It was, as planned, a wonderfully quiet, lazy and offline weekend . . . was never out of 'flop' clothes the entire time!  Yaayyy!! 

My Chillow 'Sweet Relief' arrived and has so far helped considerably with my sleeping problems.  There are still sleep problems, but I'm working on them and the Chillow makes the rest of them bearable ;-)    And, sleeping better meant that I could enjoy the weekend and not spend the majority of it trying to stay awake until bedtime, lol.

There were 3 new additions to the library - the first of which is what I'm reading at the moment.  At a little less than halfway through, I can say that there is a wealth of 'handed down' type information; some quite usable and I'm looking forward to giving them a try, a few others quite questionable and while they make for interesting reading, I would never . . . .

The other two are -

On the reading front, I finished the book I was reading before starting on Aunt Epp, and there were quite a few magazines and newspapers read too.  I DID get to those hock bones that have been on the 'to do' list for ages.  I dug them all out of the freezer, there were 7 in all, and to those I added some bendy carrots and parsnips, celery, a whole onion sliced up, a bulb of garlic (small & homegrown) smashed, some homegrown rosemary and 2 vegetable stock cubes dissolved in water and then more water added to almost cover the ingredients. 

The pan was brought to a boil and then turned completely down and left to simmer on the hob all day long.  After about 2 hours the aroma was simply glorious.  Then as with the beef broth from last week, I strained the broth through a sieve and was left with this-

Covered and left in the fridge overnight, it had the customary layer of 'fat' covering it when it was brought out on to the counter the next day.  This was scraped off and the underlying bit was a thick wobbly jelly, the same as the beef, only lighter in colour.  The jelly has gone into 5 freezer bags and is now safely stored out in the freezer.  With the next hock I'm hoping to use a portion of the meat for split pea soup.  If I remember!

Below is part of Sunday's dinner. 

I do love to cook a chicken this way, in a slow cooker.  You don't exactly get the wonderful crispy skin that you do if it's cooked in the oven, but it is always so very moist and there is no fuss of having to check it.  It was put in the slow cooker on low about 10pm Saturday night and although ready to eat much earlier, I didn't turn it off until almost 12 the next day and it wasn't overcooked in the slightest.  As with most meats used in the slow cooker, just remember to use VERY LITTLE liquid - unless it is a very lean cut - or else you'll be boiling it more than roasting it.  :-)

So, add in a bit of telly here and there, some of it the rubbish kind that you only watch on a weekend like this, and a takeaway pizza and you pretty much have my lazy weekend.  Hope yours was as good, and if not have yourself a lazy (can you manage offline too?) weekend soon . . . it does a body and mind good.

Gill-  I'd be more than happy to . . . oh wait . . . no, sorry, can't manage the plane fare.  LOL  I'll be thinking of you and Molly though when I do ours.