Stately homes, doll's progress, biscuits

I finally broke down and baked biscuits. It takes about eleven minutes from assembling the ingredients to buttering one to eat. I don't know why it looms as a big task.

Bolted wheat, golden raisins. Buttered with Irish butter, blueberry jam. Chunk of cheddar, always good with sweet food. 

And a bit more doll progress. Eyes and mouth embroidered.

Testing an old lady white hair look

Then moving on to dark hair

And a scrap of gown

She seems to like rockin this. Next to decide on and make her permanent hair.

Then, in case you ever run out of things to knit, here's one of the Queen's cottages (!)  Knitted. Margaret Seaman at it again. 

So there we are. Happy Monday everyone!

Berries and Biscuits

Here's the latest haul from the farm stand, strawberries, almost the end of the short season, and the first raspberries of the year.  They are precious, since you have either to grow them or get them from a local farm, since they are too fragile to ship, so you are unlikely to find them in a store.  I used to grow them back when I had a big garden, and give them away freely to very happy friends.

One year I offered a week of prime picking time in my patch as an auction item for a services auction in aid of a local women's organization, and that went for a nice price for the cause.

Back to my own current harvest here: you see that little bag of tiny bush cherries? the harvest in total to date.  But at least it's in double digits now.  They are tart and lovely, big pit for small berry, but okay, and I think they will make a great team with the strawberries I have lurking in the freezer for whenever I get the urge to make jam, a tart component of the flavor.

Not that you need to make jam.  Tip from a lazy cook: take a couple of berries, any berries, and squash them onto a split hot biscuit like the ones here, and eat and they're as good as jam with no labor and no added sugar.

These biscuits look pretty rock solid, but in fact they're a little crusty on the outside and wonderfully tender inside, since I use olive oil for the fat content, and skim milk soured with lemon juice for the buttermilk component.  They take about two minutes to mix, ten to bake, and they're very good indeed.  When you serve them later, about 15 seconds in the microwave gives your teatime guest the impression they just came out of the oven.  Oh well, now you know, if you've had tea here..my secret is out.

And today's farmstand haul also included kale and broccoli, both fresh in from the field this morning, and prepped and frozen and in the freezer within an hour of coming home.

Tonight's Handsome Son menu includes a lovely kale and Chinese sausage soup, then breaded white fish name escapes me, possibly pollock, or is that an artist, and roasted french fries.  Dessert is about berries, with maybe a shortbread cookie or an almond macaroon.  They've been going over a treat.  Incidentally, for people for whom gluten is an issue, almond macaroons don't have any.  Homemade lemonade or moscato sparkling white wine to go with all this debauchery.

After all that effort on my part, slaving over a hot farm stand, then frenzied prepping at home, HS will be required to make us a pot of tea.  And carry a couple of heavy items for me. He's very happy when it doesn't involve repotting seven foot trees, complete with screams, I mean firm instructions, from Boud.