Wednesday 29th December 10

Another late start.  Another fairly nothingy day.... although I started it by making up my muesli. As we've had a Suma delivery recently, I put in some chocolate raisins and yoghurt raisins, as well as my home-made raisins, dried pears, dried pineapple, foraged almonds and home-grown walnuts. Delicious!

Also I made a really nice fruit leather.  Richard had given me 2 bags of cranberries so I sorted those... there were lots of mushy ones, so I just kept the firm ones, washed and drained.  Then I got 3 bunches of frosted bananas, all black and soft, but the banana flesh inside was still pale, although looked cooked.  I put these in the liquidiser with the juice of 3 or 4 limes, and then put the resultant pink semisolid into a sieve and spent a good long time wiping it through with what we call a 'last lick', a soft spatula used to scrape stuff out of bowls and pans.

So, this puree was poured into a shallow tray, lined with a plastic bag, one from two rolls I got for free from somewhere, and balanced this precariously on the lid of a saucepan on the stove.  Too precariously as it slipped and tipped, but I got to it in time to stop more than a few spoonfuls falling out and onto the hearth.

I had another 'use it up' tea.  I found a little box of sage and onion stuffing in the back of a cupboard whilst sorting things out, with a best before date of 2004.  But as it was in a sealed packet, so I decided to mix it with some assorted veg, some rice left over from yesterday, and mixed it with hot water, as per instructions, and then microwaved the lot in a sort of nutloaf style.  The kids had left half a tin of pasta hoops in tomato sauce, so I heated this on the stove and poured this over the portion of stuffing loaf.  Not too bad.

Used a big can of wood-heated water for a bath for one of the boys, and then enjoyed watching the Royal Institution Christmas Lecture with my other son, although he said he felt patronised as 'everyone already knew about how Velcro works'. 

Later, I peeled and sliced a load of frosted kiwis to dry, and a few pears.