Biscuits for Betty

 One of my readers, J (who doesn't have a blog!) asked if the cause of Betty's recurrent ear problems is known.  Yes - our previous vet who we had seen since Betty was a puppy (she's now nearly 8.5 years) said that it's down to her ear shape - she has very small ears with very narrow channels and they're also very hairy inside, this means she doesn't get a good air flow in her ears.  She doesn't have ear mites, it's a recurrent yeast infection.  He told us there is an operation to widen the ear canal, but like any operation it comes with a risk - from the anaesthetic and the possibility of damaging her ear canal, and it doesn't always work anyway.  So we decided it probably wasn't worth the risk.  The gel he used to prescribe her, called Osurnia, works very well and quickly clears up the infection.  Betty used to get these ear infections around 4 or 5 times a year in the early years.....now it's down to maybe twice or three times a year.  Thanks for your question.

Lovely day yesterday, not wall to wall sunshine, in fact it was a bit hazy and dull at times, but nice and warm.  Husband planted up 3 bags with seed potatoes, 2 spuds in each bag, and sowed another row of carrot seeds.  I spent the morning in the kitchen, making soup from a bagful of frozen cauli and broccoli stalks, I added some cream cheese (that Philadelphia plant one, it has no real taste to it but is quite thick and creamy), chopped sage, plenty of black pepper and whizzed it up with my stick blender, stirring in a handful of grated Cheddar (the real stuff!) before serving for lunch.  I also made a cake - it was going to be an ordinary light fruit cake but I decided to make a spiced dried apricot and cranberry one instead, lovely.  Then I made dog biscuits - mashed banana with peanut butter (100% peanuts and nothing else) and a squirt of honey, mixed with oat flour made from whizzed up rolled oats and baked until crisp.  

I also made Russian salad - do you remember that from years ago?  We used to have it at home when I was a child, I think it came in tins, it was diced potatoes, carrots and peas in a mayo-type dressing - a bit like a fancy potato salad, I guess.  Not seen it in the shops for years and years, but somebody mentioned it either on a blog or FB the other day, and it reminded me how much I used to like it.  I made the dressing by mixing mayo, some of that plant Philadelphia and a spoonful of Dijon mustard, yum.  We had it to accompany buttermilk chicken burgers (bought) in rolls for dinner.

I'm doing well at using up the contents of the freezer, it's half empty now, my intention is to do a freezer shop and another couple of batch cooks of meals just before sister comes.  Eating out of the freezer and larder cupboard means I'm not having to spend much on food shopping either, just the odd top up of fresh veg and fruit.  

Wall to wall warm sunshine forecast today, definitely an outdoors day.