Five little things for 2010
Happy New Year! We spent a happy evening with my lovely friend Jules, her hubby and her two little rugrats. We drank wine, giggled, played scrabble, watched Bob the Builder and ate beef stew and dumplings followed by chocolate brownies topped with splodges of double cream, butterscotch angel delight and chocolate sprinkles. Heaven.
I’ve no resolutions for this year. I’ve probably got a bit of extra flesh on the ol’ spare tyre, but I won’t be dieting. Why? Well for one thing I have absolutely no willpower, and for another, I love baking (and eating the results), and for anotherer (what? that’s so a word), my Hubby still thinks I’m sexy. Well, he doesn’t actually vomit when he looks at me. So it’s not going to happen. Uh uh. No way.
What I will do, though, is ask you to join me in doing five little things. These five things won’t make us better people, nor will they save the planet. No, these five little things will plant a little smile on your face. And what’s more important than that?
1. Buy free range chicken and eggs. Okay, so they might cost a little more, but do what I do and buy them slightly less. Having owned and loved a little gaggle of my very own chickens and got to know their quirky characters and intelligent natures, I can categorically tell you that a battery/barn/intensively reared hen has lead a miserable life. And we can’t live with that on our conscience, can we?
2. Cook something that you’ve never cooked before. Go on, be a devil. I’m going to try my hand at marmalade this year. It might be a disaster as I am possibly the most cack handed person in Hertfordshire, if not the world, but hey, it’ll be a new skill. Oh and send me a photo. You know I love that.
3. Buy stuff that’s in season but don’t be precious about it. Let’s face it, we all eat pineapples and bananas and drink tea and coffee. Air miles are always going to be part of the equation, and with the advent of Fair Trade we can salve our consciences at the same time. No, I mean buying fresh English (or Irish – wherever you happen to live) produce where you have the choice and cooking it with love. Hubby arrived home on Christmas Eve with three proper ‘trees’ of sprouts. The children actually didn’t realise that sprouts grew like that.
4. Love yourself. No, I’m not going all new-agey and ‘knit your own yoghurt’, I just mean give yourself a break. How many times have you looked in the mirror and hated what you saw? Criticised yourself in some way? Brushed off a compliment (‘what, this old face? Oh I’ve had it years….’? In 2010, look in the mirror and give yourself a big, sexy wink. Remember, how do you expect anyone else to love you if you can’t even do it yourself? And let’s face it, you’re gorgeous. Smile. Sing. Be a bit bonkers. Have a dance. Talk bollocks on Twitter (I’m @EnglishMum) – whatever makes you happy.
5. And finally, une petite challenge. This came from a silly Twitter conversation with my friends Jen and the presents queen. This competition is open to all comers and will last the entire year. It’s the grand ‘mental cookbook’ competition. Whoever finds (and actually owns) the maddest cookery book wins the prize (don’t worry, I’ll make it a good’un). If you reckon you’ve got a contender, drop me a line. I’ll be updating you with the action throughout the year. Obviously my Merry Kitschmas book doesn’t count. Ebay cruising will never be the same again. Bring it on, then.
Anyone got anything to add? Come on now, don’t be shy…
Like the list of 5, check me off for #1 egg wise, think #4 is very important, well said.
Settling into the new place now
I am a very good cook, with what I usually chef up for myself, expanded from what I grew up eating, like a lot of different foods. Will not be cooking here much, my sister is a very good cook though.
I’m on board, because:
1 we have hens
2 I baked my first red velvet cake ever today, for a lunch I’m having tomorrow (and while it was baking found out one guest is diabetic. D’oh.)
3 I’m a nutcase for this one, we should all do this more! We grow our own things, including sprouts–I think they look nicer than they taste.
4 Yeah, I do this too. Well somebody’s got to. *sigh*
5 Finally, being West Virginian pays off LOL so my entry is the Roadkill Cookbook by Buck Peterson, that I’ve had for almost 20 years.
Love the mince pie btw. Happy New Year!
Happy new year! x
I love cooking new stuff so just the other two to work on.
Happy New Year. xx
Well done on the other four – remember the photos!
2. Do I have to? I’m so crap at baking. Wonderful with sauces. OK then I’m going to give your soft sticky buns a go. Anything that involves yeast terrifies me. That didn’t sound right but you know what I mean.
