Time for another cute cat picture. Today we have Willow stealing the remote.

I brought a breast of lamb in Sainsbury's the other day because the price tag caught my eye. For just £2.36 its probably one of the cheapest cuts of meat I have come across and it does require quite a lot of cooking time to make it into anything worth eating as it tends to be very fatty.

I chopped up a large onion and a few cloves of garlic and sat the lamb on top. Then I cooked it in a roasting tin with about half a bottle of cheap red wine, a couple of bay leaves and a bunch of lemon thyme from the garden. I covered it with foil and left it for two and half hours at 180 degrees. Then I chopped up three slices of bread and some bunches of mixed garden herbs in the food processor. I covered the top of the lamb with Dijon mustard and put the herb crust on top. I drizzled it with a little olive oil. Then I finished it off in the oven at 200 degrees for 30 minutes. You can see the result before I carved it. Served with baby garden potatoes and garden beans it certainly makes a nice low budget meal for 2 people.

According to this article RSPCA animal shelters are struggling with the amount of cats and kittens needing new homes. The charity has said that many of its rehoming centres are now completely full. Between January and July this year a total of 4,135 cats were taken in by the RSPCA. The charity is now appealing for new owners who can provide permanent homes for some of them. It strikes me that part of the problem is people not getting their pets neutered, something that I think should be compulsory when taking on a pet. Much as I would love to take on another cat we have our hands full with the four we currently have but if you are considering getting a furry companion do contact your local RSPCA shelter and give a kitty a home.

If this article is to be believed a man has created a whisky made from urine. The whisky is made using the high sugar urine produced by diabetes patients. The urine is filtered using the same processes which are used to purify water. This removes the sugars which are used in the fermentation process. The whisky is not available commercially but if do you want to try some tasting opportunities are available at the Materials design event in London in September.

We are lucky that we have lots of wildlife in our garden. I do my best to encourage more and tend to leave wild areas for the birds as well as leaving quite a lot of the fallen fruit on the floor for them to eat. I also tend to put food out for  them and am often surprised by the birds that come to the bird table. We have groups of crows and starlings that visit regularly but I was recently surprised by this group of jays that visited as I have never seen them in such large numbers. In all there were seven birds but they didn’t all land to feed.  I was, however, able to get a few pictures of some of them. Click on the images for bigger versions.

I took this picture of Lucy the other day. If she was a LOL cat she would be saying “I is on your exercise bike stealing your calories”.

This is interesting its a drive through supermarket that has recently been opened by Tesco. Called Click and Collect customers can order their shopping online and then drive to the collection point to pick it up. It is designed for customers who do not have time to wait in for an internet delivery. The store at Baldock in Hertfordshire is a pilot which if successful will be rolled out across the country.

I took this picture of Oscar the other day. He likes to collect as many cushions as possible to make himself a nice nest in the middle. He  certainly makes sure he is comfortable.

According to this article two thirds of people would. The findings are part of a social experiment which involved leaving a wallet in various locations to see if it was returned. The wallets each contained £10 cash, a photograph, receipts, stamps and contact details for the owner. The research which was carried out across five cities found that half of wallets dropped in cultural centres are returned. Half of those found in shopping centres are also returned. In contrast no wallets that were dropped in cafes or on public transport were handed in. In all 100 wallets were dropped across various locations in London, Birmingham, Glasgow, Cardiff and Leeds. One in five were handed back with people in London being most most honest and people in Birmingham the least honest. One in four wallets in the West Midlands was returned minus the money but all of those returned in London still contained the cash. Personally I would always hand in a lost wallet complete with cash, would you?

£25 might seems a lot for a pot of tea but this is not just any tea. Its Mariage Freres Sacred White tea. The tea is grown in Sri Lanka on a secret estate and is special because it is only picked by women with golden scissors. The tea is supposed to contain more antioxidants than any other black or green tea. If you want to try it you can get it in Manchester at Kitchen at The Circle restaurant. If you don’t want to spend quite much on your tea they do have a full menu of other teas starting at £2.25.

According to this article British people will start eating less meat and more fish as prices continue to rise. Research suggests that fish will become a larger part of the British diet because it is one of the few foods that has fallen in price in recent years. The price of meat on the other hand continues to go up. Personally we eat very little red meat at home now, as it has become very expensive to buy. If I do buy it I tend to have to source cheaper cuts which require longer cooking times in order to make them tender. I can’t say, however, that I have noticed the price of fish coming down. We tend to eat a diet of mainly chicken and cheaper meat dishes to make such as shepherds pie or lasagne. I do buy lamb or beef for special occasions but we have certainly cut back on the amount we purchase.

According to this article people who have access to the internet are more likely to be in a relationship. A study which looked at people with access to the web found that 82.2% of them had a spouse or partner compared to only 62.8% of people who had no internet connection. The study put the findings down to the fact that online dating makes finding a partner much easier. The study which was carried out in the US also said that the internet would soon overtake introductions from friends as the most common way for people to meet a prospective partner.

If this article is to be believed pubs are now making more money from food than from drink. It seems customers are increasingly turning away from traditional local pubs in favour of gastropubs. Rising beer prices and more sophisticated pub menus appear to be behind the change. The average landlord now relies on food for 52% of their turnover. The figures come from the trade newspaper The Publican and make sobering reading for the traditional local pub which is increasingly under threat.

According to this article a man has decided he will tweet the entire bible. Chris Juby intends to publish the entire bible on Twitter. He will do it by condensing one chapter a day into a tweet of less than 140 characters. The project is likely to take him around three years to complete. You can follow him here if you are interested.

According to this article more and more people are taking out payday loans in order to help pay the bills. The loans are so called because they offer a short term loan designed to help get you through until you get paid. Whilst taking the loans out is often and easy process and the money is usually available very quickly it seems paying them back is not always so simple. The article highlights the fact that payday loans often have massive rates of interest attached to them with some charging rates out to 2,000%. According to Customer Focus employees borrowed £1.2 billion in 2009 alone. Rates of interest on the loans tend to range from 13 to 18% but some are as high 30% generating an SPR of as much as 1,000 to 2000%. This can mean the initial loan can quickly get out of control and be hard to pay back particularly on a modest income. Customer Focus has called for greater safeguards to protect customers.

We have quite a few plums trees in the garden and being plum season I have been looking for ways of using up the seasonal glut. I made this plum chutney the other day and it turned out rather well. It is quite sweet but is the perfect compliment to gammon, fish and strong cheeses. The recipe is from the Reader’s Digest book Food From Your Garden.

Ingredients
2lb (1kg) stoned plums
1lb (500g) apples
1lb (500g) shallots or onions
1lb (500g) raisins
6oz (175g) brown sugar
1oz (25g) salt
1 teaspoon each of ground ginger, allspice, dry mustard and nutmeg
1 pint (600ml) vinegar

Method
Chop the stoned plums, the peeled and cored apples, the peeled shallots and the raisins. Place in a pan with the sugar, salt, spices and vinegar. Bring to the boil, simmer until soft and thick. Put into jars and leave to cool. The recipe makes approx 4.5lb (2.25 kg) of chutney. That’s around 5 medium jars.