I have been away for a few days, housesitting for a friend,
but am home again now.
Mittens was so happy to see me!
Not a lot changed at home since I went away, except that Son
has sprained a muscle in his back and is hobbling around hoping it will get
better soon.
He has been working so hard lately, that sometimes I think
Mother Nature organises these things just to make us slow down a bit.
He was happy to have me home again as well 😊
I hope everyone is having a great week,
Margaret.
It seems that I may have stumbled upon a way to make liver
delicious! I always used to fry up the floured
slices and serve them with sauteed onion rings.
Not anymore.
Quite by accident, I came upon a reference to someone eating
a Liver and Bacon Hotpot. It piqued my curiosity
so I went searching and discovered several different recipes.
I have always “adjusted” recipes to how they suit me, and
this is what I came up with:
LIVER
AND BACON HOTPOT FOR TWO
Ingredients
350g potatoes
2-3 Tbsp
butter
200g lamb’s
liver
100g bacon
(about 3 rashers streaky bacon)
100g swede
(about ½ small swede)
100g carrot
(about one average carrot)
1 Tbsp white
flour
1 cup beef stock
(or vegetable stock)
1½ tsp Dijon
mustard (or use whole-grain mustard)
Salt and
pepper to taste
Method
Peel and cut
potatoes into 5mm thick slices, rinse in cold water and place into
saucepan. Pour over boiling water, bring
back to the boil, and cook for 4-5 minutes until just tender. Drain carefully, so they don’t break up, and
set aside.
Preheat oven
to 180 degrees Celsius.
Peel and finely
dice onion, carrot and swede and set aside in a small bowl.
Chop bacon
into dice and add to the vegetables.
Thinly slice
the liver and add the unwashed slices to 1 Tbsp melted butter in a frying
pan. Lightly brown each slice, about 1
minute on each side. Place into a
casserole dish.
Tip the bacon
and vegetables into the remaining butter in the frying pan, and cook over a
moderate heat until bacon and onion are cooked, about 10 minutes. Stir often and add more butter if needed.
Sprinkle flour
over the vegetables, stir, then stir in the stock. Add a teaspoon of mustard and season to taste
with salt and pepper.
Bring to the
boil, stirring, then pour over the liver in the casserole dish.
Arrange potato
slices on top, overlapping them neatly so they cover all of the meat.
Melt a
tablespoon of butter and stir in ½ tsp Dijon mustard. Brush gently over the potato slices.
Bake,
uncovered, at 180 C until potato is browned and tender (about 45 minutes).
These measurements and times are
only approximate. The recipe can easily
be doubled, and oil can be used instead of butter if wished. It took me about 40 minutes to prepare the
dish before cooking, and I served it with mashed potato and green peas.
This is one recipe I will
definitely be making again 😊
Margaret.
“A workman is only as good as his tools” was an adage my
husband was fond of using – usually when trying to convince me that buying some
particular tool was a good idea!
But what he was saying has a lot of truth about it.
Seven years ago I purchased an Electrolux vacuum cleaner –
it was small and didn’t have a lot of suction power but it was perfect for our
caravan life-style at the time.
However, the last two and a bit years it has been seeing
service in a three-bedroom house with two cats that love to leave little black Fur
Deposits around the house, and it has been struggling to cope.
Actually it is not only the cleaner that struggles because
so do I, especially when trying to pick up the fluff off the floor.
Yesterday I reached my limit and it sent me to the laptop to
do some research. Today I went to Godfreys
at The Base (and had the most friendly helpful service from Arpit) and came
home with a Hoover Allergy vacuum cleaner.
Wow, what a difference it makes to the carpet! The change is quite incredible – from having
a ‘clean’ carpet, we now have a ‘looks clean like new’ carpet. What a joy.
Having the right tools for a job is certainly true 😊
Margaret.
This blog may sound a bit like an advertisement but it
isn’t. I’m just stating what happened and am not benefitting in any way from doing so.
Yesterday morning our drought broke with a vengeance. Hamilton City recorded an official 84.2 mm
(about three and a quarter inches) for the 24 hours, with the heaviest fall
being 34.2 mm in one hour.
