Becca Jane St Clair

Just a short post to say I’ve blogged daily.

I’m off to see John Barrowman tonight!

Yesterday I did something I never would have done living in America. Tim and I were out on an exploration. Armed with Ordinance Survey maps of the county that Tim had drawn blue and red lines on, we were off in search of our fictitious railway. We had a good time. I’ll write more about the search for our railway in another entry and post some of the photos later.

We were stopped somewhere along a narrow, winding back country road between farmer’s fields. We were stopped to take pictures of where a level crossing would have been and I was walking back towards the car when I spotted something round a red growing on one of the trees alongside the road. I paused and discovered that I had found a wild apple tree. Curious, I picked an apple and bit into it. It was the tastiest apple I have ever tried! The apples were redish pink at the top fading down to a yellow shade of green. We don’t know what kind of apples they were, but we sure didn’t waste any time in picking as many as we could fit into a bag!

Now all I have to do is figure out how to store them…these are too good to cut up and freeze!

We often go foraging for blackberries – brambles, as they get referred to here. Brambles seem to grow everywhere in this country. We find them growing alongside the many public footpaths we frequent, branches dipping into canals, and we even find them growing alongside railway tracks. This year, we ate most of the blackberries right away, but last year I had a bagful in my freezer that lasted through the winter.

I love free food. I won’t go dumpster diving or anything crazy like that, but if mother nature wants to give it to us, we’ll take it!

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It’s that time of the year again, time for NaBloPoMo! This year, NaBoPoMo has moved over to the Blog Her network. I have no idea what that means. I don’t know if I should be posting my blogs over there or what’s going on, but it doesn’t matter since I’m not in this for any kind of competition, I’m just in it for myself! 30 days straight of blogging — can I do it?

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I was on BBC Lincolnshire last week talking about Halloween with William Wright. He asked me to come on as an American to talk about Halloween, since it’s not celebrated all that much in the UK.

Here are a few guidelines for having an authentic Halloween:

-Wear a costume. If your child is going to go trick or treating, they need a costume. You don’t have to go out and spend a lot of money on this, either. One of my favourite costumes was made on Halloween out of things we had in the house. I became an Absent-minded professor with a button down shirt open over a t-shirt, an untied tie looped around my neck, a pair of boxers (I wore tights under for warmth), and one slipper and one shoe.

-Trick or Treating is for kids. The general cut off IMHO should be the lower teens, unless you have a younger sibling or babysitting charge to take around. Groups of 19-20-yr-olds begging for sweets just isn’t cool.

-If you are escorting a younger child, don’t expect candy for yourself. Some people will only give candy to the little ones, but it helps your case for candy if you put on a costume.

-If someone doesn’t have candy, that isn’t an excuse to throw eggs or do other vandalism. Some people just don’t like Halloween or forgot to plan for it. Be gracious and thank them for their time before leaving their property.

-If the light is out, don’t knock. A common undocumented rule in the US is to leave your front light on if you want trick or treaters and to turn it off if you don’t.

-Trick or Treat only on Halloween or your town’s designated night. Trick or Treating is one night. Some towns designate a different day for Trick or Treating other than Halloween, but it is always just one night. If your town is doing Trick or Treating on the 30th, don’t go out on the 31st, too!

-Be polite and say thank you. Loads of kids would come to my door in the US and some wouldn’t even say “Trick or Treat” let alone thank me for the candy. A little manners goes a long way!

-If you’re giving out candy, remember to only give out wrapped candy. Unwrapped candy isn’t safe, and neither are home baked goods. Save the home baked goods for the people you know directly and not the strangers. Small coins are also sometimes given out in the US by people who either don’t want to give candy, or have run out. When I was younger we also occasionally would receive a small bag of pretzels, crisps, or even a pencil.

-Likewise, parents please go through your children’s candy before they start eating it. Check to make sure things are still in date and that wrappers are secure. Throw away unwrapped candies or home baked goods, unless you know the person who gave it to your child.

-Halloween does not have to be scary, and in fact, can be fun and even silly! The producer at BBC Lincolnshire told me her child was terrified of the skulls and spiders decorating the nursery he goes to. You don’t need scary skulls and spiders to decorate for Halloween. Witches, black cats, mummies unravelling, even just plain pumpkins and coloured leaves can be a nice Halloween decoration.

-Please remember that just because you see something OTT on an American TV programme, that doesn’t mean it’s something done by middle-class America. This note applies to Proms as well! When in doubt, do some internet research or find an American friend to ask.

Have a safe and happy Halloween!!

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It’s been a while, hasn’t it?

Have you ever had a week where your cooking was just off? That was me week before last. I ruined three meals and I still don’t know how I pulled it off. The first meal was a root vegetable soup. I had it going in the crock pot and about 2 hours before we were going to eat, I could smell this awful smell coming from the kitchen. I headed in, thinking I’d find something left out on the counter or something like that, but there was nothing except for the crock full of soup. I lifted the lid and was horrified at the smell.

This isn’t the first time I had a problem with the Tesco pre-made bags of cubed root vegetables, so perhaps they just aren’t made for real cooking and should only be used as mash. They wound up in the bin, and we ordered Chinese food.

A few days later, I attempted to make Pesto Chicken Parmesean. The recipe looked super easy, so I blindly made it and pulled it out of the oven after the alloted 20 minutes. I neglected to cut into the chicken though, and when we went to eat it were met with undercooked meat. Not willing to make us sick, it got thrown out and we wound up at Asda that evening and picked up some hot dogs and buns for Tea.

The last messed-up meal was on the Sunday. I was trying to make sausage and sauerkraut in the crock pot with some of our favourite pork and apple sausages. This meal wound up in the bin because the sausage just disintegrated into the sauerkraut and we’d have each been eating a plateful of sausage flavoured sauerkraut. We had pizza that night.

