‘Posh’ fish fingers with olive tapenade

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You know when you write up a whole recipe, then the internet gremlins get to work over the weekend and delete it all? Yes, that.

Ah well, I’ve blown my nose, wiped my tears, and here’s my second attempt at telling you all about our spooky Halloween fishy supper.

You will need:

500g firm, white fish

250g breadcrumbs (this was a bit much actually, 200g would be fine)

80g finely grated Parmesan cheese

300g fresh parsley

Salt and pepper

200g plain flour

1 large egg

Splash of milk

So whizz up a couple of slices of bread in the food processor, then add in the Parmesan and parsley (I whizzed it all together and it was fine). Season generously.

Now, you need to assemble your eggy wash department. Grab three bowls, and in the first one put the flour, in the next the egg and splash of milk and in the third, the breadcrumbs.

Get your production line rolling by slicing the fish into nice fat fingers, then placing them into the flour, then the eggy wash, and finally the breadcrumbs. Arrange them on a buttered (or non stick) baking tray, and bake at 180/gas 4 for around 10 to 15 minutes (you don’t want to overcook the fish – it needs to stay lovely and moist).

For suitable Halloween spookiness, I served my ‘severed fingers’ with olive tapenade (I let it down with a little olive oil) but I’ll be honest, it didn’t go down well. It would be much better with a quick homemade tartare sauce made with mayo, a squeeze of lemon and some chopped capers.

And the verdict? Gorgeous. Everyone loved the fish fingers and they were quick and easy to make, with soft, delicate fish and a lovely savoury crust. Yum!

Happy Halloween!

Review: Allegra McEvedy’s ‘Bought, Borrowed & Stolen’

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There are some cookery books that I definitely class as bedside books. Some are just a plain old list of recipes, and that’s fine, I like those ones as well, but others tell amazing stories and warrant bedside-table space along with the handcream and glass of wine (everyone does that, right?).

Take Sophie Dahl’s beautiful Miss Dahl’s Voluptuous Delights. It’s one of my favourite books - I thinkSophie Dahl writes amazingly well, and her gorgeous prose interlinked with anecdotes, rememberings from her childhood and other snippets enhance the lovely recipes and really make the book what it is, a classic to be treasured.

Allegra McEvedy’s new book, ‘Bought, Borrowed & Stolen. Recipes & Knives from a Travelling Chef’ is definitely a bedside book. Part recipe book, part travel tome, it’s a wonderful mixture. McEvedy has travelled extensively and started to pick up knives here and there on her travels. Along the way, she lists the knives she purchased in different places, then goes on to give local recipes in a friendly, matey way that I absolutely love. She starts one Mexican recipe with ‘My Spanish is crap’. I love that.

In my usual, destructive way I’ve turned down loads of pages to mark recipes that I really, really want to cook. They are miriad: Clafoutis aux Abricots, Szechuan Crispy Pork Ribs and Caldo Verde, temptingly subtitled: ‘A Soup of Greens, Spuds and a bit of Pig’. What’s not to love about that?

If you count a food lover amongst your nearest and dearest, especially one who loves to travel, lovingly wrap this book for them for Christmas. Like me, they will absolutely adore it.

Bought, Borrowed & Stolen is available now, published by Octopus. Click below to take you straight to Amazon.

Food glorious food: stuffing my face on the Disney Dream

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So I keep meaning to tell you about part two of our journey. It seems such a long time ago now. But back then…

After a mahoosive party to celebrate sailing away, we settled into an endless round of eating, drinking and sunbathing (what? It was research). We slept like babies and awoke to a beautiful pink sunrise in Nassau. An hour later we were gliding into the dock:

Our day was spent exploring the beautiful resort of Atlantis, where we wiggled our toes in the sand, and swam in the clear, turquoise water:

If I was to go back, though, I’d spend the day exploring Nassau, which looked amazing (and that’s nothing to do with the fabulous shops we caught a tantalising glimpse of *cough*).

Back on the ship, exhausted after all that exertion, we came back just in time for cocktails before dinner.

The Disney Dream has some amazing restaurants. The adults-only Palo was, I have to say, my hands down favourite. Our dinner there was spectacular. But first, being girls, obviously we had to check out the bathrooms. We weren’t disappointed - gold sinks!:

The food was as spectacular as the bathrooms (not often you get to write that in a sentence), and we started with a selection of yummy nibbles: olives, little pizzas and charcuterie, before moving on to a delectable starter (I chose a trio of crispy calamari, prawns and portobello mushrooms (apologies for the photos - always the way with restaurant photography):

Moving on, my main course was a delectable tuna steak (it looks really pink in the photo, but it was cooked to perfection):

… and this was all rounded off with possibly the best chocolate soufflé I’ve ever tasted:

To say we were completely full was the understatement of the century and we waddled back to our staterooms before collapsing in a big heap.

