ANOTHER NEW TOY!

When I went out with my sister, Karen, yesterday, we popped into HomeSense, a wonderful shop that sells a cornucopia of everything from furniture to kitchen gadgets to glassware and much more.  

We had a great time wandering round and when I said I was looking for a garlic press, she pointed out this one.  This is no ordinary garlic press, but it is an iridescent one, which according to the blurb will “Crush garlic in seconds with no need to peel the cloves and includes a dimpled plunger so nothing gets wasted”.  Now don’t you wish you had one?  The price tag says that the RRP is £22.00 but I got it for the bargain price of £7.99 - so a real bargain. 

I remain to be convinced that it will be better than my wonderful Robert Welch knives, which chop beautifully, but on the back of the pack it’s stated that “Pressing garlic beings out the flavour far better than chopping and a retains the bitter-tasting core of the garlic.”  I can confirm that the garlic was well squashed when it went in with the onions and spinach, because, of course, I had to try it this evening, and it all tasted good.

In other news, my Mum had a good night’s sleep and wasn’t woken by the various hospital noises, so that was a bonus for her.  However, we still have one or two issues to sort out and hope that they won’t take too long.

When I visited Mum after I had been to the Radio Station, and she lives just a couple of minutes away, Karen was already there and sorting through her clothes.  As Mum has lost so much weight, none of her clothes fit, so we had a large pile that will be going to the Salvation Army Charity shop very soon.

When Karen left, I gave Mum’s kitchen a very good clean and sorted out her cupboards - she used to do a lot of baking, but hasn’t done any for a long time now, so all the ingredients she would have used, many dating back to 2010 were binned - so although it was tiring, it was a good job done.  I really need to sort out some of my own clutter, but that will have to wait for another day.

When I found some silicon egg poachers, with the label still intact,  in Mum’s cupboard and asked her about them, she told me she had seen them, they were cheap, so she bought them, but they had never been used and she didn’t know how to use them.  I read out the instructions to her and she mis-heard and thought I said to cook the eggs for 46 minutes instead of 4 TO 6 minutes, which made us both laugh - something we haven’t done together for many years, which I know is very sad. 

In other news, a lovely friend came to have a coffee with us this afternoon and brought Mr. HCB a wonderful fruit cake and bless her heart, had even made some Beetroot Chocolate Brownies for me from the Fast800 recipe book - they look and smell delicious, but I will have to be careful just to eat one at a time - or even half of one!!

“Love, for a man, is a cake 
     he could cut in pieces  
          and offer women throughout his life. 
Love, for a woman, is chocolate 
     she won't ever share.” 
Nitya Prakash

P.S.  Thank you all once again, for your kind comments, stars and hearts for yesterday’s Blip - I will try and comment more but thank you for your patience and understanding.