I made a new cake, which was eaten by my colleagues yesteday at our departmental Christmas event. I didn't get to taste any myself, but it seems to have been good, given how little was left, and there's another one in the freezer that I should get to eat at some point. It's a useful recipe because it's gluten free and also contains no butter ( ( Read more... )

I am making lists of (hopefully) fun games to play in the car with kids on long journeys. So I thought I would share what I've got so far, in case it is of use to other people,( Lists )

Here because I need to store it somewhere I can keep referring to it ( Read more... )

My days of cooking with pre-schoolers are numbered (approximately 185, assuming LB starts school mid-September), so I thought I would note down what I have learned, so I can look back fondly and also in case it is of use for other people.
( Cut (with scissors or a mezzeluna) )

One of the things we are working on for our family self-improvement sticker chart is eating a wider range of meals. This is mainly the kids, rather than the adults who are pretty unpicky. But for form's sake, I have a chart for eating dessicated coconut. The kids eat a nutritionally adequate diet, but it uses quite a narrow range of ingredients and ( Read more... )

I had a glut of windfall plums, from a kind colleague who knew that my kids like plums and that I like to cook. Some were good enough to go straight in the fruit bowl. The very bruised ones I stewed in the usual fashion with demerara sugar. These were not very good - perfectly edible but tasting more of sugar and a generic 'jam' kind of flavour ( Read more... )

My name is Menthe-Reglisse and I like to look on Rightmove for houses I could never, in a million years, afford to buy. And probably wouldn't want to anyway because they're too grand and too far away from my Life (geographically and socio-politically). But it doesn't have to be realistic to be fun. Tonight's findings, in Cornwall:

Two Georgian(ish) ( Read more... )

Spotted at Weymouth Sea Life Centre:
( Cut for pictures )

This year our garden has been pretty much out of action - the builders have been digging it up, covering it in scaffolding or storing all their stuff in it. PB and I, in particular, have really missed gardening. Every now and then, PB will say sadly 'I *miss* weeding' or 'Please, please, please can we do some gardening?'. We have pretty much only ( Read more... )

• done the final (surely? please!) coat of satinwood in LB's new room - skirting boards, windowsill, architrave, doorframe and door and then cleared up all the decorating stuff - sticky pink stuff to protect the floorboards, masking tape, dust sheets etc.
• tidied PB's bedroom which was just insanely messy
• hoovered upstairs and the stairs throroughly ( ( Read more... )