Nettle Soup

 To most people stinging nettles are a very annoying weed that grows at the end of the garden and stings every time you try to get rid of it. However stinging nettles are also a very nutritious plant full of vitamins and minerals, especially iron. They also contain more protein then any other native plant.

 My girls have been ill for a few weeks now with coughs and colds, so I have made them some very delicious nettle soup to fill them up with goodness.

 Using gloves I picked the tops of some young nettles. I then fried some onion and added a few potatoes and some celery. I added some frozen chicken stock I had made a while ago. After everything was cooked, I added the nettles and let it simmer for a few more minutes.  I used a soup blender to blended it all, this is necessary as the nettles are quite fibrous.  This soup has a really delicious and earthy taste.  You can just taste the goodness as you eat and best of all the girls really love it.   

Granola

Now that the weather is warmer my girls are not so keen on eating porridge for  breakfast anymore but I have lots of oats waiting to be eaten. They want to eat muesli again, so I got the idea to try and make some granola using the leftover oats.  I found lots of different recipes using different ingredients and I came to the conclusion that granola can be made with anything you fancy.  I made it using whatever I could fined in the cupboard. 

A Peg Bag

The other day I finely had a bit of creative inspiration, so I  dusted off the sowing machine and got busy.  The last few weeks have been warm and sunny, the perfect weather for drying the washing outside. But after the winter I found that most of my pegs were lost or broken because I always leave them on the washing line.  So I have bought myself some nice new pegs and I made made myself and nice new peg bag. 

I bought some oil cloth fabric so that if I leave it out in the rain (which I am sure I will) it will still keep its shape and hopefully the pegs dry. 
I used a child's size coat hanger and cut around it to get the shape of the bag.  



I then cut a whole and hemmed the edge of it.  Then I sewed the bag together turned it the right way around and put my coat hanger in. And then most importantly, I hung the washing out.  ;-)