Loving leftovers and plumbing finished

The best thing about making enough food to feed an army you get lots of left overs, and then you get to eat them instead of cooking a meal from scratch.

Which is a good job really because I had to feed the starving hero today - the heat exchanger works! We have a warm bathroom!

First of all he had to drill holes in the new fire - a bit stressful this, buying an expensive new fire then making holes in it.

Then the heat coils were installed inside and the copper pipes pushed through then attached to flexible hoses to feed through the living room wall to the bathroom to be connected to the pump.

To fix the coils securely a bar has been run horizontally across them.

Here they are inside the top of the fire box.











Complete with flames!

In an attempt to make the whole system automatic, another of the scrapyard finds comes into play, a thermal switch, which should activate the pump at 35°C with another on the return as a safety backup which trips in at 60°C.

But that should mean that we can throw a couple of logs into the fire and safely leave it overnight knowing that the pump is going to kick in and not just leave the water boiling in the heat exchanger.

Here is the very technical test to see that the switches work - one hot mug, one cold mug.  James May and his man lab have nothing on this!

There is also a mains powered override switch to turn the pump on and off should the thermal automatic switches not work.

So we are all watching the thermometer with eagle eyes - how many degrees difference is this new system going to make.

Here is the new bathroom layout, fire removed, radiator, and towel rail fitted.

What to do with the skirt offcuts - oh no that dreaded C word

Yep - Christmas.  That's the one.

Not sure you are all thinking of Christmas yet but in our house it is banned from being mentioned before the first of November, but now of course it is time to start considering such important things like the decoration theme for the tree, which of our poultry is going to have the honour of gracing the table, and of course who I can cross off my homemade card list this year.

So to get me in the mood, we decided (Thea and I that is - Brendan has no choice in the matter), that the theme this year for the tree is au naturel, and for the table, red reindeers.

From the skirt that I butchered the other day to make a bag, I had some of the lovely material left over, really pretty beige brown floral and peacock design and so I set to making some birds for the tree.

This is a really simple stencil, cut out facing left and right on the pattern material and some plain backing material, then some wings also cut from the pattern material.

Pin the wing in place on the pattern side and then just running stitch in a bright contrasting colour cotton all the way around, adding a couple of bars to look like feathers.

 A quick cross for an eye and the bird decoration is done.

Pin the right side of the pattern material to the right side of the backing material and machine sew all the way around except for about an inch left open on the bottom.

Turn the birds the right way by stuffing them through the hole with your finger, and pull out to the hem all the way round to shape the tail, head and beak.

Then stuff the bird through the small hole you left open, once filled, just close the hole off with a few blanket stitches.  For that little bit extra I also added a couple of heads of dried lavender into the stuffing so that they will smell lovely on the tree too.  To keep them smelling fresh from now to December, just seal them once they are made into a ziploc bag or a sealed plastic container.




I then added a couple of chicken feathers, through the stitches on the wings to finish my Christmas decoration birdies off.  I am sure that the kittens are really going to appreciate the effort I put into these.

The 10 Day Larder Challenge

With Bren away for a few days, I thought I would try the 10 day larder challenge.

This is where you challenge yourself to live solely from the current contents of your larder and fridge on a timescale to suit yourself.  Hence 10 days for me, or should I say us because of course Thea will be taking part too, whether she likes it or not.

With a confusing morning gone by, and a fraught afternoon chasing rabbits now coming to a halt, I have time to update my blog properly and add some photos.  (I am also still trying to learn the French keyboard lay out, but it is taking forever to remember the m and the w).

Chasing rabbits was my fault entirely, not shutting the hutch door to this morning I came home to find two in the garden and the rest gallivanting around with the chickens.  So far I have managed to get the four babies in and one of the adults, the other is hiding behind the other hutches and so I have to wait for Thea tonight so we can get her in a pincer movement. If I can't catch her I may have to shoot her otherwise she will eat the veg garden overnight.

OK - Day 1 of the larder challenge, on the menu today :  Sunflower seed bread

I set this off in the machine this morning when I left for work and it was delicious and hot at lunchtime ready and waiting for me when I got home.

350ml tepid water

500g white flour

1 tablespoon sunflower oil

4 teaspoons sugar

3 tablespoons dried milk powder

15g dried active yeast

1 generous handful of sunflower seeds

Combine the sugar with some of the tepid water, add the yeast and leave to activate for about 15 minutes

pour the water and the oil along with the yeast mix into the bread machine pan (always liquid ingredients first for best results)

add the milk powder and the flour

Normally if you have a machine that does it you would put the seeds into the 'add later' compartment or throw  them in at the last rise or at the last bake, but because I was leaving my machine to get on with it, I threw mine in at the start with all the other ingredients.

A bit comfort food-ish, served with hot melted butter and some homemade course pâté.

Now I am sat inside waiting for a phone call, so making the best of my time, finally processing and uploading some of my scrapyard treasures photos onto flickr.   

http://www.flickr.com/photos/theabsinthefairy/?saved=1