The next day, we docked at Disney’s own private island, Castaway Cay. Sadly the weather wasn’t on our side and it was a bit grey and drizzly (but still lovely and warm). Here’s me in front of the ship in dock at Castaway Cay:

Still, we had a wonderful day - we did a bit of snorkelling, fed the stingrays (an amazing experience), indulged in a delicious barbecue (ribs to die for) and bobbed in the balmy bathwater-temperature water, collecting shells and having a good cackle.

That evening it was time for a pirate party. There was a fabulous firework display (check out Liz’s video here) and plenty of silly pirate antics. Arrrrrrrr.

TIP: Make sure you’re up on decks 11 and 12 for the firework display - you can’t watch the show from your cabin for safety reasons (being smashed in the face by a stray firework would be very Disney now would it).

My favourite, favourite thing of all though (if I was absolutely forced to pick one) would be the champagne brunch at Palo. We met Sarah there for a final blowout and my, was it worth it. The brunch is not only a mahoosive buffet of everything you can possibly imagine, sweet and savoury…

…but they also serve fantastic Mimosas and gorgeous eggs benedict. As we sat, replete and burping, feeling a bit like Mr Creosote, the waiter was determined to bring us something else. I actually worried about exploding.

Oh wait, no, my favouritest thing of all was the ‘Pink’ Champagne bar, where the decor is to die for and they serve scrummy pink champagne with a panacotta chaser…

Oh, I can’t decide.

This was actually our final day and we couldn’t believe it had gone so quickly. Saying goodbye was sad, but we had one more surprise to come. We were met at Port Canaveral by our very own VIP guide and town car, to have a private tour of any of the Walt Disney World parks we wanted to go. More of this very soon!

Big huge hugs and thanks go to the amazing team at Disney Destinations. Mwah xxx

11-night Caribbean Stay, Cruise and Stay from £999

Virgin Holidays Cruises offers seven nights at Rosen Inn Orlando on a room only basis, before joining the Disney Dream for four nights from Port Canaveral, Nassau, Castaway Cay and back to Port Canaveral. Prices are per person based on two adults travelling and sharing an inside cabin on a full-board basis and includes Virgin Atlantic flights from London Gatwick and car hire. Based on departure date 15 Jan 2025. Offer is subject to availability andincludes all applicable taxes and fuel surcharges which are subject to change.

Start your holiday before you’ve even taken off in the v-room at Gatwick Airport and Manchester Airport…adults £20, kids £12.

To book: Visit www.virginholidayscruises.co.uk, call 0844 573 4398 or visit one of our 70 stores located in Debenhams and House of Fraser stores nationwide.

If you want to see all the pictures from our trip, check out my Facebook page: www.facebook.com/englishmumdotcom

English Dad excels himself in the celebrity video department. I give you… Ralf Little!!

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So clever old English Dad’s been teaching Ralf Little to fly. He’s been rubbing my nose in it FOR MONTHS whilst simultaneously forbidding me from mentioning it anywhere on the interwebz. The fiend. I bloody love Ralph Little. From the frankly amazing Royle Family, through Two Pints of Lager and the brilliant Married Single Other, (which we both loved and were devastated when it ended), I’ve loved it all. I even love his Asda adverts (every time they come on, someone in our house shouts ‘Ralf’s on!’

Plus, he happened to let slip that he was working on something new that he had co-written and I wasn’t allowed to mention that EITHER. The torture. (I know now, it’s called The Café and it’s starting really soon on Sky 1).

‘Tell him about Gary Barlow‘, I begged. Tell him anything, just PLEASE ask him for a video. Pleeeeease…’

Anyhoo. Sitting down to dinner this evening, Old Sneaky McSneaky passed me his phone. ’Check out where we were today’, he said, nonchalantly. So I pressed play. And this appeared:

 

*SCREAM*

Ralf, I love you. And thank you thank you thank you for my amazing video. And call you? Too bloody right! *shoves husband out of the way roughly*

Oh, and congratulations on your new helicopter licence. Mind you, you had a pretty good teacher, eh?

A Halloween recipe roundup, and win a hamper of baking goodies from Dr Oetker

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So who’s baking what for Halloween (or Hallowe’en) then? My novelty baking skills are somewhat lacking (as evidenced by the debacle that was the spider cake a while back). I’ve had a look around and here are some of my faves so far:

Asda’s spooky recipes (especially the skeleton gingerbread men)

Sprinkle Bakes’ frankly fabulous ‘batty’ Battenburg cake

Lovely Jam and Cream’s Hallowe’en cupcakes

Lavender and Lovage’s Halloween owls

Annabel Karmel’s ghostly cakes

New Mummy’s Tips’ spider cupcakes

National Baking Week’s spooky cookies

Maison Cupcake’s fabulous chocolate orange bats

Cherished by Me’s spiderweb cakes

Nessa’s Family Kitchen’s selection of Hallowe’en recipes (love the severed fingers best)

Bat and Ghost cookies from The Party Times

Jules’ amazing beetle cupcakes, plus her new beetle forest gateau

 

Lovely Helen at Aardvark Cakes’ ghostly gifts

Leave a comment telling me which one you like best (or telling about any Halloween recipes I’ve missed - or just say hello if you like) and you’ll be entered into a draw to win all the Dr Oetker baking goodies!

