ENGLISH MUM

So if you’re snowed in, or just fancy a nice afternoon of Christmassy cooking in the kitchen, I can think of nothing finer than stollen.  Not only is it yummy, but the smell of it cooking is just the finest thang ever. As you can see from the picture, I actually made mine when I was back at English Towers in Ireland (it was for a magazine article, so they were unseasonably made in October), but they...

So you know when you have that afternoon lull and you think ‘hmm, what I need is a nice cup of tea and piece of cake?’  Well Hubby had exactly that feeling this afternoon – a sudden, inexplicable craving for Christmas cake.  A quick rummage in the cupboards revealed a bit of a motley assortment of half packets of various golden sultanas, raisins and ‘fruit mix’ (arrghhh! Peel!) and it got me...

We had this for lunch today and I realised I’ve never posted this little beauty before.  I’m almost embarrassed to pass on the chicken recipe to you as it’s barely more than mixing a few ingredients together, but it’s soooo good and makes the house smell so delicious that I think you deserve it.  Here goes, then: For the tandoori chicken: 4 heaped tbsp plain yoghurt 1 tbsp tandoori...

So ginger cake, then.  Regular, eagle-eyed viewers amongst you will remember that I found my original, childishly scrawled version of this little beauty tucked inside one of my Ma’s old cookery books a while back and recreated it with some success.  Since then, though, I’ve been feverishly working on it after being stung by a comment of Hubby’s that it wasn’t ’sticky enough’. ...

So poor little #2 came home from his GAA tournament yesterday feeling all under the weather.  He was cold and clammy, his head ached, his tummy hurt and he felt all ‘kind of wobbly’.  Of course, there’s only one cure for this particular group of symptoms, which is a snuggle on the sofa with the dog, the fluffy blanket, a hot chocolate and a fistful of sticky bun.  Trust me, I’m a...

So I’ve gone a bit hot cross bun mental recently.  I was testing recipes for them ages ago for the magazine as I think I mentioned, and as people keep scoffing them, I’ve just kept making more and more.  I’ve made them with crosses cut in the top, with crosses piped on, with crosses dribbled on… with no crosses piped on…I’ve made them in round tins, or on baking trays…...

I love my kitchen.  I’d love it more if it was painted pink, but that’s a bit contentious on the Hubby front and might take some serious marital bargaining, probably best not described on a family blog such as this.  Still, today I had a bit of a reorganisation (well, I suppose I should say ‘we’, seeing as it involved taking plugs off things and drilling holes) and moved the microwave...

  Ah, Sunday morning.  The perfect time for pottering in the kitchen.  There’s coffee on the stove and a satisfying stack of papers to get through.  This morning I fiddled with my recipe for brown bread and it came out rather well, even if I say so myself.  This recipe is an adaptation of one of Rachel...

What is it about Heinz tinned soups?  They’re actually pretty disgusting – I mean, how do they get that gelatinous texture?  It doesn’t bear thinking about.  And the mushroom flavour, which is #1’s preferred choice, is frankly revolting.  Too creamy, oddly grey in colour and, well, mushrooms don’t really taste like that, do they.  And then there’s the tomato flavour. ...

On meeting a Yorkshireman once, J uttered those immortal words: ‘ooh, I LOVE your puddings’.  C has never let her forget it.  In the same vein, therefore, if I bumped into Frank Lampard, I’d let him know how much I like his buns (Chelsea buns.  Stop it.)  So this morning, for your delectation, I present the best recipe I’ve tried in a long time, a delectable choccy kind of Chelsea...