Our Spring!

Happy days…

My last post on this site led to some soul searching about why I’m compiling this blog and what should be published. Eventually I came to the conclusion that it’s about celebrating the beautiful things in my life, so here they are.
Chris has been away this week, which explains why he hasn’t been snapped with my new phone camera, otherwise he’d be on here too.
Perhaps there should also be pics of all the cakes and puddings made recently too, but they don’t hang around long enough. Some recipes will follow when all the coursework has been marked. Before you ask, there won’t be any photos of that!

Rainsnowing on Mother’s Day

I’ve tried five attempts at writing a magnificent opening sentence, none of which flowed at all. Here is a picture of today’s rainsnow instead of writing the necessary thousand words to describe today – a family day, good times, very good food, tired grandchildren (and grandparents too after Theo’s waking up at silly o’clock).

There are now two possible chocolate cakes I can make, depending on the circumstances. For general cooking and fun with the kids, Mary Berry’s recipe holds all the aces. However for a cake with more intense flavour and labour, I am now converted to a Nigel Slater recipe for the perfect chocolate cake which appeared in the Observer Food Monthly during the autumn. Mercifully it was worth the effort!

Last week, Flo, Theo and I travelled into deepest Rutland to visit Doreen – another lovely day. We had lunch and lots of outdoorsy fun, culminating in a visit to the lambing sheds where the kids got to sit in Mr Mears’ yellow JCB Load-all tractor. These are not tractors or lambs but some rather glowingly beautiful daffodils and narcissi from D’s garden.

Howling gale

This evening I am glad not to be a horse owner, as there is no equine chum to angst over in the excitement of rain and high winds. It is a good evening however to catch up on paperwork, eat hot soup in front of the fire, read emails, bimble about on the web and watch the rerun of The Sopranos series six.

I am also glad to report that the scarf is coming on apace. Fortunately I chose lumpy wool which disguises the clumsy stitches – surely this glitch will be overcome before I set out on my Christmas list. Thanks for the responses so far: it may be advisable to state your colour preference as for some strange reason I gravitated to the hippiest (not hippest) multicoloured yarn available in the sale box. If you want a hand knitted lentil bake instead, please also let me know and I’ll see what I can come up with.

Despite Sally’s best efforts to get me reading all sorts of trashy magazines (successful!), I have gravitated back to Lord of the Rings. Yes, very sad but after the cut and thrust of the films, the book starts with a more meandering approach which suits my frame of mind at the moment. Fortunately the time out with the magazines has reawakend the good consumer in me as opposed to the good hobbit.

Snow, glorious snow.

Flo, Theo and Soo-Poo the snowmanWell, what a day. A rather grey start improved inordinately by the white stuff coming out of the sky. We crunched and creaked and skated our way to Flo’s school with both kids looking at their own pawprints and shoving snow in my pockets. All fairly calm especially as I managed not to bark hysterically at Flo and Theo with a lot of help from Chris, who is unbelievably calm about things like lost gloves, stray schoolbags and errant toddlers. He even has a knack of winkling out of Florence what happened at school the previous day to make her have a tizz about going in this morning. The trio of girls in Flo’s class have a sort of semi-systematic on-off friendship, and then there are the boys to consider too.

Anyhow, after school, the whole family skipped and hopped and kicked their way to the park to build a snowman (carrot nose, milk bottle top eyes, no hat) called Soo-Poo, throw snowballs and make snow angels. Even the passing binmen found it amusing.

Today for tea we had everyone’s favourite, rice and dhal. I had my favourite Creamed Spiced Spinach from The Best of Lord Krisha’s Cuisine, Theo tried it but Flo is mostly averse to such greenery, except lettuce. For the dhal, I love the pressure cooker. Rinse a cup of red lentils, put them in the pressure cooker with plenty of water, chopped fresh ginger root, one or two whole chillies, a pinch of turmeric, a bay leaf and a knob of butter. Put on the lid, heat and bring up to pressure, allow to cook for 10 minutes, take off the heat and let the pressure decrease without hindrance. When this is done, remove the lid, stir vigourously and ascertain if you need to reduce the mixture or moisten it somewhat. Add salt to taste. Meanwhile, fry some cumin seeds in a dollop of sunflower oil until lightly brown and put into the dhal – it should smell great and give off a resounding sizzle as it hits the dhal. The sizzle doesn’t help the taste necessarily but sounds like something exciting is happening. I did mean to put some fresh coriander in this but it is still languishing leafily in the salad drawer of the fridge – no one has complained so I am keeping schtum.

Before tea, we trekked back to the park through the slush to see how Soo-Poo the snowman was fairing. All seemed good, carrot still in place but now eyes, mouth etc of coal, a snow hat and a decidedly greater girth. Metamorphosis? Nope, Soo-Poo had been reduced to a grubby pile after a good kicking (we are not such a classy neighbourhood). Fortunately, Flo and Theo didn’t notice this at all and bought wholeheartedly into the idea that some one else had added to their previous efforts: today I don’t wish to show them the wreck of their creation.

Picture of kids with Soo-Poo the snowman to follow.