So I took it gentle the next week, and I feel ready to share another week of meals with you.

Monday – Traditional Fish Pie
Tuesday – Vegetable Soup
Wednesday – Chicken, Potato, and Veg Bake (Combining 2 recipes from two different Good Food magazines)
Thursday – Mint, Peas, and Pasta
Friday – Chicken stir-fry
Saturday – Full English Breakfast
Sunday – Meatball soup

Saturday is our wedding anniversary, but Tim has to work 2-10 (plus be on call all night) and I have a chorus workshop from 9-4, so we are having a nice breakfast together in the morning. We’ll celebrate with a meal out while we’re in Edinburgh the following week.

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I got an update from my tech contact at O2, Tony, and I thought I would pass it along…

I still cannot receive international text messages on my phone. They are unsure when the problem will be fixed, but they know what the problem is, and really, that’s half the battle right there.

Basically, when I rang up to complain, this was the FIRST time they started looking deeper into the issue. It helped that Tim is also an O2 customer (personal AND business) and they were able to see that he was getting international texts. It also helped that I’ve been so patient with them throughout this.

The problem has been traced to affecting all numbers recently ported over from Orange.

When a text message is sent from the US to the UK, it goes to a central hub for distribution over the UK networks. There is more than one hub available to use. Vodaphone and O2 use one of the hubs, and Orange/T-mobile use the other (I’m not sure who 3 or any of the other smaller companies use). While my phone number was ported over to O2 and uses the O2 network for everything domestically, international messages were still going to the hub Orange uses, and then not being delivered since O2 doesn’t connect to that hub.

The issue has been escalated as high as it can go within O2 and they are currently in negotiations to get it resolved. He couldn’t give me a timeline, but told me he would keep me updated as he could. I also told Tony I’d be willing to switch to an O2 number if it came down to that, but for now I’ll be patient and wait. Not being able to get international messages is an inconvenience, but everyone who texts me can reach me via email.

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I bought my Blackberry (affectionately nicknamed Bramble) in mid-September after months years of debating on a new phone. I love it. I feel like I’ve finally caught up on modern technology, and I LOVE using Four Square to check into the obscure locations around my town.

But then last week, all the Blackberry phones in Europe stopped working in their smartphone capacity, and I was taken back to three weeks ago when I still had a StupidPhone. No Email, no internet, no Messenger! Oh no, what would people do?!

People took to the internet. People who had never owned a Blackberry phone in their life started posting about how bad they were and how they had an iPhone that was better, etc. etc. A lot of people immediately got new phones and turned their backs on Blackberry and RIM.

As a personal user, not having access to email or messenger (I have two contacts on it. If you want to be a “friend”, let me know) wasn’t a big deal for me. Instead of emailing Tim’s work phone when I needed to tell him something, I texted or rang him. Both texting and calling were still working on the Blackberry during this outage.

But my phone has a more serious issue. My phone isn’t receiving international text messages. I probably wouldn’t have noticed for quite some time, but Miss M was having her surgery, and her partner was going to text me with updates to let me know she was okay. The day of her surgery arrived and I waited, and waited, and waited and finally sent him a text…no response. I panicked. I really did. The following day, I texted both M and her partner, and again, got no response, so I finally sent M a message on Twitter. She told me her partner had texted me twice while she was in and she texted me once. Hmm, that’s a little odd, isn’t it? So I asked my mom to try to text me, and her message never arrived, either.

I rang O2 (and yes, I spoke with a British person. All the O2 call centres are located within the UK) and the woman I was speaking with thought it was odd, and tried a few things, but the messages didn’t show up. She determined that I needed a SIM swap and advised me to go into the O2 shop in town as it would be faster, and they also could test my SIM in a different phone to try to determine if the problem was my phone or my SIM.

I went into the Lincoln shop around lunchtime that Friday and had a wonderful woman (I can’t remember her name!). She put my SIM into a tester phone and we waited, but nothing showed up. Assuming it meant this was a simple SIM issue, she arranged for a SIM swap and told me to finish my shopping and come back when my phone read “invalid SIM”. Well, I had only gotten down to the escalator when my phone started displaying it, so I went back. She swapped in the new SIM, and I rang Mom to ask her to text me. She did…and nothing. So, time to start exploring other options.

The O2 person took me over to a desk and rang up tech support. They were of no help, so she escalated it further, and then again. We were getting some really ridiculous suggestions like “delete the contact from your phone and re-add them” (what?) or that it was the US provider’s problem, not ours (it wasn’t. Mom and M are on different networks and Mom had been able to text Tim with no problems). Several hours later, and we decided the best thing to do was for me to go home and try to let things reset themselves over the weekend and if it still wasn’t working on Monday, ring or come in.

The following Tuesday I wound up ringing O2 again because it still wasn’t working. I spoke with Emma (I think?) and she was fantastic. When a first tech guy wasn’t helpful, she got someone else. Tony was fantastic. He gave a few suggestions for getting it to work/testing it out. The first idea was to stick my SIM in Tim’s phone and try for an int’l text. That was a no-go and nothing came through, even though Tim had previously been receiving international messages. Second suggestion was to use the Blackberry desktop software, back up my phone, and then update the software. Again, this didn’t help. Tony told me he would look into the issue some more and get back to me on Friday.

In between Tuesday and Friday, I received a call back from Emma, who wanted to check in and wanted to let me know that she would flag my account and keep checking it and would ring me if she found out anything else. I loved that. Really, it’s a shame you can’t ask for people directly when you ring, or I’d ask for her every time.

