Tea and ToastSometimes all you want is a little tea and toast. Since there was no milk it had to be OJ. Which is ok as vitamins are needed. It has been 3 days of sore throat and fever, luckily not the swine that is infesting everyone around me. My toast even arrived with a little heart shaped muffin, sweet.

And like the Burger says, 'a cuppa tea solves everything' and the Buns also then pipes in, 'England wouldn't have won the war without tea.' Tea and sympathy and some drugs is what cures the sick. Thanks to the drug provider and tea maker / nurse extraordinnare Dee. She should get a medal for coming so close to the sick, maybe I should start calling her Florence.

Brie and cranberry pizzaApparently eaten down under in Kiwiland. It tasted delicious and is such a great idea! D made this along with some other clever pizza concoctions for a friend's baby shower.

She is now enjoying the NZ summer and similar pizzas, sailing around and getting tanned while the rest of us freeze, enjoy Dee!

x

Cooking class in Tuscanyemail from my friend Dee:

My friends and I had a fab time in Tuscany. The weather was a bit rainy though so we decided to splash out and take a cooking class with a local lady at her farm house. Giulietta was so nice and welcoming and let us get stuck in. We made 4 courses: Zucchini risotto, ricotta and asparagas ravioli, chicken with sweet peppers for main and then apple cake. yuuummmyyyy...
Look at Dee getting right in there with the pasta machine, she better make dinner for us soon before she forgets her Tuscan techniques!

http://www.fagiolari.it/

Edmonds & Dee's scones
Dee made these scones from a recipe from the biggest selling book ever in New Zealand, no not the Da Vinci Code or the Guide to Counting Sheep, but Edmonds cookbook. They were delicious! She made plain ones and ones with bacon and onion...yum! Everyone in New Zealand (and those Kiwis in London) have this cookbook.

Edmonds started in the early part of the 1900s by a retailer who decided to make a better quality baking powder as his customers complained about the various types he sold in his shop. From his better quality powder, the business blossomed from there into more cookery products and became a large Kiwi empire, which still continues today.
Way back then, when couples got engaged they received a free copy of the cookbook as a gift (this has stopped now).
The history of the company is very interesting, the intro to the cookbook is an interesting read. The book has the basic recipes to the main foods a 'housewife' back then should know how to cook for her working husband. Recipes are still relevant today and made by both male and females!

Scones

• 1 breakfastcup flour (piled up)
• 1½ teaspoons Edmonds' Baking Powder
• 1 oz. butter (or lard)
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 egg

Rub butter (or lard) into flour, then add other dry ingredients, beat egg with little water, mix all into dough. Bake as usual, quick oven. If made without the egg, use milk in place of water.