Chocolate cake alert...

Oh dear, I have found a recipe I am going to have to try sometime! It's here.
And as we have around 30 eggs in the house at the moment, its a good excuse to bake cakes!

Lemons and Globes

For those of you who know me personally, you have probably had a conversation with me that has inevatibly turned to food, and possibly the famous lemon icecream!

I have become an avid follower of Smitten Kitchen, a fabulous foody blog. And as a fan of all things lemony (I must post my lemon chicken recipe) I had to try this. It is currently cooling in the kitchen. The filling is already a hit with my eldest son, as I had to much mixture for my pastry shell and put the excess in a ramekin dish to cook, that taster is now no more.

The other thing that my friends know about me is that I am a Charity shop frequenter. Love those bargains! And not only that, but the randomness of what one might find. I have been thinking about buying a globe for years, mainly so I could show the children various places in the world, so that they could have a better idea of where countries are and to have a 'global' world view. Well, I finally found one today, not as big as the ones I had been looking at, in fact, just perfect for our already cluttered home. I love it. I have already shown Luke where Haiti is (I had to look it up on Google Maps myelf first!)

Now, who would like to try the easy peasy, lemon squeezy icecream? It is based on one that Nigella Lawson does, I am not sure which book it is available in, I have also seen her do variations on it. Beware, it is thoroughly addictive, and when you start you can't stop. I gave this recipe to a friend and I think she makes it once a week!

You will need...
3 juicy lemons, preferably unwaxed
175g/6oz icing sugar
420ml double cream (or whole tub)
3 tablespoons iced water
Then...

Grate the zest from two of the lemons using a microplane grater (I don't have one of these, so I use an ordinary fine grater, and am careful not to grate too deep). Squeeze the juice of all three lemons and pour into a bowl with the zest and sugar, stir to combine and leave for 30 minutes, if you can, to let the flavour deepen.

Whip the cream with the water until it holds soft peaks, then whisk in the sweetened lemon juice. Turn into a shallow container, cover and freeze - no stirring, crystal-breaking-up mixing or anything needed - until firm. This could take anything from 3-6 hours depending on your freezer.

Let it stand in its container in the fridge for half an hour or so to get scoop-ready.

Enjoy!

When is a blog not a blog?

Perhaps when it has not been updated for over a year!?

I had such grand intentions for this blog, it was going to be a place where I could share my family adventures. The tips and tricks I've learnt, the inspirational thoughts that help me and various other ramblings. I think I got stuck. Too often just stuck on the internet reading about stuff, looking at stuff, and dreaming about the stuff I was going to do. Things have got to change. I have to do more!

So, I'll start with sharing some sweet things my 2 and a half yr old comes out with.

"I hold it" - it is his baby sister.
"Daddy hold it" - it is as above, and usually uttered when he wants mummy's attention and mummy is holding same sister as above.
"Baby Mae sick"
"Baby Mae not sick"
"Baby Mae done poopoo"

Slow cooker adventures

About a week ago, I decided to dust of the TWO slowcookers I have in my house, and get cooking. I had a go making a mammoth amount of curry for a friends party.

I used my tried and tested recipe for coconut chicken that is quite adaptable depending on what you have in the cupboards.

You will need... (this is a large amount, so you will need to oven bake or put in two slowcookers)

• Approx 15-20 pieces of chicken (thighs or drumsticks)
• Half a jar of Pataks Korma or Mild curry paste.
• About 3tbs veg oil
  
• A large pot of yogurt.
• Grate about 3cm off a block of coconut cream (I guess you could substitute coconut milk, but I prefer the block as it doesn't tend to have that `off' taste the milk has)
• A large onion.
• Approx 6 cloves garlic.
• Depending what you have... a couple of carrots or a small cauliflower or a couple of courgettes, you can even get away with some apple. Put in a food processor, so they're the texture of grated carrot.
• Lemon juice if you have it.
• Salt
  
• Dessicated coconut.

Then...

Skin the chicken and if you have time mix the curry paste and yogurt with the chicken and leave in a bowl in the fridge overnight.

If not seal the chicken in heated oil.
Put the onion and garlic in. Cook for about 5 mins on medium heat.
Add the yogurt and curry paste if you have not let it marinade before.
Add the vegetables, 2 tsp salt and coconut cream, give it a good stir. Add 2 tbsps lemon juice if you have it.

Put all of it in a large baking dish or 2 slow cookers, if the sauce isn't runny enough for you, add some hot water.
Sprinkle the dessicated coconut over the top, cover with foil or lid.

Bake in oven for 2hrs on Gas Mark 3 or in slowcooker on high for 4hrs or low for 8hrs.

just too cute not to share

Nifty idea!

I've been getting so annoyed at loosing shoes off my 1yr old feet. Especially when they're the nice leather soft shoes, that are not cheap!

So... I've taken them to using a big nappy style pin, and pinning them to his trousers, that way, if they come off, they don't go very far!

When composting could go so horribly wrong...

I was really chuffed at the beginning of the summer when I dug out the compost from a rusty old barrel. It was a beautiful colour and there was the most fantastic colony of worms living in the top half with the partially rotted veg etc.

I transfered the top layer into a new barrel, noticing it had a useful tap at the bottom, great for drainage I thought.

Picture my horror today after the rains we've had, I looked into the compost bin and there were worms floating in the water logged bin.

I quickly unscrewed the tap at the bottom and got a fork to try and loosen the compost so the water could drain down, thankfully I had put an old cat mat in the top and when I moved it aside discovered there were loads still alive. After I fished them out with a trowel I put them on the garden to live another day.

So the moral of this story is, always make sure your compost bin is well drained as it can be perilous for those vital worms.