When Tony rang me on Friday, it was to tell me that he unfortunately didn’t have much news for me — BUT, he was talking to some of the other techs and apparently this isn’t an issue isolated to me. Several people had been ringing up with the same issue (on top of the existing BBM issues everyone was having). So the issue has now been escalated AGAIN to an investigation team, and Tony is going to keep me up to date on anything new that comes of it (and hopes it gets resolved soon, obviously). He also didn’t have a direct phone number, but he gave me his email address so I could email him if anything else happened with my phone.

My problem isn’t fixed yet, but I have faith in O2 and in the techs I was speaking to. This experience makes me glad I switched over from Orange. Anytime I had a problem with Orange, I used to get bounced around from call centres in India to the UK, and people who said they would ring you back never did. This was not the case with O2. O2 has ALL their call centres in the UK, and their employees actually ring you back when they tell you they will!

I just hope my problem gets solved soon. It’s a little annoying to know that if an emergency pops up I’d have to borrow Tim’s phone to communicate with my mom.

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The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, or the RSS feed(s), please notify me.

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Yep, more recipes. This one was inspired by a recipe in the September issue of Good Food.

As the frost approaches, you might be left wondering what to do with all those tomatoes you need to bring inside. Here’s a recipe for roasted tomatoes, followed by tomato soup in the crock pot.

You will need:
12 vine ripe tomatoes (if you have to, get them from the shops, but make sure they are vine ripened)
4 Tablespoons malt vinegar
3 Tablespoons olive oil
Dried Basil
Salt & Pepper

Pre-heat oven to 175C
Line a baking dish or a deep cookie sheet with baking paper or give it a few sprays of olive oil. Cut each tomato in half and arrange tomatoes skin-down in dish. Sprinkle lightly with salt and pepper.
Combine oil and vinegar and brush mixture onto tomatoes. Sprinkle with Basil.
Bake for 45 minutes.

You can use them as a side dish, or create tomato soup with them.

Roasted Tomato Soup

You will need:
Roasted tomatoes
1 can crushed tomatoes
1 potato, halved
water, tomato juice, vegetable stock, or chicken broth
Basil

Combine roasted tomatoes, potato, and tin of crushed tomatoes in crock pot. Pour liquid into crock pot until tomatoes are covered, Sprinkle with basil. Cook on low for 6-8 hours. Fish out the potato (it was in to absorb the salt from the roasted tomatoes). Use an immersion blender or regular blender and blend until smooth.

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Apologies for the bombardment of recipe posts recently, but I’ve been getting creative in the kitchen lately and want to share. As I was taking a photo today of my latest creation, I commented to my husband that I “really take a lot of photos of food”. He replied that since food seems to be my latest creative outlet, why not? Of course, this does mean you have to read post after post about food, when you probably want to read other things by me. Sorry! Maybe I should start up a cooking blog after all!

Anyway.

When I was younger, I remember my mom making Pizza Meatloaf, probably because I had seen it in a kid’s cookbook or on TV or something like that. I couldn’t find her recipe, so I created one of my own.

You will need:
500g Turkey Mince
150ml Passata
1 Tablespoon Oregano
125g Bread Crumbs
1 Egg
Mozzarella Cheese (a small block will work best)

Pre-heat the oven to 225C.
First, chop about half the Mozzarella into small cubes and the other half into slices. You also could use shredded cheese if this is easier and divide it in half.
Combine meat, the cubed cheese, HALF the passata, the bread crumbs, egg, and Oregano and mix together well.
Shape into a loaf shape on a lined cookie sheet.
Cook 45 minutes to an hour, or until meat is no longer pink.
Remove from oven and pour over remaining half of passata and top with remaining Mozzarella.
Put back into the oven for 15-20 minutes, or until cheese is melted.

This was really tasty the following day cold in a sandwich with some ketchup!
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I posted this photo to Facebook yesterday, and my friend’s husband said “That’s not a hoagie, that’s a sub”. He may be right, but for being 3,000 miles away from Philadelphia, it’s not too bad.

Serious Eats posted this top 10 list of Philadelphia hoagies in September and my only comment about it was that it made me hungry for a hoagie…but the closest we really get here in the UK is Subway.

I knew what basically went into a hoagie, so I started looking around Sainsbury’s for appropriate substitutions. The batons sold fresh in the bakery section are about a foot long and soft, making a great base for my hoagie. I haven’t yet found Provaolne cheese, but I picked a mild Edam instead. For meats, I went with ham and German salami. I wanted a third meat, but I couldn’t decide what would work well, so I kept it with the two.

For me, what makes a hoagie is the dressing and the oregano. I sliced my tomatoes thinly and shredded the lettuce, putting both in a sealable container. I then tossed on top of the tomatoes and lettuce 6 tablespoons olive oil, 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar, and one tablespoon Oregano, sealed up the container, and gave it a good shake.

I went against tradition and put a little bit of mayonnaise on the roll, topped it with the cheese and meat and then the coated lettuce and tomato.

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I was going to hold off on this post for a few weeks and get some older (well, a few weeks old) recipes posted, but Michelle’s post on The American Resident about homesickness and making comfort food prompted me to post this sooner.

I think most of us who grew up middle class in America know about Chef Boyardee. Those red cans (I swear, it used to be spelled Boy-R-De) were a familiar food growing up. My favourite was the ravioli, and I detested beefaroni. In addition to tins of pasta, Boyardee also made pizza kits, which became a household staple because it was easy to make, and we could put whatever toppings on it we wanted.

Even as an adult, I continued to buy the Boyardee pizza kits because they were inexpensive, and had everything I needed – crust mix, tomato sauce, and cheese. Of course, we started adding shredded cheese to the grated Parmesean by this point.