Dr Oetker are also giving away tickets to Cake 2011 via their Facebook page - you can become a fan here.

 

THIS COMPETITION IS NOW CLOSED - THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR ENTRIES!

I used the random number generator and the number produced was 14. The 14th comment appears to be: Beth! Congrats Beth - email on its way to you :)

Nick Coffer’s Weekend Kitchen on BBC Three Counties Radio. Eek!

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So first of all, I have to be honest, I’ve said no to coming on this show A LOT. Luckily for me, I think Nick could see through my thin veneer of nonchalance to the terrified wobbling jelly within and just kept on asking until I said yes.

Originally I was going to do the Christmas show, but then it was all change and suddenly it was this Saturday. I was overcome with a mixture of excitement, nerves and a bustling, Womble-like determination to get everything perfect. It didn’t help when Nick mentioned that I was going to be the main guest on the show (oh, no pressure then…) and needed to devise a three course menu to bring into the studio for us all to eat. We chatted around different themes… three courses for under a tenner? Versatile family dishes? But then got lost in a conversation about how the sauce for one of the dishes I’d planned to do (a spicy lamb meatball dish) could be used for lamb shanks, bolognese, soup… and the theme was there before us: frugal food. Luckily, I would be joined by fellow food enthusiast Christian Carden-Maund, who would be bringing a main course and a dessert, and the amazingly clever Charles Bennett from Hanslope wines in Buckinghamshire who would be matching wines to our dishes.

I cooked everything on the Friday (dishes are warmed up in the kitchen at the studio so it was fine to bring everything cold) and arrived, stupidly early at the BBC Three Counties studio in Luton on Saturday morning.

Nick was, as ever, cool as a cucumber (I’ve known him for ages through his food blog/vlog, My Daddy Cooks) and very reassuring, as was the lovely producer, Emma. When Christian and Charles arrived I felt even better as they were lovely - really friendly and chatty, and before I knew it, we were live!

Although I think my first couple of sentences were a bit nervous-sounding, actually I soon forgot I was in the studio as the wine flowed and we tasted and chatted about the various dishes. Weirdly, all that kept popping up in my head was that my Mum was listening and that I mustn’t let her down by burping or swearing or anything. It’s fascinating to see behind the scenes, and actually was quite hilarious during the news or a song to have to sprint up the stairs to the kitchen Benny Hill stylee to warm up the dishes, plate them up and bring them back to the studio, then settle into your chair and joining in the chat again as though you’d never left!.

Christian was a brilliant choice to talk about leftovers as he’s something of a leftover guru. The dish he bought was a fabulous chicken in a sherry cream sauce with mushrooms, which was accompanied by a gorgeous caramelised onion mash - made with potato skins!:

Christian’s dessert was just fabulous - and his own creation - I’m going to ask him to guest blog about the dessert for us because it really is a perfect centrepiece for Christmas: a zesty, light creamy citrus take on a classic tiramisu. Check out the fabulous caramel basket:

Charles’ wine matches were clever and perfect. He chose a beautiful organic Argentinian Torrontés wine called Cuma (Michel Torino) to go with my spiced butternut squash soup (inspired by my homie Laura’s gorgeous butternut squash soup). The generous amount of chilli that I’d added had initially worried me, but matched with the sweetness of the squash and this amazingly rounded white wine, the whole thing was perfect.

For the spicy lamb meatballs, Charles chose this lovely Carmenere (I love Carmenere anyway - Tesco Finest do a great one):

and to match my fudgy chocolate brownie, he went with an amazing dessert wine, which, incidentally he would recommend as a perfect accompaniment to Christmas pudding:

We were also joined by my fellow foodie blogger and online friend, Ren Behan, who does a segment on the show every week. It was lovely to finally meet her in person (plus her apple cake was to die for - I snaffled a couple of slices).

For all the recipes from the show, you can download the factsheet here

Nick Coffer’s Weekend Kitchen is live every Saturday on BBC Three Counties Radio. Thanks so much to Nick for inviting me and to Emma for being so lovely xx

If you want to listen to the show on BBC iPlayer, here’s the link

Review: ‘Vax Voice’ consumer testing - the Vax Air Reach

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I was delighted recently to be asked to become part of the Vax Voice team. Basically I get to try out Vax products and give honest feedback about them. I like this because I do find that sometimes brands are enthusiastic for bloggers/consumers to review their products, but not always as happy to receive honest feedback.

Today, I’ve been trying the new Vax Air Reach - now you know me, I’m not massively keen on cleaning at the best of times, but here at New New English Towers the entire place is carpeted in that weird ribby carpet (you know, the ones that looks a bit like corduroy), which is a total pain to clean.

After scratching my head a bit over the initial assembly, then scratching my head a bit more trying to work out how to attach the longer hose, I was finally off. Considering it’s quite light, it’s really powerful. The carpet we’ve inherited had started to go slightly darker around the edges, but a quick whizz around with the hose and the pointy attachment saw the edges back to the same colour as the rest of the carpet.

