Jobs done, and an awful smell

 I achieved most of what was on my list for batch cooking & freezing yesterday.  I made about 20 dumplings and froze them uncooked.....there was some suet dough left, enough to make a couple of pasties for today's tea, a potato cheese & onion one for me, with added bacon for husband.

Then I made the veggie burgers - chopped up carrot, parsnip and shallots in my little processor and sauteed them,  Mashed a drained can of butterbeans and added to the veg in a bowl.  Stirred through some grated cheese, plenty of black pepper and a little salt and some dried sage and thyme.  Added a beaten egg to bind, mixed the lot together thoroughly and formed into burgers, it made 6 large ones.

I was flagging a bit by this time (lunchtime, having also pegged a wash load out on the line) so didn't get to do loads of apples for freezing.  However, I did make a couple of apple and cinnamon cakes, which went in the oven along with the veggie burgers.  One of the cakes has been frozen, along with all the burgers.

This morning I'm going shopping, then making up the pasties with the leftover suet pastry.  I'll also do some apples for the freezer - just slicing them and putting in the oven briefly with the pasties to make use of the 2nd shelf.  And then I'm doing nothing for the rest of the day!

The engineer who came on Thursday to service the boiler for the oil-fired central heating, found a leaking pipe underneath the tank, so he had to replace it.  He spilt a bit of oil (it's kerosene, I think) whilst he was doing it - it was in the boiler cupboard in the utility room, thank goodness it's not in the kitchen.  Have you ever smelt spilt kerosene?  It absolutely reeks, a very strong oily chemically smell.  The engineer did clean it up straight away, but the stuff had seeped into the concrete floor underneath the tank so he probably couldn't get to all of it, he did the best he could and was most apologetic.  Husband has liberally sprinkled a whole tub of bicarbonate of soda over the area, as far as he could reach (Google advice), and we keep spraying the area with an odour-neutralising (supposedly) spray.  2 days on, however, we can still smell it, although I would say it's marginally less powerful now.  As my big freezer and my larder storage cupboards are in the utility room, along with the washing machine, I go in there quite a lot and am hit with this overpowering pong every time.  According to Google, the smell takes a while to go.  If anyone has any experience of getting rid of this awful smell, or any other ideas, do let me know!