Four Photos: Nearly a month out of date

This year I actually made something out of the sour, pointless red currants from the allotment: fruit leather.

It's horrible.  It gets stuck to ones teeth and no one likes it.  I only made it because Vom Smallhausen and Count Podgkinson foolishly picked some currants after I'd taken them up the allotment (fruit leather was the least complicated recipe I could find that used the most red currants).  The red currant bush is getting dug up this winter!

 

View up Northrepps Road

 

Parasol mushroom

 

Escaping the heat - and Bitey - was this toad.

 

 

 

P. S. Apologies for my absence, I have been busy with summer and taking photos for the Grand Gardening Competition in October, or sooner??

 

  Oh, no, wait.  That wasn't me.  That was Ms Scarlet.

  While I have been busy with summer and taking photos for the Grand Gardening Competi-  I mean, Garden Photos Event, I have also been sorting out the garden & allotment, engaged in a few social activities (pah!), exhausted myselves trying to eke out some sort of service from a couple of companies so-called "customer service" departments/teams, and have been lumbered with nieces and nephew far more often that I would have liked!

 (Except for the toad, these photos are from 2nd August and I started this post on the 8th!) 

 

  Also, Ms Scarlet had locked me in her attic without food nor a bath mat - but that's a story for another time... 

Toad in the Road*

 The other day, I was up at the allotment gathering ingredients to make a potato salad for The Mother's birthday.  On my way back, this fine specimen attempted to block my way.  It was lucky I didn't decide to make a different dish entirely! 

 Oh, and this time I really did intend to make potato salad!

 

 P. S.  I couldn't pick any raspberries because these two dragonflies were doing it all over the canes!

  * It's not really a road - more of a track...

. . . . .

EDIT 13:15

 I found this Grey Dagger moth caterpillar happily munching its way through a rose in the garden today: 

 

EDIT 11 09 2021 07:55

 I forgot about this White Ermine moth caterpillar that I discovered up at the allotment on 24th August:

Did Someone Say...

...

Thursday Swim: Calligraphy & Cake

 Before we get to the calligraphy and cake - I can tell that you're all just a quiver with anticipation! - I have some photos from the weekend to dump here offload graciously share.
 Sunday saw a lunchtime, post-rain wander up Tower Lane, across the field and down the road to the skewed railway bridge, across to Madams Lane, then back home.  Along the way, various things caught my attention, including these closed bindweed flowers on the right which look like they're holding hands.
 There were also, baby toads (some of which may have been trampled underfoot - oops!), that mossy post again, a dead tree that Beaky guards for some reason I've yet to fathom, butterflies, and - once home - a bloody massive bumblebee!

It's A Faaaake! Not The Art Of Star Trek - Blue Food

 After my Klingon Drag Queen tied for first place in last month's Star Trek Art Challenge, I had some vague thoughts about a food-related theme which I shared with the other winner.
 "Food related sounds very intriguing" s/he said "there are lots of possibilities. Food has been important in all Trek series. Kingon Gagh, Romulan Ale, Tilly making snarky comments at the passive aggressive food slots... there's no shortage of scope."
 "All I can think of now", I replied, "is Tilly muttering 'Shut your food slot' in the manner of Scotty's 'Up your shaft!' to the Excelsior's turbolift in Star Trek III: The Search For Spock.
 "If we do go for the food theme, shall we leave it quite open, such as food from any Star Trek era or race to give it that wide scope you mentioned?"
 "I think keeping it broad would be a good idea, yes. From Aldebaran Whiskey to Zylo Eggs: Food in the Star Trek Universe!
  "I found this page which could be useful, if people want some idea prompts: https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Foods_and_beverages"

 So, with that in mind: It's dinner time!

This month's Art Challenge we're exploring the food (glorious food!) of the Star Trek Universe. There's a whole galaxy of possibilities on this one, from figuring out what might be on the drinks menu at Quark's, to recreating Will Riker's terrible omlettes!

As long as there is a Star Trek connection of some kind, I'm happy to see where people's creativity takes them.

 And that creativity took me here (as if you hadn't already suspected, what with the last post's Sperm Whale Plastique à la Bleu):

 Below is a screenshot from the infamous blue food scene in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country which directly inspired my efforts (as well as Delilah Smythe's).

4²

 As seen at such illustrious blogs as 63 Mago, and Savannah Marsh Mama, we bring you our take on the “Game of Fours”. Four questions, with four answers each.

