Scribblings from the Mitchy Side

My get up and go this morning was totally non-existent, so I didn't get into work until 11.15 (I could have gone in for 10 or 11). Nobody seemed to care so that was fine by me :) I had my meeting with Occupational Health today, which was short and sweet as they're mostly set up to sort out people who aren't back at work yet. The doctor chap I had the meeting with basically said we were doing everything right and to keep doing what I was doing, so that's that.

I am a twit though, I thought I'd booked next Monday and Tuesday off and I haven't. *grouses* I'll see if I can book 'em tomorrow, I've got the time, god knows. I'm sure I MEANT to book Monday and Tuesday but we've got this new and improved booking system for holidays, where it's all done online. To be fair, it will be easier to keep track of stuff and much easier for payroll and HR, but it does mean you have to make lots of entries when you're booking time off that covers a bank holiday or a weekend. Anyway, I remembered to book Friday 2nd Jan 09 and Dec 29th-31st so that's ok :)

Still working my way through the jam tarts. I used marmalade in two of the tarts, as an experiment. I was a bit dubious because the marmalade was still runny when I took the tarts out of the oven, but I'm happy to report that when cooled and set, the tarts are very delicious :) So you can use marmalade, which was the point of the experiment. I've got this HUGE jar to use up (it was part of an online shopping order and I ordered the wrong size by mistake) so all recipes that use it are useful to have. I seem to recall seeing a recipe somewhere for sticky marmalade sausages....must see if I can find that or if I was hallucinating it :)

And it didn't suck :D

I've had a hankering recently to see if I still have my pastry making skillz - I used to make a pretty mean apple pie - and decided I would have a bash at some jam tarts, as they would be simple to do and I had a jar of jam that needed using up.

I don't own any scales, but I do have a set of measuring cups, so I was able to measure out the flour ok but I had to guestimate the amount of butter. I was happy to discover that the pastry came out ok and rolled out really well. 12 jam tarts later and the tray was in the oven while I waited, nervously.

They came out ok! I may have overcooked a smidge or it might be the butter/flour ratio was just a tad out, as the pastry is rather crunchy BUT it tastes perfectly ok and the tarts look great :D

So tomorrow, 'm gonna try my hand at a treacle tart, I found a really simple recipe on the BBC food pages. Wish me luck! :D