Cooking with mother - Day 13

It was once again a Joe Wicks start to the day and I live streamed my workout - one way of encouraging myself to get back in to better shape! Then I had decided to go for something simple in the fancy dress and chose Rosie the Riveter from the US WW2 posters:

If anyone has any sensible suggestions for costumes then please comment! I have no idea how long I can keep this up....

After a maths tutoring session I had a lovely virtual tea break chatting to a friend in Lancashire. I am finding that I am speaking to so many different people whilst alone at home!

This afternoon I decided to use up some of the slightly stale bread to make another bread pudding. As my son won't eat dried fruit I decided to make a chocolate one instead. I modified the Delia Smith recipe to make up my own:

• 110 g (4 oz) bread with crusts cut off
• 135 ml (5 fl oz) of milk
• 2 tablespoons of cocoa powder
• 25 g (1 oz) of melted butter
• 35 g (1.5 oz) soft brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons nutmeg/cinnamon or mixed spice
• 1 medium egg beaten
• 100 g (3.5 oz) chocolate chips

1. Break the bread into suitable size pieces and put in a bowl.
2. Put the cocoa powder in a bowl and add a bit of the milk and mix to a paste.
3. Slowly add the rest of the milk and stir until mixed.
4. Pour over the bread, mix and leave it to soak in for about 30 minutes. [rest of recipe further down!]

I didn't want to waste the crusts I googled how to make croutons in the air fryer whilst waiting for the mixture to absorb. At this point my daughter FaceTimed me and decided she wanted to make some too. So I talked her through it whilst I was cooking:

Gardening and cooking - Day 8

We are now into the second week of isolation and still surviving! I once again kick started my day with a Joe Wicks live workout (how will we survive without him over the weekend...) which gets you feeling energised. Then I had another successful video tutoring session over zoom. I really think I will be using it when life gets back to "normal".

Today I chose to dress as Professor Sprout, can't think why a neighbour asked if the stress was getting to me:

The Herbology professor seemed a good choice as I decided to tackle the front garden to give it a much needed first mow and a little weeding/trimming session:

Reasons to be Cheerful: Return of linky #R2BC

 
I don't think we have ever needed to feel more positive than we do right now. However it can be hard with all that's going on. So I have decided to dig out the Reasons to be Cheerful linky and get it back up and running, on its original Thursday. The linky was started by the lovely Michelle many years ago and many of us have found it helped us through tough times. Therefore I am hoping people will join back in.
What do you have to do? Simple:

1. Link up a post about something that is making you happy or grateful. It can be a list, photos or any way you fancy

2. Add the #R2BC badge (at the end of this post) onto your post or blog so that people can easily find the linky and join in too if they want to

3. Share the love. This is the really important bit. Please don't just link and run, comment on at least a couple of posts and why not share with #R2BC too?

I'll stop by all linked up posts to comment and I'll share on social media too

1) Feeling Loved

Being stuck at home can be lonely but so many of my friends and family are checking in on me and looking after me. It makes me realise that I am not alone even when I can't get out. It's the little extra things like chocolates included in my shopping too!

The online worldwide community is fabulous too with the rainbows spreading around the globe.

2) Making others smile

I've been dressing up in something from my dressing up box every day. It's helping to make other people smile so its a good thing all round:

3) Time

I've been short on time recently due to work commitments and all our activities. Now we don't have any where to go we have so much of it! My son has been baking:

Medieval mayhem - Day 6

It was another glorious sunny day up here so my choice of medieval attire turned out to be a trifle warm today:

I had a pretty busy day of real work as I was tutoring 3 of my regular students. We are all getting the hang of this video conferencing stuff. It's a steep learning curve but its making such a difference to my ability to still earn a little money, despite being confined to the house.

My son decided I had worked hard enough and said I had to come out in the garden for some fresh air:

He had even gone off and made me some peanut butter cookies:

Cooking up some magic - Day 5

The realities of the new rules haven't really hit our home as we can't leave any way. We are settling into our isolation routines and I started off with my Joe Wicks live workout:

Then it was time to don today's silly outfit before hanging out the washing:

I was interviewed by CFR Radio about the rainbow on my window. They used some of it on their news bulletin which I heard this evening. It's great to know that the rainbows are spreading around the world.

My son was more enthusiastic about doing his maths work than his other subjects! He did ask to do some cooking which counted towards his food tech. He rustled up some cheesy crackers:

Reasons to be Cheerful: Half Term holidays #R2BC

 
Its a good job Michelle is hosting this month as I'm forgetting which day of the week it is! We are enjoying our half term break even if its very soggy one. Here are my reasons to be cheerful so far this week:

1) More School Cooking

My son did proper cooking this week and came home with yummy fruit cake:

2) Extended Family

Our trip to Manchester gave us a chance to meet up with my 2nd cousin and his family. I hadn't seen his wife and children for 12 years so it was a chance for the children (who are 3rd cousins) to properly meet.

3) Proud Mum

My son finished 8th in his latest fell race. This is his best finish position yet and he is putting together all that his coaches are teaching him:

Reasons to be Cheerful: Proud Mum #R2BC

It was lovely reading all the happy posts last week. Thank you to Michelle for hosting again this week. My reasons are virtually all proud mum ones this week!