1. Favourite food?
• Cake (not CAKE!), preferably of the moist and rich chocolate variety. Especially Black Forest Gateaux - Yes, gateaux plural!
• Pudding/dessert/afters etc. also goes down a treat (as long as it's not a slimy, wobbly creme caramel or blancmange-type affair). Basically, something dark and rich with a good dollop or two of extra thick cream.
• A nice big crispy-skinned baked potato filled with butter, tuna, and lashings of mayonnaise. Oh, and maybe a sprinkle of herbs!
• A toss-up between homemade cheese & onion tart and fish pie (as long as it doesn't have squid or octopus in it).

Mish Mash

 Due to the quite sudden turn of the weather at the end of September, I haven't been out-and-about on many walks/drifts-
 Or partaken of many flights on Broom!
 - so I don't have many photos of the Norfolk countryside for you.

Did I hear someone breathe a sigh of relief?

Probably. Those same stretches of beach were getting a bit tiresome. And that Cormorant was getting ideas above his station what with getting an agent and appearing on other blogs!

 Yes, all right... So, anyway, this post is just going to be a mish-mash of the least boring stuff we've been up to.

::

Saturday, 1st October

 First, some news from the garden: The passion flower that I bought last year and planted with a clematis behind the bench, has finally flowered! Yes, after two summers of not doing very much at all, it finally got its act together and started producing flowers at the beginning of October.
 Better late than never, I suppose.

::

Come for the cake, but stay for the nudity!

The Mother's 70th birthday cake.
Not the 70th cake - we're not gluttons!
This is the cake for her 70th birthday.

 This may be a somewhat surprising post for a couple of reasons.
 No, I've not joined the cakefarter brigade like The Very Mistress MJ, but there is cake (on the right there), and there is nudity. Well, not full nudity. After all, this is a tasteful blog, not some tawdry affair.
 The surprise is that the partial nudity is my own!

 Sick bags can be found under your seats.
Hey!

 But before we get to that, let's have some Cake!
 (Made by me and decorated by Inexcuseable. I knew she should have had a practice with that gold spray first...)

 §

Cake for Scarlet

 Oof! What with all that French robot jiggery-pokery, and reams of photos to get through, I have neglected to provide cake for Ms Scarlet. 
 Herr Mago began this meme here for poor, beleaguered Ms Scarlet, and recapped it here. And, upon her return, The Very Mistress MJ has also provided cake in her own inimitable style. This leaves me the only member of the Coven not to have done so. Until now.

 I made these almond and raspberry buns with just a few of the glut of raspberries from The Mother's allotment. And I'm sorry, Ms Scarlet, but they're not as almondy as I would have liked, so next time I will add a little more almond essence and a good dollop of marzipan!

Apocalypse Oven

  Oh, dear. It seems as if Apocalypse Oven's even-more-evil twin is acting up again...


[video from Random Acts] 

 ~ ~ ~

 I'm a bit busy at the mo which is why this is all you get, and why I haven't been 'round to your blogs yet (and why I haven't replied to your comments in the last post). I hope to rectify that in the next day or two - certainly by the weekend, anyway.

 Ta ra, for now.

A Terrible Fairy Cake Related Disaster!*

 It's bad enough cracking an egg and getting a bit of shell in the mixture (which is why I always crack one out into a bowl or cup, first), but when a half-formed cockatrice embryo plops out into one's Denby-ware, then maybe it's time to call it a day?

 §

Oatcakes from Chatsworth

 This weekend just gone, Inexcuseable and a couple of her friends went to Derbyshire to visit Chatsworth House, and she brought back... Oatcakes!
 

 These oatcakes are not the horrid, dry, biscuity affairs that originated in Scotland. No. These are Derbyshire oatcakes: a pancake-like form that must be fried, ideally in lard, but I suppose some sort of vegetable oil will do if one can't stomach rendered animal fat...

The 2015 Coven Awards - A Year In Review

 Welcome to the 2015 Coven Awards, and thank you for enduring yet another year at Castlette DeVice.
 Yes, although we've celebrated ten years of this blogging lark, this is only the seventh Coven Awards ceremony due to three rather slack years.

 Yeah! We're looking at you 2011, 2012, and 2013. 

 You may be pleased to know that this year's awards show will not be as drawn out as last year's tedious affair.

 That's what you think!

 Yeah! We got our second wind when creating the award headers and now there are loads of them!

 Oh, dear gods... We'd better get on with it then, I suppose. As usual, I'll recap our blogging efforts through the year.
 And I'll present the various awards.
 Right. Take a deep breath and don't look down as away we go: 

Of Brownies and Bees

Exceedingly gooey cherry shortcake brownies
(made by my own fair hand, of course)

 It was all go here on Thursday. One of my Hags had come to visit, but no sooner had we settled down to gossip with tea, coffee and homemade brownies, when we were rudely interrupted by a low, loud droning noise. In less than a minute, we could barely hear ourselves think nevermind take notice of the juicy tidbits of gossip we each were disclosing. There was only one thing for it: We had to investigate.

