We made this pie the other day. We didn't have any plain flour so we had to make the pie crust with self raising flour but it turned out ok. We made the pastry for the pie crust and then cooked the spinach. We put the cooked spinach into the pie crust, followed by crumbled feta cheese and a handful of grated cheddar before finishing with the top crust of the pie. You can see some of the stages below.

Staffordshire cheese has now been given protected status under EU law. This means that only cheese from that region can be called Staffordshire cheese. The cheese is said to have a distinctive taste and texture because of the diet the dairy cows are fed on. I haven’t tried it yet but might have to get some.

If you have ever planted some seeds and found that none of them grew into plants, then you, like me, probably put it down to the fact that you are not very good at gardening. This article, however, suggests that as many as 99 per cent of seeds in packets are dead. Seeds were tested from 15 different suppliers, with only six companies meeting industry standards. Seeds from Edwin and Tucker were the worst with 99 per cent of delphinium seeds being dead and the others unhealthy. Unwins also did badly with two per cent of their delphinium seeds producing healthy plants. Thompson and Morgan came out best with 83 per cent of seeds producing healthy plants. I usually buy my seeds from Thompson and Morgan, mainly because they have such a good range and looking at these results, I will continue to do in the future.

In the latest news surrounding Northern Rock it has announced a cut back on the range of mortgage products they will offer. Two thirds of its mortgage product range is going to be axed in what seems to be a major product overhaul. This change is unlikely to affect the banks risk profile because it is still prepared to lend up to 125% of a properties value, something which is the root cause of its present problems. Despite the changes rates on their fixed rate and variable mortgages are likely to remain unchanged.

Sony has announced that they are releasing a cut price version of the PS3. It will retail for £299 but will be without many of the essential features in the full version. The cut down version will not be backwards compatible with the previous consoles and has a 40GB hard disk rather than 60GB. It also has fewer USB ports than the full version. The price of the 60GB model has also been reduced from £425 to £349. I still don't think I would buy a version that is not backwards compatible, no matter how cheap it gets.

Villages across the north of England have been receiving carved stone heads. The heads are thought to be carved by local man. So far 13 of the stone heads have been left in various locations including outside the post office in Braithwell. The heads appeared in the middle of the night and although there is CCT footage of a man leaving them there, so far no one knows why. My guess is someone looking for some publicity for their sculptures. I quite like them and wouldn't mind having one for my garden.

I read this article that suggests some mortgage brokers are encouraging homebuyers to lie about their finances. Some lenders are giving people up to eight times their salary. Experts have warned that this type of irresponsible lending could drag Britain into a US-style subprime mortgage crisis. Brokers have been pushing first time buyers to take out “self certification” mortgages that let people state their income without any proper employer checks to see if they qualify. Self-certification home loans now account for one in every ten mortgages as opposed to one in twenty four years ago. It just seems silly to me to encourage people to borrow more than they can afford to pay to back, and personally I find it hard to believe there are companies that do this.

In one example of the rising property prices in the UK, a beach chalet in Devon has just been sold for £91,000. The chalet is made of timber and has a tin roof. It was originally thought the chalet would sell for £40,000 but it appears to have fetched a great more. It does, however, have planning permission to build a two-storey chalet on the site, so has the potential to be a good investment for the London buyer.

BT have confirmed that they will create a partnership with Fon, a company which was founded in Spain in 2006. Fon’s users currently agree to share their Wi-Fi connectivity through a separate secure channel. They can either have a 50% cut of the fees charged to their visitor or alternatively to surf other users connections for free. However, their expansion has been limited by ISPs who do not allow the sharing of broadband connections. BT has now given its approval to do this and has effectively extended its OpenZone network across 3 million BT Home Hubs, or the proportion of those that agree to share their broadband connection. They have not currently said whether they will offer a reduction in rates to customers that do agree to do this but it is likely that those customers will have access to BT’s new wireless network and Fon’s global network of around 200,000 hot spots. It all sounds very interesting and as a BT Broadband customer, I am interested to see how it work.

A snapping turtle has been caught in Wales. The turtle which is native to America has been loose in a wildlife park for around twenty years. It was only when the ducks and moorhens started disappearing that the park wardens realised they had a problem. The turtle nicknamed Snappy (no points for an original name) has now been housed at the nearby Tortoise Trust rescue sanctuary.

I read this interesting article about some Stone Age rice field that have been discovered in a swamp in China. The discovery shows that rice was growing in the coastal wetlands of China around 7,700 years ago. There was also evidence of rice cultivation, including flood and fire control. The discovery is interesting because it helps cast light on how humans went from being hunter gatherers to farmers, something which I find fascinating.

Eleven new species have been found in a remote region of Vietnam, called the Green Corridor. They include a snake, two species of butterfly, five orchids and three other new plants. The new snake called the white-lipped keelback is covered with red spots and has a yellow strip on its head. The new orchids are particularly interesting because they have no leaves and contain no chlorophyll. Instead of relying on the suns energy they live on decaying matter.

If you have a few million pounds spare you might want to spend it on a copy of the Magna Carta. The copy is one of only 17 known copies and the last one currently in private hands. It is thought it could sell for around £15 million.

I took this picture the other day of Willow and Lucy in the tree, trying to look over the wall.

Tesco have been selling New Zealand lamb packaged as British Lamb. One customer brought a product labelled as British slow cooked lamb shanks only to find when she opened the packet that the small print described them as tender lamb shanks of marinated New Zealand lamb. New Zealand lamb is around half the price of British lamb, so it seems this is a cost cutting exercise by Tesco. Tesco said the meal was described as British to indicate the type of cuisine rather than the origins of the ingredients. This seems a rather poor excuse for misleading packaging.

I made these spicy buns the other day. It basically just a simple fairy cake mixture with added spice, but they really are tasty. If you want to make them you need 4 eggs, 225g/8oz of caster sugar, 225g/8oz of self raising flour, 225g/8oz of butter. All you need to do is whisk the eggs and sugar until fluffy and then blend in the flour and butter until it’s mixed. Then add a few good handfuls of raisins or sultanas and about three teaspoons of mixed spice. Divide the mixture between some muffin cases and cook on 180C/350F/Gas Mark 4 for about 15 minutes.

It is rumoured that Microsoft are looking at taking a stake in Facebook. According to some reports they are considering paying between $300 million and $500 million for a 5% stake in the website. The news, if true could potentially start a bidding war between Microsoft and Google. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive has already refused a takeover approach by Yahoo and has said he wants the group to stay independent. It will be interesting to watch where this goes.

The BBC Trust has given its backing to a BBC high definition channel. It is expected that the channel will include programmes from across the BBC’s current channels and not just from BBC1. They are considering launching a four hour HD service on Freeview initially before rolling out the new channel later. It will be interesting to see how popular the service proves to be.

One thing I can never seem to get enough sleep, no matter how much sleep I try to get, I always wake up tired. New research has found that a lack of sleep can double the risk of heart disease. The research showed that people who cut their sleeping patterns from seven to five hours a night showed a doubled risk of fatal cardiovascular disease. On the other hand, the same research also found that people who increased their sleep patterns to eight or more hours are also twice as likely to die but from cancer, depression and psychiatric problems, as opposed to heart disease. The question is, is it is better to get more or less sleep?

You might find the price of your Christmas dinner will be more like year after turkey farmers have announced they will need to increase their prices. The move comes because there has been a huge increase in costs recently, with the price of poultry feed going up from £181 a tonne to £240 a tonne. This increase is likely to put around 10 to 20% extra on the cost of your Christmas turkey.