ENGLISH MUM: never knowingly undercatered

So you’ll love this - I’ve a really mad 1970s version of that veritable culinary bible, The Good Housekeeping Cookery Book, which I nicked from me Ma.  I’ve got a new version too but I love the old one best for the naff photos.  Flicking through, I removed one of my myriad bookmarks only to find that it was covered in childish scribble.  Not just scribble, but… a recipe!  judging by the dodgy writing and misspelling of the word ’suger’, I would wager that this was one of my very first forays into trying to poison people with my cooking, and the temptation was too much - I set to work and recreated it.  The good news is that this is possibly the easiest, and yummiest recipe in the world.  I’ve looked it up and there are tons of versions, but this one, happily, seems to be unique and therefore possibly is my very own work.  See what you think:

 3 oz butter

3 oz caster sugar

1/4 pint of milk

1 or 2 teaspoons ground ginger (depends how gingery you like it)

2 tablespoons treacle (my recipe said 1 1/2, but have you tried measuring half a tablespoon of gloop?)

1 tablespoon golden syrup

1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

8 oz self raising flour (sifted)

So preheat your oven (I didn’t actually mention a heat on my original, but I guessed at 180 - gas 4 - and it worked fine).  Butter a small loaf tin and set it aside.  Measure out your butter, sugar, milk, ginger and treacle and melt them over a low heat in a saucepan.  When it’s all melted together, turn off the heat and stir in your bicarbonate of soda, which will kind of fizz up, then add your flour and beat until smooth.  There’s an amazing transformation to a lovely creamy batter.  Very satisfying.  Lob it in your tin, cover with foil (otherwise you get a crusty top and you want it to be soft and moist), bake for about 45 minutes, then remove to cool.  Or, if you’re big fatties like us lot, burn your fingers trying to get it out of the tin, and butter it while it’s still steaming.  Best eaten wearing flares and a shirt with a big collar.  Mmmmmm.

So I’m in a bit of a weird position, I guess (no, not literally - keep it clean, people).  Most of the time, I’m at home during the day and yes, I guess that makes me a bit of a lady of leisure, which is absolutely fine by me; I’ve a degree (with honours) in shopping, and pottering and loafing about are second nature to me.  I fill my days baking, dog walking, pottering, driving vast distances and shopping and, despite Hubby’s amazement, I never get bored.  Sometimes I even do some ironing, or aimlessly wipe a cloth over things that used to be something before they were covered in dust, just for the hell of it.  And, of course I’ve got Bertilicious to look after, and you, my loyal readership, to think about too.  I can’t go neglecting you in case you defect to Grandad, or Flirty, and then I’d never get you back.  Other times, I have children at home (they seem to have a holiday every five seconds), and often next door’s kids too, and then my days are filled with cut knees and snot and sausage sandwiches and football socks and all that Mum stuff.

Now, ask anyone who knows me (the Disreputable One will be the one hopping excitedly from one foot to the other at the front of the queue) and they’ll tell you that although I’m reasonably intelligent, I’ve had about a gazillion jobs: some ridiculous, some very serious and responsible.  I’ve had some for a couple of years and some for five minutes.  For some reason, getting the jobs have never been the problem.  I’m brilliant at interviews, being both a spectacularly good flirt (male interviewers) and incredibly chatty and very interested in where people got their handbag/skirt/beautiful haircut (women interviewers).  Then it all goes downhill.  I have rather a short span of attention and a healthy disrespect for authority.  I’m not sure if the two go together, but I suspect they could be a lot to do with the fact that I’m pretty good at being fired and/or just leaving because I couldn’t be arsed to do the job any more.  I suppose that, unlike Hubby, I’ve never found my niche - something I love that I’m really good at, and that people are prepared to pay me to do.

So here’s the thing.  Every so often when I’m not pottering/blogging/wiping things/cooking random stuff/putting plasters on/giving people lifts/picking up dog poo, I think ‘hmmm, I could do with a job’.  Just a little job, you understand: something to keep me out of trouble and make me feel slightly important.  The trouble is, I live in the middle of a field, miles away from civilisation, and my childcare options are severely limited.  Basically, then, I need a job I can do from home, or one that I can do only when the kids are at school.  I’m wracking my brains here but I can’t think of a single thing.  Maybe I need to do some kind of course so I can learn something home-based.  Of course really I’d like to be Nigella, or Rachel Allen, or even Delia at a push I suppose, but definitely not Anthony Worral-Thompson. 

So last night in bed I was thinking about my strengths and weaknesses (I read in a magazine survey that you should write a list).  So strengths then?  Well, I can spell and type and all that secretarial stuff - I’m good with people and doggies, not bad with children (not small ones though), I can cook (some would argue that point but hey) and I can find my way round a computer.  Bad points?  Attention span of a gnat, very untidy, can’t add up for toffee, talk too much…

Ah well.  I’ll work on my CV.  And in the meantime if anyone hears that Rachel Allen’s retiring, maybe they can put my name forward?

