Home Baking

I have an acquaintance who is exactly the same age as me - but we couldn't be more poles apart. When I talk about what I have cooked or baked, she almost smirks! I can tell that she thinks I'm some sad old, mad old lady who's ready for a Shackletons high chair and a blue rinse!

Her standard reply when I bake is "but you can buy that in Morrisons!". Her hubby argues often with her about how much she spends.

My Yorkshire Parkin is baked using my old school cookery book recipe. It fills the house with the most gorgeous aroma of ginger. The recipe says to leave it a week to go sticky - it never makes it past the next day.
My Apple and Blackberry crumble is made with berries that hubby and I picked on a late summers day and froze. We "scrumped" the apples from a tree that was on the old colliery site. They are very sweet eating apples, a really old variety and so tasty. The berries and the apples are free. So for a few pence I am able to make the most scrumptious crumble to warm our cockles on a winters eve.

(If you look very closely, one apple has the worlds tiniest snail on it! It didn't make it into the crumble! Hows that for organic! )

And when hubby walks in from work, and can see that Ive made the effort to make him his favourite pudding, the smile on his face is priceless.

Now you don't get that shopping in Morrisons, and we never argue about how much I spend.