I love pizza and I love homemade pizza. Moving to the UK, I’ve struggled a bit in finding a crust mix that I like – a lot of the pre-made mixes don’t cook well or taste too sweet and I just don’t have the patience for making it from scratch. Originally, this recipe was just going to be “Easy Pizza”, but when I bit into it I was instantly reminded of the good old Chef Boyardee pizza mixes. I hope this can comfort another ex-pat the same way it comforted me!

You Will Need:
300g Bisquick mix (in the UK it’s called Bisquick Multi-Purpose Baking Mix and comes in the same size box as a cake mix)
200ml very hot water (I used water from the kettle)
Olive oil (or vegetable oil)
tomato sauce (plain passata)
Parmesean cheese
Oregano*
Basil*
Mozzarella cheese*
Toppings of your choice*

*optional ingredients. The main ingredients are essentially the items you need for a Chef Boyardee kit. Any direction involving optional ingredients will have an * in front of it.

Pre-heat the oven to 225C.
Grease or line a cookie sheet (or pizza tray).
Combine water and Bisquick and mix until it resembles dough. If there is still a lot of powdered mix, add a little more water.
Press dough onto cookie sheet and lightly cover with olive oil (a spray bottle is ideal).
Bake for 5 minutes.
Remove from oven and top pizza with sauce and *sprinkle oregano and basil on sauce.
Sprinkle Parmesean cheese over sauce.
*Top with Mozzarella cheese and your chosen toppings
Return to oven and bake for an additional 10-15 minutes or until cheese is melted and crust is crisp (it took 12 in my oven).

Enjoy!

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Are you ready for Winter?

If you live in the UK, there are some claims that parts of the country could see snow in mid-October. It’s a bit of an ambiguous comment considering the UK includes Scotland, and it’s quite likely for it to snow there early in the season, and oh look, it did. But with last week’s record-breaking highs followed by this week’s bitterly cold wind, you never know what will happen with the weather.

So it’s time to get out the wool caps and start preparing yourself and your home for Winter.

As most of you know, Tim and I live in half of a farmhouse built in the 1800s. While we have nice thick walls for insulating purposes, it also can get quite draughty. We don’t have central heating and rely on a fireplace in the living room for heat, and electric oil-filled radiators in the other rooms, along with a halogen heater (which I use a lot in the living room when the fire isn’t lit) and a gas heater in the bathroom. Last year, Tim and I picked up some Stormguard Secondary Glazing from B&Q and it really made a difference in the living room, bathroom, and spare room. This year, we purchased two kits so we can hopefully get all the windows (except for the kitchen) sealed. The reason we won’t seal the kitchen is because it acts as a vent for the hob, and the kitchen will get warm enough from cooking.

When it got cold last year, we started shoving old towels and dressing gowns (US: robes) around the bottom of the front door and the living room door. It really helped to keep the warm air in the house. I even shoved a mitten inside the letter slot overnight because I could feel a draft coming through it! This year, I plan to make some draught excluders from last year’s winter tights (checking carefully to make sure there are no holes first) and some sand. I will post a tutorial within the next few weeks.

We also will be closing off rooms in our house to keep the warmth where we need it. This year, we aren’t having a guest at Christmastime (I’m very sad about this, but there’s nothing we can do about it), so we plan on leaving the door to the spare room shut. The cat will be mad at losing her favourite sleeping spot, but she’ll get over it. We also will be keeping our bedroom door shut during the day to try to keep as much of the heat in as possible.

Years ago, Tim purchased an all-seasons duvet from Debenhams. It is a two-part duvet with a thin duvet for Summer use, a thicker duvet for Autumn/Early Spring use, and you snap the two together to make a thick, warm, Winter duvet. It sure is nice and cozy to snuggle down under the thick duvet with our heated mattress pad.

Obviously, I’ll also be bringing out the thermal undergarments, and I’ve actually been wearing some of the tops this week already. Last year I couldn’t find tops in my size, so I just wore regular camisoles. I was in Marks and Spencers a few weeks ago and I discovered they sell ladies thermal tops up to a size 22, so I now have 2 camisole/sleeveless tops, and 2 long sleeved tops to go along with my 2 pairs of thermal pants I bought last year. I also wore tights under my trousers nearly every day last Winter, so I’ve already stocked up on a few pairs of weather sensor tights. They claim to “keep your body temperature regulated”. I’m not really sure if they work or not, but they were soft and comfortable. I’ll also soon start shopping for some thick slipper socks to wear around the house, as I’m not an indoor shoe-wearer. My mom sent me a pair of bootie-style slippers, so that will help, too. Last year, Primark sold mock uggs for a fiver. The boots were pretty useless when we had loads of snow, but they also doubled up as slipper-boots for the house. I bought a pair of boots at New Look towards the end of the season on a recommendation from my SIL, but I’ll keep a pair of Primark boots in reserve just in case I get soaked.

Other than getting the house and my wardrobe ready, I also have to think about the kitchen and cooking. Last year, we had a snow storm that had our car stuck in the driveway and the only shops we were able to get to were the corner Spar or the Cost Cutters – both of which ran out of bread and milk faster than they could get it delivered. Tesco also cancelled one of my deliveries due to the snow, so we started to run out of food options until my MIL’s friend took her to Tesco in their 4×4 (US: SUV) and she was able to pick us up a few items. This year, I’m going to try to be more prepared.

I have a bread machine, so when the Spar ran out of bread last year, out came the machine. It’s not brilliant bread for toasting, but it will do. Milk was the bigger issue, and at one point we had to resort to powdered skim milk for our tea (gross) for a half day while we waited for the Spar to get in a milk delivery. We are going to fix this problem this year by keeping a few boxes of UHT milk in the pantry. We take UHT milk with us when we go camping, and while it’s not something we would sit and drink a glass of, it’s fine for tea or a bowl of cereal, and it’s shelf-stable, so it doesn’t need refrigeration until it’s opened.

We don’t usually eat processed food, but I started a small “stockpile” within the past few weeks as a “just in case”. My mini stockpile includes cooking ingredients like pasta, passata, and canned tomatoes as well as tins of hoops, ravioli, and macaroni cheese. If we run into a situation where there isn’t anything to eat in the fridge, we will have a few meals we can make from the tinned food, and it doubles as “emergency food” for those times when we have been out all day and I’m too tired to cook or days I’m not feeling well and should save us from ordering pizza or going down to the chippy. I also have a few containers of “just add hot water” soups and noodles. It’s not brilliant, but it will see us through a snow storm. All I have been doing is adding an extra few tins to my weekly grocery shop, particularly if something was on offer.

I also have to consider the possibility of the electricity going out, as ours went out several times last Winter. Assuming we can get it up and running, this won’t be a problem for us as we will have the coal-fired Esse stove working. If we don’t get the Esse working, then we will have a combination of whatever can be cooked over/in the fireplace and the use of our single burner gas camping stove. Last year I also purchased toasting forks for the fireplace for cooking sausages or toasting crumpets.

Lighting-wise, we have loads of torches (US: Flashlights) and some strings of battery-operated fairy lights we purchased at IKEA last year for a railway project. I grabbed two strands last year while my mom was visiting and the electricity went out and strung one around the bannister to see for going up the steps, and it worked wonders. I even took the strands camping and used one as a night light so when I got up in the middle of the night I didn’t have to fumble for a torch. I also tend to load up on candles – both the tall tapers and tea lights. A tea light in a jar can provide enough light to use the loo, and a group of them can be used to read by. The extra plus of a candle is that the flame will help to raise the temperature in the room, too. When I ran out of candle holders for the tapers last year, I pulled empty bottles out of the recycling bin. The mouth was just the perfect size for a candle, just melt some wax around the lip first to secure the candle. We also keep a battery operated radio under the sink, and I’ve used it to have some noise around if Tim was away at work, but it also works for leaving on a local radio station to get updates. We have an inverter in our camping supplies that will convert a car cigarette lighter to a regular plug just in case we need to charge a phone.

Because our electricity tends to go out at random moments, we keep torches accessible everywhere and I started collecting wind-up torches from the places we visited to cut down on needing batteries. When I was staying in a static caravan last summer (2010), I used two wind-up torches to read by in my bedroom so I didn’t need to use the overhead lighting, so they are pretty bright!

The single-burner camping stove means we can still heat up the small tins of food, too. I can get very creative when I need to, and if you get a large enough pot, you can peel the label off a few cans, put the opened cans in the pot, fill the pot with water, and cook two cans at once.

I know a lot of this sounds crazy, but I like to be prepared. I don’t want to wind up in a situation where we’re freezing and hungry and I don’t think anything I’m doing is too extreme.

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I watched Extreme Couponing a few nights ago via my friend’s Slingbox. And I just had to share the moment that made me laugh.

The first woman was shopping at a store that “prices matches” with fliers from other stores. A lot of places do this, and even the shops here in the UK will do it, too. But this woman truly went to the extreme. She had a flier that marked down cereal to less than $2, when her store charges over $5 for the boxes. That’s awesome. But what really made me laugh is the woman drove over 30 miles to get the flier. Uhm, hello? That 30 miles of driving probably cost you more than you’ll save on that box of cereal!

Tim and I worked out that we can go approximately 4 miles for each pound (£) of diesel we put in the car. A 30-mile trip would cost us about £7.50. £1 = around $1.50 currently, so if she could go 4 miles for every $1.50, that means she would have spent over $11 on fuel to pick up this flier. With the price difference being around $4, she had to buy 3 boxes before she even began to break even on the deal. Of course, she probably bought something like 10 or more boxes, I really didn’t pay attention to the number of boxes. BUT, she also didn’t include the $11 in petrol in her savings.

I still think the extreme way of couponing isn’t as glamorous as it looks. Looking at some of the stockpiling you have to wonder how much money do these people spend maintaining their stock? If they have multiple freezers, surely the cost of running them has to be calculated into their total savings? Or the shelving units they purchase to store it all on, the extra rooms they have built onto their homes. What about the wear and tear on their $30k vehicle because it has to sit in the driveway through all weather since the garage is full of their shopping? Or the sheer amount of TIME it takes for them to go through the coupons? Some people on the show boast that they spend 40+ hours/week clipping coupons and looking for deals. Do they calculate into their savings when they purchase coupons on eBay? How about the paper, ink, and electricity they use to print off on-line coupons? What about the time lost with their family because they are too busy searching for coupons and deals? Several episodes back there was someone who drove 100+ miles for something cheap, yet they didn’t calculate their travelling into their savings. One woman boasted that she couponed while on a family vacation because there were different stores than the ones she shopped at at home!

I know that pre-packaged food tends to have long expiration dates, but I also worry that the food will go bad before they use it – Sometimes when my mom or I would clean out the kitchen cabinet (our “stockpile”), we often found things way at the back that had expired without us realizing it. I couldn’t imagine keeping track of expiration dates on some of the huge stockpiles we see on that show. I have a hard enough time keeping track of the food in my small fridge, let alone if I had three refrigerators full of food.