Just a little note to say thanks to the guys at Today’s Mama for making me their featured blog of the week.  I’m majorly flattered (just hope they’re not expecting me to set a good motherly example!).

So the Paddy’s Day parade was fab.  I was especially impressed with this little tot who’d made a huge effort for the occasion.  We saw yachts (yes, really!) and huge 4×4s on floats, as well as an alarmingly large amount of men in drag (what is it with any celebration when seemingly normal blokes feel the need to don fake boobs, wigs and tons of slap?) and obviously we filled up on ice cream (well, the sun came out - just for a minute).  Whatever you’re doing today, have a fantastic St Patrick’s Day.  Mwah! xx

Okay, so all that crap I said about our neighbours being lovely?  Scrap that.  D wanders in earlier, on the hunt for a missing child, oh and a spare Hubby to hit the pub with.  ‘So what’s for dinner?’, he says.  I open the oven, where a rather beautiful toad in the hole is puffing up nicely, and wait smugly for the compliment.  It doesn’t come.  ‘Ew’, says D, ‘you’re having sausages in pastry for Sunday dinner?’.  I resist the urge to whack him good and hard with a saucepan, (I’ve got new copper based ones) as he arranges to come back in half an hour for their jaunt to the pub.  ‘I’m off home for now’, he says, ‘at least we can afford a Sunday roast. Come on, little C, before her cooking puts me off’.  Grrrrrrr!  Bloody Irish neighbours.  I’m thinking of investing in an electric fence.

Anyhoo, now the men have been despatched to the pub with a warning to play nice, I can give you my recipe for the little beauty that is Chocolate pudding with gooey chocolate sauce.  This is similar to Bill Granger’s little individual self saucing puddings in that you whack sauce over the top of a standard  sponge mix and it magically ends up at the bottom.  Here goes then:

For the sponge mix:

4oz butter

4 oz caster sugar

2 eggs

6 oz flour (you need more flour because of all the liquid)

2 tbsp cocoa powder (Use Green & Black’s it’s fab)

For the sauce:

300ml hot water

75g brown sugar

3 tbsp cocoa powder

So put your oven on about 180 (gas..er…dunno - well, sorry, but I haven’t got a gas oven).  And then butter a nice pie dish, or similar (make sure it’s pretty deep, this rises a bit).  Make the sponge by whizzing together the butter and sugar with a hand held electric whisk (or use old fashioned elbow grease if you’re not as lazy as me).  Make sure the mixture is light and fluffy before adding your eggs one at a time then folding in your sifted flour and cocoa powder.  This was a bit of a difficult recipe to get right as it needs a lot of flour for all the liquid but the downside is that your mixture gets very thick.  If it gets too hard to mix, splosh in some milk.  I did, and it doesn’t seem to affect the end result.  Then just dollop your mix into the dish.

Meanwhile, put the water, brown sugar and cocoa into a saucepan and stir until it’s all dissolved, then just pour it over the sponge mix and bung in the oven for about 45 to 50 minutes.  Serve with some softly whipped cream, or if you’re animals like us, then serve it with mad ice cream flavours like chocolate & marshmallow.  The make sure you’re serving it up just as D comes to get Hubby for the pub.  And smile sweetly while stuffing it into face.  Heh.

Here, for your delectation, is Tesco’s new offering, the mini mango.  Available initially in 300 of Tesco’s UK stores, these little beauties have edible skin and are the perfect lunchbox snack.  Aren’t they adorable?  Gimme!

Jeez, it’s a dog’s life alright.

So I went shopping yesterday to the unfeasibly large shopping centre.  I thought I’d get my fix as the kids are off for Easter now, and don’t go back for another - count ‘em - three weeks.  I wanted to get some of that sparkly blue nail varnish that Isit was talking about and I thought I’d treat myself to some new smalls (no, not children, I mean undies) and get my food shopping in Marks and Spencers (woohoo! - don’t tell Hubby). 

So I’m tootling about in Top Shop and see some adorable knickers with little anchors on (I know, but for some reason they really floated my boat - hah).  I have a little rummage around and find that I can have these in a size 6, a size 8 or a size ten.  Ah.  So then I spot some really cute little white broderie anglaise ones with a yellow trim.  Awwww.  But once again, I can have these beauties in an 8 or ten.  Bugger.  I wander out, feeling like the bloody Michelin man, and wonder if I should head to Evans instead.  Now I’m sorry, but is a twelve considered obese these days?  I don’t consider myself too old or too fat to be shopping in Top Shop quite yet, and I don’t think it’s too much to ask for a little room in one’s pants.  Tight elastic, as any woman knows, can ruin a girl’s day worse than a cold sore or a bloody rubbish tip for Cheltenham (no, of course that’s not a reference to your crap tip, J.  I think he’s just finishing now).

