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Posted by
English Mum |
Feb 14th, 2012
The ‘baked with love’ bakeoff: the entries
So here they are, then, in all their glory – the wondrous, creative, impressive and lovingly baked entries to the ‘baked with love’ bakeoff.
I can’t quite believe that everyone’s worked so hard and am very grateful to everyone who took part – especially those who made me laugh sending tweets to the judge telling her how beautiful/clever/fabulous she is. Made my day.
The...
Posted by
English Mum |
Feb 13th, 2012
Sod the flowers this Valentine’s Day. I want a steak bouquet.
Not a lover of Valentine’s Day?
Don’t fancy chocolates?
Allergic to flowers?
I’ve got just the thing. Quality Standard Beef and Lamb have told me about one of their butchers, Antony Bowness from Tewkesbury who has created the stuff of my Valentine’s dreams: a steak bouquet. Apparently the bouquet is made up of ‘carefully sculpted sirloin steaks’.
Antony said: “I get...
Posted by
English Mum |
Feb 11th, 2012
Review: ‘Sweet Peas for Summer: how to create a garden in a year’ by Laetitia Maklouf
As you know, I’m a bit of a Twitter addict. And yes, I know a lot of people just don’t get Twitter, but I’ve made some amazing connections on there (I hesitate to say friendships, as I suppose that’s not possible with someone you’ve never actually met). One such person is the utterly gorgeous and adorable Laetitia Maklouf. We discovered a shared love of garden-pottering and...
Posted by
English Mum |
Feb 10th, 2012
Yeo Em Gee! They’re ‘yeoganic’, don’t you know… A visit to Yeo Valley.
So earlier this week I was up and about at some ungodly hour, puzzling as to where exactly the car park spaces were supposed to be under several inches of ice in a windswept train station car park.
Still, it got better, as when we got to Yeo Valley’s beautiful organic garden and tea rooms in Somerset, they’d got the log fire burning and tea and biccies laid out ready for us (home made chocolate and...
Posted by
English Mum |
Feb 6th, 2012
Chocolate orange brownies with bitter chocolate orangettes
Still in pursuit of the perfect chocolate brownie, then, I made these while my children were out making giant… erm.. appendages out of snow. I would show you a video but they’re all disgusting and their grandparents might see. I don’t know where they get it from.
These brownies are utterly lush and slightly more ‘grown up’ than the version I usually make (George’s chocolate...
Posted by
English Mum |
Feb 4th, 2012
The end of alcohol-free January – and the results
So finally… FINALLY! alcohol-free January is over. It seemed like a really long month but I stuck to my guns and not a drop of alcohol, nor a single fattening thing passed my lips the entire time.
It was tough. That’s an understatement – it was really tough. For someone whose routine is to finish clearing up from dinner, then head straight to the fridge for a glass of wine before collapsing...
Posted by
English Mum |
Feb 2nd, 2012
Me right now
My lovely friend Taralara over at Sticky Fingers runs The Photo Gallery. It’s a fab idea – there’s a theme each week, and loads of people join in, taking pictures and sharing them with each other. I dip in and out, but this one really caught my eye: me. Right now.
‘We’re terrible for ‘posing’ for photographs aren’t we?’, says Tara.
‘Making sure...
Posted by
English Mum |
Jan 31st, 2012
English Mum’s ‘baked with love’ Bakeoff – who says romance is dead?
So it’s bakeoff time again! I wanted to do something around Valentine’s day, because you guys always bake the most amazing things, BUT I don’t want to limit you all to just heart-shaped things, oh no. So our theme for this bakeoff is ‘baked with love‘.
If you’re not loved up, but just want to bake yourself a big mahoosive cake to eat in bed while watching a film, that’s...
Posted by
English Mum |
Jan 31st, 2012
Micky bickies (OFFICE WARNING: naughty biscuit photo alert)
Waaay before we were good buddies, on our first trip to Disneyworld Florida, my fellow bloggers, the Disney 7 (well, the other 6), were most perplexed by the fact that any time anyone from Disney mentioned the ‘hidden Mickeys’ placed all around the resorts and parks, I dissolved into snorty cackling. It didn’t matter how much I tried. One mention of a mickey and that was it – my...
Posted by
English Mum |
Jan 27th, 2012
A healthier blueberry and lemon loaf
So the weekend was somewhat traumatic. I won’t fill you in on all the events, but needless to say being trapped in a packed train carriage all the way from Shepherds Bush while the three teenagers I was escorting serenaded their fellow commuters with loud renditions of My Horse is Amazing (seriously – don’t bother watching it, it’s that bad) and then being politely told that we were,...
