ghoti_mhic_uait

On Wednesdays we are out all day, so I make packed lunches. Except tomorrow, because this evening I put a bunch of stuff on the table (including a roast chicken and a bowl of boiled eggs) and the children made their own.

Judith has chicken, carrot sticks, dried mango, rice cakes, crisps, mini cinnamon rolls and jelly. Andreas has eggs, carrot sticks, dried mango, bread (plain), fruit winder, crisps and jelly. It'll do. (I've got sushi rice, eggs, chicken, mixed chopped veg and hummous, some mixed dried fruit and jelly.) We'll all drink water.


In other news we watched Toast, the autobiography of Nigel Slater, yesterday. It actually just covers the first half of the book, his childhood, and I was touched by how sympathetically it portrayed even the people he didn't really like, I'd recommend it whether or not you read the book.

Today I noticed that I missed some Jerusalem artichokes when harvesting last year, and they have turned into new plants. This is not unexpected but is still pleasing. Last year I harvested exactly one dinner's worth of veg, from half our growing space.

What was unexpected is that both the birds and I missed a raspberry, so I have a tiny baby raspberry, which brings me up to 6 again. But Andreas did some weeding and I have fewer pepper plants than I did before he did that. So we've talked about how he needs to get me to supervise before he does that, he just forgot.

Monday morning means Emerald City, which is Oz for grownups. It's based on not just the first book, but subsequent books, and I'm less familiar with those. I think there's some new stuff thrown in, and certainly I can think of at least one character where they've amalgamated two and I'm pretty certain they were separate in the book. But it's gripping, I'm loving it.
Content note: there's a trans* kid who gets forced off his meds. It's so emotionally hard, and that's the point, to show how he really needs that help.

I'm reading Magic for Nothing by Seanan McGuire, which is the latest InCryptid and told from Antimony's perspective. Lots of roller derby and lots of fun. Also Taking the Village Online which if you like academic parenting books, you might be interested in, but otherwise, maybe not? IDK.

Playing: Colin just got the Ghostbusters boardgame so we haven't played that yet but it's our next plan. I haven't been playing so many games recently though.

Also, yesterday I made blackbean enchiladas which made Colin happy, and Jack cooked for me so that made me happy. A nice salsa though, finely chopped onion, tomatoes, mixed salad leaves, lime juice and a lot of pepper. And lime and black pepper soured cream, I normally just offer plain soured cream or yoghurt, but that was a good plan. Also in recent menu, mixed nuts fried with rice wine and rice vinegar, they were really good.

Yesterday I made a dinner so nice Jack wrote it down. So I figured that I'd give you a 'here was my day' post even though I haven't written up Spain.

I almost finished Fortress Frontier by Myke Cole and had to leave Sailing to Serantium by Guy Gavriel Kay at a particularly exciting point, so quite a frustrating book day. Both excellent in very different ways - and there was a point where about 6 or 7 train journeys in a row featured a pretty woman reading Kay as one of my fellow passengers (not the same woman) so I assume that reading Kay makes me more attractive?

Tom and the littles and I played Splendor, which is a resource management game - Andreas is an interesting person to play with, because he wants to stockpile rather than manage his resources. At the end of the game, Tom won but Judith and I were both within a turn of winning so pretty well balanced I think.

Dinner was pasta with broccoli (because our cauliflower had gone off) and cheese sauce; pasta and broccoli cooked separately because the children don't eat sauce (they had cheese with it, and we also had baby sweetcorn with it). This particular cheese sauce, I melted some butter and fried some mushrooms (I meant to add onions and garlic here but forgot), then added a spoon of mustard, stirred well, and added a splash of milk several times stirring well, then a generous dash so the mushrooms were all covered, maybe a pint and a half in total? At this point I added fresh sweetcorn kernels (just sliced off the cob) and a lot of grated chededar and grana padana, and kept stirring until it thickened. Mixed it into the pasta and broccoli, then grated more cheddar on the plates when iut was finished.

After dinner we played Princess cupcakes game, which is a child-aimed game where you have to build your princess' cake before the time runs out. Andreas is very enthusiastic about this game :) And then Transformers Shuffle, which is a nice battle card game, a good family game and you can play it on the tray tables on aeroplanes, which is what I was hoping when I bought it at the airport :) It also isn't all about turn taking ,everyone plays on every turn, so might be good for more impatient players?

Today I had enough brains to cook but not enough to think about cooking. So I looked at my open tabs and came up with a rather tasty meal.

Oven fried chicken
I used too much buttermilk, and it was a bit less crisp than those looked, but was v. tasty. Oh, and I added some sumac to the breadcrumb mixture.

Sweet pepper and onion confit as recommended by venta.
I didn't add salt, but did add a splash of sake and a splash of worcester sauce. B didn't want to eat the onion, saying that he finds onions sour, but admitted when he tried it that it was nice, and also quite sweet.

I also made potato wedges, but I forgot, I thought that I normally undercooked them so went for a longer cooking time, but they ended up burnt.

I made enough chicken and veg to go in B's lunchbox tomorrow, he's also having rice, and for dessert, a slice of malt loaf and some raspberries.

Judith was pretty 'depat' (desperate) for 'sparag' (asparagus) today. She asked me before we went out, again in the shop (choosing which bunch she wanted) and again when we were discussing what else to eat. I wonder whether she'll actually eat it.
(We're having rosemary roast potatoes (her choice, but could be any of ours) and chicken nuggets (mine) as well.)

Update I was right, she only ate chicken.

For Benedict's birthday. we had Harry Potter tea with R & J. While I was looking for examples of food from the books, I read a lot of articles talking about lack of veg. Yes, it doesn't feature a lot - I'm sure it's offered, but not talked about, given the sort of meals they have, I imagine cabbage, carrots, broccoli, maybe cauliflower cheese occasionally... meat and two veg. Also, a lot of people complain that there's no fresh fruit at breakfast. Which made me wonder, who eats fruit for breakfast? I'm vaguely aware that some people have grapefruit, and then there are babies of course, but is it more widespread than that?

(Yesterday Judith ate her own bowl of cereal, half of my bowl of cereal and a pear. I had half a bowl of cereal.)

[Poll #1554824]

This is the cake I made for Colin for St Joseph's day (19th March, but we celebrated early to avoid Holy Week):

( picture )

These are my coloured eggs this year:
( picture )

Due to a massive lapse in communication and general faff, we're not planning on having Christmas Dinner until later. I still wanted to make something nice, and I found what looked like a really good recipe for roast pork with a cranberry topping.

I can't find the recipe now! So, do any of you have favoured online recipes for pork with cranberry topping? Otherwise, I'm reasonably happy to wing it.

Also, last night we ate our dinner at Chiquito, a Mexican restaurant at the Leisure Park. Very teh yum; but we ate too much for pudding :( We had nachos - I think they're aimed at a larger group than two - but very crisp and lovely, with just the right amount of cheese and heat, a lovely creamy guacamole, a very tasty salsa and sour cream. Then I had swordfish in an orange juice glaze, served with black bean salsa, sour cream and garlic mash. On its own, the swordfish was pleasant - with the salsa and soured cream it was sublime. Colin had chicken pablano quesadilla, and the sauce was very fruity and rich and delicious, but I couldn't try it properly because of the not-eating-meat thing. We are definitely going back when I can eat meat - and also maybe not having a starter next time, because the desserts look fabulous.