Viewing the Royal Wedding

 The Royal Wedding has come and gone.  I got up at a quarter to 4 and got dressed in my big hat and long dress.  I had printed out the program the day before.
 I wasn't sleepy at all, I was so excited to see the crowds, the hats, the cars, many of them rather exotic.  We settled on Katie Couric, with Harry Smith back in the states for the weather disaster in the South.  Bill dressed up and put on his new cashmere sweater to look very British.

 Here I am putting clotted cream on my home-made crumpet.  I will admit to eating several crumpets, they turned out to be quite good.  The clotted cream is really a "mock clotted cream" recipe off the internet, but it was very delicious with home canned strawberry jam.

 Here are the scones with rosewater flavored icing and candied violets under the cake dome.  They were just right, not too sweet.

Teapots and coffeepots are lined up on the counter in the kitchen.  It was all set up the night before so all I had to do was push some buttons.  Later I scrambled some eggs and baked some thick-cut bacon from the butcher's and we ate breakfast just as the ceremony was beginning, on tv trays in the living room.
After breakfast, when the ceremony was over, I began to feel sleepy.  In fact, after our first lone visitor had left to begin the duties of her day, I might have dozed off a bit.  Later another visitor came and I found I needed another scone and a cup of real coffee to wake up
     All in all it was just as fun as I had expected and hoped it would be.  It was a very sentimental moment and Bill and I held hands, sitting on the love seat.  Our best wishes to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge!

Getting ready for the Royal Wedding

 I have been baking all day in preparation for the Wedding tomorrow morning,  I have had several people RSVP that they are coming.  Maybe in their pajamas!  Here are the bagels, simmering in sugar water before being baked

 They are drained on a towel before being put on the baking sheet.

 And here they are.  The very toasted black things are dehydrated onions, I didn't know they would burn.

 Here is the bread sponge.  Eliyah mixed it up yesterday and took the photo.

 He also put the Pinto beans to soak,  now that they are cooked, we'll put them up in sandwich bags to freeze for later.

 He took these photos too.

 This afternoon we made the Crumpets, using canning rings for the support.

Here is  the menu:

  Scones with Rosewater flavored icing
  Crumpets with Strawberry Jam and Clotted cream
   Bagels and toast with butter and Orange Marmelade
   Scrambled eggs for a crowd
   Rashers (Bacon)
   Tea and coffee
 
 I've got my dress and hat ready.  Now if I can just wake up at 3:30 in the morning

Preparing for the Royal Wedding, as well as Easter

I have become very interested in the Royal Wedding next Friday.  I am somewhat of an Anglophile anyway, preferring my murder mysteries to be set in England.  Since I won't be flying to London to see the Wedding, I have decided to celebrate it here, starting at 4 am and enjoying the English  foods associated with High Tea  with it.   I have invited friends, who were enthused but I wonder how many will be able to get themselves up at 4 in the morning.  Never-the-less, I will be prepared.  I had seen these candied violets in Victoria Bliss magazine this month and was delighted with the idea because of it's novelty and elegance and the fact that it cost next to nothing to prepare.  I have rather an attitude about that!  So here are the fixings, the violets picked from the driveway, where the only earth is the fallen leaves of last Autumn, so "clean dirt".  Here I am painting them with egg white and sprinkling them with sugar.  Of course I washed them first!

You can see that I put rather too much sugar on on the ones on the left side.  In the middle are white violets and on the right some more purple ones with less sugar.  We tested them yesterday at a family Easter dinner and my Daughter-in-law says cheerfully "they taste good, they taste like sugar"!

 My friend Eliyah, who comes to visit me after school some days, very kindly volunteered to help with the Easter eggs.  These raw eggs have leaves and flowers plastered to them and are encased in an old stocking.  We laughed at how funny they look!

 Here they are in the pans.

 Now they are simmering in food coloring water.

And here they are, along with some others Elyah has decorated with some store dye.

We had our Easter family meal yesterday and I was having so much fun that I forgot to take any pictures.  I did make the menu that I had planned, Tien Momo which are steamed bread rolls, (with two dipping sauces, Aioli, and sour cream with dill and onion),   African pumpkin and peanut soup, Pork sesame noodles, corn on the cob,  my Daughter-in-law's delicious salad and then Baklava and also Cupcakes with violets on them, made by my Daughter.  Today there is no cooking, as there is plenty left as well as eggs and candy.  I loll on the Sofa with a good (English-setting) book and receive phone calls from my seven adult children.  Happy Easter to you all!

