Smashing Smush-ins

Thanks to my friend “allotment girl” who lent me the book, we’ve discovered Jamie Olivers’ ice cream “smush-ins” . I’d promised R a treat and she’d asked for an ice-cream. I was wondering how I was going to match the excitement of all those holiday ice-creams she’d got used to and this certainly did the trick.

What you (and / or your little ones) do is, get a couple of scoops of ice-cream and mush or smush into it, any lovely stuff that you fancy or have lurking in your cupboards. We bunged in banana, sultanas, sprinkles, some Winnie the Pooh chocolate coins left over from easter and mamaluke’s gorgeous strawberry cordial but the possibilities are endless. The idea is so, so simple that you wonder why any editor would’ve allowed it into a recipe book. Thing is, it turned into such an event that I understood why it was in the book - to create a buzz and excitement around mixing, bashing and smushing a bowl of ingredients. And then of course, there’s the eating. Yummm.

 

Lists-a-go-go

I love lists. I spend my life making lists. On several occasions I’ve actually caught myself making lists of the lists that I need to make. Is there a job I could do making lists? I drive Mr. P insane. I’m like Monica from friends except without the team of comedy scriptwriters. Anyway, I’m wondering if I can enliven my posts with some listy action?

I like the idea of those “10 things that make me happy today” lists. They’re uplifting & thought provoking but somehow not quite me. They don’t allow for my sardonic streak. (can anyone even think of 10 happy things - a day for goodness sake?)

I’m more with the “let’s talk about what’s good but lace it with a nice dollop of mockery” gang. I felt so at home working in Birmingham with the self deprecating humour of the brummies. Who else would create the most passionate and upbeat website about their home city and call it “Birmingham: It’s Not Shit.”? Hilarious.

So, how bout a list where the good stuff and the not so good stuff is all jumbled up – much like it happens in life? So here goes:

10 erm “things” about our Greek holiday.

 

Busy Fingers

The last shot is my first ever “Bara Brith” - a gorgeous moist welsh tea bread.It’s a really easy recipe C/o my friend V - so thanks V!Mix 12oz sultanas with 8oz light muscovado sugar in a bowl and pour over 10fl oz of hot strong tea made with 4/5 tea bags. Cover & leave to soak overnight. Pre-heat oven to 150C / 300F / Gas Mk 2 Lightly grease & base line a 2lb loaf tin. Stir 10oz of sifted self-R flour and 1 medium beaten egg into the mixture. Mix thoroughly then turn into tin. Bake in oven for 1-1/2 to 1-3/4 hours or til well risen & firm to touch. A fine skewer in the centre should come out clean. Allow to cool in tin for 10 mins then turn out onto wire rack & remove paper. Slice, butter & enjoy! -~- Mine didn’t seem to rise much and went a bit crispy on top but then my oven does that to all my cakes. Also, I used raisins and demerara sugar as that’s all I had in. Still, tastes lush! Can we resist eating the rest of it before our guests come tomorrow?

 

They Say The Funniest Things…

… kids, that is. Tonight on her way from her bath to her room, idling along in the nip, R said in a casual, sing song way “What is the earth?” (pause) “The earth is everything”. Me n Mr. P looked at eachother dumbfounded. I’m so looking forward to more of these philosophical nuggets as time goes by.

Here’s some visuals from R’s eye view

 

Blueblee muffins

That’s what we call them in our house and R & I had fun making them and eating them today. Yum!

I’m umm-ing and agh-ing about what to do with my wool now. The spinning lady is so busy that her offer to me involves driving to “The Wool Emporium” about 50 mins away where she holds subsidised workshops on carding and spinning, so could show me how to do this.

I know I’m just being lazy but a few things are putting me off: 1) the extra driving 2) the thought of trying to interest a 3 year old in spinning so she won’t run amok and get tangled up in everyone’s yarn 3) I’m gonna have to pick all the straw and poo out of the wool myself and wash it and dry it.

It’s taken the wind right out of my artisan sails.