There’s also a very good brush attachment (see pic) which works really well on my leather sofa - it has a sort of soft finish and everything sticks to it - especially white hairs from the Ninja Cat of Death.

I managed to hoover the stairs without having to juggle the cleaner or balance it half way up (it sat at the bottom - the hose is really long) and it was easy to empty too. It’s also really nice and light, and very easy to carry up and down the stairs.

My one gripe is the little bunch of accessories which has a really tricky little button that you need to push in really hard to get the nozzles to release.

Apart from that, it’s a big 9/10. Nice, one, Vax!

For more information, check out www.vax.co.uk.

In which our hero rumbles shoplifters in Next. And makes a bit of a knob of herself

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So this morning, then, I took myself off to my favourite shopping place where two of the bests shops (not counting food shops obviously because that would be Waitrose) sit very near each other: Next and TK Maxx.

I’d already had a rummage about in TK Maxx and was gazing at cardigans in Next when two men caught my eye (no, not in THAT way). They were standing by the coats near the entrance. They both had big coats with their collars turned up and flat caps, which looked a bit weird (I mean, why not just go the whole hog and wear a sign saying ‘I’M SUSPICIOUS’?) and they were fumbling around with a coat. Suspicious Flat Cap Man #1 kept looking up and catching my eye. I kept doing that ‘oh I’m not really staring at you, I’m kind of staring vaguely past you’ thing, but kept being drawn back to the fact that Suspicious Flat Cap Man #2 now had his hand completely down one of the arms of a coat. Odd.

So being nosey, and a bit of a snitch, I thought I’d go and tell someone. I sidled up to one of the nice customer service ladies and said ‘erm, it’s probably nothing, but those two men by the door are acting a bit weirdly’. Well. People that work in Next must have some sort of psychic link to each other, because without hearing anyone actually speak, the entire shop floor seemed to suddenly be full of staff. The Suspicious Flat Cap Men suddenly decided they didn’t want the coat any more and left.

Oh, I thought. How embarrassing. I’ve made everyone in Next suspicious and frightened the men away. Maybe they weren’t Suspicious Flat Cap Men after all and just genuine shoppers… Everyone will now be looking at me and thinking I’m a right nosey cow.

But then, the nice Customer Service lady came up to me, holding out a broken security tag - one of those ones with the pin and the other bit - and said ‘they’d managed to break the security tag - it was down the arm of the sleeve’, so you were right, they were definitely up to no good’…

‘Oh!’, I said, ‘wow!’, I feel all Inspector Clouseau now…’

‘Ahaha’, said the Customer Service lady, not really laughing but smiling politely

Inspector Clouseau? Said my inner normal person. Inspector Bloody Clouseau? One, he’s old. Two, he’s French, three he’s not very good at catching villains and most importantly, four, he’s fictional. You knob.

It actually sounded quite clever and funny in my head, I told my inner normal person, returning to looking at the tights…

But then, my knight in shining knitwear, the manager, came over and made me feel better: ‘thank you SO much’, she said, while I beamed and tried not to say anything else stupid, ‘we’re really very grateful’.

Well. I’m made up.

And there’s probably two Suspicious Flat Cap Men shaking their fists in my general direction somewhere and shouting ‘we would have got away with it if it wasn’t for that pesky English Mum’.

But rest assured, I listened to my inner normal person and didn’t actually say that bit out loud.

Result!

The countdown to L plates, driving lessons and a ‘new’ car

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The Mad Professor is loving the sixth form. My gorgeous baby is so grown up (insert small sob here). There are, apparently, all sorts of perks too. As well as not having to wear uniform (they all swan about, as I think I mentioned, in pointy leather shoes, slim legged tailored trousers, trendy checked shirts and v-necked jumpers - oh, and ID tags so they don’t get mistaken for young, trendy teachers), they don’t have to wait in the lunch queue, but can elbow their way to the front (I can imagine this makes the younger ones fume), can go THE WRONG WAY around all the school one way systems (oh, the power) and can all exit the building at lunchtime where they flow en floppy haired masse to the local Tesco - woe betide anyone that times their shopping trip badly - it’s like the attack of the gangly GQ model.

Anyhoo, digressing. High on the agenda at every mealtime/car journey/opportunity to monopolise any conversation with a parent is When I Start Driving. It’s a conversation I’ve started to dread.

Did you know that driving lessons are 30 quid a pop now?

Why do teenagers have NO CONCEPT of money? He was actually looking at brand new VW polos the other day on the web. Now I don’t want to crush his dreams, but where does he think we’re going to get the money? He also thinks that, for some unknown reason, he will escape the extortionate insurance charges that obviously apply to every other young male driver.

Just for a laugh, and to prove a point, we got an insurance quote on an insurance comparison website for a newly qualified 17 year old driver on his father’s somewhat powerful car. A snip at… wait for it… £25,000 per annum.

Oh.