And I’ll say it again… a lot of what they buy is JUNK. Candy, sugar cereals, soda, ramen noodles (sodium), etc. Even tinned vegetables still aren’t as healthy as fresh. And tinned fruit tends to be in sugary syrup. How can you stay healthy and eat that stuff? What do you need 200 bottles of laundry soap for? A bottle probably lasts at least a month or two, so you have enough detergent for how many YEARS of laundry? What happens if you move? Will you pay a moving company to shift your stockpile? What about insurance on it in case your basement floods, your house catches fire, or someone breaks in and steals things? would you even know if someone had stolen something from your stockpile? If you don’t own pets, why do you have 100 packets of cat treats? You’re past the age of having babies, and your own children are in primary school, so why do you have all those jars of baby food, diapers, and wipes? What’s the use in having a 20 years supply of feminine products if you are male and don’t have a female partner or family member to use it? Sometimes, I even wonder if the people actually eat and use the things they buy or if they just like looking at their “collection”, because they seem to do these huge shops weekly!

I’m still quite satisfied to see myself saving £10 off a £50 order. Some weeks I fail at saving money (this week, I’ve only saved about £2). Other weeks, I go for gold and can save over £10. It all evens out for me and I would never purchase something purely based on the fact that it was on special offer or if I had a coupon for it. Everything I purchase gets used within a reasonable amount of time, unless it’s part of our “Winter Kit” (which I’ll explain in a later post)

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Testing blogging from blackberry!

I puzzled facebook friends by posting this photo in my “food and recipes” folder:

And captioned it “What did I make with this?”

I made cappuccino mix!

But I should back up a little and tell the story.

The first part of the story is from about 10 or so years ago when my mom and I were looking for something we could make our office friends for christmas that wasn’t going to break the bank, and we discovered a recipe for cappuccino mix. We made it and everyone loved it – my aunt so much that she gave us her empty container and asked us to refill it!

The second part of the story comes from a girl obsessed with Starbucks. Me. When December rolled around, my favourite drink was an iced peppermint mocha or a frappucino. One year, I mentioned to the barista how sad it was that the peppermint mocha was only offered in December, and she told me I could order it regularly and ask for a shot of peppermint. It would cost me an additional fee for the flavour, but I was able to get peppermint mocha year round.

…and then I moved to the UK, where Starbucks does not have peppermint mocha. My mom found an International Coffee powdered version that she sent me and I gobbled it up. She also found peppermint Coffeemate powdered creamer and sent that along. Recently, I’ve been looking at the second caninster and thinking about making something with it, when I remembered the old cappuccino mix recipe. To make it even minty-er, I decided to use mint hot chocolate mix, and to get it to “froth”, I picked Aero hot chocolate. You can make this with regular creamer and regular hot chocolate or any flavour hot chocolate and regular creamer. If you can’t find regular creamer, you can use powdered milk.

So, here’s what you need. I did the measurements for this in Metric, but as long as you get the ratios right, you can use any measuring system you want.

100g instant coffee
200g powdered creamer
200g hot chocolate
50g Splenda (or sugar, but I was trying to make it a little less sugary)

you also will need a plastic zipper top bag, a rolling pin or glass, and some containers to put the finished product in….like the containers you just emptied!

Step 1 – Pour the coffee into the zipper-top bag, squeeze out as much air as you can, and seal it. Gently roll over the coffee with a rolling pin to break up the granules.
Step 2 – Add the hot chocolate, powdered creamer, and splenda to the bag. Seal it up tight and shake it until everything is mixed together.
Step 3 – Pour into containers.

[finished product on the left, it’s inspiration on the right!]

When you are ready to have some, just put 3-4 spoonfuls in a mug and top with hot water. I like to fill my cup about 3/4 with boiling water from the kettle and then top it off with cold water from the tap so I can drink it right away.

This would make a great gift, too!

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I need a new iron. The one I have been using was Tim’s from bachelordom and he no longer has the manual for it ,nor can one be located online. Plus, I wanted an iron with the ability to steam upright. After loads of looking online, I settled on a Morphy Richard’s model and ordered it from Tesco Direct (mostly for the points!). Tesco has two delivery options – The first was £5 (or was it £3?) and was for a 12-hour slot of 7am to 7pm. The second option was £6.85 and lets you pick your own 2 hour time slot for delivery. I paid the extra and set my delivery for today from 3pm to 5pm.

I’m writing this at 5:57, and there still is no sign of my iron. I rang Tesco around ten past five because I checked the online status and it says my item is going from the warehouse to the store, NOT out for delivery. The woman I spoke with was very nice. She said it should be out for delivery and she didn’t know why it hadn’t arrived yet, so could I hold on while she rang the store it was coming from (Cleethorpes). I waited, and she came back on the line to tell me that no one was answering the phone in the delivery department, but she spoke to store customer service who told her that was because they were done for the day, and the store had no way of contacting the driver.

This is a bunch of crap, as they have always been able to ring the driver if he was running late — and on several occasions, the driver has rung me to tell me he was running late.

The only thing the woman could tell me was to wait until 7PM and ring back tonight or tomorrow morning to reschedule delivery, but she would refund my $6.85. I told her I was not interested in rescheduling my delivery because I would not be available tomorrow, I was available today from 3 to 5, which was why I paid extra to book the slot. She urged me to wait until 7PM just in case the driver was running late.

In the meantime, I’ve found the exact same iron at Argos. It is £7 more than Tesco but it will even itself out because Tim can collect the item before work tomorrow and we can avoid a delivery fees. For whatever reason, Tesco Direct will not send items to Lincoln, and always insists we need to pick things up in Cleethorpes, which for those of you who don’t know, is about a half hour to 45 minute drive away from us!

Overall, I’m very disappointed with Tesco today. There is absolutely no excuse for not delivering an item on time, let alone not ringing to state it will not be on time. I seriously doubt there was ever an iron on the delivery van for me for today, given the online status of my order, too.

(I’m pressing publish on this at 6:15pm, and still no delivery. They have 45 minutes.)

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The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, or the RSS feed(s), please notify me.

