Sunday's challenge for a decorative lunch bag - entries:

Kris's lunch bag challenge.

Liz's lunch bag challenge

Carol's bag, front and back...

Ashley's bag

 Deb's bag

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Stella's bag, front

and back

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Terri's bag:

Recipe for Mustard Pickle

Recipe for Mild Mustard Pickle

Contains no colourants, preservatives or anything other than seasonal vegetables and other rustic ingredients. Loved by everybody in the family and by some others too. Do not be discouraged by the colour, it's great with cheese, cold and hot meats and even on its own with fresh crispy bread!
Usually prepared in late September or early October, rarely lasts beyond Christmas in my family!
There is nothing similar available commercially.

Some preparation is required :-

(I) Collect some empty jam-jars, or similar, through the year.
Thoroughly clean the jars and tops, rinse and dry in a warm oven.
The amounts below will fill about eight 454g (1lb) jars

(ii) Ingredients with approx. quantities (the exact amounts are not critical as no batch is exactly the same as the last!) :-
Colmans Mustard Powder 50g (two heaped table spoons)
Corn Flower 50g
Sugar 25g (one heaped table spoon)
Salt 25g
Ordinary Malt Vinegar 1.14 litres (2.3 pints)
Shallots, or small pickling onions, 700g
Cauliflower 700g
Runner beans 700g
Marrow 700g (Courgette works too!)

(iii) Prepare the veg. :-
‘Top and tail’ the Onions and peel off the outer skins
Cut off any stringy sides of the Runner Beans and slice diagonally
Peel off the Marrow skin, cut into half and spoon out the seeds. Chop the remaining flesh into small cubes of about 2-3cm
Remove the outer leaves of the Cauliflower, and chop the remainder into small intact fleurettes
Place the  prepared veg. in a suitably sized bowl and add salt, turning over several times to ensure a uniform coating.
Cover the bowl and stand overnight (previous experience indicates that 4-6 hours is adequate)
After this time, decant the brine from the bowl, place the veg. in a colander and rinse briefly under running tap water. Tip out the veg. onto a clean cloth and dab gently to remove excess water.

(iv) Prepare a thin slurry by thoroughly mixing the Mustard, Corn Flower  and Sugar with about 50 to 100ml of the Vinegar, in a  jug.

(v) Put the prepared veg. in a saucepan, add the remainder of the Vinegar and place on an oven hob. Gradually bring to the boil. Once simmering, add the Mustard slurry and gently mix.
Allow to boil gently for 20 minutes and turn off the heat.
Do not boil too vigorously, or for longer than specified, as this tends to break-up the vegetables.

(vi) Allow to cool, then ladle into the jars via a ‘jam’ funnel, or similar.
Gently press the top of each jar, to ensure that the contents are totally immersed in the liquor. If not, add small portions of Vinegar to achieve this. Place the tops on the jars.

The Mustard Pickle is then ready for consumption, but is better after a couple of days maturation!

My First junk Journal - 1973

This scruffy old book is my very first junk journal, circa 1970 something. Of course it wasn't called a junk journal then. When I started it, it was a combination of lists, recipes, things to do, Christmas Card lists, important data information, knitting know how and goodness knows what else. Today it would be a cross between a bullet journal and a junk journal, I suppose. When I made it, I wasn't thinking about keeping it forever, but the years rolled by and here I am looking at it, all those years later. I still use it. I still need it.
The reason I'm telling you about it now is to encourage you to do something similar because when you are older you will love looking back at it. I'll give you an example in a minute. So I am appealing to the younger ones on here..... Do something like this if you don't already. Don't sell all your junk journals, keep some for yourself. You will be glad later on.


The outside of my diary is dreadful! It's not dirty, but it isn't good to look at either. All these years I've been meaning to do something about it, but so far, nothing. Don't ask me why because I don't know! However, inside, and I'm giving you a little peek at one of the pages, I have my life at my fingertips. The entry for today was written in 1973 and it concerns what I needed to get for my first baby (born in 1974). Have a look at that list and see how it compares with today's list. Some of the things on the list are for me (obviously) because I'd never been pregnant before and I didn't know what to expect. The rest is for my baby - no scans - no idea if it would be a boy or a girl. We had only minimum access to throw away nappies (diapers) then. I was only expecting to use those if we went out for the day. 