We did not receive as much as Auckland did, but there were
still many spots of flooding around the city.
There was almost continual lightning and thunder for most of
the morning (and we are forecast for more of it tomorrow), and some of our
spouting had trouble at times coping with the volume of downpour.
Thankfully it had eased off a little by mid-afternoon when I
had an appointment for my covid booster shot.
I still got caught in the flooding though. What I thought was a bit of surface flooding
on one corner actually turned out to be a bit deeper than that. I reckon underneath my car is now very clean!
It is five months since I last had a covid shot, so I have
gone a way over the government’s recommended three months interval but nobody
said anything to me.
It has left me feeling quite tired with a slight headache
and a sore arm, but I feel I am coping quite well with it. Should be right again tomorrow.
Stay well and keep smiling 😊
Margaret.
About 4.30am tomorrow morning (Monday 21 March) will be the
Autumn Equinox, when day and night become approximately of equal length.
For the first time in weeks, today we are having rain showers. Yay! Temperatures
are finally dropping as well, which makes it so much easier to sleep at nights
although no doubt I will soon be complaining the nights are becoming too cold!
When I drove across the city yesterday I noticed several
trees, mostly poplars and gingkos, beginning to display a golden tinge over
their leaves. The oaks are more inclined
to look brown.
We don’t usually get the intense autumn foliage colours here
as our weather is not cold enough.
This photo was taken a few years ago in the Hawkes Bay, when
we were down there on a visit.
I hope everyone is having a happy weekend 😊
Margaret.
My brother recently had his DNA assessed by Ancestry.com to
see what his ethnic genealogical composition is, and the results have now come
back.
I was really interested in his results as my background will
be the same, although in different proportions.
 |
| My great great grandmother, who was the grand-daughter of an Australian convict |
So, what are we?
Scottish – no surprise there, as both my parents have
ancestors who came from here
Irish – we know of at least one family who came from the
Emerald Isle
Norwegian – we can find no immediate connection here, but
perhaps they were responsible for our fair skin and red hair!
East European – predominately Ashkenazi Jewish, which was
something we suspected in one family at least
And that was it. We
were both very surprised that there was no evidence of English / Anglo-Saxon
there, as we have had family living in England for a couple of centuries –
obviously they came from somewhere else!
Knowing all this makes absolutely no difference to our lives; it is only
interesting and perhaps adds a bit of light onto our origins.
Have you ever investigated your DNA background?
Have a marvellous day 😊
Margaret.
Our Prime Minister is a true politician.
After the public outcry this last week over
her statement that New Zealand is not facing a Cost of Living crisis, she has
now announced that the government will be removing 25 cents of tax per litre from the
cost of petrol to make things easier for people. For three months, anyway.
Nothing was said about the rising cost of housing,
electricity and food, as our inflation rate skyrockets.
The majority of our petrol cost is tax, with Goods and Service
Tax being payable on the total amount (a long standing issue – paying tax on a
tax), and the price had reached over $3.00 a litre (roughly a quarter of a
gallon).
I was happy yesterday to see petrol companies had taken it
on board as well, not only reducing the tax cost but also their own profit
margin. Using my 6 cent/litre grocery
voucher brought the cost down to $2.60 for me when I fuelled up yesterday.
It was still an expensive exercise, but cheaper than it
would have been the day before.
Our supermarket is still experiencing delivery delays and
each week it seems a different set of shelves lies almost empty. Covid isolation rules are slowly being
relaxed and the general feeling seems to be that covid is reaching its peak, so
hopefully things will soon return to normal again.
The sun is shining this morning and we are expecting another
hot day (up to the late 20s again). I
will do all my housework stuff this morning, and am heading off to see a family
member this afternoon to do some family tree research. Should be fun.
Margaret 😊
Apart from the near accident when I went with Youngest Son
on Thursday, we had a lovely day out together.
We stopped for lunch at the Whiritoa General Store and Café
and, between us, enjoyed a plate of crunchy Loaded Wedges with sweet chilli
sauce, melted cheese and a generous dollop of sour cream.
Whiritoa is a small coastal village about half way between
Waihi and Whangamata. The
beach was very pretty, especially with the sand sparkling in the sun like it was (the photo does not do it justice).