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Miss M has had some great news recently. She was approved for a pre-existing condition insurance policy which will help her pay for the bulk of her surgery, AND she has finally been given the all-clear for surgery and will be going in on October 5. She will have a long recovery after this, and so she still will be unable to work for quite some time. Miss M also still has to pay off $600 before the surgery, as well as maintain her insurance premium ($250/month), try to make some headway on her previous hospital bill (while her insurance covers the pre-existing condition, it will not cover previous medical care), and well, be able to live for the next few months.

So, we’re asking for one last big push to help her get through the next few months. Please consider purchasing an item from her – handmade, one of a kind jewellery makes great holiday gifts – or making a donation. Also, if you could please pass on the links to her sites or my site, that would really be appreciated!

Her Website: http://giveneyestosee.com/blog

Blow-by-blow: http://giveneyestosee.com/blog/hysterectomy/

Donation Storefront: http://PhoenixFunds.etsy.com

Her Storefront: http://PhoenixFireDesigns.etsy.com

Her Website: http://www.phoenixfiredesigns.com

Direction Donations: http://tiny.cc/hysterectomy

http://www.gofundme.com/hysterectomy

One of my favourite Pennsylvania Dutch things is apple butter. Apple butter is best when spread on a warm dinner roll, or a spoonful mixed into some cottage cheese. Trips to Willow Valley always included a spoonful of apple butter on my plate, and trips to Kitchen Kettle were never complete unless I bought a jar.

In the UK however, we don’t have apple butter. We have all sorts of other spread-y type things for your bread, but no apple butter.

For those of you not familiar with apple butter, I need to explain that it is not butter in the sense of a dairy or vegetable based spread you put on toast or use to bake bread with. The best way I can describe it is it’s sort of like applesauce, only thicker, darker, and with spices. It’s tasty and is my favourite topping for toast. It even out-shines Nutella!

With all the wind bringing down the apples on the 20-foot-tall apple tree in the garden, it was time to start doing something with them!

Like last year, I planned on coring and cutting as many apples as I could and dividing them into 500g freezer bags. 500g is just about what will fill up my crumble bowl, and a good way of measuring them out. Plus, it’s how much will fit into a small freezer bag comfortably. To freeze the apples, I leave the skins on and use one of those kitchen gadgets that slices the apple and cores it at the same time. I discard the core, cut off any brown spots, and cut the slices in half. After measuring out 500g, I pop them in a freezer bag and add a teaspoon of lemon juice (to help with discolouration) and give the bag a shake before putting it into the freezer. Last year, I wound up with 6KG of apples in the freezer which really saw us through winter! This year, I’m trying not to put too much in the freezer because we need to defrost it soon and I wouldn’t want to lose anything!

I made apple butter last year, but such a small amount I only had enough for 2 small containers. Since I had to get the apples dealt with sooner than I had planned, I decided to try making a large batch of apple butter and I collected as many as I could that had fallen into my laundry basket.

I started coring and cutting the apples and measured them out in 500g intervals on my scale and tipped them into my large crock pot until it was full — about 2KG of apples. 2KG of apples will yield about 2000ml of apple butter, more if you don’t cook it for as long as I did. I sealed my jars in the oven since I don’t have a large pot for the stove. The USDA does not recommend this method for canning, however there are no such suggestions in the UK, and oven canning is even suggested.

Crock Pot Apple Butter

You will need:

2KG Apples, cored and cut (or however much your crock pot will hold. I used a 6L crock pot)
2 TBS Cinnamon (adjust based on amount of apples)
1 1/2 TBS Nutmeg (adjust based on amount of apples)
1 1/2 TBS Cloves (adjust based on amount of apples)
1 1/2 Cup sugar or Splenda (optional)
Water

Large Crock Pot
Blender (I tried out my new stick blender!)
Wooden Spoon
Sterilized Jars

– Core and cut apples into small chunks. You can leave off the skin if you don’t feel like peeling (I never peel them). Fill your crock pot until it nearly reaches the top. I stopped about three inches from the top.
-Using a measuring jug, add water to the crock pot until the apples are covered. I used 1L of water, but your amount may vary.
-Cook on LOW for 10-12 hours. Overnight is ideal. You want to cook it past the point of applesauce.
-In the morning, turn off your crock pot and use a blender or stick blender to blend the apples until they are smooth. I used my stick blender directly in my crock pot, but if you’re using a regular blender you might have to do it in batches.
-Mix in the spices and give it a taste. If it tastes too tart to your liking, add about 1/2 cup sugar or sweetener. You also can add more spices if you think it needs it!
-Cook on low for about 2 hours. Give it a stir and a taste. Add more sugar/spices if it’s not to your liking.
-Take a wooden spoon and use it to prop open the lid. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT! By venting the crock pot lid, you are letting the steam escape and this will reduce the applesauce down to apple butter.
-I had my crock pot on low for about 12 hours, but this was only because we left to visit friends in the evening and stayed longer than we had anticipated. At a minimum, it can be done in about 8 hours. The longer it cooks, the thicker it will get.

-Sterilize your jars. You can do this several ways including boiling them in water or placing in a hot oven. I sterilized mine in a hot oven by pre-heating the oven to 105C (225F) and placing the jars on a tray. Leave in for 10 minutes, then turn off the oven and let the jars sit in the oven until you are ready for them.

-Give your apple butter a taste again. If it still tastes too tart for your liking, add the final 1/2 cup of sugar or sweetener and blend. You might want to use your blender or stick blender again if your apple butter looks too chunky.
-By now, your apple butter should be a dark brown colour. Turn off the crock pot.
-To make it easier to pour (and to know how much you made), transfer the apple butter into a measuring jug. I had just under 2000ml.
-carefully pour into your sterilized jars, leaving a little bit of room at the top. Wipe the sides of the mouth and screw on the lids.
-Seal your jars in your preferred method. Most people will boil their jars, but as I don’t have a large pot, I needed to use the oven method.

