Amazing Aroma!

This evening the house is filled with the lovely aroma of my tomato sauce with herbs. I absolutely love making a batch of this because I love anything with a hint of Italian, anything with pasta and tomato sauce, especially if there are several cheeses in there somewhere as well. A nice salad on the side and a big wedge of garlic bread and I'm a happy bunny!



How colourful do these beauties look. We have never had great success with tomatoes down on our plot UNTIL THIS YEAR THAT IS! We grew yellow ones, red plum tomatoes and cherry toms and all of them have done really well.

I am going to look for a salsa recipe that I can preserve next year - don't think I can do it in a water bath - mom any recipes/ideas? Does it freeze ok?

Anyhow I wizz up all my toms in the food prosessor - can't be doin with peeling them I'm afraid. I add all kinds of vegetable 'gubbins' such as mushrooms, mixed peppers, celery, onion and even courgette if I have it.

I add fresh bay leaves - this is the only herb that grows in my back yard without dying apart from the pesky mint that JUST WON'T GO AWAY! I only grow bay leaves just to put in my favourite pasta dishes. I also add garlic, basil, oregano and celery seed, mostly fresh if I can get it but sometimes dried. This year I've added tomato paste as well cos the yellow toms are so pale - that is the only processed ingredient in here.

I bring the whole pot to a gentle boil, turn the heat way down low and let it cook and reduce for several hours. It thickens up lovely and the whole house has this amazing aroma - YUMMEE! It freezes beautifully but never lasts very long in our house - shame.

I have a couple of days off at the start of next week so I'm hoping to get in a bit of sewing for mum and also some crafting. Hopefully a craft will be in my next post.

Busy Weekend

Wow what a busy weekend we've had this week. Actually most of our weekends are pretty busy so I don't quite know how we manage to squeeze even more in some weeks than others. We took Jess back home yesterday evening and I was really sorry to let her go back. I would have like to keep her here for several weeks at least. We miss her enough to want her to move back home.

Today it was our other daughter's turn and we took her and our eldest grandson to his first league footie match in Felixstowe. Boy I sure wish we'd had weather today like yesterday - it was COLD standing at the side of the pitch. Boy that's dedication I tell ya!

As soon as he sees Grandma's camera come out he does everything to avoid giving me a good shot - he's a pill sometimes! They played against the Felixstowe Hawks and won.

This is him and a few of his team mates coming off the pitch after winning 6 - 0 and Zach scored 2 goals himself this match. He is up there with the best players - one of whom is walking just behind him plus they have the best ever goalie - George (left).

What made us laugh were some of the boys footwear, especially Zach in his bright yellow boots and then the green ones! For their first league game they looked like such a well presented team with black warm up jackets (they came off as soon as the game started), smart strips (sponsored by 'The One Bull' in Bury, albeit some looked a bit big) but they're gradually working towards getting everything they need. They already have some excellent coaches and gel really well together as a team. It was a pleasure to stand in the cold and watch these guys even though I'm NOT a footie fan!

After standing in the cold we decided to get in the warm and went for a nice pub lunch. Zach and mummy were discussing the flavour of his J2O which he didn't think he liked so I snatched the opportunity to photograph them together - they are more than mother & son - they're good friends and Zach as the eldest has seen his mother go through quite a lot as she is now a lone parent, so it's lovely to see them together like this. With three young kiddies she has a great many demands on her time and Zach sometimes finds it hard to get his share of her attention.

The clouds obliged us after lunch by clearing enough that we were able to get down to the beach. Papa is someone else that Zach idolises (I don't worry cos I'm in there somewhere too - we're a close knit family), and both guys headed straight for the waters edge to throw stones. Zach aimed for several seagulls and isn't a bad shot either. Should I have said that? He didn't hurt any - honest.

While he may not have wanted to leave we eventually had to get back home. Daddy would be bringing the other two back and Papa and I soooooo needed a nap after several early starts and late nights between picking up, dropping off and running around OUR KIDS!

It may have been a busy weekend but there were some moments that made it all worthwhile.

Designer Paper Overload!

Right now I feel like I am in a 'designer paper' overload state. I have picked up sooooo many lovely papers lately I simply don't know which ones to grab first!

I took my youngest daughter out and about and introduced her to several craft shops this weekend. These may well be last seasons papers but I'll take a last season Cosmo Cricket at .25p per sheet ANYDAY! These ones were called 'Get Happy' and I managed to get some stickers to match. I am keen to do more pages of the boys so I plan to get a lot of use out of these - AND they were a bargain buy.

These Cosmo Cricket papers were also just .25p and I fell in love with these little robot guys as soon as I saw them but couldn't get my hands on any until now so I am thrilled. They are all part of the 'Cogsmo' design and again they'll look super cute with pictures of the boys. I love the colours and cute sayings.

These are completely different and made by 'We Are Memory Keepers' and from the 'Hoopla' design. They're a bit loud admittedly but they were just .25p a sheet as well so I couldn't resist and I love the 4 squared designs for making co-ordinated mini pages or albums easily.

These ones I actually paid full price for and are from 'October Afternoon'. Both Jess and I fell head over heels for these ones and they're double sided. I am hoping to do some really neat pages because I am super inspired by these colours and designs. I DO pay full price for papers sometimes but only when I simply have to have it.

Today I also got my hands on these SUPER cute 'My Little Shoebox' papers in the 'little ladies' design. I loved these as soon as I saw them but I had workshop projects to do before I would let myself have them or I would never have gotten them done. I would simply have been way too distracted just thinkin about playin with theses cuties. These ones are new in at YTOC and while I was determined NOT to like the white accents I am also willing to keep an open mind and give them a go.

After sharing the new Bo Bunny papers for Christmas it would seem blue, grey, deep red and white are going to be popular colour schemes this winter. This new Christmas paper from S.E.I is no exception. These are also new in at YTOC and there are plenty more new papers on the way as well.

I didn't buy these ones because Amanda and I are hoping we can use a few of them for one of the all day workshop projects so I have them here to play with. I guess I don't really care for the traditional Christmas papers and colours so I am super pleased about using this colour scheme and between the glitter, foiling and flock detailing (sorry this doesn't show up in the photo) they'll make some lovely Christmas projects.

And just to prove it doesn't all have to be about expensive purchases I'm sharing these cute and colourful felt letters. Jess had a set of these that she purchased reduced at Tesco's would you believe? Tonight when we dropped her off we stopped in Tesco's and I picked up a couple - they look much cuter up close and for real.

I just thought they'd look cute on a Maddy page at some point so I had to have some. I love the stitching (means I don't have to do it) and the mini buttons in place of the 'o'.

Well my purchases over the last two days prove there are a lot of bargains to be had if you keep your eyes open. They also prove that there are some ' oh so yummy' designer papers out there already and many more to come.

I just wanna craft till I drop but we're off to Felixstowe tomorrow to watch our grandson play football and there are tomatoes that need pickin, cookin and freezing so it'll have to wait until AFTER tomorrow - DARN IT!!!!!