Tortilla for the Illa

My children aren't ill very often, we've never (touch wood) had many of the usual childhood bugs, coughs and colds to deal with.  So it comes as a horrid shock when one of my babies is laid low by being really, properly poorly.  Earlier this week, my youngest boy broke out with spots all over his little body; attack of the dreaded chicken pox! We've been holed up at home for most of the week so far, and it shows no sign yet of abating.  Luckily, a homebird like me doesn't feel the cabin fever thing so much, but I am struggling to find seemingly endless ways to entertain a crochety child, who is missing his schoolfriends, feeling a bit pathetic and who is really too young to completely understand why.  We've read lots of stories, talked to Granny on the telephone, done colouring and sticker art.  We have also, snuggled under a duvet on the sofa, watched rather more television than I would normally allow, but I am choosing not to feel bad about that.

We have also made one of our current favourite treats;
chocolate covered pretzels! I say 'made', of course what we actually did was coat a bag of Julian Graves' salted pretzels in melted milk chocolate.  These are always a real nostalgia trip for me; does anyone else remember those bags of Nestlé chocolate-coated 'Pretzel Flipz' that were around about 10 years ago? They were gorgeous.  Then they disappeared, how rude.  I did think of doing a little more baking with him today, but he has spent most of the day in and out of the bath as it seems to soothe the itching, poor boy...

Supper tonight just had to be chicken soup for the invalid, more specifically my Chicken Tortilla Soup, which is comforting and easy-to-eat, with grated cheese and soured cream on the side.  We had a roast chicken for supper last night, so I made my usual 'overnight stock' in the slow-cooker to have it ready for tonight's supper  Quick shopping trips hardly being a priority at the moment, we had no convenient carton ofc soured cream in the 'fridge, but did you know you can make a perfectly good substitute by mixing 3 tsp of lemon juice into 150ml double cream? No? Well you can, and I am more likely to have a bit of double cream knocking around than I am to have bought soured cream 'on the off chance'.  Actually, last week I'd overbought double cream because it was on offer when I did the shopping, knowing that we had visitors at the weekend.  So it all worked out in the end... now we've just good to wait for the pox to vacate the residence!

Cath xx