Tasty tea time treats and the joy of Freecycle

 We have family staying this weekend and they all seem hungry all of the time. I don't mind as I love to feed them. I made ginger nut biscuits; they are crispy and yet chewy and they burst with ginger. You know me well enough to know that they cost pennies.

Here's the ginger nut recipe.

10oz self raising flour
7 oz sugar, I used soft brown but any will do.
1 tablespoon of bicarbonate of soda
2 tea spoons of ground ginger
6 oz margarine
1 tablespoon of golden syrup

Set the oven to 180 degrees centigrade - place baking paper or grease proof paper on two baking trays.

Met butter, golden syrup and sugar in a pan, do not allow to boil

Add all of the dry ingredients so it combines into a very thick paste.

Use a spoon to scoop a pebble size amount of mixture and roll into a ball on your hands, it will feel very oily, it supposed to.

Arrange the small balls onto the two trays, press down slightly.

Place in the hot oven for approx 16 - 18 minutes

Lift the paper off the tray with the biscuits attached and leave to cool on the work surface, still attached to the baking paper.

When cool they will be crispy and hard, eat as soon as possible, best served with a cup of tea.

 I also made a Victoria sponge sandwich, filled with my homemade blackberry jelly. Plenty to keep people going over the next few hours, minutes, seconds until they are all gone. Dearly Beloved sees my baking as an affirmation of how much I love him and takes it very personally if anything shop made comes into the house. Not that I would, the prices of shop bought cake never reflect the quality, meaning they cost a lot but don't deliver.

 We've been really lucky this week with freecycle. I've got rid of an old filing cabinet and a hover mower, to people who are glad of them. In return, I snaffled a Dyson, it's partly working and I think there's a blockage some where that Dearly Beloved is convinced he can fix. I now have two partly working Dysons and any minute now (please DB?) they will turn into working Dyson.

 We also now have a beech coffee table. I'm looking forward to people coming round for tea or coffee as I have somewhere to put plates of biscuits and tea pots and other such paraphernalia. It never ceases to amaze me that people just throw such things away, but at least they make sure they go to a new home and get used.