Does anyone have any tips? Is it better to share a car with your offspring? Or is it best to help him (bless him, he’s working weekends at a local hotel doing silver service to save up) buy a car of his own? If so, which one is best? It won’t be flash, which in itself worries me from a safety point of view. Purely selfishly, though, sharing a car is a pain as I rather like my Mondeo - it’s nice and roomy (useful when the Death Wish Dude offers lifts home to half the skate park), powerful and automatic. Just about everything that he can’t have, then. And also, what do I do when he’s out at weekends? ’Mum, you never go out at weekends anyway’. But IF I wanted to…

I need words of wisdom, dearest reader. Off you go, then.

National Baking Week - thank you Asda!

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So it’s National Baking Week (17th to 23rd October) and to celebrate, lovely Asda sent me a big, mahoosive parcel packed with all sorts of lovely baking kits. There were chocolate tray bakes, white chocolate chip cookies, toffee cookies, vanilla tray bakes and blueberry muffins and iced cookies (I hid the cheesecake brownie kit - that’s obviously just for grown ups).

When the slaves -sorry, cough, of course I mean children - came home from school, I set them to work in the kitchen to make me some cookies while I lolled around on the sofa drinking gin.

Here are the results. Impressive.

Look at his little face.

Slovenly motherhood result! Now they’ve proved they can cook, I am herewith giving up all my motherly duties to spend more time concentrating on gin consumption and sofa lolling.

Hic.

Foodie news: what’s new?

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Organic wild pomegranate balsamic vinegar

We adore this fruity pomegranate balsamic from Higher Nature. It’s gorgeous in salad dressings. Higher Nature supply vitamins, supplements and organic foodstuffs, but don’t discount this because it’s not in a posh glass bottle. A first class product.

1870 Mixers

Each of the seven varieties is made with pure Kentish spring water and flavoured with the finest natural ingredients from around the world: from Sicilian lemon oil to fiery African ginger. I was especially taken with the slimline tonic (well, I do like a gin) - it was lovely, not too sweet and a perfect complement to my favourite tipple.

Anchor Butter

are celebrating their 125th birthday, and to celebrate sent me some wonderful, nostalgic goodies, including a gorgeous butter dish - my fave. Click here to win some for yourself. Happy birthday, Anchor!

Wonderful Pistachios

These little sweet chilli flavoured wonders are absolutely evil. Eat one and you can’t help but scoff the whole packet. Seriously yummy!

Soreen’s new Toastie Loaf…

We love malt loaf in this house and this new ready-sliced loaf means that you don’t squish it when you cut it too. Perfect for a healthy breakfast!

Gourmelli.co.uk

sent me a lovely little selection of some of their luxury products:

The Smoked Chilli Garlic is a delicious combination of smoked chilli and garlic - I used it in a risotto and it was rather nice.

Tartufi Truffles & Mushrooms – a great alternative to mushrooms, the truffles add a new twist to any mushroom based recipe - fabulous in pasta, or served as a part of an antipasti plate.

Black Truffle Olive Oil – the subtle taste of black truffle blends perfectly with the olive oil - yummy drizzled over eggs benedict (I know, but honestly try it. Delicious).

Check out their enormous range at gourmelli.co.uk.

Oxo’s new salt and pepper grinders

These little beauties keep gravitating back to the kitchen from the dining room table. They’ve got a special dial so you can choose whether you want really find sprinkles, or a larger grind and they’re so useful I really need two pairs.

Capricorn Goats’ Cheese

The lovely chaps at Capricorn sent me the ingredients to make a gorgeous goats’ cheese risotto - yes even the wine! The end result was utterly delicious. Each little round of goat’s cheese has a lovely goat on it as well. Pick your favourite. Here at English Towers we’re team Beryl all the way! Find out more at www.capricorngoatscheese.co.uk

Operation Get Charlie into School Without Getting a Detention

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It’s been an interesting week. First of all, there were the spam comments, the best of which, in my humble opinion, was:

‘You’re seriously pathetic. Even a monkey could do better than you’.

Thanks, Mum.

My second favourite was:

‘The next time I read a blog, I hope that it doesnt disappoint me as much as this one’ (yeah, that was from a spammer promoting ‘thebestwaytoloseweights.com’ (sic) so he can talk… The best way to lose weights? Leave them at the gym? Drop them on someone’s toe and get them confiscated?

And then it was the big bro’s birthday for which I bought The Single Most Expensive Bottle of Wine that I’ve Ever Purchased (thanks indeed go to the lovely Helen from Knackered Mother’s Wine Club for her invaluable assistance.

But mostly, this week has been taken up with Operation Get Charlie into School Without Getting a Detention.

This took a bit of work, I have to say. The school has a new Headteacher. She set her stall out with her first speech at the sixth form meeting in September: ‘I won’t allow children to be taken out of school in term time. And no, I don’t consider that a two week trip to Orlando is in any way educational’.

Dammit.

She’s also cracking down on those pupils who continually flout the uniform rule. Sneakily, she’s taken to posting staff members at the various entrances to the school to spot pupils coming into school with incorrect uniform in the morning and hand out detentions, or even send them home to change. Usually, these are girls who have those teeny stretchy skirts that look like the belts I used to wear in the 80s, girls without their blazers, girls with inappropriate jewellery, girls with too much makeup… oh, and Charlie, our very own Death Wish Dude.