The surf was running high, with big waves dumping violently
and racing up the beach. I thought it
all stunningly beautiful, but much too turbulent for me to want to swim!
I found a Blue Bottle jellyfish among the seaweed and other bits being
washed ashore.
At the northern end of the beach were several mature
Pohutukawa trees. This one was growing
almost on the beach.
When we drove to the other end of the beach, we could see waves crashing violently through a gap in the rocks.
I hope you are having a wonderful amazing day 😊
Margaret.
Youngest Son needed my car yesterday, so I went along with
him for the drive. It was nice to be a
passenger for a change as you get to see so much more when you don’t have to concentrate
on the road.
Our drive took us through Karangahake Gorge near Waihi, a
very busy road that is narrow and has multiple blind corners (it is very pretty through
here as well).
This photo is an old one, but it gives some idea of what the
road is like through the Gorge. The
Ohinemuri River flows along beside the left of the road.
We were approaching a corner when a truck with a shipping
container onboard came around the opposite direction.
All I saw were the tyres well over the white centre line on
our side, coming over further and further and straight in front of us. I kept thinking, Why doesn’t he move over?, Why
is he still coming at us?
Youngest Son said afterwards that to him it felt like
everything suddenly went into slow motion.
All he could see was a gap between the truck and the drop-off into the
river, and the gap was growing smaller all the time.
He said he focused on the gap and actually accelerated to
get through it while it was still there.
I’m positive we had angels watching over us and helping us
avoid a serious accident. It was that close.
Margaret 😊
My sister-and-law and I went out to lunch together today and
then had a lovely afternoon back at her place, chatting about the world and
making everything as it should be (according to us!).
We went to The Olive Tree Café, a busy little place with a
constant stream of customers. Most of
the food is gluten-free, which perhaps explains why my Savoury Muffin was so
crumbly (but still delicious).
I had a little Orange Almond Cake afterwards, which I didn’t
need, and an Iced Chocolate to drink (which I also didn’t need!), but it was
all very enjoyable.
Our weather continues to be hot in the afternoons and the
long-term forecast is we can expect it to remain like this for a few more weeks
yet. At least most nights are a little
cooler, though, and it is possible to sleep a bit better.
I found some online jigsaw puzzles at jigsawplanet.com and
have been having fun doing some of them.
Did you know that jigsaw puzzles help to keep your mind
active and lowers the chance of you developing dementia?
Yay for jigsaw puzzles 😊
Margaret.
It has been a bit like Christmas around here the last couple
of days.
Son has started going through some of the boxes he had
stored away for several years and we are finding all sorts of things.
There is even a lot of things that I thought I had thrown
away – it turns out, he has them!
As well as all those little bits and pieces that seem to
find their way into storage boxes, there are paintings, books, and a fair number
of children’s toys.
One of our most intriguing discoveries was this old book, “Sir
John Gilbert’s Shakespeare.” It was
published in 1882 and belonged to my great grandfather.
The book, which features over 800 line drawings, is intact
but badly in need of some restoration work.
Son intends to have it repaired as he adores old books like
this and loves the provenance that goes with them.
All of Shakespeare’s plays are included in the book, and I find
it difficult to believe that fifty odd years ago I actually read through all of
them.
Not something I would do today!
Have a happy day 😊
Margaret.
After a long hot summer, autumn is finally stirring. Not that any trees are changing colour yet,
but the nights are a little cooler and we frequently have dew on the lawn in
the morning.
The heat in the sun is not quite as intense and the cats and
the rats are both quite happy to sit and warm themselves in it. When they begin growing thicker fur, we will
know the season is definitely changing.
This morning was cool and very still and I was not surprised
to see a hot air balloon floating in the clouds above us. There is something fascinating about this
basic form of flight, and it never fails to give me a thrill to see them pass
by.
I have a new header photo for this month. It is one I took a few years ago when
visiting Tikitere (usually called Hell’s Gate) near Rotorua.
This very active geothermal area is a little daunting to
visit, with things erupting and making unusual noises, but extremely
interesting nevertheless. It is well
worth a visit if you are ever in the area.
Cheers,
Margaret 😊