Holding the line, spending $50 a week for 2 people, or $200 a month

When I went to the store this month, I went over by $33!  And I was not best pleased.  When I got home I looked at the receipts and added and subtracted.  In fact, non-food items totaled about $30.  So I still spent $203 on the month's food.  But I have never done that before, separated the food from the non-food.  So it feels like cheating.  Some things that increased sharply in price were soft drinks, bathroom necessities, and dairy products.  It is also true that I bought all our meat at a local butcher shop.  Their meat was much better quality and I deemed it not excessively more expensive, but it was slightly more.  I spent $24 on 2 # bacon, 3 # ground sirloin, 1 # sweet Italian sausage and 1 # beef stew meat.  I still have chicken breasts in the freezer from two months ago.  That amounts to about 25 meals.  Some canned salmon and soup will round it out for a month.
  It is also true that last month was our midnight foray and while I kept the budget then, I elected not to buy some items that were more expensive at that store.  So you could say we were at an all time low as far as our pantry went.

Empty

 There are still some potatoes but only one sprouting onion.  On the bottom shelf are empty canning jars, which are starting to mount up since we have eaten more than half of our home canned goods.

Full

Empty

Full

Some very successful mini cupcakes on a vintage serving tray.  The icing is flavored with my vanilla bean in vodka home-made flavoring.  Very strong!

Here are my stuffed chicken breasts, using left-over dressing, butter, sage and dehydrated onion on top.  Bake for about 1 hour at 350 degrees.

And here is the finished meal, with whipped potatoes and edible pod peas, a little gravy, tea for me and soft drink for Hubby

When I got home from the store yesterday I processed all the meat.  Divided the 3 pounds of ground sirloin  ($3.00 a pound) into meal sized patties and put them up in sandwich bags.  The last 10 ounces I made into little meat loaves.  These are intended to be sliced longways providing properly sized slices for both our plates.  After they are baked the two we don't eat immediately are frozen and can be heated in the microwave for a quick supper.

These are small individual loaf pans.

Today I went with a friend to Spring Mill Park to look at Nature in the early spring.  We go several times a year.  They have a wonderful Inn with a buffet that features fabulous desserts.  I am afraid I had more than one dessert!  Here we are visiting  the Hamer  Cemetery afterward  which I had never visited before.

A veteran of the War of 1812!

A weeping willow expresses sorrow.

A child's grave

Hubby is restoring a box for an early Dremel tool.  Note the tiny clamps.

Almost done!  I am sure the sugar canister has been used to hold something down.

    
Menus for the week:
Tomato soup made with tomato paste and canned milk, a little water to thin, some dill, dehydrated onion, salt and sugar.  Roast beef sandwiches with Swiss cheese and home-made Aioli on dark rye. Tossed salad
.
Quarter pounders on whole wheat rolls, roasted potato wedges, tossed salad.

Fried Chicken strips, baked potatoes, home-canned green beans.

Beef stew, biscuits with slivers of cheese, salad.

Shepard's pie made with the left-over beef stew, flavored with a tablespoon of tomato paste and some extra frozen vegetables and surrounded with whipped potatoes, salad.

Pasta Carbonara, that is, with bacon, dried tomatoes etc, salad.

Pork fried rice, salad, bread and butter.

For desserts, I want to make a Pineapple-upside-down Cake with the fresh pineapple I bought, 4 for $5.  The rest of the pineapple will be cut up in chunks and frozen in sandwich bags for desserts of "fresh" fruit.  We like it very much, half frozen and with a dusting of sugar.  It can also be made into fruit salad as the freezing doesn't alter the texture as it does with strawberries.  I have the sponge for bagels resting on the counter in the kitchen.  I'll finish them tomorrow.  I am already thinking about the Easter dinner, which falls in this month so will be made with things I have already bought.  Here is the proposed menu:

Tingmo (steamed bread dumplings) with 2 dipping sauces
African peanut and pumpkin soup
Pork sesame noodles with shredded cabbage
Home frozen corn on the cob
Salad, my daughter-in-law is bringing
Baklava
 Mini cupcakes overbalanced with Peeps on top, a traditional Easter dessert here.

 I admit it is um, eclectic!