enjoyed the hot cross bun with which I rewarded myself. The Hoover has also been Inged.
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    Oven Clean Ing and Hoover Ing on the same day??? BT, you're a veritable domestic god.
    Today's bout of porcine idiocy: grabbing what I thought was two packets of crunchy creams (to which I'm addicted) and discovering when I got home that one of them was in fact ginger snaps (to which I'm not).

    I suppose I'll have to eat them; I would have donated them to the office biscuit tin, but I bought a pack a couple of weeks ago, assuming that someone probably liked them (and the shop round the corner from the office was badly stocked that day), and it's not finished yet, so there wouldn't be much point.

    I don't absolutely hate them (when I was a kid I liked them dunked in milk), but they're far from being my favourite thing.

    I've just polished off a big bowl of risi et bisi - it's very close to being my favourite risotto (and the field is quite heavily populated - I could almost live on various sorts of risotto).
  • Tree BeeTree Bee Shipmate
    Chocolate cake has been made (and sampled, just to check it’s OK you know) in anticipation of both my daughters and their families visiting in our garden, one lot tomorrow and the other on Wednesday. Can’t wait.
  • BoogieBoogie Shipmate
    Tree Bee wrote: »
    Chocolate cake has been made (and sampled, just to check it’s OK you know) in anticipation of both my daughters and their families visiting in our garden, one lot tomorrow and the other on Wednesday. Can’t wait.

    It’s so exciting isn’t it? My brother is coming for tea in the garden tomorrow. We are having risotto then chocolate brownies for pud. :mrgreen:

  • Penny SPenny S Shipmate
    Piglet, use them as a base for cheesecake.
  • Tea today was roast lamb, sausages, roast carrots and jacket spud.

    Tomorrow we go up to York and get my eldest son. We're probably go for a walk to see the White Horse too. What fun :)
  • Firenze wrote: »

    It also uses avocado which in our case we have not got.
    Liking the nod to Henry Reed

  • la vie en rougela vie en rouge Circus Host, 8th Day Host
    Can you believe Captain Pyjamas is almost big enough to go to school? Compulsory education starts at three in France, which I and many others think is Far Too Young, but it's the law, so to school he shall go in September.

    Yesterday we visited a very nice Catholic school. It's in a rather chic part of town (the 7th arrondissement) about 20-30 minutes from home on the bus, but 10 minutes walk from husband en rouge's work, so potentially very convenient. The headmaster gave us the paperwork, told us to take our time reading it at our leisure, and send it back within the week if we want a place. We started looking through it, hummed and hawed a very little bit, then looked at each other and went, "Do you really want to look any further? -Nope." So that's where he's going.
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    Excellent - good luck, Captain Pyjamas! (I agree - three seems awfully young for compulsory education).
    Penny S wrote: »
    Piglet, use [the ginger snaps] as a base for cheesecake.

    I actually ate a few with a cup of tea last night, and they were nicer than I'd expected, i.e. not too gingery. I may go and put the kettle on for a repeat performance ...

    Supper was sausage and tomato pasta, made with some deeply ordinary sausages I had in the freezer; it came out OK, but I'll stick to M&S's Italian ones from now on.

    I've invited my brother and sister-in-law for lunch on Sunday, and when I asked what they'd like to eat, they said they really liked the baked gammon I did at New Year so would I do it again? Happy to oblige - it's a very easy recipe!
  • FirenzeFirenze Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    It was Sausage Nite here as well - rather nice Aran mustard and honey from Aldi. Plus a potato and gruyere gratin. Washed down with a Czech beer and an Irish whiskey.
  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host
    Piglet wrote: »
    Excellent - good luck, Captain Pyjamas! (I agree - three seems awfully young for compulsory education).
    Penny S wrote: »
    Piglet, use [the ginger snaps] as a base for cheesecake.

    I actually ate a few with a cup of tea last night, and they were nicer than I'd expected, i.e. not too gingery. I may go and put the kettle on for a repeat performance ...

    Supper was sausage and tomato pasta, made with some deeply ordinary sausages I had in the freezer; it came out OK, but I'll stick to M&S's Italian ones from now on.

    I've invited my brother and sister-in-law for lunch on Sunday, and when I asked what they'd like to eat, they said they really liked the baked gammon I did at New Year so would I do it again? Happy to oblige - it's a very easy recipe!