Charlie gets stopped every bloody morning. And while the Mad Professor (who, being a sixth former gets to wear ‘formal business wear’ and goes to school looking like an advert in GQ Magazine every morning) and I initially found it quite funny, we then started to worry that he was going to get into trouble, so decided to help him out.

Let me explain. I’m not a bad mother (well, I probably am, just not on this occasion), but he’s 13. And although I appreciate that he’d rather be doing this:

… than working hard to look like this (first day of term - tried to get a sensible photo for the Grandparents, but let’s face it, it was never going to happen):

I’m sorry, I just don’t have much sympathy. If the child can manage to waft down the stairs smelling gorgeous and with perfectly gelled hair, then he should be able to dress himself in the morning, and if he can’t then it’s his own fault and he should sort it out or live with the consequences. Misdemeanors that caused his arrest at the gate included:

  • Having no laces in his shoes (WHO LOSES THE LACES IN THEIR SHOES?!)
  • Not having a school tie (it’s a sodding clip on, for goodness’ sake - clip it somewhere)
  • Having the wrong colour tie (don’t even ask)
  • Having his top button undone and his tie hanging from the buttonhole
  • Not having his shirt tucked in
  • Having his blazer sleeves rolled up

It got to the stage where his big brother was dreading walking into school with him in the morning for fear of being somehow tarred with the same brush. It was at this point, we developed our five point Operation Get Charlie to School Without Getting A Detention plan:

  1. Pester Charlie constantly as soon as the alarm goes off to remember each item of his uniform. This has escalated into a hilarious (to us) and constant badgering of ‘have you got your undercrackers on?’ and ‘have you cleaned your ears?’ that drives him insane.
  2. Pester Charlie constantly in the car on the way to school to clip on his tie and do up his shoes
  3. On parking at the school, pester Charlie a bit more - perform irritating check list shouting ‘CHECK’ very loudly after each item.
  4. On disembarkation from car, perform spot check on aforementioned Charlie and pester a bit more to do laces up and tuck in shirt.
  5. Perform covert undercover surveillance during the 5 second walk from the car to the point of inspection (ie the school gate) to ensure that Charlie gets inside the school without hindrance

So far, it’s working quite well. The Death Wish Dude is getting a bit fed up with all the pestering (and still hasn’t found his own tie - there’s a lad in the sixth form who collects abandoned ties and rents them back to the younger lads, but sadly he didn’t have the right house colour) but luckily most of the teachers posted on sentry duty don’t know what colour he should have so he gets away with it, and so far he’s managed to go unmolested for an entire week.

What a team eh?

I reckon Tesco should make me Mum of the Year.

The Gatwick Passenger Panel - our first meeting

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To Gatwick yesterday, then, for the first meeting of the new Gatwick Passenger Panel that I told you about a while back. We took a tour through the much improved, light, airy and enormous north terminal, with its huge, covered outside area and modern glass frontage. After a slightly embarrassing journey through customs - who knew that I had three tubes of half-used handcream and four lipbalms (look, I love a lipbalm, I can’t help it. One of these days we’ll discuss the merits of Carmex vs Blistex, but not now, okay - people are looking), dropping my magazine and nearly strangling myself with my security pass when it got tangled with my scarf (I know, classy) - we arrived at our meeting room in the lovely passenger lounge.

The meeting was hosted by the gorgeous BBC News 24 presenter and all round lovely lass Penny Haslam (bit like herding cats, frankly - the poor girl did well to keep us all in order). We are a random bunch: John Carter (travel journalism LEGEND - who incidentally was a top bloke), the wonderful Jasmine Birtles from MoneyMagpie.com, incredibly knowledgable business travel journalist and editor Mike Toynbee and the Disabled Living Foundation’s Philippa Bromley with, of course, Gatwick’s CEO, Stewart Wingate (not forgetting the lovely Sarah from Gatwick and PR Ellie).

Times are a-changing for Gatwick. No longer under the umbrella of the BAA, they are free to be competitive and want people to actively choose to fly from Gatwick. They are investing hugely and are keen to provide a service second to none (the Apple effect, as Penny called it). The positive outcomes from these panel meetings, though, will benefit all travellers and, hopefully, improve the experience for passengers at all UK airports. No pressure, then.

We started off our panel discussions by listing the one thing for each of us that really makes or breaks our airport experience. Considering our diverse backgrounds and specialisms our answers were similar. It seems what most of us want out of an airport is information (but not an overload of it) and a general flow (as John eloquently put it) from checking in, through security, into departures and off onto our flight. We don’t want to get lost, we don’t want massive holdups through security, complicated technology or surly immigration officials. What we’d love is to see a friendly, helpful face or two - a nice light airy environment and an all-round pleasant experience.

From Stewart Wingate’s perspective, he was very open and honest about our views, telling us the feedback he’d received from other passenger surveys/complaints etc and he was, most importantly, really interested in what we all had to say.

