Yes, the time of year when it’s acceptable to eat a chocolate each day first thing in the morning… I hope those little images align properly in everyone’s browsers, else they won’t make sense

The Modern Housewife Series Vol 1 is doing a countdown to Vegan Christmas starting on Nov 18th…

but back to those Advent chocs:

Already on the sidebar is the moo free one Then we have Montezuma’s dark – big blocks of chocolate in that one, and the most expensive but containing such beautiful shapes is the Ultimate Dark Advent Calendar from hotel chocolat…

Don’t forget the non edible but so much fun Playmobil ones either – Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com both have a good selection of them.

An advent candle pic from ‘days of yore home edding younger children‘ time (original post):

Related posts:

Wow the weather, tis sublime

This was a frugal tweet but is worth rehashing here – stuff does grow over winter albeit slowly: Planted over wintering onions in among the kale yesterday. Winter lettuce today.

Vegan Mofo goes on through October – The Modern Housewife Series Vol 1 will be joining in

Weather dictates evening beach visits take place:

Related posts:

Seem to be having some trouble prioritising blogging (the smiley denotes that I do not actually care about this in the slightest so do not expect it to change anytime soon )

So, instead, I will draw your attention to a new blog on the sidebar. It makes me giggle every morning as I swig nettle tea and peruse the internet in bed, thinking of the Knickernator out running and smiling with her liver – Skedaddle!

Vegan Easter has been updated :D

Happenings revealed by camera content:

some of us have been doing teddy bear impersonations and sunbathing

there's been cake

flowers

loving all the spring green things - parsley here

hyacinth gone wild

Related posts:

random bug on a sunflower leaf

education:

Potatoes for Schools registration is now open for 2011 – free seed potatoes, available to home educators too

The BBC Scottish History section is very good, nice timelines going on.

on self esteem:

We Teach What We Are - a blog from Wayne Dyer on the best we can do for young people.

Page 20 of Ladies First Magazine has a beautiful article about womens body image and self esteem.

and there is an excellent article on aspergers here

…and a small mention for Twitter, some of the above were passed on through there. Last weekend we won tickets to an early preview of Despicable Me, complete with many freebies, thanks to following Cineworld on there. Very funny film, one of the few weve seen that actually makes the 3D element worthwhile. Follow us on our vegan family account or as Frugaluk where we pass on many competitions

Related posts:

redcurrants and rosemary awaiting sugar

What a bumper year it’s been for the currants – were having berried up green smoothies daily, there are lots in freezer which will extend the berry smoothie season and it’s looking to be a very abundant bramble year too. Last year we gathered quite a lot for the freezer as well as smoothie-ing them fresh. At least I thought we’d gathered a lot until I met a man in the woods with 3 huge bucket loads of them. He must have spent all day picking. Maybe for jam? I really want to try preserving in different ways this year so we can eat the home grown stuff in winter too. So we made strawberry jam as mentioned, and then moved onto:

redcurrant and rosemary jelly for savoury things

 This was inspired by the home baked blog, that mixing of flavours is beautiful! I used Delia’s redcurrant jelly recipe with quite a few rosemary sprigs thrown in and then used the same basic technique to make:

blackcurrant jelly

which is wonderful – what a sensational taste blackcurrants do have!

Cooking on the stove this morning is Apple and Ginger Chutney from the Cranks recipe book with the apples from the bike ride heavily supplemented with ones from our trees and our own onions in there too Adapted recipe on the sauces page.

Related posts:

pea

It’s wonderfully warm here just now. In between all the cycling, walking, climbing and meeting badgers in the woods were loving the cool of the pool and reading in the sun

Fiction being perused: Mariana, a gentle tale of reincarnation and time slipping and the latest Sophie Hannah, A Room Swept White – very impressed with this author’s progression. Non fiction-wise: The Moneyless Man, a guy who lived without money for a year (and continues to do so – see his blog), quite mind blowing, lots of info about the financial system as he was an economist and The Age of Absurdity, a great antidote to, well, total nonsense and status quo worship and it’s very funny too!

Jodie Picoult’s House Rules is also well worth a mention, though I read it a while back, as the main character has aspergers syndrome. He may have been given almost every trait going but he does come over as an authentic aspergian person and Picoult makes so many good points and references much current research, I feel it’s a valuable title to have in the mainstream.

borage

grapes

toms

red peppers, just watered

parsley, getting ready to self seed

melon

Related posts:

If you’re looking for a Scottish dish to make for Burns night other than haggis*, these are very good – nothing like the English item of the same name and containing the somewhat surprising ingredient of potato (undetectable, is lovely fondant).

Basically you boil a small peeled potato, mash it and mix in as much icing sugar as it can take, which will be a lot. Roll out the fondant, cut into rectangles and leave to dry out for a few hours. Coat in melted chocolate, dip in dessicated coconut, toasted or not, and let set. There is a more detailed write up by Cat over on Modern Housewife

other Scottish recipes on site include cranachan (traditional pud at Burns suppers), Balmoral pie, skirlie, bradies and mince with dumplings and here’s a previous Burns night posting from 2008 complete with haggis, poetry and music.

*note: do not serve the macaroons with neeps and tatties

update: toasted coconut and it stuck fairly well – they were just not right without it!

Related posts:

Have finally got the blog how I want it – a terrible tale of databases, installations of wordpress and corrupted (by me) css files ensued but I’ve now uploaded the archives (see drop down on sidebar) and cleaned up dead links too

Reading a book lent by my mum. She found it while scouring her shelves during the snow time (unable to get to a library) and thought it might actually be mine… can’t imagine why

Ivan Illich’s Deschooling Society is full of wonderful radical thoughts on education, reminds me a lot of Holt and Gatto. The previous owner has hardly left a page untouched, with highlighting and notes everywhere, which somehow makes reading it more interesting, an extra dimension, what someone else finds of import. I think he went a bit too far in sometimes underlining whole pages of text, but there we are

Enjoying Scotch Broth, not the most photogenic of soups but it tastes good:

Related posts:

We were sent a gorgeous poster by Jane - see her blog here or email her about posters at janeygirlfruitbat@live.co.uk

In our kitchen:

detail:

standing on a beautiful bit of the Earth :

 currently reading:

Very peaceful and wise….

Buy UK or Buy US

Related posts:

Written the little home ed page for vegan family – crammed quite a few photos in there

 …blog goes back to sleep…  or at least presses that snooze button for a while

Related posts: