Monday 25th of March 2013

Well, what a hectic (and BLOOMING FREEZING COLD) few days we've had at Distracted Towers.  The weekend consisted, mainly, of trying to keep the children occupied indoors when the weather was so dismal, which usually, for me at least, means roping them into some kitchen activities.  We cooked a huge batch of my slow-cooked onions.  We did them, this time, with red onions, as I especially love their sweet flavour, combined with stickiness when cooked this way.  A large portion of the onions went into the base of an ovenproof dish and was topped with chicken thighs with some soft goat's cheese pushed under the skin.  This was roasted for 45 mins at 180ºc and served with a basket of baguette chunks and some salad leaves for a surprisingly warming and really very satisfying meal.

Of course, we needed something sweet as well, and that came (as it so often does) in the form of my Fabulous Chocolate Brownies.  I had prepared some Jam Ice-Cream (strawberry as usual, but with a hint of amaretto for a change) with this weekend in mind, but what with the weather and all, serving ice-cream would just feel downright silly!

Tonight is, of course, a Monday so, armed with a batch of My Big Fat Chilli con Carne from the slow-cooker, I laid on a mini Tex-Mex fiesta with taco shells (bought-in!), grated cheddar, salad leaves, sliced avocado and soured cream.  Plates all clean, and out of the door on time...  Result!

Cath xx

The Insolence of Youth

My baby is four, how did that happen?  Four! How very rude of him to keep growing up... Yes, it's JD's birthday and as usual I am finding it a little harder to cope with than his elder brother's progression in age.

He, on the other hand, is having a whale of a time.  From the early morning wake-up call, through the tearing of paper, punctuated with gasps and cries of "I've always been wishing for a [insert name of relevant gift here]....", through lunch and the blowing out of all four candles at once!

Ah, yes, the cake... always a pleasure to make a lovely cake for my boys' birthdays.  Though I don't believe that anyone should ever feel guilty about buying birthday cakes from the supermarket, or paying a bakery to make one, I get a lot of enjoyment from decorating the children's cakes to match their latest interests or passions and see it, in a way, as another gift; one given with special love and time from Mummy...

As we are very much all about dinosaurs at the moment, this volcano cake seemed appropriate.  Two ordinary chocolate sponge cakes; one made in a pudding basin and the other in my tarte tartin tin.  Iced with chocolate buttercream and sprinkled with grated plain chocolate and a little dessicated coconut, dyed black with food-colouring paste (just mix 1/4 tsp paste with 1/2 tsp or so of water and mix in the coconut to colour it.  Spread on foil to air-dry a little before using).  The 'molten lava' streaming down the sides is actually melted white chocolate with a little orange colour paste stirred in (Sugarflair's Tangerine/Apricot, if you're interested).  Spooned into the top crater and running gloopily down the sides, it looks rather good, I think.  The 'magma'-filled recess also made a good spot to place the candles, the chocolate achoring them steadily.  A good result all round, I feel!

Cath xx

In the interests of honesty and transparency, I feel that I should confess that, actually, I messed up the first attempt at the basin cake, by cooking it at too high a temperature for too short a time.  So we had a kind of melting-middle chocolate sponge with cream for pudding on Sunday.  As Homer (Simpson, this time) might well have said "Mmmmmm.... unexpected pudding".

A state of cake-like readinesss

Sorry about the long break between posts but life has been a touch manic of late and I've found myself relying heavily on old favourites rather than developing any new ideas.  I'm glad to see some of you keeping up with me on my new Facebook page too, so thanks - write on the wall or post on the discussion board...

I also had my first baby's SIXTH birthday to contend with - where does the time go?  He was still only a toddler when I started this blog; I remember writing affectionately about the Mr Bump cake I made for his third birthday.  How times change, though, and this year we are ALL about Doctor Who; a T.A.R.D.I.S. cake it had to be! Somehow fittingly, I have never been as proud of a cake I've made and decorated since the aforementioned Mr Bump, so that slightly softened what feels like quite a major blow, in some ways.  He seems, quite suddenly, so grown-up!

