Tales of walking, eating, watching and playing. Vintage treasures and simple pleasures ... the things that make her happy.

Monday 15 August 2011

The Gremlin and the Paint Tin

Mr has been working really hard.  He will try his hand at anything and always makes a good job of it.  He has been preparing our old doors ready for painting, and filling and sanding our crumbling window frames.  There was much backbreaking and sweaty rubbing down and a bad case of 'sanding thumb', Once the prep was completed, he painstakingly painted the first window frame, BUT, as he stood back to admire his handiwork a gremlin 'lifted' the paint pot out of his hand and threw the paint all down the hamstone wall, also covering the potted Bay Tree and the brussel sprout plants destined for our Christmas Day lunch!  The expletives were heard from indoors. 
Amazingly, two hours later, after a couple of bottles of white spirit applied with wire brush, many towels, hot water and Fairy liquid most of the paint has been removed from the wall.  The puddle of paint on the earth has been mostly lifted away too but I don't think I will be planting veggies in that patch for a while!  Unfortunately, my brain did not register with "take a photo" and I don't think Mr would have been too pleased if I had anyway!

To cheer him up I bought him a little present from the charity shop - a chopping board to add to his collection.  The coriander was a present from a friend.

And then I made him some of his favourite granola!

2 cups of oats
1 cup of mixed nuts (I used walnuts, cashews, ready chopped mixed nuts, peanuts and almonds
1/4 cup of mixed seeds (I used sunflower, poppy, flax and sesame)
a handful of choc chips
1 tsp of ground cinnamon
1 cup of sultanas
6 tbsps honey
5 tbsps olive oil


Preheat your oven to 180 degrees cent. 

Bash up your nuts a bit and then put all your dry ingredients  (except the sultanas) into a big bowl.  Mix a little, then add the honey and oil and mix well. 

Turn out thickly onto a baking tray smoothing down a little with a wooden spoon.  Pop into the oven for about 25 mins, turning gently once or twice during cooking time.

When it is nice and golden, remove from the oven and add the sultanas.

Once cooled store in a airtight container for up to 2 weeks.  Lovely with milk or yogurt!

You can add whatever nuts, seeds, dried fruit you fancy / have lying around.   

6 comments:

Gretel said...

Snork! One of those not-really-funny yet kind of funny unfortunate slap stick moments, don't let him know I'm grinning at this end! Shame about the sprouts though.

Jen said...

Poor guy--what a day. That chopping block is very handsome. I have not made granola for years and you've got me thinking about giving it a try. What are sultanas?

Shortbread and Ginger said...

Oh dear, what a shame! Hope he's cheered up now!
Liz & Shortbread & Ginger

Mum said...

It all makes a colourful day. I must try your recipe for granola, it looks delish.
Love from Mum
xx

Pippin Lane said...

Ummm yum will try your granola!
We are currently sanding/filling/priming/painting all our wooden windows too.......gosh such a job, but will be ell worth it...the things we do in these old houses!
nattie x

Rose H (UK) said...

Erm, I seem to remember a similar event here but it wasn't just the paint, OH was injured when he landed! We still had a few drops of paint knocking about 10 years later though....