ENGLISH MUM

English Mum’s ‘Don’t Eat Six Gingercakes’ Diet

So Hubby and D-next-door play 6-a-side soccer on a Thursday (well, sometimes it’s 5-a-side, or 7, depending on who can be arsed).  They come home absolutely shattered, pouring with sweat, have a quick shower and bugger off to the pub where they consume large amounts of beer.  I can’t help myself; I have to question how healthy this pastime actually is.  I, on the other hand, don’t bother with the exercise or the working up of a sweat – I just go straight into the vino.  We have a chat and decide that we’re probably not the healthiest of families.

The thing is, though, dear reader, I generally don’t think we do too badly.  We have good, freshly prepared food, eat plenty of fruit and vegetables, we exercise…  Well, I walk the dog every day and Hubby has a gym in the garage (I don’t go in since my run-in (hah) with the evil running machine that glares at me when I go to put stuff in the tumble dryer.  It made me dry-heave after ten minutes then spat me onto the floor).  But yes, I do have a serious baking addiction and a fondness for a glass of wine or seven.  Where do you draw the line?  I think I’m quite healthy – I’m a size 12, which is probably about right for my 5’7″ frame.  I have been this size for my whole adult life.  Yes, I have ‘tits and ass’ (sorry mother), but I like them, I’m fond of them and I don’t want them to disappear. 

But (or should that be butt), equally, I’ve noticed the curve of my tummy being rather more pronounced recently, and as much as I love curves, I wouldn’t want them to be lost under rolls of flab either.  I want to continue to be healthy, but to curb some of my more extreme habits (the baking of 6 ginger cakes in one day because I couldn’t quite get it sticky enough being one of them).  

I absolutely and utterly will not do diets.  I won’t have the D word even mentioned in my house.  I think denial equals disaster.  Healthy eating is one thing, but denying yourself fruit on the Atkins diet because it contains hidden sugar is just plain mental and unhealthy and I won’t countenance it.  We have a long chat, and decide on the following rules for English Towers:

• We will try to have a healthy breakfast (damn, there goes the enormous slice of leftover ginger cake and the big fat hot chocolate, then)
• We will cut down on the amount of refined food and junk that we eat.  Damn you, Ronald McDonald.
• We will try to avoid eating big stodgy meals after 6pm (scientific studies – not that pillock Atkins – have proven that you don’t need huge amounts of carbs at night when you’re going to just sit around and not burn them off).
• We will (double gulp) cut down on our alcohol intake.  Initially we’ll try to just drink alcohol at weekends.
• We will do all this without making a big fuss and involving our children in ‘ooh, I can’t possibly eat that’ type conversations.

There.  I’ve said it.  And now I’ve told you all it will have to become law or I’ll look really stupid.  And I’ve just bought 24 bottles of Jacob’s Creek up at Tesco’s in Enniskillen too.  Damn.

A technical hitch and ‘uh oh, bigger boys’

So this is weird, then.  I can’t comment on my own blog.  I’ve tried everything – logging out, using a different email address, even pretending to be someone else, but no, the result’s the same.  It starts grinding, then it hangs, then it says ‘internet explorer cannot display this web-page’.  And what’s worse, my hairy web-guru, Grandad, has gone on his holliers and won’t be back for ages.  So you’ll just have to do without my sparkling repartee until this glitch is fixed.  Sorry and all that.

In other news, #1 has started at his new school.  We found ourselves sitting in the car, ten minutes early yesterday.  He had his enormous blazer on (black, two sizes too big - well, you’ve got to get a bit of wear out of it when they’re 100 quid a pop), new black school shoes, white shirt, grey jumper (with crest – bought from school supplier at an extortionate price) and his new tie.  The tie caused a few problems, actually.  Wanting to be ready and prepared on his first day, #1 had set his alarm for about 3am and when I finally dragged myself out of my pit at 7, he was washed, scrubbed, armpit-sprayed, hair-flattened, and very, very cross.  It’s the tie, you see?  He’s never had one before and had managed to get it into a rare ol’ knot around his neck.  ‘Give it here’, says I, ‘I wore a tie for years’ before making an even bigger mess of it (I think they make ties differently these days).  Eventually, not wanting him to start on his first day with something akin to a large, stripey pussy-bow tied around his neck, we had to brace ourselves and awake the monster in order for him to show his offspring how to tie a decent knot, before skulking off back to his bed muttering about being woken so early.

