Tis the season of mellow fruitfulness...

And I have been busy in the kitchen! In the last week I have made chocolate walnut brownies, blackberry and apple tarts, slow cooker apple and blackberry jam and currently baking a carrot and courgette cake. Oh, the agony of falling headlong into a patch of nettles as I plucked juicy blackberries from their brambles. Seriously, why are nettles and brambles companion plants - it's madness, madness I say! Anyway, after many scratches, and stings (to which I am becoming innured) I picked 2.5 pints of blackberries. They will be the last of the season I suspect as many are withered dessicated husks, and the few remaining lurk deep within a thicket of nettles and thorns. I looked up a slow cooker jam recipe and decided to give it a go (I was getting rather bored with apple and blackberry tartlets, even with a dollop of clotted cream on top!). Basically you lightly mash the blackberries in the slow cooker, and add a finely diced, lightly cooked golden delicious apple and 2 cups of sugar. You can use more, I objected on moral principles :P Then you cook on low for 3 hours, stirring occasionally, then turn up to high with the lid off for another 2 hours. Decant them into jars and they will last 6 weeks in the fridge. The jam was runny, but sooo DELICIOUS!  Today, due to a slight miscalculation with Tesco where I ordered 5kg's of carrots I made carrot and courgette cake. Naturally I used the recipe as a guide and made all sorts of substitutions and additions :) Now the recipe says to cook it for 30 minutes, and you can do that if you like your cakes liquid in the centre. I shall be cooking mine for at least 40 minutes :) So here's the recipe if you want to try it.

Carrot and Courgette Cake
2 eggs
170g (6 oz) brown soft sugar - I added a splash of golden syrup
75g (3 oz) soured cream - I used greek yoghurt and a teaspoon of mayonnaise
75g (3 oz) carrots, peeled and grated (peeled? what is this peeling of which they speak?)
75g (3 oz) courgettes, peeled and grated (see above lol)

80ml (3 fl oz) sunflower oil
225g (8 oz)  wholemeal flour
3 Tbsp baking powder
75g (3 oz) raisins - I used sultanas
I added dried cherries, mixed spice, vanilla essence and cinnamon

In other news the Maths GCSE is going well. I passed the surprise test in the first session (which half the class failed) and to my eternal surprise seem to be tutoring my seatmate! If my maths classmates could see me now they would believe the world had ended lol. I nipped off to the library for a GCSE book and am waiting until payday so I can purchase the proper textbook. However I am doing exceptionally well if I do say so myself, and am getting everything right so far! It won't last :)

School is going well for the boys. Kieran is loving his new teacher and has shown no reluctance to head off to school in the mornings. Cameron switched over to mornings this week and it has been a trial by fire. He fought to be able to eat his chocolate muffin before his savoury stuff (sausages) and as a result ate nothing that day. He threw a massive tantrum the next morning as he had determined that school was a tool of the devil, designed to frustrate small boys, and haunt them with pangs of starvation. However we seem to be shifting to a more positive outlook :)

Cubs started back last night and I have mapped out activities for the Cubs to work towards three badges this Autumn term. I plan for them to read WW1 books, give report on them and then use that information to present a group play on a WW1 theme where they can sing, dance, write a script and tell a story. It will be good fun and will earn them a Book reader badge and a Creative performance badge! The other badge is athletics and I have come up with some thoughts on that too :)

Yesterday was busy as I was preparing agendas and the documentation for FOUR meeting next week. Four of them!! My hands will be cramped little claws by the time I finish minuting that lot :) Mind you, my arms have only just stopped hurting after I pruned every bush in the back garden with the bluntest, stiffest pair of shears it has ever been my misfortune to use. Then I got to drag the vegetative remains to the wheelie bins, smearing rotting vegetable matter on my shirt. Oh yeah, I was living the dream :) However I did a trawl around the op shops looking for cheap white polo shirts for the boys (school uniform) with no success. However I did find a smashing pair of brown leather boots that turned out to be Doctor Martins. And I bought them for the princely sum of 2 pounds - BARGAIN!!