Coincidentally, Siobhan Hegarty wrote a very interesting piece for the Indo about ‘The Curse of the Yummy Mummy’ yesterday.  She argues that us girls are being permanently damaged by our celebrity sisters who drop a sprog and then ping back to a size zero in less time than it takes to down a skinny non fat mocha with sugar free vanilla syrup.  And she’s right, but my one objection is that people such as Myleene Klass, who was back in a bikini for a M&S shoot within months of giving birth, get a bit of a slagging too.  I mean, blimey, what is it with us women?  Not content with beating ourselves up for not being thin enough (I’ve never yet met a bloke that loves a size zero - men like curves too), we turn on each other and start biting chunks out of people like Myleene who look bloody awesome (and drop dead curvy too) in a bikini.  The girl needs to earn a living, and I’m pretty sure she worked damned hard for that body.  Good for her.

So anyway, I did find some lurvely knickers, with a little frill around them, in the right size.  And gorgeous they are too.  And when I’m wearing them under my Seven jeans (bargain in TK Maxx), I’m going to do it with a little wiggle, and celebrate the fact that yes, I’m curvy, and yes, I’ve got a bit of cleavage going on, and Hubby seems to like it just fine.

So it came today!!!  I’m SO excited.  It’s very pretty actually, it’s a rather nice shade of blue, with hints of purple.  I love it.  It suits me, and I know it’ll get loads of wear.

So what is it?  A handbag, maybe?  A beautiful necklace?  The latest shade of Chanel nail varnish?  Nope, it’s better than that, it’s my new laser card!  My very own, shiny, new little plastic square of infinite shopping potential!

I’d like to add here that, apart from the potential shopping pleasure, my excitement is somewhat due to the fact that it’s taken me two years to achieve this pinnacle of financial independence.  My first visit to Hubby’s bank went something like this:

Me (after queuing for half an hour): ‘Hello, I’d like to open a bank account please’

Lady with Strangely Green Hair Behind Counter: ‘Oh, you need to go to the customer service counter over there’.

Me: ‘But I’ve just queued for half an hour’

LwSGHBC (with ‘firm but fair’ smile): ‘Sorry, I can’t deal with new accounts at this till’

Me (after queuing for a further half an hour at the customer service counter: ‘Hello, I’d like to open a bank account please’

Man behind Customer Service Counter with Unfeasibly Thick Lensed Glasses On: ‘Certainly, Madam.  I’ll need two forms of identification, such as passport and driving licence, and a utility bill’.

Me: ‘Oh, I don’t have a utility bill in my name.  I do have my passport, driving licence, birth and marriage certificates though…’

MBCSCwUTLGO: ‘Sorry, I’ll need that before I can open the account’

Me: ‘But my husband came over here while I was still in the UK and all the bills are therefore in his name’

MBCSCwUTLGO (standard bank issue firm but fair smile appearing): ‘Sorry, but those are the rules.  We’ll need the utility bill before we can open the account’.

Me (quietly): ‘Bollocks’

MBCSCwUTLGO (cheerily): ‘Next please!’

Oh and my woes didn’t stop there.  We were just about to move anyway, so decided we’d leave it until we registered at our new utility providers and put my name on the bills.  Anyway, I was quite happy using Hubby’s credit card - there was no rush, I reasoned.  Eventually, though, I made my way back to the bank, waited half an hour in the correct queue, then smugly handed over my passport, driving licence and Eircom bill.  But there was a problem.  By this stage, Hubby had acquired a Personal Account Manager (bloody show off), who returned to his counter looking concerned and clutching my passport.  So get this: on a UK passport, there’s a transparent film covering your photo.  It’s dotted with little shiny snowflake yokes (I thought they looked a bit like the little patterns on Louis Vuitton handbags, but Hubby couldn’t see it) that presumably act as some form of safety measure to stop you fiddling with the photo.  Unfortunately for me, when my passport was photocopied, I had a big, shiny snowflake yoke smack bang in the middle of my nose.  This, I was informed, was no good at all as I couldn’t be identified.

‘But it’s me!’  I stuttered.  ‘I’m here with Hubby, and you’re his personal account whatnot, and he can tell you that it really is me, because I’m married to him and God knows I’m so bloody annoying that he’d never forget my face, trust me’ (Hubby nods helpfully at this point).

Several tries at the photocopier later, and the result was the same.  I was the world’s first snowflake-nosed woman.  And not wanting to set a precedent for giving bank accounts to people with strange noses, my case was referred to head office.

Me: ‘Bollocks’

Anyoo, head office saw reason and I was eventually deemed not to be a threat to national security (although I don’t think the ‘bollocks’ comment helped), but here I am, then, two years after my initial enquiry, and I have my very own bank account and shiny new laser card to boot.  Phew.  I’m off to make sure it works.

Hubby’s looking a bit worried.