More of London

After going out of London for 2 days we decided to stay in town and explore some favorite places and new ones.  We went to the Wallace Collection, which I had not been to before it was really a pleasant surprise.  The building was really a beautiful old home with a great collection.    After seeing the collection we ate lunch at the tea room at the museum.  It was really nice and relaxing.  I loved it.  Here are a few pictures that we could take in the museum ,which was fun to practice without a flash. 

                                                    A Portrait of Young Victoria



We then went to Harrods for afternoon tea.   This is a great treat while in London.  It is now my third year to go there for tea and I love it.

One of my favorite restaurants in the neighborhood where we stay is DaMario's.  It is a great neighborhood place to eat and apparently Princess Diana ate there when she live in Kensington Palace.

I found these cute little chicks at a store while in London.  I love the cute little things that you can find  in the UK.

The best part of the trip is when we returned to Cambridge to get the treasure that my friend had found.  We returned to the antique dealer that we named Mr. Chippy.   When I go back to London I will go back to this antique dealer many hidden treasures were in his shop of chippy transferware!!

I loved this trip "while wearing pearls"

Have a wonderful week.

Part Two of Adventures in Quilting

 I finally got my computer to put of the pictures of the progress of my quilt after the disappearing ink fiasco!   So here they are and as you can see Lucy Belle is enjoying this by sleeping in my chair.

She was not disappointed by the delay because she realized she could have the whole chair by herself!

This is the part that I had to start over because the ink disappeared, even with this I'm happy with the progress I making.

Now more about my fun trip in March.....

This is a statue of Henry the Eighth of England.  This was my first trip to Cambridge it is really an interesting town out of London.  We walked around the different Colleges that make of the Cambridge University system.  There are a lot there.   We got there on a day that we could not tour The Kings College(Henry's), so we quickly found a place to eat lunch (Wagamama's).  The hunt was on for some antique stores in Cambridge and will say we were very successful.  We found some amazing things but the highlight was finding a dealer with a lot of personality.  When we would look at something he would say that we didn't want it because it was too "chippy" we really found some things of interest but needed to research an item to make sure of its value.   So we decided to get tea and think about what we saw.  After we were refreshed we went to the Evensong Services at King's Chapel, this was so amazing to attend.  I had not been to a services like that before and will go to one every time I'm in England.  After the service we headed back to London, we then discovered what we saw in Cambridge was of value and knew we would go back.
It was such a fun experience in Cambridge that we did not mind another day there.
As promised to my girls tomorrow I will add some family favorite recipes.
So Cheerio for now.....

Adventures in Quilting!

I have signed up for a quilting class that has been a great learning experience.  I like to sew and now that I have finally learned how to thread my new machine I'm in business.  It took me two hours to learn to thread the thing and make a bobbin.  That is a whole different story.  I do miss the fact that my Mom's old Singer Slantomatic quit working after many repair jobs.

So I signed up for a quilting class and have started making my first quilt.  I hope it turns out okay.  It is going to be very small but hopefully cute.  I chose these reproduction fabrics for the first one.  The other morning I had about 45  minutes before I needed to go to lunch with friends so I thought I could start marking my fabric to make half squares and flying geese.(whatever that means)   So I carefully measure and mark the fabric so that later I could cut them and start sewing.   Well I got home after several hours and all of my marks had disappeared!  I had used disappearing ink.  Hopefully this will not happen again but it was so funny because I was being super careful with what I was doing because I am trying to learn the technique of quilting.

I have some pictures of my progress that are on my phone but can not get them to upload for my blog.  It goes with out saying that I am very new at this.  Definitely a work in progress.

Tomorrow is my second class and I still have a little homework to go so ...."sew" long for now.

While Wearing Pearls

Well it has been way to long since I've added to my blog!  I had a wonderful trip to England in March.  I went with a dear friend that knows a lot of things to do while there, mainly shopping for antiques!  We had so much fun with shopping( I mean touring the sights), having afternoon tea and more shopping( I mean touring the sights).

