Tangelled Angel

They need a bib

I’m still playing around with crochet on and off.  It doesnt hold my interest as much as knitting does, but I can see the advantage in being able to crochet, and the freedom involved in crochet compared to knitting.

Im sure you can see that I started off this bib using a treble crochet stitch, as it looks longer than the other stitches. Then I decided it had too much space in between each stitch, and for a bib which is supposed to be absorbant, not too much of a good idea.

So I moved on and did another stitch, which I’m sure that I made up myself, its a bit of a cross between double crochet and treble crochet.  Someone is bound to say to me now that its called double half crochet, or half treble crochet or something like that, but as I havent seen how either of those work, then Im either very intelligent about using crochet or else I was reading crochet books in my sleep.

I got the fantastic Crochet Inspiration book for Christmas from my DH and have been playing around with making crochet flowers, so decided to add this very basic one on here, and I think it livens it up nicely.

This is going to my friend Fionnuala who had a baby girl in December. Im currently finishing off a cardigan, just needs to be sewn up, and have cast on for some booties also.

Yes, I meant to capitalise all those letters in the title. 

Seriously, this recipe is the best and the easiest recipe ever.  all you need are the ingredients, a mixing bowl, a mixing implement, a bread tin and an oven that works.

The recipe came from a friend in work, who got it from a work colleague of her husbands. Basically, the husband used to rave about the bread in his work, so finally asked his colleague (who worked in the kitchen) for the recipe.  She brought in this recipe the next day for him. Turns out, the bread he had been raving about was actually from a bread mix, and this one would be much better….and yeah it was and is!

Brown Bread

6oz Coarse Wholemeal Flour

2oz Plain Flour

2oz Pinhead Oatmeal

1oz Wheatgerm

1 Egg

1 teaspoon Bicarbonate of soda

1 teaspoon Salt

1 teaspoon Sugar

275ml Buttermilk.

Just as a note here, I made this last friday and used egg substitute instead of the egg, and goats milk instead of the buttermilk and it was delicious!

This makes 2 x 1lb tin

Mix everything together ( i beat the egg then add it to a hollow in the dry ingredients, then mix the buttermilk in) and pour into a greased tin.

Bake in a 200 degree celcius oven for 10 minutes, then reduce the temperature to 180 degrees celcius and bake for 40 minutes.

I have a large tin, its bigger than a 1lb, and what I usually do is double the amounts and get a good sized loaf.

I had the remnants today, toasted,  for lunch with some feta cheese and tomato and it was seriously yum!

Edited a week later to add photos, just for you Bobbi !!

Thanks for all the encouraging words about this new way of eating for me. 
So far so good. I’ve found an egg substitute for use in baking and have found ONE bar of chocolate in the local Tescos that doesnt contain dairy or soya/soya lecithin. Goats milk is very drinkable and grand in my porridge.  We’ve even eaten out in the local indian after doing a bit of research on what goes into different sauces, and knowing I can eat popadoms but not Naan bread etc. As my DH says, Ive survived so far with eating all those things, so if I eat something without realising it contains diary, soya or egg, then Im not going to keel over from it.
My first day back at work was a disastor, goats milk-wise. I brought it in a travel mug but it wasnt shut properly and leaked everywhere, didnt realise it until id gotten to my desk. Im sure there was a trail from my car to my office as there was evidence it had been leaking while in my car also  I had green tea instead but missed my rooibus.
Today almost turned out similar. I had made a wrap last night for lunch today and had put it on top of the litre of goats milk (gm) I bought yesterday evening to leave in work. My DH took my wrap out for me this morning and of course at that early hour, I didnt even think about it and only thought about it on the way into work. Luckily, there was a supermarket on the way and I managed to get some there. The whole idea of putting the wrap on top of the gm was to remember to bring in the gm. Duh. Im so forgetful at that time of the morning.

Anyway, enough about that. Look here:

yes, its a finished sock. Its one of a pair, both finished, except this one was the only one finished when I took the photo. Then I gave it to my Dad for Christmas and proceeded to make the second sock. Luckily, he tells me that its absolutely amazing, they are both the exact same size. Yes Dad, I have your foot measurements and I have a tape measure. I’d hope they would end up the same size. I havent been able to get the pair of them together in order to take a picture, but will see if I can get a shot of him wearing them.

I made these a little larger, for my dads measurements, by using size 3.5mm dpns. They felt loose while I was knitting, and I was worried they would be too big for him, but he seems to think they are fine.

Pattern: globe trotter socks

DPN’s: 3.5mm
Yarn: Bergere de France Cablenyl

I had some yarn left over and made a mobile fone sock for my brother. No pics but Im sure you know what a fone sock looks like!

A very Happy New Year to everyone out there in blogland.

New Year, new starts, and the second photo-less blog post from me in 3 months!

My biggest thing for this new year is to try and adapt to a new diet.  Not a new diet as in a losing weight diet, but a new diet that excludes milk, milk products, egg/egg products, durum wheat and soya. 

I got the results back yesterday of a food test that I had sent a sample of blood off for, and it came back with the info that I should avoid those items for 3 months, then try and reintroduce them slowly. There are other food items that I should only eat once every 3-4 days as I’m sensitive to them, including pineapple which I love, and kidney beans, which I’ve never been particularly partial to anyway but we’ve been eating a lot of in chilli lately.

Its amazing how many products have either milk, egg and soya in them.  I went around the supermarket yesterday and had to read the bcak of every label, trying to figure out what i could and couldnt eat.  The biggest problem for me is my breakfast.  I have porridge almost every single morning, and never get sick of it, yet I hate making it with water, it has to be milk. I bought rice milk and goats milk yesterday and tried both in my cup of tea, in preparation for the porridge.  The rice milk was pretty tasteless, looked as if you were just colouring the tea, and then only slightly.  The goats milk, however, and surprisingly, wasnt too bad! So Ive had another cup of tea this morning with it and while its not quite the same as cows milk, its something that I could get used to. Phew.  I also had a cinnamon and raisen bagel for breakfast this morning (not quite ready to try the goast milk in my porridge) and some olive oil spread (which disappointingly contains whey which is from milk, but it was the only spread that seemed close to containing no cows milk). Frustratingly, the ordinary plain bagels contain soya flour, as do most of the pitta breads that i looked at. Tortillas seem to be okay.  It will be a learning curve.

Unfortunately, I can’t eat CHOCOLATE. AArgh. Dont know what I’m going to do there. Even the darkest most best chocolate seems to contain some form of milk in it. Or soya leithin, whatever that is, must research it more. So my untouched selection box will remain untouched for another few months and hope the mice (DH) doesnt get to it in the meantime…