Lazy Sunday Baking.

Yoghurt lemon drizzle cake.  Oh, yes please.  I adore this cake, now, I live in a vegan co-op, so I needed a vegan recipe - I used this one.  I also read the comments, and noticed one lady mentioning adding lemon oil extract; well okay, I have that too.  Notice this recipe doesn't mention drizzling lemon syrup over the top - me I like my lemon cake drizzled and sticky; so I took a lemon, squeezed it and added a heaped tsp of icing sugar and mixed together until the sugar dissolved.

Then take the cake from the oven, pop a few cocktail stick holes in it and pour over the lemon syrup.  Leave it in the pan for 20 minutes or so; then turn it out onto a wire wrack and leave to cool.  Of course you could eat now; but it will be very soft; leave it to cool and the cake will slice much easier...so hard I know...but mmm worth it.  This cake is moist, soft and oh, so lemony - honestly, vegan cake - baked well is as good as normal dairy & egg made cakes.

Now, in Rose Howey, we share our evening meal together - Mon-Thurs, and Fridays, those of us who are in, tend to order take out together; and the weekends occasionally someone will cook; I though, like to cook in my flat just for Rye and myself.  Communal meals are loud and chaotic, so I really enjoy our weekend evening meals together, where we can talk in peace, and I can hear Rye properly and he's not distracted by the chaos around us.

Yesterday I made colcannon and vegan sausages for tea, yum.

Today I've put on corn chowder in the slow cooker, and after noticing an American friend on facebook mention her biscuits, (This is the recipe she used) I decided to have a go - basically its drop scones baked - they look fabulous and I hope, will go beautifully with our chowder.

These are so tender and crumbly; thinking on, its basically a short crust pastry recipe but with baking powder added.  I always follow the recipe properly once, after that I tend to tinker.  I did wonder about the amount of salt; and I was right, too much for Rye's and mine palates.  Although, I did find crumbled into the chowder the saltiness wasn't as profound.  However, wee bit less salt and these will make future quick and easy, delicious biscuits for soup.   

(Yup, that's the cake up there too... we had two large slabs each, beautiful!)

Soleful Hooky

I love the crocodile stitch booties by Bonita Patterns, just one wee thing, the upper part of the bootie is luscious, thick and warm, but the sole is just double crochet, so feels very thin compared to chunkyness of the rest.

I pondered this, several solutions came to mind;

1. Sew two soles together to create double thickness
2. Change the pattern slightly and use a technique that produces a double thickness, and very sturdy sole, though very yarn hungry, or...
3. A leather sole.

Now, I live in a wonderful community, a mutual cooperative house; and the ethos of the house is social change and veganism. While not vegan myself, by nature of the house I eat mostly vegetarian/vegan. I support the premise that animals should not suffer and be exploited, especially in this day and age, when humans have access to alternatives...so leather didn't sit right with me...

So I searched and hey presto, faux leather. I'm really excited, the faux leather sole will means the booties are non slip, and wearable outside, when dry, of course.

So currently, I have one sole cut out, with holes punched, so I can hook the sole to the bootie. I've used the super dooper E6000 glue to attach the sole, and add a bit extra attachment to the bootie.

Now then, this is where you can help me, I need someone with a toddler to road test these booties for me. If interested leave me a comment.

The booties are 15cm long (heel to toe), and quite wide.

Please note, these booties are not vegan, as the yarn is a wool blend.

Mind bend? As I said, I'm not vegan, so yes I use wool, although I try to source ethical wools, where the animals are treated well, and also co-ops and fair trade yarns where the workers are paid a fair wage. As for the house philisophy, communal areas are vegan, so while I wouldn't run a wool felting workshop in the house, I do run crochet workshops using non wool yarns, and do have a range of vegan friendly yarns. My personal view is one of seeking balance.

 

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Museum of Liverpool.

Saturday, Clare and Chris invited Rye and myself to join them for vegan brunch in town, and then
to mosey on to the Museum of Liverpool.  So, we did.
I have to say I was incredibly suprised just how "eggy" scrambled tofu is.  I'm not generally
a big tofu fan, but I did like that!

Rye loved playing on the various bits of ship dotted around the Docks.
I foresee many an afternoon spent down at the Docks exploring.

The Museum of Liverpool was great, we only saw a very small part of it.  Rye was entranced by
The Lion, a steam engine and watched several of the short films, while chatting to an
elderly gentleman, sat next to us.
We also went into the children's play area, there was a model of the river, with the docks,
cars going through the tunnel (if you turned the twizzly thing.. which of course, Rye did) and water to play with.  Happy as Larry!

A fair bit of walking was done, at least for me... and I was very excited that I was on my feet for hours, and walked the approx mile, from the pub/cafe we ate our vegan brunch, to the museum... admittedly my feet and knee hurt quite a bit once we arrived, nonetheless I did it.  I'm looking forward to increasing my fitness levels more and more.  Mind, after the museum, I was gasping for a drink, my feet burning and knee aching, so I opted for a taxi back home.... to be greeted with vegan buns with chocolate icing.

My initial wobble about setting foot outside of the grounds of Rose Howey, firmly squashed.