3. This is Australia, everything’s ‘in season’ even when it’s out of season. Except Mangoes unfortunately.
4. A work in progress.
5. You’re on!
Great post. I feel positive already. Oh and the cookbook, here’s one for you:
Exotic Meat Cookbook: From Alligator To Zebra by Edgar , Godwin , Jeanette Edgar and Rachel Godwin
or The Aussie Dumb Arse Cookbook (The essential guide to cooking and survival for the domestically challenged)
Lisa Fitzgerald
I will return with more!
2. Yes you do.
3. Well done again. Ooh I love mangoes.
4. Good girl
5. Yay! Can I borrow the Exotic meat one?!
xx
Okay, mark the Eccles household off for No’s 1 & 2.
I know we had this conversation about free range before…in the context of everyone watching the pennies, but it really is worth sacrificing the goodies in the trolley…we had free range roast chicken today and it was sooo-deelish.
Got Mr Eccles Hugh Ferley-Whittingwhathisname book for xmas and he’s already made two breads…and made them well I might add, and he’s a complete novice!
Will get to work on 3, 4 and 5
I love Hugh F-W. And do you know what? I didn’t get a single cookbook for Chrimbo. Not one. Seriously.
3, 4 and 5 are the easiest ones. And let’s face it, you are gorgeous
This I can do!
As for the rest, I always buy free range eggs but not always free range chicken as I can’t always afford to
.I get a veg box delivered most weeks so that’s my effort at seasonal 
.
I love a bit of experimental cookery, with the emphasis being on the ‘mental’ part but don’t own any wacky cook books. My taste in cook books is far too tame with my latest addition being Rachel Allen’s Home Cooking
.
Off to talk some more bollocks…..
x
If you want advice on Marmalade … Ma is the Answer, she is the Queen of Marmalade !!!
I like ‘no dieting’ since getting crohns and going down to seven stone I now couldn’t give a fig how fat or thin I am. I was no happier as a size 6/8, and I looked like a bag of bones. So there.
I’m cooking from my new Jamie’s America this year, some lovely fattening recipes in there. Of course I will be blogging the results.
Number four is a good shout, we all need to stop stressing, my two blogger trips have taught me to be more confident and let myself go more often .
PS tara cain’s cookbook will be hard to beat!
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I have a few odd cook books, I’m not really sure why I hang on to them!
When making marmalade lock all the windows and doors. My sister and I made marmalade once and we were attacked by a swarm of wasps. My sister who was heavily pregnant was beating them off with a spatula.
Secondly, I give myself a sexy wink every morning whilst doing a haku and shouting “Go get ‘em Driver”
Just saying.
Oh … and PS that email you sent on New Years Eve nearly had my wine soaked body in tears. I think I love you English Mum.
I’ll bear in mind the wasp thing, thanks.
I know. I was sober as well, but I still blubbed. Big softy I is. xx
Happy New Year, Mum and all the best to you and yours. Happy recipes, ramblings and silly buggery for the new year as well.
2. I can totally manage that, but need to get back on the cooking wagon first.
3. Sprout trees are cool aren’t they? I try to do this one but sometimes I just need blueberries from m&s!
4. I can manage this one aswell, more weight loss is intended this year AND I’m a bridesmaid in July so that’ll help aswell
5. I don’t own any mental cookbooks and dammit I knew I should have bought the “Gators and 50 ways to cook them” book in Gatorworld in Orlando last year!
hugs mrs xx
1. check, have my own girls 2. Does setting off the smoke alarm everytime I bake count, the FD won’t even come anymore they’ve heard it so much 3. Grow my own or go to the farmers mkt or filch from my SIL farmer. 4. Get move’n you’re burn’n daylight is what I have to say to myself. 5. Well damn & blast I figured this one was the easiest, Who would have thought Susan 1/2 the world away would have a copy of the roadkill cookbook. So my entry will be “The Sweet Potato Queens’ Big-Ass Cookbook (and Financial Planner)” by Jill Connor Browne.
The smoke alarm’s a bit of problem, but keep on practicin’ there sister! x
1, 2, 3: Done, done and done m’lady
4: no comment
5: all my cookbooks are very serious. If it exists (but it doesn’t), I would enter the Peppa Pig cookbook and it would be named ‘Do this, Do that’. She is rather bossy. Hmmm I wonder if I could write one. Then it would be rather pompous of me to enter it, wouldn’t it!
Happy New Year EnglishMum!
Happy New Year. Hope its a good one! xx
[...] sorts of old rubbish besides those two things and an awful lot more besides: greyhounds, chickens, ‘bollocks’ pies, sexual [...]