There was a shortage of good quality Egyptian cotton in 1973 and I remember my mum hunting high and low to find some really nice nappies for me to use. She finally did find some and I was delighted. I wasn't so delighted later when the baby was born and I had to wash 5,6 or sometimes 7 of those things every day in a Baby Burco boiler, with a spin drier to help dry them. However, it was very satisfying to see them blowing on the line outside my flat, drying and smelling so fresh and clean. So, in the nappies were nappy liners, remember those? They would catch the worst of it and could be disposed of in the toilet afterwards. We had no baby wipes, which incidentally do not bio degrade, so nowadays they are polluting the ocean.

As I went along through the pregnancy, I ticked off the things I needed as I acquired them.
On the second page, just visible in my picture, were the consumables for baby.
Does any of it look familiar to you?

From time to time I will be dipping into my journal to tell you how things were when I did it and I hope you will join in too and share your memories or if you are younger, I would love to hear how you use your journal/s now and how you intend to use them in the future...

Happy Mail for 26th September 2018

Terri to Stella

Happy Mail for 25th September 2018

Kris to Stella

Challenge - Design a decorative paper lunch bag with pockets (optional) for show on Sunday 30th September 2018.

Following this excellent tutorial on paper lunch bag decorations, we are having a challenge to see how well we can do.

Please submit your completed photo of a lunch bag by Sunday 30th September, for us all to admire.

Happy Mail for 24th September 2018

Karolena to Sheila

Stella to Sheila

Today's Happy Mail 21-09-2018

Terri to Melissa.

Today's Happy Mail 20th September 2018

Meschill to Carol.

Stella's Date and Banana Cake

This is a delightful cut and come again cake using healthy main ingredients, i.e. dates and banana.

Here are the ingredients:

8 ozs self raising flour
pinch of salt
4 ozs of soft margarine
4 ozs caster sugar
1 large banana
4 ozs of chopped dates
1 large egg
4 tablespoons milk
For the topping:
1/2 oz of chopped walnuts (optional)
2 level tablespoons demarara sugar

Method:

Measure out the self raising flour and put into a large bowl

Measure the soft margarine and add it to the flour.

Take the stones out of the dates and chop them up.

Then measure out the sugar and add it.

Rub the mixture into the fat and the sugar until it looks like breadcrums. I usually add the sugar after the fat.

Mash the banana and add it to the mixture with the chopped dates.

Add an egg.

Add 4 tablespoons of milk and mix together all the ingredients with a fork

Put a paper lining into a 2lb loaf tin. No need to grease.

Smooth the top with a fork or a knife and sprinkle with the demarara sugar and/or chopped walnuts.

Bake in the centre of the oven at gas mark 4 or equivalent.
When it is done it should look like this:

Leave to cool, then turn out onto an oblong plate.

We like to eat ours with a cup of tea on Sundays.  The outside of the cake is crisp and the inside is soft.  This cake will keep for two or three days under cling film or in a tin.

Enjoy!

Karolena's Cabbage Soup

Cabbage Soup

Yesterday we had rain & it felt so nice outside I decided to make a soup
This is fixed with mushrooms in my house not green bean ( I’m not a fan of green beans )

Ingredients

1 1/2 Tbsp olive oil
1 1/2 cups chopped yellow onion
1 1/2 cups diced carrots
1 cups diced celery
1 Tbsp minced garlic
6 oz. fresh green beans (or frozen),
** mushrooms at my house chopped (1 1/2 cups)
1 medium red bell pepper, chopped
1 small cabbage
1 (14.5 oz) can petite diced tomatoes
6 cups low-sodium chicken broth
2 tsp Italian seasoning
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
3 Tbsp chopped fresh parsley

**I’ve been cooking this soup for years I can’t remember where it came from or who gave it to me **
Enjoy

Karolena

Our Members are so talented!

Angelika's Vintage Junk Journal channel

Mail etc. for 11th September 2018. The mail is just flowing in and around. The members are just great in this group!

Sometimes you get some surprising results!

I was ink dyeing some papers the other day and I got some rather interesting results! None of this is done by stencil. Can you guess how I achieved this look?

Happy Mail 10th September 2018

Sorry to remind you'all that Christmas is just around the corner. Happy Mail today - Angelika to Stella.

Our latest Happy Mails - 9th September 2018.