From my own perspective, representing parents, the pitfalls of family travel are many and it was easy for me to list them: after setting off at 4am to the airport, your child has just fallen asleep in the buggy when the surly man at security wants to turf them out so that the buggy can go through the x-ray machine… You’ve just come off an 8 hour flight, with a child desperate for the loo, only to find a mile-long queue for just two toilets…

But then consider the business traveller - they don’t generally care so much about shopping or duty free - they just want to get to their destination as quickly as possible. Things that would make the business travellers’ life easier aren’t so different to those of, say, parents, or the disabled - but maybe a day room where they can grab a quick shower between connecting flights would be nice - places to charge laptops, meeting rooms…

John also made a really valid point about older travellers - frustrated with huge queues, complicated check in procedures and invasive security checks, it seems that they’re moving away from the airports towards other forms of transport: the Eurostar being one of the major ones. I found this fascinating - and a bit disturbing.

But the biggest eye openers for me were the points raised by Philippa Bromley of the Disabled Living Foundation about the very diverse challenges faced by the disabled traveller: imagine how upsetting it must be, when travelling with a disabled child, to be confronted by a massive queue for security when you know your child will shout out and make noises, and other travellers will stare and make comments. Consider also how terrifying a disembodied automated voice could be for someone with, say, Autism or Alzheimer’s. Think how daunting it must be for a person with learning difficulties when confronted with an automated check-in. All these people must be considered, and Gatwick are determined to make travelling better for everyone.

All in all, it was an enjoyable, enlightening - and exhausting - day. My journey home was delayed in a rather comic fashion when our train appeared to have no driver. After a 20 minute hunt (and a bit of giggling during the announcements) a driver was found and I eventually got home safe and sound. I do admire those that rely on trains and tubes to get them to work every day - I’ll need a sofa day tomorrow to get over it.

More information on Gatwick Airport is available on their website: gatwickairport.com - and if there’s anything you’d like me to bring up at the meetings, feel free to contact me or leave a comment below.

Happy birthday, Mum! Pistachio cupcakes with lime and white chocolate ganache.

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So it’s English Grandma’s birthday, and I really wanted to take some time and make her some absolutely beautiful cupcakes. I love pistachio (and, more importantly, I know she does too!), plus it has the added bonus of making the sponge a delicate green colour. This pistachio recipe is adapted from Xanthe Milton’s amazing Eat Me recipe book.

For the white chocolate and lime ganache, I’ve done it a little differently. Usually I would just melt the chocolate, then whisk the cream in until I get the texture I need, but I wanted the lime zest to infuse into the cream, so I heated the cream, then stirred in the white chocolate. You’ll need to chill it down, then whip it to get a lovely texture for piping.

For the cupcakes:

140g butter
250g golden caster sugar
120ml Greek yoghurt
170g self raising flour
1.5 teaspoons baking powder
50g pistachios, ground or whizzed (plus a few extra for decoration)

So preheat the oven to 180 degrees/gas 4 and pop some cupcake papers in a 12 hole muffin tin.

Beat the butter and sugar in the food processor or with an electric hand whisk.

In a different bowl, beat the eggs then beat in the yoghurt.

Set the beater going again and beat the yoghurt mixture into the butter mixture.

Sift the flour and baking powder into the mixture, then add the pistachios and stir it all until just combined.

Plop a tablespoon of the mixture into each cupcake paper, then bake for about 15-20 minutes. As with all cupcakes, take them out when they’re only just done, as they’ll continue to cook a little bit when you take them out of the oven. As soon as the sponge springs up again when you press it, whip them out.

Allow the cupcakes to cool, then pipe on the white chocolate and lime ganache:

200g white chocolate

100ml double cream

Zest of 1 unwaxed lime

So as above, just warm the cream in a saucepan with the lime zest. Pop in the white chocolate then allow to cool. Chill very well in the fridge, then when properly chilled, whisk until light and fluffy and pipe or spread onto the cooled cupcakes.

Happy birthday, Mum!

Yeo Valley’s new advert: The Churned - Britain’s best boyband (with lyrics)

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So just in case you were in a sound-proof tent. In Outer Mongolia. With furry earmuffs on. Here’s the fantastic new advert made by my homies, Yeo Valley. It launched today in the first ad break of the X Factor and the interweb went crazy.

I absolutely adore working with Yeo Valley. They’re just so committed to organic farming and really care about producing a really top quality product. They’re also seriously good at making music videos!!

The song, ‘Forever’, features four rather buff West Country farmers (prompting even the Gay Times to tweet ’HOT FARMER ALERT!’): Aiden, Matt, Zak and Bradley, and was filmed at the gorgeous Yeo Valley farm in Blagdon, Somerset. And yes, it really does look like that!

Check out Yeo Valley’s ‘yeotube’ channel and then pop over to www.facebook/yeovalley to sing-along with The Churned and maybe even win the opportunity to star in the final 30 second Yeo Valley TV advert which will be shown during the live final of The X Factor on 11th December!!