    If you haven’t eaten too many of your ginger biscuits, perhaps you should make this dessert

    (The page is slightly plagued for me by advertisements about losing belly fat. I’d have thought the first thing would be ‘don’t make this pudding’!)
  • Just had a flashback straight to an eighties dinner party!
  • BoogieBoogie Shipmate
    edited March 30
    Goodness @la vie en rouge, it’s very different for Anuka. When she starts school it will be one month before her seventh birthday!
  • Curiosity killedCuriosity killed Shipmate
    edited March 30
    We had sausages today too - very experimental Glamorgan sausages replacing the bread with porridge because I only had gluten free oats.

    I used to make that ginger pudding, covering with the cream and studding with flaked almonds to make a hedgehog, with a couple of chocolate drops for eyes - but again 80s.

    Good luck to Captain Pyjamas.
  • MMMMMM Shipmate
    Last night was meant to be stir fry with the bits left over from a roast chicken but we both felt very lazy after coffee and biscuits in the sunshine with friends (yay!) so had cheese and biccies instead. The chicken will be OK for tonight.

    I woke up this morning utterly convinced it was Sunday and thinking how quickly it had gone since the clocks went forward...

    MMM
  • Went to collect eldest son from York yesterday and included a little detour to the North Yorks Moors to walk around the White Horse (lunch was a picnic of cauliflower cheese pasties, cheese and onion patties, and various flavours of hot cross bun.

    Marking day today. Today’s marking is about different approaches to health promotion.
  • MiffyMiffy Shipmate
    Boogie wrote: »
    Goodness @la vie en rouge, it’s very different for Anuka. When she starts school it will be one month before her seventh birthday!

    I’d not realised it was actually compulsory to start school at three in France, (though most children go anyway). Ours graduated through a bilingual kindergarten though, so that may have muddled me. Son did attend a crèche and halte-garderie before he was two years old. For us, the big day came when they entered CP: daughter at 5 years 9 months, son was nearer 6 1/2.

    But it was a long time ago!

    Out of interest, do the little ones also have a list of equipment which they have to have for the Rentree, (beginning of term)? Which is usually only given out as you collect them after their first day; cue frantic scenes at the local supermarket!

    Anyway, all good wishes to Captain Pyjamas. It sounds like a good school.

  • SarasaSarasa Shipmate
    Glad you've found a school @la vie en rouge. I guess the first couple of years will be more like nursery than formal schooling?
    After a lazyish day yesterday, some of which was spent enjoying the sunshine in our suntrap of a back yard I'm off for a walk with a friend today. Nothing too strenuous, there is a coffee stand down by the river I've always fancied trying so I'm suggesting a mooch there. It's probably less than a mile away. Husband and I did decide we'd try and be more adventurous with our walks after having walked the whole of this area multiple times in the last year. We thought we'd take a bus to one of the local gardens not too far away tomorrow, but they're all booked out. We might just take a bus to a random bit of countryside or maybe just a different town.
  • PriscillaPriscilla Shipmate
    Darllenwr’s mother used to make a variation of that pudding using Maryland cookies. The thing was assembled on a piece of foil and the roll was covered with cream. The roll was then frozen, and partly defrosted to serve.
  • SojournerSojourner Shipmate
    Sounds like my late MIL’s “log”

    I was always too polite to tell her how much I loathed it
  • FirenzeFirenze Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    Nipped out this morning to collect my big bag of drugs from the NHS. Coming home I could see the haar stealing over Salisbury Crags and indeed it is now grey and chilly and unSpringlike.
  • la vie en rougela vie en rouge Circus Host, 8th Day Host
    @Miffy compulsory schooling from age three is a fairly recent development. The Macron government's rationale is that the children it helps the most are the most vulnerable. Given that most parents work, I don't think too many people are really complaining, but I'm not entirely convinced that all three year-olds everywhere need to go to school.

    Not sure about the list of what you need to buy. I know that in many schools you need a blanket and pillow for their afternoon nap, and the school we are choosing requires that they have a blouse - a sort of overall that you wear over your clothes, that basically serves the office of a uniform. Once upon a time, all schoolchildren wore them, but these days they are limited to private schools, usually of the Catholic persuasion.
  • IS that like a tabard or pinafore ?
  • Wet KipperWet Kipper Shipmate

    Piglet wrote: »

    Today's bout of porcine idiocy: grabbing what I thought was two packets of crunchy creams (to which I'm addicted) and discovering when I got home that one of them was in fact ginger snaps (to which I'm not).

    I suppose I'll have to eat them; ).