I have been a good little Distracted Housewife today and I have made my Christmas cake!  My usual recipe, though slightly fiddled with... Rum & Ginger Fruitcake this year; with dark rum replacing the brandy and the quantity of ginger upped (with 2 tsp dried and 2cm fresh root ginger, peeled and grated).  The cake is now wrapped up tightly in double greaseproof and foil and safely tucked away in my big cake box until just before Christmas.  I'll feed it with an extra tot of rum once or twice (!) before the big day but apart from that it can sit, emanating domestic smugness until I decorate it... now I've just got to think how, which is invariably the hardest part for me! Ideas gratefully received...

Cath xx

Creamy and Dreamy

A proper, old-fashioned cream-style soup is a real joy to cook and to eat.  At this time of year it also allows for judicious using up of leftovers in a way that they seem freshly comforting and welcome.  It's nice, also, when hanging around the house, to have the rhythms that cooking can bring to your life; it is all too easy to allow oneself to flop, unoccupied, in front of the television  at this time of year.  Getting up once in a while to potter in the kitchen provides a focus and, in some ways, an escape.  Here, I've infused the milk with some 'bread sauce' flavourings to the milk to bump up the festive factor!  Making stock with the turkey carcass is an annual job for Boxing Day; most of goes for soup of one sort or another, though I do siphon off a little to make a velouté sauce for a Turkey and Ham pie filling.

Cream of Turkey Soup

500ml milk
1 small onion, peeled and halved
few cloves
few peppercorns
2 small bay leaves
grating of fresh nutmeg
450ml turkey stock
30g turkey dripping (or butter)
30g plain flour
leftover turkey meat, cut into small shreds
a splash of double cream, if you have some to hand (well, it is Christmas!)
white pepper and salt, to taste

Stick a couple of cloves into each onion half, then place all the ingredients into a saucepan and bring just to boiling point.  Remove from the heat and set aside to infuse. Add the turkey stock to the cold milk, then add the fat and flour and bring to the boil, whisking continuously.

When it is smooth and combined, add the shreds of turkey meat and then, when it has returned to boiling point, turn the heat down and simmer until thickened.  Swirl in the cream and then season with white pepper (to keep that creamy beige unspeckled) and add a little salt if you think it needs it.

 Lovely, creamy soup like this with homemade bread, could only be improved upon as a meal by a tranche of this year's Christmas cake and a fine chunk of Stilton... Bliss!

Cath xx

Nursery Rhyme Cookery

This, for me, encompasses anything you cook because your children (or you) like the idea of it from a familiar story or nursery rhyme. It started for me in childhood with the recreation of the Lid Potatoes made, by Muvver, for Milly Molly Mandy and Little-Friend-Susan.

Now Jam Tarts are an obvious choice for this category, as are bread and honey, plum pie and good old Three Bears' porridge. Our favourite at the moment has to be the currant bun though...

Ten currant buns in the baker's shop,
Round and fat with sugar on the top
Along came Chris with a penny one day
Bought a currant bun and took it away.

Yes, letting the children loose with dough is messy, but great fun for all concerned and at least you can look forward to a toasted currant bun for tea. Cleaning the kitchen appeals more than sorting out arguments and picking up a sea of garish plastic, anyhow.

Currant Buns (makes ten, natch)

450g bread flour
1 tsp easy-blend dried yeast
1 tsp salt
40g sugar

Mix these together in a large bowl.

40g butter
50ml milk
100g currants
milk & sugar (preferably demerara), to glaze

Melt the butter in 230ml boiling water, then pour in the milk. Add to the bowl of dry ingredients and mix to form a dough. Knead in the currants and continue to knead until the dough is soft and springy. Leave in a warm place until doubled in size, the knock back and divide into ten buns. Prove for 45 minutes, then brush with milk and sprinkle with sugar. Bake for 15 minutes at 200°c until golden brown.

It's Been a While...

Sorry, but sometimes life just gets in the way of blogging, the cheek of it! Most of September has been taken up with the whole rigmarole of getting back to school and organising Christopher's birthday, not to mention a 'Pirates' party for several overexcited children

You can see the all-important cake here, along with a pic of some chocolate éclairs I stuck in for the hell of it. Choux pastry is fast becoming my new best friend, albeit a friend who is a bad influence; being able to produce cream cakes at home is the true definition of 'Naughty but Nice' (remember the 80s?).

Any pastry cookbook has a recipe for choux pastry and believe me, it's easy-peasy. Having spent (literally) years being too scared to try doing it, a couple of weeks ago I had a bash at some profiteroles (lush) and now there's no stopping me. I've got a piping bag and I'm not afraid to use it!

Feels like I've never been away... xx

Colourful Days

I've always been a magpie, attracted to anything bright and sparkly. So, anything that allows me to indulge my passion for as much colour as possible is always popular. In fact, I've long said that my chances of having a fabulous day increase in direct proportion to how many different colours I'm wearing on that day. Decorating cakes is another outlet for some serious colour-therapy. This one, I made for a friend's birthday., A friend who, happily, collects Momiji dolls, so my homage was appreciated.

When we moved into our house (nearly six years ago now), we inherited an obviously homemade clay nameplate on the front of the house. I quite liked it's quirkiness, but the brown-and-beige colour scheme just did nothing for me - and even less once it was splattered with white paint when Hubby painted the front exterior wall. Yesterday I decided I'd had enough of it and set about it with a veritable rainbow of acrylic paints. A couple of coats later and - just look - isn't it great? So me, so us. I feel happy every time I pass the front door and see it now. You can't buy therapy like that, you really can't. Now, what else can I paint..?

If you go down in the woods today...

As I don't have girls, I need to get my girly kicks when I can. Normally this restricts me to filling my life, magpie-like, with as much colour and sparkle as possible. Just occasionally, however, a better opportunity comes along...

Today I went to visit a friend in order to (among other things) help her decorate her daughter's birthday cake for the weekend. I made the cake last night and took it over there with me, along with my box of tricks; paste icing colours, brushes and the like. Oh, and a rolling pin. Huddled in the kitchen, leaving the kids to play together for a bit, look what we did. Look what we did!

We're so pleased with it - has there ever been a better cake for a little girl's "Teddy Bears' Picnic" party? Even if the only plate we could find to put it on said 'Merry Christmas', there's always the option of covering it with foil before the big day.

Right, I've now got to get on with packing bags for the boys and me - as I've already said, we're off to my folks' for a few days, leaving Hubby to revel in wife-and-childless bliss for a bit. Just as long as he mows the lawn, eh..?

Rhubarb, What Rhubarb?!

Our rhubarb plant seems to be staging a rebellion. Against what, or whom, I have no idea but the crop this year has been sad to say the least. After last year, with rhubarb jellies and fools all summer long, I don't know what's going on...

So this afternoon I set to the plant and harvested what meagre crop I could, enough to make this cake at least. The mixture itself is made like muffin batter, but I much prefer this in a single cut-and-come-again slab. I grind the hazelnuts myself at home, using the mini-blender - you can substitute bought ground almonds if you'd rather.

Rhubarb & Ginger Cake

340g plain flour
2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp ground ginger
100g ground hazelnuts (and see above)

Stir all these 'dry' ingredients together in a capacious bowl.

250g light muscovado sugar
1/4 pint sunflower oil
2 large eggs
1/4 pint milk

Combine all these 'wet' ingredients in a jug, then stir into the dry bowl.

300g rhubarb, diced very small
2 tbsp demerara sugar

Stir the rhubarb into the batter. Scrape into a greased rectangular tin - about 30x20cm I suppose - and sprinkle the surface of the cake with demerara sugar. Bake at 180­°c for 45-50 minutes until a skewer comes out clean. Cover the surface of the cake after 15-20 minutes to stop it from browning too much. Cool on a wire rack.

Friends of ours got married yesterday, on a truly

glorious June day. I have never been to a nicer wedding, nor to one that took such good care of the youngest guests. The children really enjoyed the arts-and-crafts table set up in one corner of the reception venue, and they loved the fact that they had party bags to bring home! Craig and Amelia - here's to you and your future together. You deserve all the happiness you can imagine.

Rock On!

The boys and I had a lovely Easter break at my parents' house and experienced the difficult feelings of not wanting to leave, but, at the same time, really wanting to come back. I don't think I'll ever get used to that little tug-of-love between the places that I call home. The subject of last night's W.I. meeting was an added attraction; we had a visit from a lady who showed us how to make a range of filled chocolates at home. I will let you know what kind of results I get...

Today and the next couple of days are an odd sort of no-woman's-land for me. Last week was spent wawy with the children and on Monday, Hubby is taking the boys away to his parent's house in Yorkshire for a few days. It will be the first time I've ever really been away from them and again that tugging feeling comes into play; looking forward to having some real time to myself versus wondering how I will ever manage to fill my days without them all. Sleep comes to mind initially, and long hot baths in the middle of the day. I've already arranged a ladies-who-lunch date with a friend for Monday to start things off with a giggle.

Today, while James was having an afternoon nap, Christopher came to sit on my lap, bringing with him a cookery book (catch 'em young). We looked through it together, talking about the sort of things that we each like to eat, before he decided that he would like to do some baking. Paucity of ingredients was an initial sticking point, but we cobbled together the necessary to make a batch of rock buns, which we began eating more or less straightaway, when James woke up. Anyway (a trifle defensively), they are only really wonderful on the day you bake them, then they stale and begin to resemble real rocks. Well, that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!

Rock Buns

200g plain flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp ground mixed spice

1/4 tsp grated fresh nutmeg

100g butter

75g caster sugar

75g mixed dried fruit and peel

zest of 1 lemon and half its juice

1 egg, beaten

about 50ml milk

Mix the flour, baking powder and spices, then rub in the butter. Stir in the sugar fruit and lemon zest, then mix with the beaten egg, milk and lemon juice to make a fairly stiff and sticky dough. Drop lumpy spoonfuls onto lightly oiled baking sheets and cook for 15 minutes or so at 200°c until golden. Remove the cooked buns to a cooling rack, but they are at their best with the warmth of the oven still lingering.

For our supper this evening I cooked a good old family favourite; my Frank & Maisy Pasta Bake. As a variation, tonight I added a tin's-worth of drained and rinsed red kidney beans. These are one of the boys' latest fads; put them in anything (perhaps not trifle) and they wolf it down. Always good. They wrapped themselves around some Easter egg for pudding - at least 'afters' are easily dealt with at this time of year.

Brolli Bake

Today started badly, but ended well. James has really got one on over the last few days; whinging, shrieking, clinging to me, you name it. I was at my wits' end by lunchtime, but was thankfully saved by a text message from a girlfriend inviting us all to join a group going to the park for the afternoon. I took a cake along with us, a(nother) variation on my standard Tea Loaf recipe, this time a Date & Walnut version which I'm very pleased with. It's so nice to be able to experiment on one's friends, but they're used to it, and cake never goes amiss, I find!

Date & Walnut Tea Loaf

I cannot urge you strongly enough to start making these. They are incredibly simple, have so many possible variations and it's so nice always to have a homemade cake knocking around somewhere. They pack up well for a picnic or a moveable feast with children - remember to take a knife to slice it!

300ml strong tea
250g pack chopped dried dates, 'slab' broken up
1 large egg, beaten
250g self-raising flour
125g caster sugar
80g walnuts, chopped
demerara sugar, for sprinkling

Soak the dates in the tea overnight. Stir the beaten egg into the fruit-and-tea mixture, then beat in the flour and sugar. Fold in the walnut pieces, then turn the batter uinto a greased and floured 1lb loaf tin. Sprinkle a little demerara sugar over the top. Bake at 160°c for 1 hour 15 minutes, covering the cake with foil after 40 minutes to stop the top from over-browning. Cool the cake in the tin. For the very best result, wrap the cooled cake in foil and leave it to mature in an airtight tin for a couple of days before eating it.

Dinner tonight was a pasta bake - yay! We got a small cauliflower and a small head of broccoli in last week's vegetable box, so I combined them with some pasta and cheese sauce for a delicious twist on good old cauliflower cheese (which I anyway prefer with a mixture of cauli and broc).

Brolli-flower Cheese Pasta Bake

Yes, I know you're not supposed to mix metric and imperial measurements, but I do it all the time and no bad comes of it really. Our milk comes in pint bottles, after all!

150g dried penne pasta
small head of cauliflower
small head of broccoli
50g butter
40g plain flour
1 tsp English mustard powder
1 pint milk
Cheddar cheese, grated
Parmesan cheese, grated

Cook the pasta in plenty of boiling, salted water. Add the cauliflower and broccoli florets for the last 5 minutes. Drain and tip the mixture into a large ovenproof dish.

Meanwhile, put the butter, flour and mustard powder into a large saucepan. Add the milk then bring to the boil, whisking constantly. When the sauce thickens, remove from the heat and whisk in a handful of grated Cheddar. Pour the sauce over the pasta and vegetables in the dish, then scatter over another handful of Cheddar and a couple of tablespoons of Parmesan. Pop the dish into a 200°c oven for 10-15 minutes to brown the top. Lovely!

Food for the Cold

What could be better on a cold, rainy Sunday evening than a baked potato? That crisp, crackly skin without and soft, steamy flesh within? It's no work at all to bung a few scrubbed potatoes into the oven, even less to leave them there for an hour or so. Then a quick bustle to prepare some toppings and supper is ready.


My personal favourite (for the moment,at least) is a dollop of coleslaw and some grated strong cheddar. Karl and the boys prefer the (I dare say more manly) combination of cheese and baked beans. We all like to have a plate of crudités on the table, scooping up potato flesh and ribbons of melty cheese as we chat. If any of the crunchy skins get pushed to the side of a plate I hover, ready to snatch up the leavings to wipe up the last of my coleslaw. Atkins who?

For pudding tonight we cut into a Tea Loaf that had been maturing in one of the tins for a few days. I made this one with fat Chilean Flame raisins and some dried cranberries left over from Christmas and it was heavenly; dense, moist and rich with plump fruit. The crust had taken on a pinkish hue from the cranberries, even better. In fact I think another slice, with a cup of tea in front of the fire, might be in order later this evening.

Dining on Mince, and Slices of Quince

What is a runcible spoon, anyway? I shall have to look it up. I still don't feel like we've got back to any semblance of normality after Christmas; although the tree and decorations are down, everything is still a bit topsy-turvy. On Friday I went to my friends' wedding - having managed to make, decorate and deliver their cake without wrecking it, I was looking forward to finally having a taste. It was a huge relief to find that, as the first wedding cake I've ever made, not only was it edible, but it was really rather delicious!

The cake had a bottom layer of traditional fruit cake (made to my usual Celebration Fruit Cake recipe) and a top tier of rich chocolate cake (adapted from my recipe for Fabulous Chocolate Brownies). I rented the heart-shaped tins from Cakecraft in Aberystwyth, kneaded colour paste into 2.5kg of RegalIce (ow!) and made the sugar roses according to the instruction given by a speaker/demonstrator at December's WI meeting in the village. I also discovered that writing on the icing plaque could be easily done by dipping the tip of a cocktail stick into a little colour paste diluted with a few drops of water, then using it to write with. This was a case of needs must, when I couldn't find the blue food-colour pen that I thought I had!

It's cold, wet and miserable here, so tonight's dinner was a nice, comforting winter meal. I made a cottage pie by frying minced beef with some chopped bacon and onions, turned it into an ovenproof dish and topped it with potato that had been mashed with a little cheddar cheese. I raked the surface with the tines of a fork, to look like a slighly haphazardly ploughed field, scattered a little more cheese over, then baked it for 20 minutes at 180°c. I like this best served with just a simple vegetable; carrots or peas most often, but tonight I shredded and steamed some winter greens that came in this week organic box . As if that lot wasn't filling enough, I made a crumble for pudding.

Good old apple crumble is made even better by adding one peeled, cored and sliced quince to the filling. I love quinces, as do most people who have (a) discovered them and (b) are lucky enough to be able to get hold of them. A local wholefood shop occasionally has a few for sale and I cleaned out the basket when I spotted them a few weeks ago. They sit in a bowl (usually on the windowsill), giving out their sweet, captivating fragrance until they are perfectly ripe and ready. With 3 left, I can't decide whether to preserve them somehow (jam? jelly? membrillo?), or just bake them with brown sugar and eat with lashings of cream...

Don't Get in a Flap, Jack!

Flapjacks are one of those easy traybakes that are so useful to have around, for childrens' snacks, hungry moments with a cup of tea or eats when friends come round. They keep well in an airtight tin and I've never met anyone who doesn't like them. Plus, as oats are now regarded as a 'superfood', we can consider them health food (while quickly glossing over the butter and sugar content, hehehe).

The one thing I think you really do need to bake flapjacks successfully is a non-stick baking tin. You still have to grease it, but it does away with the hassle of lining a tin and the immense irritation of flapjacks which collapse when you try to slice them. I've had to turn more than one batch into Peach & Flapjack Trifle.

Flapjacks

250g butter
175g light muscovado sugar
2 tbsp black treacle
350g rolled oats

Melt the butter, sugar and treacle together in a large pan over a medium heat, stirring well to combine until smooth, dark and glossy. Mix in the oats, making sure that they are all fully coated. Tip into a small greased non-stick baking tin and level the surface, as best you can, with the back of a spoon. Bake fo 20 minutes at 150°c. Mark out squares or bars on the surface, then allow the flapjacks to cool completely in the tin, before slicing.

You can vary flapjack easily with sultanas or chopped glacé cherries stired in with the oats. A chocolate topping is also nice once in a while (pour over 150g melted chocolate when you remove the tin from the oven, then mark out squares once the chocolate is semi-set).

I also finally got around to defrosting the damsons and making some jam. Our neighbour's tree rains damsons onto our lawn every year, but I never have time to make the jam when the damsons are in season. This year I froze the fruit, then added a little lemon juice to make up for any pectin lost during freezing. I've also got a huge box of blackberries in the freezer for jam, so I'd better do that soon; I need the freezer space!

Weekend of Supreme Fabulousness

Saturday morning started early for all of us; Karl on the morning shift at work and off to Y Morlan in Aberystwyth to set up for the Breastfeeding Group's birthday bash, which I've mentioned before. I was helping to (wo)man the cake stall and had also baked the Boob Club a birthday cake. Chocolate cake, chocolate icing, pink and sparkly decorations - after all, there's nothing more girly than breastfeeding, is there?

Everything seemed to go very well and Christopher was particularly excited, not only by having his face painted as a lion, but also by winning win a book on the tombola and a tube of Minstrels in the raffle.

Saturday night was a big night for me and after dinner I did one of my favourite girl things; spending a considerable time getting ready to go out; my first real night out in a very long time. By real, I mean girls, uber-glammed up, ready to party and best of all for me, no driving! Hubby paid for me to taxi it home so that I could do something really out of the ordinary; go into a bar (actually, four bars) and have an actual drink (or 4, or 5). Tequila and tonic being my favoured tipple of late - ice and a slice, natch. I stayed out well past my bedtime and felt fabulous for it - yay!

(Much later)

Today has been a lazy, relaxing day for all of us. Karl's had a day off so we've enjoyed a real family Sunday, complete with full-on roast chicken dinner, with apple crumble to follow.

Our essential trimmings for a roast chicken are nothing new; roast potatoes (still K's job, I'm afraid), bread sauce, lots of veggies and sage-and-onion stuffing. Proper stuffing, which is so easy to make that I'm almost evangelical about it. My mother-in-law demonstrated her fab and very simple stuffing and I was hooked. You can, clearly, adapt this to include different flavours. My most regular departure is to make sausagemeat stuffing by adding 100g or so of sausagemeat to the mixture. In distinctly larger quantities, this is the stuffing I use for our Christmas turkey.

Sage & Onion Stuffing

150g white breadcrumbs
fresh sage leaves, finely chopped
1 small onion, peeled and halved
olive oil

Put the onion into the food processor with about 150ml water and whizz to a nubbly liquid purée. Mix with the breadcrumbs and sage and turn into an oiled dish. Bake for around 40 minutes at 200°c until crisp and browned on top.

Muffin-mania

Tomorrow is Hubby's birthday and everyone deserves some kind of birthday cake or cakes, don't they? Christopher's vote went to chocolate muffins, which is great as he practically makes those by himself anyway. Simple muffins like these are, to my mind, a great first 'proper' recipe for children as they really can do most of the work themselves - no sharp knives, no sieving or creaming. The batter seems to work fine even if it's a bit lumpy, so even the most inept of stirrers can make a decent batch of muffins. Just as long as you can cope with the mess on the worktop, the floor and all over your beloved (hair, eyebrows, sleeves, you name it). A set of cup measures makes baking a lot easier for little ones, especially those who are still pre-school.

Christopher's Chocolate Muffins

Dry ingredients:

1 cup plain flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder
3/4 cup vanilla sugar
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

Mix together in a large bowl.

Wet ingredients:

1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup sunflower oil
1 large egg

Beat together in a jug, then pour into the dry ingredients and stir to roughly combine. Don't worry about lumps. Put paper cases into a 12-hole muffin tray and divide the mixture as evenly as possible between them. Bake at 180°c for 15 minutes, then remove to a rack to cool. This last bit is the only 'grown-up' bit of the whole procedure, but Christopher's usually lost interest by this point...

After all, there a bowl to be licked, isn't there? Don't you wish you were a child again?

Siarad Cymraeg?

I've finally bitten the proverbial bullet and decided that after 10 years living in Wales, I need to try to learn to speak Welsh properly, at least conversationally. Largely because Christopher will be starting nursery school in January and will be taught, in part, bilingually. I don't think children should be encouraged to have a secret language that Mummy can't understand, do you? I have picked up bits and bobs over the years, mainly numbers and hello, how are you?-type things (sut mae?), and I can sing along to Welsh hymns yn Gymraeg when we go to church (though I don't understand them at all), but none to use 'properly'.

A lovely girl from Twf came to start us off on 'Using Welsh with your children' at playgroup yesterday and, all fired up by her enthusiasm, I came home and began to put the ideas into practice with the boys. Yesterday evening I had a look at the BBC Welsh learners' site and learnt quite a bit in just a little while from the in-site, free, Colin and Cumberland course.

Today I made Bara Brith ,which I make regularly anyway but which seems particularly apposite at the moment, and cooked a dinner of cig oen, tatws a pys (lamb chops, potatoes and peas). I was far too excited by writing what was for dinner tonight on the blackboard in Welsh, but there you go.

Busy, Busy, Busy!

We've had an incredibly busy week with one thing and another, and it shows no sign of letting up over the weekend or beyond. I'm taking the boys to see my parents next Friday, so I'm definitely hoping for a bit of a rest! It's times like these when I'm really glad to have a pretty extensive back catalogue of basic, no-fuss meals, because sometimes, as Nigella Lawson once wrote you really do "have to hit the kitchen running".

On Wednesday night, a friend who I hadn't seen since before I was married (over six years ago - eek!) came to supper. We only recently found out that we both live in the area (!). Hubby was at work, so we had dinner with Christopher and James; I cooked a big dish of my Vaguely Middle-Eastern Couscous, accompanied by pitta bread, yoghurt and a minted tomato and cucumber salad I followed this with a plate of Fabulous Chocolate Brownies. After the boys were safely tucked up, we settled down to a great evening of gossiping and poring over photographs. It's been so long since I had a girly night in with a friend!

I needed more brownies for Thursday, when thay were my contribution to a serious play-fest with the children at another friend's house, followed by lots of errand-running all over town on my part. For dinner I cobbled together a Potato and Bacon Layer, always popular and very straightforward, thank goodness.

Now that Christopher has reached the milestone of a - drum roll please - china plate at dinnertime, rather than his plastic ones, I wanted to cook him a favourite meal to celebrate, and to relax after the hectic last few days. He's always loved sausages (as, I think, do all children) and these Sweetcorn Pancakes go very nicely alongside some oven-cooked bangers. Liberally lubricated with ketchup (for Christopher), with fruit to follow, they made for a balanced meal that the boys could both eat without any assistance. After I get them off to bed tonight, I'm going to collapse with my knitting and enjoy some time off my feet before it all starts again tomorrow. Still, can't complain - I'd much rather be busy than bored, wouldn't you?

Bite this Chump!

Lamb for dinner tonight - some big, fat chump chops from the butcher in the next village. I much prefer chump chops to the ubiquitous cutlet chops - more meat, more crisp fat and, ultimately, more flavour. I roasted them, on a rack, over some big sprigs of rosemary and squashed cloves of garlic for 20 minutes at 200°c, then served them up with mashed potatoes, broccoli, cabbage and a rosemary and redcurrant sauce. This easy sauce dresses up a meal like tonight's no end, and makes the most of well-flavoured, good-quality lamb without overpowering it.

Rosemary & Redcurrant Sauce

100g redcurrant jelly
200ml lamb stock
large sprig fresh rosemary

Melt the redcurrant jelly in a small pan and pour in the lamb stock. Add the sprig of rosemary, bring to the boil and simmer gently for 10 minutes. Cover the pan if the sauce reduces too much; it should be slightly syrupy, but still liquid. Leave the sauce to cool, then strain out the rosemary and reheat gently. Season to taste and transfer to a sauce boat.

To follow a simple Sunday dinner, what could be better than cake? Chocolate cake at that. I did the chocolate version of my usual Victoria sponge and filled it with a vanilla-laced buttercream. Don't worry, we didn't eat the whole thing - there's plenty left for tomorrow!

Chocolate Sponge

200g soft butter
200g vanilla sugar
4 large eggs
160g self-raising flour
40g cocoa powder
1 tsp baking powder

Cream the butter and sugar together. Add the beaten eggs, one at a time, interspresing them with spoonfuls of flour. Sift in the rest of the flour, the cocoa and baking powder, then beat well until you have smooth batter. Divide the mixture equally between two greased and base-lined 20cm sandwich tins, smooth the surface and bake at 180°c for 20 minutes. Remove from the tins and cool on a rack before removing the base paper.

Vanilla Buttercream

75g soft butter
100g icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
milk

Beat everything together, adding a splash of milk as needed to get a soft, 'dropping' consistency. Select the cake layer for the base and place it, upturned, on a serving plate. Spread over the buttercream over the surface of the upturned cake, top with the remaining cake layer and dust with icing sugar to serve.

Joining Up the Blogs

I've recently joined the UK Food Bloggers' Association, which was set up by Julia from A Slice of Cherry Pie. I've posted over at the UFBA blog tonight, and if you want to find out more about me, you can read my introductory post here.

Not long ago, Hubby asked me if I could make him some caramel shortbread. Could I? I love the stuff, so an excuse to make it was very welcome, especially safe in the knowledge that it wouldn't hang around for me to eat if he wolfed it down! I'd never made it before, having a bit of a fear of boiling a tin of condensed milk for hours on end. I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I would forget and let it boil dry. When I discovered that 'Nestlé' sell tins of 'Carnation' condensed milk already prepared into caramel 'Duche de Leche', I was thrilled. I used my regular shortbread recipe for the base, which features one of my favourite ingredients, fine semolina, but if you don't have any, just up the quantity of plain flour to 240g. I use unsalted butter for just about everything, but always make shortbread with salted butter. I just seems to taste better that way. As for the chocolate, use what you like. I prefer a half-and-half mixture of dark and milk chocolate - just break 150g of each into a bowl and stir together once they've melted.

Caramel Shortbread

200g plain flour
40g fine semolina
60g cornflour
100g icing sugar
200g soft butter, diced
397g condensed milk dulce de leche
300g chocolate

I make shortbread in my KitchenAid, just paddling everything together until it comes right. You can blast it in the processor, or take the long way round by stirring the dry ingredients together and then rubbing in the butter. Gently knead it into a softish dough.

Press the dough into a greased and base-lined 23cm square tin. Prick it all over with a fork and bake at 150°c. Cool it completely in the tin, then spread over the dulce de leche. Chill for about 30 minutes, then melt the chocolate in the microwave and pour this over the top. Spread it out carefully, then chill until just set. Remove from the tin and cut it into squares (or vice versa, depending on what sort of tin you have).

We had good old pasta and meatballs tonight - I got hold of some linguine (which I love) so I used that and Christopher had great fun getting himself into a mess with it all. We had garlic bread to go with it, and grated parmesan to scatter over.