this week's tasks

The build up of rubbish all needed to be cleared away at the end of last week by the bin monitor, (that's me) that took about half a day, and is part of the reason that not much progress has been made.

An update on the last post's resolutions.....as yet, no sour dough; as yet no daily ice-cream, despite egg yolks in the fridge; as yet no home made pasta. However, a slight nudge in that direction has been made. As we had run out of strong flour, and no delivery was possible for another few days, when I was in the Asia supermarket, inspiration struck, and I inquired as to whether they had strong flour,(to save me calling in at Tesco on the way back). Yes, the gorgeous foreigner replied, wait there. He produced a very large and expensive bag of 'oo' flour. I dithered a little, as it was so expensive(£23.50 for 25 kg), but, thinking of the check out queue in Tesco, and allowing myself to see this as a sign that pasta making was about to begin, I bought it (along with the Chinese carry out boxes, the coconut milk, the frozen Kaffir lime leaves, Fenugreek powder, Pomegranate Molasses, Tsing Tao beer, etc). I think we might start next week with everything.....oh yeah!
Things to do this week include an orange and brandy bread and butter pudding, marmalade, carrot cakes, and Baillies and Banana Toffee pies. I was watching Lorraine Pascale's cookery show this evening on telly, and I think I can definately learn a few tips from her to smarten everything up a bit. Our desserts taste good, but they aren't 'wow' enough visually. The picture above is of our pecan pie. It looks a bit overdone; we must be braver and take it out of the oven after the hour, even if it is still wobbly. I shall photograph any successful efforts i have in the future.
We made a little progress with our terrible lighting today. The low voltage bulbs that we have are so dim during the day that it's difficult for customers at certain tables to read anything, and then at night, when we need to create some atmosphere, although we use a dimmer switch, it seems too bright. So these are all going to be changed, quite soon....after we have acquired a new mouli machine for the mashed potato,( and the ice-cream maker!).