1) Super cook

My daughter is doing catering again this term and rustled up a swiss roll for her first lesson. Shame my kids left it all for me:

2) Parkrun girl

My daughter volunteered to come running at parkrun again with me this week. She did so much better and was a lot faster knocking 20 seconds off her time. Hopefully once her play is over she will be doing more runs with me:

3) Chest Push PB

At his latest competition my son beat his previous PB by 50 cm for the joint longest throw:

My other reason to be cheerful will be appearing in my Fitness Friday post tomorrow ;-)

Tasty Tuesday: Toad in the Hole

I posted a photo of Sunday's dinner on Facebook and it sparked a lively debate on the best ways to make toad in the hole. So I thought I would see what other folks think!

Being me I couldn't find the recipe I wanted to adapted the one I could find from a different book:

Ingredients

Batter

300 ml milk
2 eggs
4 1/2 serving spoons of plain flour (couldn't be bothered to weigh 4 1/2 ounces)

Toad

2 sausages per person
Oil for pan

Learning Life Skills

My children have been inspired by watching the Canadian and Irish versions on MasterChef to do some cooking this week. The first I knew of it was being banned from the kitchen and the occasional request for info, a clattering of pans and the sound of team work. They rustled me up a spicy vegetable pasta:

Seeing as they had never attempted anything like this before it was pretty impressive but with room for improvement. Buoyed with their success they decided to make me tea too. The starter was devised and created by my 7 year old, a salad sandwich:

Cheats Beef Pie

I am a bit of a lazy cook these days and often lack time to do things properly! This weekend I thought I would attempt something slightly more adventurous but still cutting corners: beef pie.

Ingredients

1. pack Schwartz slow cooker beef and ale stew mix
2. stewing steak
3. tin of chopped tomatoes
4. couple of carrots sliced
5. packet Jus Roll pastry
6. milk to glaze

Instructions for preparing stew

1. Brown off the meat in a pan
2. Mix the stew mix with water
3. Add stew mix and carrots to meat
4. Simmer for minimum 45 minutes (an hour would have been better!)

Teaching our children life skills

Having had to rely an awful lot on my 9 year old daughter this weekend due to illness I am quite pleased that I have taught her valuable skills in the home! It's only when you have to leave everything in their hands that you realise what they can and can't do.

From quite early on I've been gradually building up her skills in the kitchen and I've always welcomed the treat of a breakfast in bed. Her first ever one was a ham sandwich aged 3 but this weekend she proved how much she has moved on when she presented me with this:

She has now learnt how to use the toaster and is getting a dab hand at preparing fruit! There were a few times she set the smoke alarms off over the weekend using it but that's because some crumpet got wedged..

The fact that we have a Tassimo coffee machine means that for several years my daughter has been able to make a coffee in bed. Recently her little brother has also learnt how to use the machine. She has just learned how to use the kettle (I have to say this gave me a few scary moments!). On Saturday they couldn't agree on who was on coffee duty so they both made me one:

On Sunday there needed to be a lot more cooking from my daughter as I was forced to spend much of the day in bed. It was when I had to wrack my brains for ways she could feed us all with the skills she had without endangering herself! Anything to do with using the hob was out of the question - she is only allowed to cook on the gas when I am in the room. So I had train her to use the microwave as the safest way to cook. This limited the menu choice to tinned pasta shapes and soup! She became a dab hand at cooking these in our microwaveable dishes. 

Her other speciality is sandwiches and she rustled me up a ham and salad one. The only problem with this was that she was using a sharp knife (we started letting practice under supervision from about aged 5) which she managed to cut herself with. I have to say she was very calm about it all but I need to train my son where the plasters are.. This is what she made for me:

It had brought home to me that we couldn't have a proper meal today as her cooking skills weren't up to more than the above without adult supervision. Luckily we do have a microwave but there wasn't much in the house that could be cooked in there. 

Guess I need to teach her more cooking skills and how to use the hob safely. She is a dab hand at pancake batter and cupcakes but obviously at the minute needs an adult around for the actual cooking.

What can your children accomplish in the kitchen?

Aunt Bessie mid week roasties

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Like most modern parents life can be very hectic at my house with us rushing here there and everywhere with very little time to cook a meal from scratch. I know the value of a proper meal but chopping and preparing takes up far too much time. Like Margaret and Mabel in the video it would seem like a special occasion to rustle up a full roast dinner mid week:




Aunt Bessie's roast potatoes are a big favourite in our house. I love the fact that all I need to do is heat up the oven and pop them in. I can even turn the oven on before doing the school run and it's ready to cook when I get home. The children love the crispiness of the roasties and prefer them to my home cooked ones!

I will also pop in a few Yorkshire puddings (either the bake at home or the 4 minute ones). My children can eat loads of these. Yes it's easy to make your own from scratch but that makes far too much washing up!

Sometimes I also have a few other Aunt Bessie extras such as stuffing balls or other treats - but only when I have had room in the freezer (I need a bigger one!). My children aren't too adventurous on the vegetable front so cooking a one person portion of red cabbage and apple or honey roast parsnips is perfect.

When this is served up with some cold meat from earlier in the week it's a wonderful meal. It's a win all round as we all enjoy it, there is very little preparation involved and virtually no washing up! All making for a very happy mummy.

Plenty of roast potatoes were consumed whilst writing this blogpost!

#TheGallery: The Kitchen

 

Another lovely challenge from Tara with the theme of the kitchen this week. Now the kitchen is really the heart of the home and I love to spend time in there either cooking on my own or with the children. Here are a few pictures to show what a wonderful time we have there:

We love baking treats for others

Pyjama days are perfect for making cakes

Nothing like a stoneware bowl for mixing and colourful melamine for ingredients