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On Sunday we had a lovely day with family: the cousins are at the age where they are finally starting to play as a group, meaning less input from parents. And therefore more chance of us having a complete conversation. We had a great time making marble runs with pipe lagging (an idea I got from pinterest) and playing in the park. On Monday we spent time with Granny M, and made splatter paint Haggises, then on Tuesday the builders arrived with the metaphorical tonne of bricks to begin the build in earnest. With DH working from home as much as possible to supervise ‘his’ project, we snuck out for lunch on Wednesday and spent a lovely hour talking floor plans and wallpaper. The Girls had tea with good friends on Thursday night, after I’d delivered DA’s birthday invitations. We were delighted to learn of the safe arrival of a friend’s baby and of the impending arrival of another. Friday saw me give a talk about blogging to parents from school, and the carpets got a much needed clean. A double birthday celebration on Saturday morning gave us a quiet ride down to the Beach House where we spent the day laughing and playing.
Project 366 #1: run for your lives
Project 366 #2: a little light reading
Project 366 #3: Darling, I bought us a dog.
Project 366 #4: how do you eat yours?
Project 366 #5: four go shopping
Project 366 #6: Three heads are better than one- looking at the menu.
I am new to slow cooking. In fact my mantra of late has been fast cooking: the kind of cooking that can be whipped up in twenty minutes from when I come downstairs having left The Girls screaming put The Girls to bed to when DH walks through the door. My life involves short-cuts and cheats (hence the -esque in the blog title, in case you were wondering).
Now what better cheat could there be than to take a bunch of prepared ingredients, shoving them into the cooker and leaving them for eight hours. Seriously? Why has it taken me so long to get behind the slow-cooker movement?
Anyhow, back to Tescos last week. I saw the hugest lump of meat joint of Pork on special offer. I bought it because it was on offer, not having the first clue what to do with it, but when you are buying over 5kg of meat for a tenner, you know you’ll be able to find something. And I did:
The recipe called for pork butt, not that I have a clue what that is, and I had shoulder, but I figured it would work anyhow.
The recipe also called for Diet Pepsi. I didn’t have that, so I used Diet Coke.
The recipe called for Barbecue Sauce. Nope, not that either. HP Fruity.
It’s kind of pathetic when a recipe calls for three ingredients and you have to use a substitute for every single one.
And do you know, it was awesome. So awesome that we are still eating it. So let me tell you a few things that you can do with 5kg of delicious pulled pork:
Freeze it, in batches. A little goes a long way.
Serve with mashed root vegetables, broccoli and some of the reduced sauce.
Slap in a bun with a dollop of applesauce.
Spoon over rice with a side of stir fried vegetables.
Make pulled pork tortillas with avocado, refried beans and some sour cream.
Put it between two tortillas, sprinkle with grated cheese and microwave for a minute or so.
I found the most wonderful heart-shaped foil cases recently and really wanted to use them for something. Then Anchor Butter got in touch about their Bring Back Elevenses Campaign, and the first thing I thought of was Rocky Road. Others may like a crumpet, or a wedge of cake at 11am, but I want a morsel of chocolate.
Elevenses never really went anywhere, it’s just been a little forgotten.
We want to empower people who feel the need to have a nice little sit, with a cup of tea and a nibble at around 11 o’clock. The kids are at school, you’ve made countless packed lunches, the dog’s been for a walk and before you start your day (as if it hasn’t already been going for hours!) you need a bit of a recharge. Maybe put your feet up, give your mum a ring or check your Facebook page; it really doesn’t matter just as long as it restores the calm in your head and heart. You might call us crazy, but we find that a buttered crumpet or slice of cake at this time of day is just what’s needed. We want people to embrace this mid morning snack, in all its glory and we want you to join us!
Anchor Butter is a heritage brand, which has been loved by families for generations. Providing people with a proper butter, for perfect puddings and really good roasts.
I remember when we first moved to our current house, there was a weekend of celebrating marriage at our local church. As we were having our daughter christened that weekend, I wanted to offer something to the cake sale that accompanied the exhibition. Knowing that the established community would have cakes totally sewn up, I thought I’d play it safe with a no-bake offering. It got a suitably luke-warm reception when I placed it on the table, told the ladies what was in it and left them to it but was delighted to find that it has almost all sold by the time I returned. DH was furious that there wasn’t more left for him. I felt that I had been welcomed into the church!
When I was growing up, Rocky Road used to be called Fridge Cake and was made from stale Digestives and sultanas. I am not entirely sure when it morphed into Rocky Road, but I love it. I love that you can dress it up or down, depending on the recipients: for adults I use pistachios and pecans, cranberries, blueberries and Goji berries; for the children, I dice dried apricots, sultanas and add a big handful of Shreddies.
Whether I make it for big or small, I do use good quality chocolate and butter (and Golden Syrup) to make it. I tend to use St Nigella of Lawson’s recipe to make it, or at least as a starting point.
Once you’ve made your Rocky Road, shove encourage it into the heart-shaped containers with the back of a spoon and press down. Then, melt a packet of Red Candy Melts, and add a layer of the red chocolate-esque goo to each heart-shaped wedge. Then sit down with a cuppa at 11am and feel the love for Elevenses.
When Gymboree made my daughters cry, I was utterly devastated. Needless to say I handed in our notice, writing a furious accompanying letter. And then I had to work out what to do next.
