time flies

I'm really not sure where the time goes.  I knew I hadn't written on here this week but hadn't realised it had been 2 weeks!  I had a head cold and felt fuzzy for a few days- perhaps I 'lost time' then.  I have been getting ready for my daughter to start school this week which brings mixed feelings from pride and excitement for her but also pangs of sadness that my eldest is a proper big girl now.  August and September are busy birthday months for us so we have been dashing around getting presents and attending parties and it is by no means over yet.  Sadly this year, I haven't made too many presents whereas usually I would have made a few bits to add to people's presents.  When Fiona starts school, I am expecting/ hoping I will be able to finish finding places for our belongings and then get creative in my crafting room.  I have been drawing again and doodling which I will upload pics of when finished but I work on them for a little while, put them down and then come back to them at a later date.  I will aim to do a few more craft sales with Christmas approaching which will also hopefully allow me plenty of crafty bits to make and share but for now, I can simply share what I love that others are making.
I have mentioned a few times how much I love pinterest which I confess, I am a little addicted to.  I have also now discovered channel 4 have a scrapbook which allows you to save things to your own 'scrap book' including clips from programmes and recipes etc.  You can add to it from other websites too so not exclusive to channel 4 programmes.  As it happens, Kirstie Allsopps programmes are divided into projects which I have been able to 'cut and paster' there including the leather notebooks, changing mats and lamb kofta biryani.  The latter, I attempted last week with some success with a few alterations.

I followed the recipe fairly closely but did add a red pepper to the lamb mix before rolling into meatballs.  This was quite different to the process I would usually do for meatballs as it has no breadcrumbs but instead uses an egg.

Once rolled, I covered them and placed them in the fridge for an hour which is supposed to help them bind together and stop them from crumbling when frying later.

Meanwhile, I began on the sauce which I used my hand blender to chop the onions very finely and again, I added a pepper.  The recipe said 2 onions so I used one red and one white.

With the spices added, it looked and smelled lovely especially since I was using my new pots.  The recipe said to leave the tomato and onion mixture to boil to a pulp so I stepped next door to do some jigsaws with the girls, however, I burned the sauce and had to start again :(

Fortunately, it was only onions and tomatoes that were wasted.  The recipe said apricots but I used peaches as I couldn't get any apricots earlier that day but they worked well too.

The last stage was to then layer the rice, fruit, koftas and sauce and then cook in the oven.  It was a little too spicy for the girls but tasted good and I will definitely do it again; quite possibly a contender for a dinner party even.