Rice Pudding and Raspberry Leaf Tea

I've been drinking a lot of raspberry leaf tea this past week and a half.  It's meant to be good at helping when the ol' labour kicks off, and I must say in the mean time it intensifies the Braxton Hick's contractions.  All well and good- home stretch now (quite a scary thought!)

A friend has posted several times on Facebook recently about making rice pudding for her family, and every time I see her mention it, it makes me yearn for it.  I do have a bit of a weakness for a good old home made rice pudding.  I found a lovely recipe on BBC Good Food (once again they come good!) and it's so easy.  I didn't have pudding rice (it seems that not many supermarkets stock it these days, and people get very confused when you ask for it, wondering if you in fact mean tinned rice pudding!) so I used risotto rice, which worked excellently.

I love making this because a) it is so easy- just bung everything in a dish, pop it in the oven for a couple of hours, and voilà- a delicious dessert, and b) because it's great if you're trying to be thrifty- rice, milk, sugar and a dash of nutmeg- it doesn't break the bank!

Given that clearly I have a bit of a sweet tooth at the moment, I also decided to try out banana and chocolate chip bread in our bread maker.  I tried out a (disastrous) white bread recipe on the back of a yeast packet today, which did not work properly for some unknown reason, and after that decided that I had to have one bread success today, so I looked around on line for a nice (and not too complex) sounding recipe for banana bread.  What better than one with chocolate chips too?

I found the recipe here, but when I was about to turn on the bread maker, I did do a double take about the fact that it had no sugar in it (not in itself a problem, but it didn't sound normal for a sweet bread!) so I added 3 tbsp of sugar to the mix.  I was a little nervous about how it would turn out- especially given my failure once today already! However, I needn't have worried- it is delicious, and I particularly love the dark chocolate chips (chunks?)! A good breakfast tomorrow me thinks!

I finished my fat-quarters bag, and went with blue straps in the end.  I'm pleased with how it turned out, but with retrospect, you need a little more of one single type of fabric to make a bag of a more practical size.  It was my first little play with making up patterns myself, and I've learned a few bits and bobs, but it's given me lots of ideas for developing in the future!  And in the meantime, I reckon it would make a nice peg bag!

Right. I must stop now, and get on with clicking my needles together to finish that cabled cardi.  I'd like to complete it before the little one puts in her appearance, and I'm getting pretty close...
If you fancy another crafty blog read, one that I'm enjoying at the moment is Flossie Teacakes.  Lots of inspiration to be gleaned from there!

Hoping that you're having a lovely week.

Cx

Yellow and Blue inspiration

Today has been such a lovely day.  The weather has been beautiful- blue skies, and really mild.  E is so much better now (thank goodness for prayer and antibiotics!), and there's something even more wonderful about a cheerful child after a few days of them being miserable.

Scrummy!

I had the morning off today! E went and had fun with his Grandma, and I took a leisurely bath, and then had a little jaunt into town.  Oxford is such a beautiful place to live- particularly on days like today!

One place I particularly wanted to visit was Oxford's new little haberdashery.  For a reasonable sized city, Oxford has had no haberdashery (apart from a wall in a department store) since the fabric shop closed about 18 months ago.  This little place is little, and full of charm, tucked away beside Christ Church College.

And, they do day workshops and endorse local craft groups, such as a Monday night sewing and knitting group that meets in a local pub- fantastic.  You can find more information here.  

I had to go in and have a little mosy round, and although I intended to buy nothing, this lovely little pack of fat-quarters caught my eye.

They just looked so spring-like, and they were just crying out to be made into a bag. I really like some of the lovely pleated bags I've seen around, and decided that they couldn't be that difficult to make, so this afternoon whilst the boy was sleeping I set about designing a pattern for my own.  Who knows how it'll turn out, but so far it's going well.

Although my only problem is deciding what colour to do the straps.  I have the floral fabric as the outside, the plain yellow as the lining, and the blue as a kind of 'band' on top.  What do you think would do well for some straps out of the following?

I'll be getting on with it next tomorrow, so if you have any inspiration or opinions, I'd love to hear from you!

In other news I bought myself two lovely new items of clothing today.  I was given some vouchers last summer, and I figured that pretty soon I'd have less time on my hands to go shopping at leisure, so I got myself...

This lovely shirt (which doesn't quite fit now, but will do after birth!) which is a) rather gorgeous, and a style I've wanted for a while and b) ideal for breastfeeding, which I shall be doing rather a lot of in a few weeks' time! And...

A new pair of PJs- again, I'm going to be very good and save them for after the big day, so I have something nice to wear.

So. All in all a Good Day. 

Right. Must dash. The bread needs taking out of the bread maker.  Granary this time.

It's in the bag...

For a friend's birthday recently, I decided to embark upon my first crochet project... A lovely little Clutch Bag ( "In Bloom"- The Happy Hooker).

It proved a fun and very doable first project, although I had to try the flowers a few times until I got it right...

I lined the inside with some red floral fabric I had in my material box

Much fun for a first project, and a nice little gift....