My new kitchen

As my kitchen was starting to fall to pieces, I recently departed for my holiday leaving instructions with my tame builder to rip it all out and put in a new one. He began burbling nonsense about "units" and "tiles" and "cooker" and "taps" to which my reply was "Mate, I'm paying you to make those decisions for me".

Leaving him with with the keys to Maalie Court, I hinted that I would be very pleased if it was finished when I got home.

Maalie Court's new kitchen. I am extremely pleased with it, it is un-fussy, functional and has more work surface and storage space than I had before. I am especially pleased with the eye-level grill facility on the cooker (can't be seen in this picture, the cooker is lower right in the corner).

Click on the picture to get an indication of the state of my old kitchen

Even before I had cleaned and put away all the kitchen crockery and utensils that I had left lying around the house, I could not resist the temptation to bake a couple of wholemeal organic loaves of bread.

Then I roasted a chicken, basted with chicken juice, butter and paprika suspension.
NOW you can see the eye-level grill.
I wonder how long those tiles will remain unstained from bolognese sauce.

I needed to see if my griddle worked properly, so I made a batch of Welsh cakes

Afternoon tea, anyone?

Recipe for Welsh Cakes
8 ounces self-raising flour
4 ounces margarine or butter
3 ounces of sugar
2 ounces of currants
1 egg
2-3 tablespoons of milk

Rub margarine into the flour until it looks like crumbs. Add the sugar and currants and mix. Then add the egg and milk until it makes a smooth dough but not too sticky. Roll out the dough to about 2cm thickness. Cut into circles of about 5cm and place on a hot greased griddle until brown on both sides. Sprinkle with icing sugar for decoration.

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The only disadvantage with my new kitchen that I have so far discovered is the tiled floor. Before, it was carpeted, so if I dropped an egg or spilled some milk, the carpet soaked it up nicely. Now I have to wipe it all up as otherwise I would be slip-sliding and skidding around all over the kitchen.