On the move!

We've sold the house again and hope to move back to the UK at the end of September.
Have just come back from a visit to family and friends and to see our new granddaughter - Emily Kristen.
She was 10 lbs at birth and has long feet and hands. Going to take after her Grandad I think, who's 6'6"!

We also went to look at some houses, and on our return, put in an offer on a house we'd seen twice, and it was accepted. We hope to complete on both houses at nearly the same time, so we can move back and get into the new house to redecorate. We'll rent a holiday cottage nearby until we've done what we want to do.

There's a lovely big kitchen in the new house so am looking forward to cooking in it. It has a gas cooker, and I've not used one for many years. Have had gas hobs in the last 3 houses and this house, but have had electric ovens.

Don't know this area very well, so am looking forward to a new chapter in our lives.

Lemon courgette cake

It's that time of year again - courgettes. They're so prolific that if you blink, you miss one, and it's become a marrow! We decided to only plant one plant, but it's still prolific. Reminds me of 'The day of the Triffids'!

I've tried a chocolate courgette cake, so wanted to find something different.

I found this recipe on the excellent site - http://www.allrecipes.co.uk/ and I tweaked it a bit.

200g grated courgettes
150g caster sugar
1 egg
125ml veg.oil
200g plain flour
1/2 tspn salt
1/2 tspn bicarb.
1/4 tspn baking powder
1 heaped tspn cinnamon
2 tspns lemon zest

Icing sugar and lemon juice if you want to ice it.

Preheat oven 160C/gas3
Grease a loaf tin.
In a bowl beat together the courgettes, egg, sugar and oil.
Sieve the flour with the baking powder and bicarb. then add the cinnamon and lemon zest. Stir this into the courgette mixture and gently mix together till just blended.
Pour into the tin and bake for about 40 mins.
Leave in the tin till cool, then turn onto a wire rack.

I made some lemon icing by mixing icing sugar and lemon juice, and poured it over.

You can peel the courgettes before grating, but I like the green specks in the cake.

Banana cake

I had 2 very ripe bananas to use up so decided to make a cake. It's very easy and delicious [I sound like Ina!].

2 ripe bananas [about 400g]
150g butter at room temperature
150g soft brown sugar
100g sultanas
300g plain flour
2 tspn baking powder
1/2tspn bicarbonate of soda
1 tspn cinnamon
2 medium beaten eggs
100ml vegetable oil

Preheat oven 180C/gas4/350F

Grease a 2lb/900g loaf tin
Peel and mash the bananas.
Put the butter and sugar in a bowl and beat together till fluffy. Stir in the bananas and the sultanas.
Sieve together the flour, baking powder and soda.
Add the flour mixture and the eggs to the banan mixture, adding about a third at a time of each.
Mix together well. Then stir in the oil.
Put into the loaf tin and bake for about 40 mins. Leave in the tin to cool and then put onto a wire rack.

I didn't have the 400g of bananas so used more sultanas. I also didn't use any oil this time and it's still a moist cake.