So there we were, tie in position, lunch in schoolbag (pasta salad with tomato, mozzarella and ham, banana, frozen yoghurt and a cake, if you must know), waiting outside the school.  #1 was a bit nervous and making small involuntary squeaky noises.  A car pulled up next to us and a child the size of a small building got out.  As the man-mountain unfolded himself from the car, we both craned our necks to check him out – yup, he had school uniform on – and I swear there was a hint of stubble there too.  The squeaking got worse.  ’Uh oh’, said #1, ‘bigger boys’.  Poor chap, when you’ve had a whole year being the oldest, suddenly mixing with 18/19 year olds in the same school is going to come as a bit of a shock.

Still, we met the headmaster, #1 got a check on the squeaking, and I watched him walk away down a corridor for his first foray into secondary education.  I got to the front door at the same time as the headmaster’s wife: ‘don’t worry’, she said confidently as I wiped away a stray tear, ‘it’s always worse for the parents’.

The Friday Photo: it’s toothbrush time again!

Yes laydees and gennelmen, once again it’s time for the smalls to have new toothbrushes.  This is obviously a bonus as far as Bert’s concerned as he gets to eat the old ones.  What?  They taste lubly.

TEST

TEST

Just call me Bob

So you might remember Gorgeous G, my rather lubly hairdresser.  Truly scrumptious, very talented and – gasp! – not gay.  After my foray into brown-ness, I toyed with a bit of ‘caramel’, a bit of ‘copper’ and even (big mistake) some reddish low-lights.  I’m still feeling a bit brown and dull and I’m looking a bit, well, straggly.  I just tie it up every day.  This calls for a visit to G.  We talk about his big day (he got to bed at 4.30am, that’s my kind of wedding) and he looks at my hair:

G: What you need is a beautiful, sleek blonde bob.  It would look fabulous on you, I promise.

Me: Erm…I won’t look like a boy will I?

G: No, and what’s more, [teasingly] if you cut some of the ends off, it’ll be much healthier and you can have more highlights.

Me: Do it.  Do it now.

So that’s how I come to have a rather sleek, terrifically shiny blonde bob, which I flick around in the rear view mirror all the way home, feeling rather sexy and come-hither.  I flutter my eyelashes in the mirror too, until the man in the white van behind me starts laughing.  Then I stop.  I text Jen while I’m stuck in traffic.  She approves.   We have a nice texty conversation about how cool bobs are and how we’ve both wanted one for ages.  I check the mirror again.  Ooh, swingy.  Then I get home and it all goes downhill:

Me: Ta da!

Hubby’s subconscious: Jesus she looks like a boy.  Quick, say something nice.

Hubby: Erm….  Oh.

Hubby’s subconscious: Pathetic.  Is that the best you can do?

Me: Well, what do you think?

Hubby’s subconscious: Don’t worry, it’ll grow, you’ll just have to fantasise a bit more about Jennifer Love-Hewitt when you’re getting it on, that’s all…

Hubby: Erm, it’s very nice…

Me: Oh.  Don’t you like it?

Hubby’s subconscious: For God’s sake try to look enthusiastic, you’re giving us away.

Hubby: No, no, I do like it.  It’s just a bit of a shock, that’s all. 

Me (feeling suddenly less sexy and swingy): You don’t like it do you.

Hubbys subconscious: Now you’ve done it.  You’ll have to lie.  And quick.

Hubby: Yes, erm…. it’s lovely.  I wonder what it’ll look like in the morning though…

Hubby’s subconscious: Doh!

Me: Why?

Hubby: Well, you might not be able to get it as good as he did it.

Me (grabbing bottle of Merlot): You hate it don’t you.  Why can’t you just tell the truth?

Hubby’s subconscious: Tsk.  Pour the Merlot.  It’s the least you can do now you’ve hurt her feelings.

So anyway, I’ve got a bob.  And I like it.  It’ll look lovely for Moon’s wedding – I’ve got a feather fascinator to put in it and everything.  And Hubby?  Well, I suppose it’ll grow on him eventually.  Until then, there’s always Jennifer.

Food for free! Or how we made bramble jelly

So when me Ma was here, we remarked upon the sheer number of big fat blackberries we saw as we were tootling down the boat road with The Bertster ‘Ooh’, said I, ‘I could make some bramble jelly’.