Tuesday is Dimples’ Day: LBG is at school so it’s just me and her. We used to do Gymboree then get errands done before the school run. I had to find something new to fill the time slot Gymboree had left vacant. Lucky for me, there was a place left on the Kitchen Stars course in Croydon.
LBG attended Kitchen Stars not long after Dimples was born, so you could say we were both familiar with the format. There’s no doubt that my Girls love cooking with me, but I wanted them to be exposed to a more formal way of teaching the cooking skills we all need. And I also wanted them to learn a wider variety of recipes than they might learn at home. (OK, that’s a lot of crap, I just wanted something that we could do on a Tuesday morning. Which is not to say that those things aren’t true of Kitchen Stars. Let me get back to the other side of the brackets and I’ll fill you in.)
Emma started Kitchen Stars a few years ago. She runs classes in the Bromley, Beckenham and Croydon areas. Her love for food really shows in every moment of the classes, from the recipes which are all healthy, balanced and interesting, to the ingredients, to her whole friendly manner in class. The Kitchen Stars courses run in six week bursts and each course has a theme. They start from the age of two and run all the way up to sixteen year olds. Emma can also offer cooking parties for small groups, and can be persuaded to do a similar thing for grown-ups!!
In the past two weeks, Dimples has grated, chopped, snipped, whisked, mixed and smelled. She has made Berry Bakewell and Fruity Bean Bake, both of which were popped in the oven when we returned home. And eaten by everyone in the household. Which is nothing short of miraculous. Isn’t that the best recommendation you will ever get?
DH and I took The Girls to the supermarket this weekend, which is something we rarely do. Remarkably, things went smoothly. Even more remarkably, the staff gave DH a voucher as a ‘goodwill gesture’ from the management: the man in front of us was short of money and DH very kindly made up the difference. If this is an example of the level of service you get in a Waitrose then I shall spend more time in there: at the very least I want to try out the new cafe with our unexpected voucher.
The Haggis
Aside from DH’s random act of kindness, and Waitrose’s reciprocation, the trip had one significant moment that stuck in the minds of The Girls: there was a funny object that they hadn’t seen before in the meat aisle: what was it. I explained that it was a kind of sausage (in our house meat comes in two variations: a kind-of-sausage or a sort-of-chicken) that Scottish people eat on Burn’s Night.
Top Tip: water down your paint to make it easier to flick
Which is, somehow, how I found myself in the kitchen today ‘making Haggis’. Now I’m fairly sure that there is a description of a Haggis which goes along the lines of ‘you take a sheep’s stomach and you stuff it with meat and barley’. Frankly, I balked at sheep’s stomach, so the contents make not a jot of difference to me. But I used my mummy-initiative, found two old toothbrushes and showed LBG and Dimples how to flick paint.
Turn the toothbrush brush down and rub your finger across it to splatter paint. Or just flick it.
Or you could just paint it with your toothbrush
And flick they did: red and yellow and brown and black got splattered all over the paper, the floor (I laid out a large mess mat which caught the worst of it), the dog and themselves. Then we left the art to dry whilst we paid a visit to Granny M. Later, I cut a slightly cartoonish Haggis shape from the speckled paper and each child stuck it firmly down onto a piece of paper. They stood proudly before the ‘funny sausage’ once they were displayed in the kitchen and declared themselves to be proud of their work, but that they “don’t think I would like to eat it, Mamma”. I entirely agree.
I like making things from cupcake cases almost as much as I like making things from corks. Just before Christmas I saw a really lovely snowflake wreath on Pinterest. It sat around in the back of my mind for a while until one afternoon when The Girls were unexpectedly occupied and I was twiddling a cupcake case in my hand, when the idea came back to me.
So, you know how to make paper snowflakes, right? I had to think about it for a minute, but I got there. What’s great about using cupcake cases is that they are already snowflake-shaped, so all you have to do is fold in half, then half again, then in half a third time. And another. Then start cutting a design into your cupcake flake. Repeat with as many cases as you fancy. I mixed it up with a variety of sizes, but kept a colour scheme.
Next I stuck the cupcake cases onto white card and cut around them.
Finally, I stuck those snowflakes onto the wreath shape that I cut out of a cereal box. It’s slightly askew, but I rather like my snowflake wreath. they keep threatening snow in England this month, but we’ve yet to see any, so this may be as close as I get!!
Project 366 #2: Laughing out loud at Hairy Maclary, as read by Daddy
Project 366 #3: I can write my letter, Mamma!
Project 366 #4: Muff Cake
Project 366 #5: Heart Sandwich
Project 366 #6: a different kind of mixer
Project 366 #7: cooking pancakes with Daddy
Sunday, as ever, was a day of beach walks and packing up to come back to London. This weekend ended slightly earlier as LG had yet another birthday party to attend. On Monday night we had dinner with old friends/employers in Wimbledon and didn’t get home until 1am, which meant that I have been struggling to keep up ever since. Then Tuesday brought bad news about the build: the planners had some major issues. As it turned out they were swiftly solved by our super-efficient builder. Thursday brought an unexpected article featuring this blog with a host of other excellent blogs, which made my day, and a decision to walk away from a volunteer position which has actually eased my mind. The best day by far was Friday, when the concrete was laid and The Girls and I saw a real-life Bob-the-Builder-style cement mixer up close. We then studied what a mixer does by using my magimix to make Valentine’s Day treats for school. See? There’s always an opportunity for learning in our house. And cooking. And both together! Saturday saw Katsu Curry and kids parties, building dens in the sitting room and lots of kisses.