 We had a great day trip to Bath my favorite city out of London.  The train trip is beautiful then you arrive in such a peaceful setting of the city in a valley.  I have been through the Roman Baths a number of times so we just ate lunch in the Pump Room it is a must do event.  After our fun lunch we went to the cutest Cath Kidston store (again not my first trip to that store) great gifts were bought there.  Then the antique mall...well needless to say the day was way to short but my friend found an amazing piece of silver and I found some great vanity jars with silver lids!  Before leaving Bath we had to have tea at Sally Lunn's Tea Room.  Definitely an iconic tourist destination but really good for afternoon tea.  It is always cooler in Bath than London so tea is a great idea before the train trip back to London.

                                                                   The Pump Room

                                               
                                                  The Avon River in Bath with the iconic Bridge Shops

                                                               Sally Lunn's Tea Room

I will add more a little later.   Cheerio for now.

Curried Cauliflower Soup


Tonight for dinner we had this soup a simple Red Snapper preparation with lemon salt and pepper and sautéed Swiss Chard.  The meal was very good but the  most outstanding was the soup.  
The original recipe was one I got at Williams Sonoma.  I used it as a guideline to make it my own.


Curried Cauliflower Soup


2 heads cauliflower, cut into florets
1 onion chopped
1 leek, cleaned and sliced
1 cup carrots chopped, I used purple carrots
3 tablespoons olive oil, and some olive oil pam
1 teaspoon coriander seeds
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1/2 bunch cilantro tied in a bundle
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon curry powder
4 cloves of garlic minced
8 cups of organic vegetable stock
3/4 cup non-fat greek yogurt
1 tablespoon lime juice
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon ground cumin
salt and pepper to taste


1.In a large stock pot saute the onion,leek and carrots until soft about 7 minutes.  Add the cauliflower and cook until soft about 14 minutes.
2. Toast the coriander and cumin in a skillet for about 2 minutes, when toasted add them to the vegetables.   Add the turmeric, curry, garlic and cilantro bundle and cook for about 2 minutes.  It will smell wonderful at this point.
3. Add the vegetable broth and let it cook for about 25 minutes.  Remove the cilantro at this time and let it all cool for a few minutes.  If you have a hand held blender use that otherwise blend in a blender.  Add salt and pepper at this time for taste.
4. Mix the yogurt, lime juice, olive oil, and cumin in a small bowl.
5. Ladle up the soup in a bowl and place a dollop of the yogurt mixture on the soup.


Enjoy!!!!

 Spring time at home.

                                                                Morning Glory Muffin

This is going to be my recipe to add to the blog.


I thought you may enjoy these because they are great for a fast breakfast on the run.


I made them years ago and lost the recipe but thanks to the internet I found them online at the Cooking Light website.  I have adapted them to our taste.  


Morning Glory Muffins
Cooking Light July 2007


1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup all-purpose flour 
1 cup of regular oats (not instant or quick)
1 cup of brown sugar
1 tablespoon wheat bran ( found on the bulk aisle )
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup plain non-fat greek yogurt
1 cup mashed ripe banana about 2
1 large egg
2 tablespoons buttermilk
1 cup chopped dates
3/4 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 cup chopped dried pineapple
3 tablespoons ground golden flaxseeds
1 tablespoon flaxseeds to top the muffins


1. Preheat oven to 350*
2. Place 18 cupcake liners in a muffin pan and coat the liners with pam.  It really works!!
3. Lightly spoon flours into dry measuring cups and level with a knife.  Combine the flours and the next 5 ingredients (through the salt) in a large bowl and stir with a whisk.
4. Make a well in the center of the mixture.
5. Combine yogurt, banana, egg, buttermilk and place this mixture in the well that was created in the bowl of flour.  Stir until just moist and combined.
6. Combine the chopped dates, walnuts, dried pineapple and flaxseed in a small bowl.  Fold the nut mixture into the batter.
7. Spoon batter into the muffin cups and sprinkle with flaxseeds.
8. Bake at 350* for 20 minutes or until the muffin springs back when touched lightly. 
9. Remove from the pan and cool on a rack.


Enjoy!