What to do?

 

Cookbooks

It’s Tana Ramsey week, this week in our house. I’ve been trying to inject some enthusiasm into creating our meals ever since Mr. P figured out that I’ll be dishing up 17,500 family meals over the next say, 16 years.

So, I’ve been cooking from different recipe books from the library and borrowed from friends. So, we’ve had Nigella week, a few Jamie weeks, a retro Linda McCartney week – loved the 80s fashion and food styling photos in that book, Lorraine Kelly week, quite a few Annabel Karmel weeks and as for Hugh Fearnley – well he pops up all over the place. My criteria for a tip-top cookbook is not so much that it has to have recipes for wholesome family food that’s really quick to prepare, but that it has loads of mouth-watering pictures. No pictures. No go. I’m even down-hearted now if there’s only a picture every other page.

 

Random Yarns

I was going to show you my wool:

but there’s a problem uploading images at the mo, for some reason. Will insert it when I can…

Still no answer from the spinner lady to my email or tel message. Perhaps she’s still rolling (or spinning) about on the floor laughing at how little wool I have and can’t get to the phone / computer.

During one of my rare ironing incidents the other day, I was looking for a means of occupying R and aware that it couldn’t be “ironing like mummy” because she doesn’t have a mini iron / board (funny that??). Came up with the idea of tying up a bit of string to make her own mini washing line which she absolutely loved. She spent ages figuring out how to hang her dollies’ clothes with the mini pegs. I was so chuffed that I came up with something so simple and engaging instead of turning on the telly.

 

Spinning and Life Cycles

I spent a very dreamy day pottering and pootling around yesterday. It is the second day I’ve done this, this week. R was in nursery both days and I just faffed about doing nothing in particular. This is my idea of heaven. I felt so terribly guilty about it though that I couldn’t relax 100% and confess to jumping to attention a few times Mr. P came down from his office – making out I was being busy! I was recently saying to a friend that the sort of “day off” I crave is being at home doing absolutely zilch and how nice it was too. I spent some of the time eating, some of the time looking out at our birds and animal neighbours, much of the time thinking and alot of the time on the computer reading and writing about random things. This is the story of my life: to the undiscerning onlooker, it may appear that I’m a lazy bugger yet really I’m ever so busy mentally. Yeah right!

 

I’m “IT”

My cyberfriend over at The Cottage Smallholder left me a comment saying she’d “tagged me for a meme”. Eh? ???

Oooh eck, I think I’m in this blogging thing over my head. What does all this mean? I wikipedia’d it and ferreted around for a while and concluded that she had been most kind in including me in a game of virtual playground tag involving answering interesting questions about oneself and giving your blog a bit of a plug at the same time. Nice one! Here’s the meme - y-thingy-mabob:

What I was doing 10 years ago:
Trying to set up a theatrical agency in the front room of our house in Coventry

On my to-do list today:
Well now, I unexpectedly find myself with a bit of “me time”. R has started Tuesdays at nursery today and she’s now in the “big girls” room for 3 year olds which is the one before they start school (I’m trying not to get emotional). So she’s not here. Mr. P has taken a v well earned day off work and has gone fishing, so he’s not here. I have the house to myself which is a very rare occurrence. Trouble is, there’s the weekend away’s washing to do, the whole house needs cleaning and tidying and various piles of clutter need sorting. Obviously I don’t want to do any of this housework, so the rest of the day will probably be spent faffing about at the computer, followed by a huge wave of guilt for not having done anything constructive.

 

Rainbows and Flying Almonds

Mr P’s gone to the office today. Doesn’t go very often as we’re all lucky that he works from home 99.9% of the time. I expect he’ll ask “what have you two been up to?” when he finishes the 4 hour trek back home later. Of course I think we’ve done nothing as usual. Nothing in terms of big significant events but it seems like we’ve been doing stuff non-stop so how to translate what’s been happening?

Not sure what order any of this happened in but it’s a fairly typical run of events: