Come and tell me your dull and unexciting news 23: Calmly through the day

[MissConductUS]

I've started a new one. Please join us and share the boring and mundane things happening in your world. It will be calming for all.

Here is the link to the prior thread:

Come and tell me your dull and unexciting news 22: Calmly through the day

Apologies that the prior thread filled up before I could create this one. Hopefully everyone will find it. Lurkers are of course welcome to unlurk.

Congrats to your DS Prok

Have a lovely trip Hilda

Putting up new curtains, doing washing and dh playing piano. Mozerella, aspargus and ham omelette for lunch, Floof was not impressed and ate his tuna instead. He is the worlds fastest tuna eater, about 1 inch cubed seems to go down each bite.

Safe travels on your trip, Hilda.

Silkie, when do you leave for Cornwall?

The blueberry bread came out nicely. This recipe uses orange juice instead of milk and only one egg, so it's a bit different but delicious.

That blueberry bread looks lovely Miss C - is it fairly easy to make?

I tried a new recipe for a strawberry cake, mainly because I had some strawberries in the fridge at risk of going off. It was a very easy recipe, and turned out ok, though the strawberries burnt a little....

We had a nice evening watching Sliding Doors. Now I can't sleep though, which is annoying as we have a meeting with the allotment people tomorrow morning. DH is snoring away next to me.....

Well done Prok’s DS! Glad graduation went well for him.

DH has seen dentist is on antibiotics and is having tooth out next week. He has however decided to take his antibiotics at 6am so alarm went off and woke DS up.

Went to the birthday party of the child we have for respite care. He was a delight and so excited it was his birthday.

This week at work was as hard as predicted hence the radio silence, but no gin was consumed.

I went to a lovely Golden Wedding celebration yesterday and it was so great to see lots of people and dance to an Irish trad band with my sisters.

Today (after Mass) I’m going into work to try and clear the decks a bit. I’m wondering whether it’s time to move on and so would need responsibilities to be in a handover state. Even if I stay put, I need things more under control for my own sanity. I’ve got DC1&2 dance theatre performance to look forward to this evening.

Happy Sunday everyone!

Congratulations to your DS, Prok and I totally get the proud feeling.

Miss that blueberry bread looks delicious and I love the idea of some orange juice in it.

Helena I hope you get some respite at work soon.

In fairly dull news I bought a solar powered water feature (Aldi’s finest) but it has no battery so does not store any energy. It only works when the sun is out so I keep dashing out to look at it in full flow whenever the sun comes out, which is not very often so far.

Plastic We've got one of those, too. Since then we have been visited by 3 finches, 2 pigeons, 2 wood pigeons, a magpie and a young crow. There is little drinking water available for birds at the moment.

Thank you all for your wishes for DS - now for the next step.

Here you go my lovelies. It is very easy. I can have them in the oven in 20 minutes.

Miss C's Fabulous Blueberry Bread

2 Cups of all purpose flour
1 cup of sugar, white or light brown. I use turbinado sugar.
2 teaspoons of baking powder
1 teaspoon salt (perhaps a bit less)
0.5 teaspoon baking soda
3 tablespoons butter
1 cup orange juice. I sometimes need a bit more to get all of the dry ingredients to mix properly.
1 egg, lightly beaten
2 cups of blueberries
0.75 cups of chopped pecans or walnuts. I usually skip them because DS doesn't care for them.

1. Preheat the oven to 175 C. Grease a 9 by 5 by 3 inch loaf pan. I use butter.
2. In a large bowl, stir together flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Cut in the butter with a pastry blender. Stir in the orange juice and beaten egg. Mix until smooth. Fold in the blueberries (and nuts if desired). Spoon into the loaf pan. Sprinkle an additional 1 to 2 tablespoons of sugar evenly over the top of the batter.
3. Bake for 50 to 60 minutes, until a cake tester or clean knife inserted into the center comes out clean.

I've attached a photo of the recipe this is adapted from, which is very good too. It's from my favorite baking cookbook.

All measures are American, but I don't think that they're greatly different from the British ones. Here's a conversion chart that gives metric measures. Feel free to post any questions.

www.sweet2eatbaking.com/uk-us-conversion/

Not much new here. Burgers and hot dogs from the grill last night were great, and I'm debating going to church this morning.

So do you call it a ‘bread’ just because it’s baked in a loaf tin? In the UK ‘bread’ would need a significant raising agent of some kind, usually yeast.

It's technically a "quick bread" and the baking powder and baking soda provide the rising.

dh seems to have figured out what was wrong with the tumble dryer and having cleaned the outside vent it is working much better now.

Receipe sounds nice MissC. We have banana bread though think its a more recent thing and loaf cakes, banana bread was a lockdown favourite of many.

Hope you can get work sorted Helena.

Had Sunday lunch, roast pork which Floof ate faster than me, jam roly polly and custard and coffee with after eights. Floof is being silly and has nearly fallen down back of my headboard twice, in dds room its against the wall, ours cant be as its a quirky old house and bottom of wall is thicker than top leaving a floof sized gap. Only the front paws and ears were showing then he recovered stretcted out, leaned against wall, half fell down again, not the most intelligent of cats.

