Cake stall

So tomorrow a friend and I are running a cake stall at a local village gala day. This morning I've made a couple of chocolate cakes plus I have chocolate fudge brownies in the oven now and am melting chocolate to make rice crispy cakes, can I be bothered to make flapjacks too? Not sure yet, when I got up the rain was really coming down, which was sorely needed in the garden, but it's now brightening up and so I want to be outside rather than stuck in the kitchen.

I've got the fillings to make for the cakes plus the fillings for the macarons that I made earlier and also some scones and meringues that I've got. That's at least another hours work, so I think I'll call it a day at that point and get few hours out in the garden this afternoon.

Update 11.15pm, ran out of time and energy around 8pm, still got macarons to fill and cream to whip for meringues, but have just set alarm for 7am and will get up to do it then. 

Had a visit from step son and grandkids this afternoon which delayed me, but was lovely to see them, they had lots of fun emptying out and refilling a old water feature that we have, they went home soaking wet but happy.

Excellent viewing for Tour de Yorkshire

Am at a craft fair today in the centre of York, it's either going to be absolutely dead, or packed out due to the closure of the city centre due to the bike races. However one of the unexpected pluses of my position on the first floor, is the view I have out of the window. This was the ladies race this morning. The main race will be coming through around 2.30 this afternoon. 

However, on the down side, I've had to carry all my boxes of preserves up two flights of stairs. 

Reboil needed

Had a busy day today, so no time for a blog this morning, got a craft fair tomorrow so on top of everything else, I needed to pack the car and deliver my stuff to the venue. It's in York town centre and all roads are closed tomorrow from 8-5 due to the Tour de Yorkshire, while sorting out my jams and chutneys I noticed a couple of the shredless marmalade  are still not set, so might have to re oil again on Sunday. I think I will also give the amaretto apple another boil up, I think it's just a bit too runny
We're having supermarket curry for tea tonight, too tired to make anything, but I've just been eating samosas and bhaji with my home made mango and pineapple chutney, was very impressed with it.
Feet up tonight I think, I'm tired, my back aches, my knees ache and I've got a very early ( for me) start in the morning.

Rhubarb and Ginger Jelly

After looking at the rhubarb yesterday, I couldn't bear the thought of it sitting there and going over, so I picked a good few stalks and stewed a little in the oven for tea, with the rest I chopped it up and simmered it with some sliced root ginger and a frozen packed of pectin rich stock ( made from filtered, boiled, apple and lemon skins left from a previous recipe). 

I then left it to drip in a jelly bag all night, and this morning am boiling it up in small batches with 450g of sugar to every 600ml of juice. The recipe calls for less sugar, but last year I couldn't get it to set without the usual 450/600 ratio.

Ive added a teaspoon of citric acid per litre of juice too, just for certainty on the set, I'm sick of reboiling things.

The rhubarb juice is such a beautiful colour, I took some pictures but I'm not sure they really do it justice.

Rhubarb, Rhubarb

This year our rhubarb is MASSIVE, it looks so healthy at the moment and although we eat it, it's time to decide on the preserving route. It's not a big seller on my stall, I've tried varied recipes over the years, rhubarb jam, rhubarb and ginger jam, rhubarb and vanilla jam, and all those as jellies. I've never tried it as a chutney and don't fancy it myself as its so soft, that unless I added loads of other things, I don't see the chutney having much texture. I think I fancy making a jelly again, it is always the most beautiful colour, it's a bit of a drawn out process though, so better get started.

Broody hens..again

We have a couple of broody hens, I noticed on Sunday and have watched for a couple of days and sure enough they are staying in the same place, which is at least safely inside the hen hut, both in the same nesting box. They are sat on around 20 eggs. 

This happened around this time last year, and we got 10 hatch last year between 3 mothers who were all squeezed in to one nesting box. A couple died in the first few days, which is always heartbreaking, but the rest flourished and we ended up with 5 hens and 3 cockerels. Our adult cockerel went missing not long before they reached maturity, we never found out what happened to him, it's unusual for a fox to just take 1 bird, plus we couldn't find the strike point, so we assume he didn't like the competition, he was an old lad, and went off. 

One of the cockerels grew into a beautiful bird and replaced him as father of the flock, but the other two were ugly whitish birds, pretty hefty looking things and they started ganging up on the girls to have their way with them. I ended up cornering them one day and getting Mike to despatch them. So we have a dozen birds at the moment, and are swamped with eggs, the two broodies will slow that down a little, but everyone that comes to the house leaves with eggs at the moment.

Made me think

I've just been reading a friends post about going very green and chemical free and it did make me think about what we use in the house, I am a big fan already of bicarbonate and vinegar for a lot of the cleaning, but we do have chemicals, we also have a septic tank so are quite careful about many things, but again use cheap shampoo and shower gels, the step son has 2 showers a day.
We don't have a tumble drier, or dish washer, so that isn't an issue, but I started to think about what shower gels and shampoos could I buy instead.
I was hoping there was a site that just gives you a list, but on my brief investigations this morning, that doesn't seem to be the case...so far.
I read about the issues of SLS in products a few years ago and although it gave me some concerns, I'm very much a believer in fate, and if you take all the precautions you can, you could still get hit by a runaway car on the day your number is up, but it wouldn't do any harm to look up a few 'better for you' products.
Anyway back to day to day - I have 3 gardening jobs on today, it's cold and windy and a threat of rain, I told all my customers this year that I'm going to be a fair weather gardener, I have too many aches and pains nowadays to be out when it's bad...so the question is...will they be expecting me.
Only one way to find out I suppose.