    If you fancy a walk up the hill I can point you to a convenient* biscuit donation point ;)



    * convenient for me, that is.
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    They really weren't that bad - but I confess Bro James's ginger nut pudding sounds utterly horrid (sorry about that)!
    I'm very glad I reapplied my socks and warmer jacket today (although on the way home I could have done with a hood). After the lovely weather we had yesterday, temperatures have plummeted, and when I left Embra the weather app on my mobile was saying "4°, real feel -5". I think it was right - by the time I got home I was chilled to the bone.

    Never mind - there's a baked spud in the oven, and I'm off to grate some CHEESE to keep it company. I've also bought some hot cross buns, which are not flavoured with anything silly like cheese and chillies or gooseberry jam and Marmite.*

    * OK, I made that one up, but really. HCBs are flavoured with raisins and mixed spice and nothing else, and served with indecent quantities of butter.
  • Yesterday I had hot cross buns with chocolate and orange 😋

    Tonight we had a beef and veg lasagne, with a layer of spinach and egg (Italian cook friend always made an egg layer in her lasagnes).
  • Meat in Holy Week 😨
  • HeavenlyannieHeavenlyannie Shipmate
    edited March 31
    Well, I've just ordered Peking duck for Good Friday's dinner.
    Some years I have been vegan the whole of lent. This year I am not.
  • la vie en rougela vie en rouge Circus Host, 8th Day Host
    Me either. I made a steak and kidney PIE. It was tasty.
  • la vie en rougela vie en rouge Circus Host, 8th Day Host
    IS that like a tabard or pinafore ?

    A blouse.
    I think they're quite cute. They also have the distinct advantage of keeping the child's other clothes clean.
  • It's like a nurse's tunic! How sweet.
  • That’s nifty, it looks like a short housecoat.
  • PendragonPendragon Shipmate
    We had blue pinafores at my nursery school.

    Dragonlet 2 is at the school nursery, and I don't have to pay for the teaching time (lunch and activities are extra), because I officially work more than 16 hours a week, and as such she has been eligible for 30 hours subsidised (although the money the nursery gets is less than their costs generally) tuition since September. All 3 year olds in England get at least 15 hours. Dragonlet 1 was in an all year round nursery, so we got the funding pro rated to 22 hours per week.

    This evening was parents meetings on Teams. The only surprises were good ones.
  • My daughter gets 30 hours a week (I can't remember if that's Scotland wide yet or still officially a pilot, but all 3+ year olds and some 2 year olds get it) at the nursery attached to the school where I work. In August (she's 5 in May) she'll move up to P1, in the Gaelic immersion class.
  • CathscatsCathscats Shipmate
    Is she in Gaelic nursery? My local primary runs two nurseries, and one is Gaelic, though the kids can enter the Gaelic stream in P1 as well, I think. When I do end of term services (or used to and goodness knows if they will ever start again) the Bible readings which the elder kids did, had to be in both languages. When I took fortnightly Assemblies it was understood that they would be in one language! But I had to remember that the younger kids in the Gaelic stream would not find reading anything in English at all easy/possible.
  • A blouse.
    I think they're quite cute. They also have the distinct advantage of keeping the child's other clothes clean.

    My Spanish sister-in-law sent us similar garments for Elder Son when he was small - slightly different to the one in the link in that they buttoned at the back, I thought they were very cute - made me think of E.H. Shepard's Christopher Robin

    Admittedly, that was 40yrs ago, I can't say I saw many in the Spanish shops when my grandchildren started arriving.

  • PuzzlerPuzzler Shipmate
    Yesterday was the best day of the year so far for me.
    In the morning I walked in the grounds of a NT property. A bit crowded at the entrance but once I got away I was surrounded by daffodils as far as the eye could see, with occasional primroses in yellow, pink and white and other flowers. Some helpful volunteers directed me to newly opened toilets, and then to the exit via a (compulsory but unsignposted ) one way system.
    In the afternoon I sang in church! My church choir met for the first time this year in church rather than on Zoom, to rehearse for the Easter Sunday morning service, where it is now permitted for small choirs to sing. On Saturday we will meet to record an Easter Carol Service to go out online.
  • Not sure that this is going to entertain anyone other than @Spike but the current season of ISIHAC is being recorded in the BBC Media theatre with a virtual audience, free to anyone applying for BBC Tickets from the usual place, instead of moving around the country and charging for tickets. I'm on the ISIHAC mailing list as I have seen it live and the email dropped into my inbox this morning.

    In other news, after enough sun and warmth to be wandering around in summer trousers and a t-shirt the last few days, we're back to cold and dreich. Definitely a blackthorn winter as the bushes are all covered with blossom about to burst forth.
  • Cathscats wrote: »
    Is she in Gaelic nursery?

    Mornings are Gaelic, afternoon's English.
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