-Place jars on a baking sheet in a cold oven and turn the dial to 105C (225F). Allow the oven to heat up and leave on for 20 minutes. Turn off the oven and leave jars in for an additional 30 minutes. You can tell the jar is sealed if you can push on the top and it doesn’t make a popping sound.

And now you have apple butter to last through winter!

Oh, and to clean out that crock pot after making a mess in it, pour some dish soap in it and fill it up with water. “Cook” it on low overnight with the lid on, and in the morning it should come clean.

In case you were wondering, to make applesauce cook the apples and water for 4 hours on high in the crock pot, add sugar, drain off some of the water, and blend.

[The first batch. I’ve since made a second batch of apple butter and a batch of applesauce….]

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[Taken looking out the upstairs window]

We’ve been having a lot of wind lately all over the UK. For a few days, I was enjoying the wind – clothing I hung out on the whirly were dry within 15 minutes and the air smelled crisp and like Autumn.

But then the wind continued. Apples on our apple tree were being blown off faster than I could pick them up before they started rotting on the ground. In the past few days, I have cooked over 6 kilos of apples and I still have loads to cook that I brought in the house, not counting the apples that have fallen yesterday or today that might still be good.

And then, on Wednesday, the worst thing happened.

I was sitting on the sofa watching something on TV when I heard the familiar “creeeeek creeeeek” noise our lilac tree makes when it blows in the wind followed by a “crrraaacccckkkk” and then a “thump”. I glanced out the front window to discover half of our lilac tree had been blown down and it missed the house by about 2 feet. When it fell, it took out a fence panel and very nicely the lighter bits landed on the railway.

[The view when I opened the front door]

[now what?]

[Where the tree cracked]

[No damage to the tracks]

Dave came over to assist Tim in at least trying to move the tree and get it cleanly broken off and they discovered a second crack on the other trunk for the purple lilac, so they took that down as well. All that is left is the white part and it looks very funny leaning slightly to the left like it always has without the rest of the tree! (I’ll take a photo of that later). A friend of ours, Rae, told me it might grow back and be more bushy since we still have lots of small shoots at the bottom that hadn’t been cut off….I hope so! I really liked that tree!!

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The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, or the RSS feed(s), please notify me.

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I need a new phone. I’ve been using my Sony Ericsson w200i since I purchased it on my visit in 2008. I purchased it as a barebones basic phone for £30 just as something to use while I was in the UK, since my Verizon Wireless phone did not work outside of North America. I wound up taking the w200i back to the US with me, and since the phone was tri-band, I was able to keep it minimally topped up while I was in the US and Tim and I were able to text on it (as well as me with his other family and my friends). When I moved, I pretty much assumed I would get a different (better) phone to use on a permanent basis, but we never got around to it. I briefly tried out a LG KS360 in July 2010, and you can read all about it here. So it’s been well over a year since I tried getting a new phone, and I’ve stayed with Orange.

When I get my new phone, I’m switching to O2. O2 is the company Tim’s work phone and personal phone are on, and you can have O2 to O2 calls for free. Plus, Tim’s never had a complaint about O2. I, on the other hand, have had countless issues with Orange. It’s gotten better now that they merged with T-Mobile in terms of getting a signal, but I’ve rang Orange customer service far, far more than Tim has. I think the only time Tim’s had to even go into the O2 shop was when his phone went through the washing machine while he was visiting me Summer 2009.

So the great debate is out on what to get. My old phone from the US was a LG 9900 (sold on Verizon as an EnV). I LOVED that phone. The front of it worked as a regular mobile phone, but then you could flip it open and there was a full Qwerty keyboard and larger screen. It was perfect, because if I didn’t have both hands free to type on the full keyboard, I could tap things out the old way on the front…and I LOVED the Qwerty keyboard. A Qwerty keyboard is a MUST for my next phone. I text way more than I talk on my phone and I update twitter and facebook from my phone, too, so aps for those would be a plus.

For a long while, I wanted an iPhone. They were sleek and shiny, and a popular phone. I have an iPod Touch, so an iPhone would be very similar to it, just also having the capabilities of being a phone. iPhones are expensive, but if you want an older model they can be found on eBay for around £100. Still, that’s a lot of money for an old phone that has no guarantee of it actually working. And one of my biggest issues with my iPod Touch is the touch screen keyboard. I actually dislike it and wish it had keys!

Tim received a phone with his new job. A Blackberry Curve. Ironically, I have been looking on and off at a Blackberry Curve for several months, so I was more than a little jealous when Tim got one for work use! I love the Blackberry. It has a Qwerty Keyboard, it has Aps, and it has blackberry-to-blackberry messaging, which would help me keep in touch with my friends all over the world who also have blackberries. Tim let me play around with his to see how I liked using the keyboard on it (I sent an email to myself and played with the notepad) and I found it pretty easy to use. I really, really want one. O2 has a purple curve on offer as free with a monthly plan. The plan is £16.50/month for a 24 month contract. Not bad.

But then, there’s Android phones. Tesco mobile currently has Android phones on offer for free with £18.50/month plans (for 24 months). But I’m less-inclined to get an Android because it will have the same touchscreen keyboard as an iPhone. So I think I was only attracted to it based on it’s price and the fact that I know people who have them.

Honestly, I’m sold on the Blackberry. Plus, it means Tim and I can share travel chargers/car chargers which is always nice. I figure I’ll set up a pop email address on beccajanestclair for the blackberry and only give the address out to friends and family instead of having it linked to google mail..I don’t want to pay to receive spam/junk! And, I could always check gmail through the web if I really needed it.

Honestly, it’s just a matter of time!

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The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, or the RSS feed(s), please notify me.

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