DANISH APPLE CAKE

A friend brought me a carrier bag of apples which weren't good enough to wrap and store so it's now a case of using them as quickly as possible. Blackbirds will have them if they aren't suitable for cooking use.
I found this recipe which, from the annotation, I last made in 2003; the trouble is that living on my own I now have to eat the whole pud! Ain't that sad! The recipe comes from 'The WI book of Cakes' which I've had for years and written comments in as well.
I peeled and cored then stewed the apples down to a pulp, leaving the result to drip through a colander since I don't have a sieve any more - a tea strainer's too small...
For the cake mix it's 8 oz flour, 4 oz each marg and (they say) soft brown sugar plus an egg.
Melt the marg and mix with the sugar, add the lightly beaten egg and mix well. Stir in the flour.
Spread 2/3rds of the mix on the bottom of the tin/container then add the apples plus a handful of dried fruit, sultanas in this case.It doesn't matter if the apples are still steaming. Plop the remainder of the mix over the top where it will spread during cooking to cover the apple layer.
The oven needs preheating to 180C, Mark 4, well, I did 3 1/2 and it was OK. Takes 45 mins to cook.Eat and enjoy.

The cores and peelings went into a plastic bag to go down to the stables for the chickens. Bella, the dog, thought I'd gone to play with her and Tig, the cat, sat watching through half closed eyes. She looks just like Alice in Wonderland's Cheshire Cat. Helen had gone riding on one of her horses and the other two in the field were whinnying all the time. Stuart is building a shed, very slowly...and it was cold!
 

ODDS AND ENDS 2012, No. 1

This is a notice which was in one of Aylesbury's Tesco stores before Christmas - just another one of those things that hits me directly I see it. This week, out with a friend, I spotted Mediterranean spelled incorrectly, too...in a butcher's shop where there was a printed label with the correct spelling. Grrr!


A new photo system which I don't know how to use yet, which is why the picture is not in the centre. I made Stuart a woolly hat as one of the oddments for his Christmas presents - using the pattern I've made dozens of times before since he was about 10!
James decided he'd like one as well, but he wanted a bobble so I knitted the hat and Teresa made the bobble while Jonathan was trying to make the computer go a bit faster. Unfortunately it hasn't really
worked...I'm waiting for a computer with a matte screen to come on the market, one that's more powerful than the only one available at the moment.

I went to throw out some bird seed the other day. I hadn't put it in a dustbin to keep so shouldn't have been surprised when two mouse-bitten holes sprayed the seed in all directions!

I found the old bit of terry towelling, used for wiping tools dry before putting them away, had been imaginatively dagged along the edge. I suspect there'll be a nest somewhere behind the usual garden containers etc (which live in my Top Shed) neatly lined with shredded towelling for the comfort of the babies.
I saw a mouse, the first for a-g-e-s, trundling across the patio in a dead straight line as if it was on skates, so perhaps it was Mum going home...

Another odd bit of labelling in Morrisons this time...

The other day, on Meridian News, there was an item about a new RN ship leaving to go to the Gulf, with families waving Goodbye from the quayside. The final shot was an elderly man with the Union Flag wrapped round his shoulders, the flag waving in the strong breeze. Unfortunately the flag was upside down...do you know which of the flags above is the correct way up???  But I didn't know there was a right and wrong way to Fly the Flag until I worked at a flag makers in the 1960s!!!
PS - it's the first one, with the wide white stripe at the top. Roll on the Olympics...