And so it came to pass that I enlisted a bit of child labour and we set about spending a happy afternoon picking blackberries, getting prickled by thorns and comparing our rapidly blackening fingertips.  Every so often, one of us would yell ‘tractor!’ and we’d all have to hurl ourselves into the hedge to avoid being squished.  Much fun then ensued as we set to work in the kitchen, #1 looking fetching in the Homer apron (woo hoo!), making a big mess and a very small amount of bramble jelly.  You don’t have to ponce about with the muslin if you don’t want to (Hubby popped a curious head around the door to find out why #2 was ferreting in the linen cupboard looking for ‘a Muslim’.  Bless.) but I’m not keen on pips.  Horses for courses I guess.  Here we go, then:

1 kilo blackberries

Juice of 2 lemons

About 1lb sugar

8 fl oz water

So, firstly and most importantly, dollop your berries into the sink and add a good handful of salt and tons of fresh water.  All the nasties will die a horrible death and float to the top (one doesn’t want maggot in one’s scone, does one).  Rinse them thoroughly in loads of fresh water, then bung them all in a big saucepan (it really bubbles up so leave loads of room) with the lemon juice and water, bring to the boil then simmer for 20 to 30 minutes until the fruit is all mushy.

Let it cool a bit then strain it, either in a fine sieve, making sure you really squish it through with the back of the ladle, or you can do it the labour-intensive way and tie it up in a muslin or one of those jam strainer things, and leave it to drip overnight if you want clear jelly.  We got impatient and decided to just squeeze the muslin (although #2 did it a bit hard and it all exploded out of the top) to get out as much as possible.  We were left with exactly one pint of juice, which is handy as the jammy scribbles in my old notebook tell me that for each pint of juice you need ½ kg of sugar (by they way, generally with jam you need ½ kg sugar to ½ kg raw fruit).

Add your sugar, then, and bung it back in the saucepan and bring it to the boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar.  If you’re a flash monkey like me and have a confectionery thermometer, you need the temperature up to about 220 degrees.  Otherwise, just boil it for about five minutes, dollop a teaspoon onto a cold saucer and see if it wrinkles up when you push your finger into it.  If not, leave it another couple of minutes and try again.

Give your jars a whizz in the dishwasher, or thoroughly clean them in hot soapy water then pour boiling water over them, inverting them on clean kitchen towel to dry, then pour in your jelly and add a circle of waxed paper and pop on the lid.  Go back to the jars every five seconds to wobble them impatiently to see if they really are setting, then store somewhere cool until you bake some fantastic scones to slather it upon.  Slurp.

The one that never was

Now I’m always telling you about my boys: something funny they’ve said, some adventure they’ve had, their raging guitar riffs and their mad behaviour.  Sometimes though, like at the wedding, they’re terrifyingly, achingly grown up and sensible: a teeny glimpse of things to come?

Hubby’s often away working, and hey, it’s the holidays, so we’ve been a bit slack about bedtimes and the like.  The other night, though, I sent them up to get ready for bed, and found them not in the bathroom, but in a little huddle on #2′s bed looking a bit pensive.  They’d been told off for something or other, and I’d emphasised the fact that they should respect each other a lot more as, after all, they only have each other.  I snuggled in next to them and I could tell they were working up to asking me something.  I stayed quiet and the conversation went a bit like this:

#1: Mum, can we ask you something?

Me: Anything.  You know that.

#1: Well, you know we had a baby that died?  Was it a girl or a boy?

Gulp.  Okay, so we never kept it a secret from them.  Hubby and I, along with thousands, nay, millions of people, lost a baby once, a long time ago.

Me: I don’t know, darling.  The baby died inside me, and when it was taken away I was asleep.  (This is hard, but I figure that honesty is the best policy).  Actually, I like to think that it was a girl – my daughter – it feels funny to think I might have had one.

#2: Are you still sad?

Me: Yes, sometimes when i think about it I suppose I am, but then me and Daddy already had you, and soon afterwards we had #2, so we know we’re very lucky.

#1: Will we ever have another brother or a sister?

Me: No, I don’t think so now.  We’re getting to be quite a grown-up family now, aren’t we.  And anyway, you already think #2′s a pain – can you imagine having a new baby around messing with your guitars and drooling on your X-box?

#2: Ew.  Nope.

So there you have it.  With one small conversation, all sorts of memories are brought flooding back; in spite of it all, feeling so terribly sorry for the young doctor who had to give us the bad news (‘I’m sorry, we can’t find a heartbeat’), a hospital ward full of pregnant women (why do they put you there?), Hubby and I arriving home from hospital, just numb with it all, my poor Mum, devastated herself, being so brave and supportive, bouquets of flowers being delivered, sympathy cards instead of congratulations.  And afterwards, back to work; awkward silences with people not knowing what to say, still having to crack on and look after a toddler.  I remember the December came when the baby should have been born.  I was pregnant with #2 by then, but the date was a sad one: thoughts of what could have been.

