Making Butter- A simple way

I think that this little article was from the Daily Mail (a few years ago).

Sprouting - Cress

Last year I bought a packet of Cress in a local garden centre. I had this idea that somehow I would overnight love gardening... it didn't happen and I never got around to sowing them.

Anyway, I managed to dig them out of the seed tin and with a firm resolution, decided that I would sow them this week. I was absolutely amazed how quickly they grow! I would water them before college when they were just seeds and when I returned home, they had already sprouted.

Having said that, I just checked on them.... and they look flattened. The paper had just completely dried up. Dad said that wasn't like that when he woke up this morning. Perhaps it was the heat from the oven.

As it has lots of health benefits, there is a good side to growing them. Not that I do it for that- just that it tastes lovely in an egg mayonnaise sandwich!

Home Made Yoghurt- from a friend

I'm making it regularly at the moment: the first batch was runny, as we agreed often happens with the home made variety.

I made a second batch, in the same one, one-and-a-half-times-as-high-as-it-is-wide, 1 pint jar. I used the previous batch for the next starter, just to test the theory that yogurt thickens the more batches you re-make from the 'same' starter. That batch was even runnier than the milk I used to make it! "Oh," thought I. "That's no good."

Having bought a load of milk in the Eurostar at 10p a pint I decided to see what would happen if I tried to make yogurt from that starter. Just how runny can cured milk get? As I had quite a big quantity to use up (2 pints), I made it in the scrupulously clean, stainless steel saucepan where i boiled the milk and where I had made yogurt before. The saucepan is one and half time as wide as it is high and I pretty much filled it. That watery milky supposed 'yogurt' starter made a perfect batch of set yogurt.

Incredible. Thought I ought I ought to share that little gem with you...

(Used with permission.)

Crying over onions- a few remedies?

I was flicking through 'Carla Emery's Old Fashioned Recipe Book- An Encyclopedia of Country Living' that my Mum had picked up from the Book Barn a few years ago and I stumbled across an interesting entry.

Carla Emery had been told by some of her readers about a cure for the onion tears. I have never tried it before, so I would love to know if this is true. Next time someone is chopping onions I'll try to remember to ask them to test it.

• Keep a supply of onions in the fridge so that they are ready when you need them

Alternatively you could try:

• Putting them in the freezer 5-10 minutes before you need them. Apparently this doesn't effect their flavour or texture.

Or:

• Put a bread crust between your teeth, as it makes you breathe through your noes.