Weekends by the Fire

On Saturday morning, I woke up to another fresh coat of snow covering the road outside. We drove the ten miles across rolling northern countryside to have a peak at our new house, and to do the weekly food shop. Naturally, I grabbed my camera, but to to my dismay I forgot my camera batteries! So sadly I don't have any spectacular photo's, just a few of outside the house.

 Cats paws: the first creatures out in the snow!

In the evening, we stacked up the fire with wood and bunkered ourselves in for the night. Mum had picked up a copy of The Simple Things magazine, which I hadn't heard of before. I was soon hooked though; finding myself inspired by the organic, healthy lifestyle of health coach Sarah Wilson, and wanting to try all the recipes featured.

As the embers of the fire began to glow in place of flame, we got the toasting fork and crumpets out for supper. It's the first time that I've actually toasted crumpets in this way, and it made such a difference to the taste.

 Spread over with a generous layer of butter, crumpets are heavenly:

On Sunday, inbetween sessions of homework and revision, I wanted to keep myself in the mood set by the magazine, so naturally I turned to tea and baking. The tea was rose, from The Lawn, and was later drank chilled with frozen raspberries, and I had a go at some blueberry muffins.

I think that the muffins would had benefited from much smaller -or even dried -blueberries as the juice from the fruit made the bottom of the muffins quite damp. The muffin mix itself was really nice though; not heavy, but not too light and sticky like a cupcake. It even managed to survive me forgetting the sugar, and having to fold it in last minute...

Once I have adjusted the recipe I will write it up in a post.
Hope you all had a good weekend, and didn't get too frozen in!