A Can't Be Bothered Day.

Firstly, welcome to Trudie my new follower.

Well, I've had one of those 'can't be bothered' days. Can't be bothered to get out of bed...except I did. Can't be bothered to get off the sofa and go out...but I did. Can't be bothered to make dinner...but I did. Can't be bothered to vaccum or do the laundry...but I did. Can't be bothered to sew. Can't be bothered to knit.

Considering the mood I was in I did quite a lot of things I didn't feel like doing.  I stripped down the bed (once I'd crawled out of it) and washed the bedding and a few other bits and hung them up. I vaccumed throughout the downstairs. I made a lamb stew and left it cooking in the slow cooker while I then made a trip into town to get a few more Xmas presents. I did vegetate on the sofa this afternoon, wallowing in my fed up mood and eating far too much rubbish, and I didn't even do any knitting or sewing. I made dumplings this evening and cooked them on top of the stew in the slow cooker. I ate too much stew and now feel uncomfortably full. A bit of a mixed day but at least I didn't waste it completely by doing nothing at all.

I'm hoping for a better day tomorrow because so far I've felt fed up for most of this week. I enjoyed my Slimming club's Christmas lunch yesterday, but by the time I got home I'd spent enough time around people and was ready to hibernate again. It's a good job I have to go out sometimes because I'm sure I'd become a complete recluse otherwise.

Anyway, enough feeling sorry for myself; here's the info on the stew. The lamb was a pack of frozen chump chops from FarmFoods that I left out to defrost over night. They cost about £4 for 9 chops, I think. I cut all the fat off, deboned them and cut them into chunks. I didn't bother pre-frying before putting the chunks into the slow cooker. Most of the veg was 2 packs of diced swede and carrots bought reduced in Morrisons at 18p each. I added a large diced potato from my sack (10p), and a large onion (10p) plus a couple of stock cubes and some dried rosemary and thyme and black pepper (10p). The dumplings were made from a huge 3kg catering pack of suet mix I got ages ago from Approved Foods. I can't recall the exact price but it wasn't expensive. I used 12 oz of mix so about 25p. Total cost for approx 6 large servings was £4.91 or approx 82p per serving.

To cook the dumplings on top of the slow cooker you need to turn it to high about 30 minutes before putting them in so that the stew is bubbling, arrange them on top with a little room between them and get the lid back on as quickly as possible so you don't lose too much heat. They take about 30 minutes to cook and you can test whether they're done by sticking a skewer in and if it comes out clean with no sticky mixture on it they're done.

Just serve and enjoy.