A kitchen day

The weather isn't good for gardening at the moment, so I spent most of yesterday in the kitchen. I made...

... experimental rhubarb crumble biscuits cakes

Rub a little butter into some flour, chuck in some sugar and bicarb (probably not quite that much of either, but never mind), and a few drops of vanilla, add the leftover rhubarb crumble and mix thoroughly. Put teaspoonfuls on a baking sheet and squash them a bit. Cook until they smell done. I thought these would make biscuits, but they came out more like cakes. Quite nice, though.

... breadcrumbs

Breadcrumbs last for ages if they're dry. I keep them in a paper bag in the cupboard. I usually turn the last slice of the old loaf into breadcrumbs, using the grater instead of the electric blender. This takes ages. Some might consider this to be taking my anti-electricity drive a bit far.

... bread

It's best to make the breadcrumbs before you need the bread board for the new loaf. I remembered this time :-)

... chicken stock

The remaining cold chicken is in a box in the fridge and the bones are on the compost heap, where they will be picked over by magpies until I bury them with more weeds.

I strained the dandelion wine into bottles, which involved lots of sterilising of things.

Dandelion wine, stage 2

I'm experimenting with an alternative to air locks here (not having any balloons) - I've just left the caps slightly unscrewed. Nothing's going to fall in, and it doesn't seem very likely that anything would find its way up through the gaps, especially against the flow of carbon dioxide coming out. I might tighten the caps when the fermentation slows down and just release the pressure from time to time (these being bottles that can withstand quite a lot of pressure). These are now fizzing away merrily on the kitchen counter.

I also did lots of washing up, so my kitchen looks halfway respectable again now.

Tidy kitchen. No, I'm not showing you the state of the floor.