ENGLISH MUM

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...