Things happen for a reason, they say, and if one small life lost should have taught me anything, it’s that I should appreciate my two little fellas all the more.  That’s if I can just stop myself strangling them before they go back to school.  Happy days

EM’s Book(ish) Club: Our next book

Righty ho, then.  I can’t really call this our August book as I was rather late finishing, so I’ll just go with ‘next’ instead.

Recent suggestions have included:

Rebecca’s Tale by Sally Beauman (hat tip, Jen)

Body Surfing or Light on Snow by Anita Shreve (Aidan)

The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards (Baino)

Bad Food Britain by Joanna Blythman (Ned Flanders Wee Jen)

A Free Range Childhood by Matthew Appleton (Tara)

Passing for Normal  by Amy Wilensky (Tracey)

I quite fancy something historical – maybe a Phillippa Gregory as recommended by Loops.  Votes, then, or any other suggestions via comment or email please.  Ta everso.

The Friday Photo: My Mosaic

This is great fun.  Hat tip to Thrifty for this one.  First you take a list of questions:

1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favourite food?
3. What school did you go to?
4. What is your favourite colour?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. What is your favourite drink?
7. What is your dream holiday?
8. What is your favourite dessert?
9. What do you want to do when you grow up?
10. Who/ what do you love most in life?
11. Choose one word that describes you?
12. What is your Flickr name?  (I don’t have one but I just put in English Mum)

Next, type your answer to the questions into a flickr search, then using only the first page, click on an image.  Copy and paste each of the urls into the Mosaic Maker.

BTW: If anyone would like the original flickr urls of any of these incredibly talented photographers, drop me a mail.

Pear and vanilla tart

So pastry, then.  Well it’s a bit of a sod, frankly and I try not to bother if at all possible.  I always get it all stuck to the rolling pin (not being the dantiest of bakers) but hey, my family don’t mind my rustic baking.  I was telling me Ma, then, about Bill Granger’s fantastically easy pastry made with melted butter.  He pinched it off Patricia Wells so I, in turn, pinched it off him, then twiddled it a bit (I know, I just can’t help it).  It makes beautiful, shortbready pastry which is perfect for any kind of pie, but specifically for fruit pies as it absorbs a bit of excess liquid and still remains yummy.

It’s dead easy, too:

4oz butter

4 oz caster sugar

6 oz plain flour

So just melt the butter, stir it in to the sugar and then add in the flour, stirring until it makes a nice soft dough, then press it into a loose bottomed tart tin (ooer) with your fingers, pushing it up the edges.  And that’s it – you’re a pastry goddess (or god, natch).  Bung it in a moderate oven (180/gas 4) for about 15 minutes (keep an eye on it, the baking time will depend on the size of tin/thickness of pastry), no baking beans required.

Now to the filling – basically the world’s your oyster: got fresh cherries?  Perfect.  Strawberries?  Yep, those too.  Only got a tin of pears?  They’ll do fine.  Just make sure you drain whatever you use quite well (especially if the fruit was frozen).  Don’t put any extra juice in as, let’s face it, nobody likes a soggy tart, do they.  I sliced a couple of over-ripe pears from the fruit bowl and arranged them not very artfully in the tart base.  Mr Hyper-critical said I should have peeled them first but he still managed to force down about four slices.

Next make your custardy stuff.  If you’re feeling flash, use cream.  Otherwise milk will do just fine too:

2 tbsp plain flour

3 tbsp caster sugar

1/4 pint cream or milk

2 eggs

2 tsp vanilla extract (not essence!)*

Mix the sugar and flour in a bowl, then whisk the eggs, cream and vanilla in a jug, pour into the sugar and flour and mix it all together.  Pour this over your fruit and bake the whole lot (on a baking tray in case of accidents, people!).  It’ll probably take at least 40 minutes to set, but again, this depends on your filling.  It might need a bit longer.

Leave it to cool slightly then slice and serve with cream.  It’s rather yummy cold too.  Can I say here that I didn’t have a wide enough tart tin so my pastry got a little too brown before the centre was cooked.  Hey, at least I’m honest. 

*NOTE: For the poncy amongst us, yes you can put your cream or milk on the hob, split a fresh vanilla pod, scrape out the seeds then warm the whole lot gently, reserving the pod before cooling and adding the rest of the ingredients .  But frankly, it’s just as easy to add a couple of teaspoons of good vanilla extract.  I’ll leave that for you to decide.