ENGLISH MUM

Orange juice really is a thing of beauty.  From a zingy glass of fresh orange juice first thing in the morning to a punchy tropical cocktail, it has so many uses in the kitchen. It’s great as a substitute for alcohol (if you don’t like it – can’t think why you wouldn’t but there you go) in things like Christmas mincemeat and – a sneaky tip here – if your Chinese recipe...

So when it comes to the weekend, breakfast has become a thing of the past, especially now we have teenagers in the house who don’t emerge until a) there’s a phone call inviting them somewhere exciting, or b) they smell bacon. Brunch has become the new breakfast, and it’s a great opportunity for me to get baking (which also passes the time until everyone’s out of their respective pits). What...

We love pancake day.  Let’s face it there aren’t many days in the year when we go ‘sod it, let’s skip dinner and go straight for dessert’ so being total gluttons, Shrove Tuesday  (21st Feb) is a big favourite in the English household. Even if you’re not very confident at cooking, it’s really easy to make pancakes. Here’s a little step by step guide. I usually...

Mmmm banana, honey, brown sugar and maybe a touch of cinnamon.  What’s yours?

Recently, the lovely chaps at Yeo Valley set me a little challenge: ‘fancy checking out a few of our products and then letting us know how you cook with them?’  ’No probs’, I said, ‘piece of cake’ (see what I did there?).  So yesterday I had a call from a courier.  Not your normal ‘yes, I’m just leaving Dublin – can I have directions?’ (you want...

So this week is the delightfully named Farmhouse Breakfast Week.  I am a huge fan of breakfast (who am I kidding, I’m a huge fan of breakfast, brunch, lunch, afternoon tea, dinner, supper…).  I get up early with da brevren every day and make them a proper brekkie.  The Death Wish Child is a two fried eggs on toast addict, especially now Mrs Nutty is producing some beautiful, golden-yolked eggs,...

One of my golden rules here at English Towers 2 (and there aren’t many, in fact, I think that’s the only one – oh no, hang on, there’s the no saying ‘eurgh’ at the table… oh and then there’s not referring to one’s wedding vegetables as ‘nads’ – I hate that…) is that everyone has to have breakfast.  I will never complain if I’m...

So things aren’t going well  here at English Towers.  In fact, that’s a total understatement.  Things are going shite (recession, you b*stard, go take it out on somebody else for a change).  Anyhoo, instead of making you read a whole big chuntering moan all about how terrible my life is, I thought I’d tell you about my little trip to the  lovely little local school yesterday where I took...

So happily, some semblance of peace has been restored this weekend in the garden here at English Towers.  I have to take most of the credit for this (well, me and several small children) as, finally, the coop has a run.  Oh yes, don’t say I’m not handy with a hammer… well, a couple of electric fence poles (not live, natch), some chicken wire and a few cable ties anyway (one upside of living...

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...

  So it’s half term.  And Middle Lovely came for a sleepover with #2.  He’s a happy little chap; talks ten to the dozen like #1 and he loves to cook.  So last night I got talked into having chocolate pancakes for tea, and this morning we all made a cake.  He could never live with us full time as our arteries would probably explode.  Here goes with the pancakes, then: For the basic breakfast...

So we woke up this morning to the wonderful smell of baking.  ‘Mmmm’, I thought, ‘I love baking in the morning’.  Then, ‘that’s strange, though’, I thought after that, ‘I’m baking and yet I’m still in bed’.  Of course, it was the smalls in the kitchen: Head Chef #1 was knocking up a batch of chocolate chip cookies, ably assisted by his slightly...

So I’ve had ups and downs with my first year of vegetable patch ownership.  For example, the sweet peas went completely mental but didn’t give me a single bloody flower, the pumpkins, coriander and basil all died (too cold? we didn’t really have any sunshine) and the cucumber covered the whole plot in huge leaves and spidery tentrils, but no cucumbers (well how was I to know it was a...

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...

  You know how you get little bits of leftover cereal that nobody seems to want to finish?  Well, for some reason these really annoy the pants off me.  Half the time I go to finish them off (even though I hate them – thrifty, moi) only to find they’re all cardboardy and chewy.  This, then, is usually the time I make flapjacks.  I have a sort of dustbin approach to flapjack making – anything...

On Sunday, I made Bill Granger’s banana and butterscotch pudding. Okay, so I admit, I left out the ‘banana and’ bit when I was telling #2 what it was, but he sussed right away. As I was making the custard I was mulling over what gorgeous stuff custard powder is. Remember those yummy rhubarb and custard sweets? So then last night, as I was lying in bed (I know, I know…) I thought ooh,...

So we’ve got a house-load this weekend. Me Mam’s over with my twin niece and nephew (The Fleas). The house has echoed to the sounds of thudding little feet, MarioKart wars, raucous laughter and (occasionally) indignant argument. Cries of ‘I’m hungry!’, ‘ow, get off!’, ‘it’s my turn!’ fill the air, and I’ve yet to sleep in past 7am (6am this morning...

Now I’ll confess I have a tendency to fiddle with recipes. Usually this is just a personal taste thing, or sometimes it can be because they’ve got too many ingredients and I can’t be arsed to put them all in. This time it’s because I live in the middle of bloody nowhere and couldn’t actually find some of the ingredients. The original recipe from my mate 73 (he adds 3 tbsp bran...

Time once again, then, for a little culinary interlude. This one was prompted by #2 announcing yesterday that he was ‘too tired’ to eat scrambled egg and toast in the morning (obviously, the use of knife and fork being too much to ask at such an ungodly hour), and there was me thinking I was very ‘yummy mummy’ serving cooked food in the morning (actually, that’s a lie because it...