  Vacating the comfort of my hurriedly tidied living room, we grabbed our brooms from the umbrella stand in the hall and left the house (via the back door, naturally). A quick and low flight amongst the tree tops brought us to the cliffs and the lighthouse, and there, heading slowly along the cliff edge towards Overstrand was the source of the noise: the most enormous bee we'd ever seen!

An enormous bee at the lighthouse cliff in Cromer

Solanum Sallet

 Ug. I've been invited to a gathering, a cauldron party*, and I can't get out of it. To make matters worse, I've been given a recipe for a potion or somesuch that I'm expected to bring.

 I'd better get started as I'm due there in an hour. 

Ingredients:
 ‡ Nightshade roots - Hmm... I wonder which sort? Solanum dulcamara? Solanum nigrum? I hope it's Solanum tuberosa as I have a bag of Désirées that are starting to sprout...
 ‡ 6 fl ℥ of sour milk from a cow frightened under a full moon - Good gods. I can't wait until 29th August to scare a cow, so ::rummages in the fridge:: this sour cream with a use-by date of 31 July will have to do. It still smells OK, and the 31st was a full moon...
 ‡ 1 heaped tablespoon of an unbaptised virgin boy fat/cockerel egg emulsification - So, mayonnaise then. ::rummages in the fridge again:: And this one made from virgin olive oil is the closest to it that I've got to hand.
 ‡ Mentha longifolia, finely chopped - Ah. Horse mint. Well, I'm not going out for that now, so spearmint from the garden is going to have to do.
 ‡ Crown of Basilisk, finely diced - Well, I don't have any of that either, but I do have basil, so I'll use that instead. Dammit! I knew I shouldn't have put that newly hatched basilisk down the waste disposal unit.
 ‡ Allium schoenoprasum stems - What the- ? Oh, chives! I have these! Maybe this recipe won't be such an unmitigated disaster after all?

 Now to concoct this diabolical recipe. Apparently, it only takes half an hour or so...

34 minutes later...

 After all that, I've ended up with bloody potato salad!



 Bugger.


* Very similar to a Tupperware party, but with less of that plasticky, stale air smell.

Quilted cakes and be-tentacled baking

 Seeing as the last batch of baking I shared here escaped being cakefarted by The Mistress, I thought I'd share my latest batches. I'm experimenting with decorating, hence the quilted effect, the two-tone piped icing, and the... well, the octopi.

 

Under the mini-cake dome

Under the Cake Dome

 Don't mind me. I'm just trying out the cake dome I was given for my birthday a couple of months ago. With The Mistress on holiday, it's safe to bring out the cakes without them getting farted on.

Victoria sponge with lashings and lashings of jam & cream

Australian Women's Weekly rich chocolate cake with a ganache topping

 There. All done. That wasn't so bad, was it.

Cakes through the ages

 As you may know, I'm not one to pass up a little procrastination if circumstances warrant, so, with that in mind - and a hundred and one far more important things to do - I thought I'd make a record of (some) of the cakes I've made through the years.

 Please look past the poor photography and so-so cakes- Wait! That doesn't leave anything to look at!

 Ah, well. Here goes anyway...

An After Eight cake for a girly night in

Inexcuseable's (lopsided looking) wedding cake (June 2007)

A Little Cake (May 2008)

An accidental cake (July 2008)

Tazzy's birthday cake (August 2008)

Birthday brownies for The Mother (August 2009)

Butterflies & marzipan cerises (May 2010)

Inexcuseable's sister-in-law's wedding cake.
Cake made by her non-wicked step-mother and
decorated by Inexcuseable and myselves (June 2010)

Hen Day cupcakes and buns (July 2010)

A friend's wedding cakes (August 2011)

The Mother's birthday cake (August 2010)

 

A secret for SP (September 2010)

Decorated in boredom (March 2011)

More decorated in boredom (March 2011)

Lemon & coconut buns (March 2011)

A Huntsman's birthday cake (May 2011)

Indescribable's wedding cake (May 2011)

The Parent's ruby wedding anniversary cupcakes (December 2012)

 

1st anniversary cake for Inexcuseable's place of work (November 2014)

The Pudding Debacle*

I know, it's not Hallowe'en yet, but I've been reading through some old Coven blog posts and stumbled across this horror from 'Petra:

Cooking for dummies - The 12 step programme

The Elephant Man in chocolate pudding form?

V for Vienetta Vendetta!

It's almost enough to put one off chocolate for life (and the afterlife).

Here's what some of us thought at the time:

Come back this time next week for another 'Petra-fying adventure 

(or possibly a little earlier as it's nearly 10pm now...)

* Post title from here.