Last weekend was a kitchen one, rather than papercrafting. Over the two days I managed to make a batch of gluten free almond butter chocolate chip cookies. And very yummy they were too. I did a lasagne for dinner, cream of mushroom soup with white wine for the week, braised lamb shanks with a redcurrant and mint gravy with mashed potatoes and parsnips and a batch of peach chutney.

With peaches being in season they are lovely and ripe, large and firm, and very cheap! There was a bit more liquid in the chutney than I'd like but I wanted to retain firm chunks of peaches rather than have a soupy mess, I kind of made up the recipe as I went along but it contained:

1 cup of champagne vinegar

0.75 of a cup of brown sugar

1 tsp of mustard seeds

1 finely chopped small onion

1 cinnamon stick

8 skinned and chopped peaches - firm ones are better

Handful of raisins

I just put all ingredients into a non stick saucepan, brought to the boiled and simmered for about an hour. Now the jar will sit in the fridge for about 5 weeks to mature before I can tell you how it turned out. Next time I'd either add more peaches or reduce the vinegar down to two thirds of a cup with half a cup of sugar.

The cookie recipe is exceedingly easy, and probably a good one to make with kids.

1 cup of almond butter

1 cup of granulated sugar

1 egg

2tsps of baking powder

Mix the almond butter and the sugar, add the egg and blend in. Next add the baking powder. You can also throw in some chocolate chips to taste as I did.

Next take about a walnut sized lump of dough and roll it into a ball. Place on greased proof paper on a baking tray, flatten with a fork to give a tines pattern and bake at 180c (160c fan oven) for about 11 mins. Allow to cool slightly on the tray before cooling completely on a wire rack.

Minor disaster was the oven element blowing up again as I started the weekend off, meaning I had to bake the cookies in the small convection oven in batches which took a while. I will be taking delivery of a lovely new oven tomorrow, as my old one sounded like an airplane taking off I'm looking forward to a bit more tranquility as the smells of baking cakes and roasting meats wafts through the house on the impending Wintery afternoons.

Only one day off this weekend as I'm working today (Sunday) on office moves. Yesterday was dedicated to getting my layout for the Sugar and Spice blog done. You can see it here. There's another layout on it's way of one of the kittens sleeping in what appears to be a very uncomfortable place, but he looks happy.

I also finished my friend's having a baby card which is doing the rounds at work, photo of that to follow.