Welcome, @howdoesatoastermaketoast, and thanks for sharing your appliance maintenance news. It's been ages since DH cleaned our dryer vent so I'll have to suggest it to him.

Silkie, I grew up making quick breads, including banana bread. I guess it's more common here than in the UK. Mr Floof has quite the poofy tail in that picture. Kittens can be clumsy.

DH is decluttering his downstairs office and storage area. So far this has produced two large bin bags for paper recycling or rubbish. It's too hot to do much outside today.

Yes past couple of days Mr Floof has been very poofy, esp the tail and the white floof under the chin. Any sign of food and tail poofs, a wrapper football poofy Floof and sometimes he just poofs himself up like a king and does this matcho cat walk legs wide apart poofed up chest and tail. The tail yesterday was almost as wide as his bottom. That was after he ate half my salmon.

Thank you for the recipe Miss C, I'll definitely be trying it out.

Had a lovely walk with DD earlier, she is adorable with her curls and smiles and her innocence.
Sometimes I wish I could press a pause button.

I made pulled pork in the instant pot on Saturday and used my new air fryer to cook oven chips (Walmart's own brand of seasoned fries). The air fryer was a late Mother's Day gift from DS. The instant pot pulled pork was great, thanks to smoked paprika in the recipe I followed. It looks as if we'll have enough to eat tomorrow too. Just as well as it's supposed to be extremely hot and humid.

I promised DD3 I would make a tart shell for a filling she made once before a few years ago, which involves white chocolate, cream, butter and vanilla and maybe sugar too. Over all of this she intends to sprinkle blackberries and raspberries. I'm going to make the tart shell early in the day.

The locusts buzzed suddenly into life here two days ago. It sounds very summery here now. I bought a milkweed plant at the farmer's market on Saturday in hopes of attracting monarch butterflies passing through.

I went to Mass this morning and the church wasn't as hot and sticky as I thought it would be.

MissC I am going to try that blueberry bread recipe - DD4 wants to put a lemon glaze on it though; have you ever tried that?

Prok, congratulations to DS - I hope he feels positive about his next steps.

lemons - best wishes to your DH. Hope his abscesses clear up and that his dental work will go smoothly.

lurchers that was an impressive haul. DD3 bought two thrift shop handbags and a nice officey blouse recently. She has a good eye.

Banana bread is still cake. The word bread has always baffled me in that one too! Sounds delicious though Miss and if blueberries ever lasted long enough to be baked in this house, I’d definitely be giving it a go!

I did 5hrs at work yesterday. And then went to watch the DC show. I had a glass of Prosecco in the beautiful foyer before hand and it was very lovely.

School Sports Day today, go St Francis House!

Quick breads tend to have less sugar in them and they're denser than cakes, in my experience. Plus you can throw in chopped nuts, chocolate chips, fruit, swirls of leftover cranberry sauce, etc.

@Silkierabbit your rabbit sounds delightful, I love to see a floofy cat.

@Silkierabbit sorry i meant your cat sounds delightful.

Math, I have never tried it with a lemon glaze, but that sounds delicious, so I would give it a go. By the way, the brand of turbinado sugar I use is called "Sugar in the Raw" and is widely available. I don't bake with white sugar at all anymore. Your pulled pork sounds great. I've never made a lemon glaze. Can you share the recipe?

Helena, the recipe works fine with frozen blueberries, so if you can buy those at the supermarket try it with those.

National Public Radio reads sections of the Declaration of Independence on air, with some historical commentary and I've just listened to it. I find it quite inspiring. There's quite a list of grievances against George III. Happy 246th birthday USA!

Our local supermarket has live lobsters on sale this weekend for $9.99 per pound so DH is going to run down there this morning to see if he can get us a few for dinner tonight.

Gosh, just realised how long it has been since I caught up, much less posted!
Are you going to Cornwall today Silkie?
That recipe looks delicious Miss!
Congratulations to DS Prok.
Hope you manage to get things a bit more under control Helena.
I need to work on my dissertation but have to bake a cake for a family member's 80th birthday and make pesto from all the basil DH has made.
I think I will make a coffee cake.

MissC for a loaf size blueberry bread I would use about 1.5 cups icing sugar and add lemon juice a little at a time, stirring with a fork or whisk until you have the consistency of thickish cake batter/pancake batter/buttermilk/kefir - not liquid, not solid. You should be able to pour it smoothly over the loaf.

The trick is to add the lemon juice very gradually. After the initial tablespoon you should have a feel for how much more you'll need. Switch to teaspoons after that and err on the too thick side.

The high school band has just marched by playing Dancing Queen. I live about a block from the end of the parade route. The drums always sound as if they practice a lot. The brass a little shaky.

Silkie your Floof is a very handsome kitty! And very aptly named.

I got back from the dentist a couple of hours ago and my mouth is still numb. I'm very impatiently waiting for the numbing to subside so I can have something to drink without it dribbling down my chin.

Spent the day travelling around the county. The thing I was planning to do, visit a relaxing community gardens, was rubbish. All the things I did on the way there and back was great.