So come on everyone - get working on those moves…

The Churned ‘Forever’ Song Lyrics

I could have gone astray

Not listened to my heart

But every time I’m tempted

I go back to the start

There’s no harm in our pure and natural farming

We are as one with the countryside

CHORUS:

Yeo Valley

Naturally

We won’t change, no never

We’ll farm this way forever and ever

Yeo Valley

Family farming

Has been the driving factor

Ploughing to the future

Aboard a shiny tractor

So listen up people, take after me

Be a little funky, choose the West Country

CHORUS:

Yeo Valley

Naturally

We won’t change, no never

We’ll farm this way forever and ever

Yeo Valley

We’re not a passing fad

We don’t change by the seasons

We always respect nature

Just ask our happy friesians

In your eyes, I see our fate

We’ll live here forever, just off the A368

CHORUS:

Yeo Valley

Naturally

We won’t change, no never

We’ll farm this way forever and ever

Yeo Valley

Naturally

We won’t change, no never

We’ll farm this way forever and ever

It’s only natural

Never gonna change

Stay this way forever

Review: Pieminister - a pie for all seasons by Tristan Hogg and Jon Simon

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We’re huge pie fans here at English Towers. I think I’ve missed out because I’ve never actually had a Pieminister pie, but they’ve come to the rescue and brought out a weighty tome of their wonderful pie recipes so we can all have their lush creations at home.

I love this book, not only for its creative ideas (canapies, anyone?) and wonderful sense of humour (try saying “‘Jamaica, me love you’ patties” without attempting a Caribbean lilt) but also for the sheer breadth of ingredients they manage to stuff into a pie! There’s rabbit, chipotle chilli, jerk chicken, pear and chocolate, rhubarb and custard….

*Takes a breath*

Highlights include the Christingle Pie (no more boring nut roast for the veggies amongst us on Christmas day), the frankly ridiculous Hedonist pie: a stunning chocolate pie with a touch of clementine and a shot of rum (drooool) and the Spring Chicken Pot Pie, proving that pies aren’t just for chill winter evenings. Oh no.

I just had to make their classic moo pie (although they don’t give away their closely guarded secret recipe completely). It’s a rich and delicious, herby steak and ale pie that got a unanimous thumbs up from de brevren (we actually fought over the last piece).

Highly recommended! ’Pieminister. A pie for all seasons’ is published by Bantam Press and is available now priced £14.99.

Shortlisted in Red Magazine’s Red’s Hot Women Awards

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Out for the day yesterday with the hubby, I was vaguely aware of a lot of pinging going on in the vicinity of my Blackberry. When I got home I checked Twitter to find loads of messages of congratulations.

What the…

Turns out I’ve been shortlisted in Red’s Hot Women Awards.

To quote Red Magazine, Red’s Hot Women Awards were ‘established to celebrate women in all fields of career success, from fashion to charity to business to science‘. The judges include charity campaigner and Twitter queen, Sarah Brown; Red’s Editor-in-Chief, Sam Baker; Vice Chairman of West Ham United FC, Karren Brady and accessories designer Anya Hindmarch MBE.

I’m in with some amazing people - in fact, in other categories I’ve spotted Tamara Mellon, CEO of Jimmy Choo; Skye Gyngell, Head chef of Petersham Nurseries Cafe and in the blogger category itself, there’s the gorgeous Niamh of Eat Like a Girl and the fab Brit Beauty Blogger, Jane Cunningham.

No pressure, then…

Still, I’m vey vey excited and also honoured and rather humbled too.

Squee!

To find out more information, click on Red Magazine’s website just here.

Maltesers cheesecake (with low fat cream cheese)

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So firstly, a disclaimer. A silly one, admittedly, but a disclaimer all the same: this cheesecake is made with low fat cream cheese. It is therefore slightly lower fat than normal cheesecake. However, it still weighs in at a stonking 500 kcal a slice (if you cut it into 8 - and yes, I did work it out - I took my shoes and socks off and everything) but basically if you’re on a diet, you’re not going to be eating cheesecake anyway, right? It just seems to me that if you don’t HAVE to use full fat stuff, you can shave a few grams of fat here and there. If you want to shave it a bit more, you can use low-fat digestive biscuits and cream, and leave out the Maltesers. But I’m not that organised. And I like Maltesers.

Cooks like Nigella always insist that cheesecakes need full-fat cream cheese. Not true. The only difference I’ve noticed (and I’ve tested this intensively - I eat a lot of cheesecake) is that it does take slightly longer to set. It’s not a baked cheesecake, so it’s got a very soft texture anyway, and if you’re making it for a dinner party, best make it in the morning or even the night before you need it. Just in case. Also, if you’re worried about a soft set - stir in 200g melted chocolate (cooled to room temp) just before you pour the mix into the base - it will make the cheesecake even more chocolatey, plus it will help with the set.

Anyhoo, enough waffle. You will need:

300g digestive biscuits

50g butter

70g Maltesers

500g low fat cream cheese

100g icing sugar

1 tsp vanilla

200ml whipping cream

30g Maltesers, crushed, to decorate.

So bash the hell out of the digestives with a rolling pin, then melt the butter (I do it in a jug in the microwave) and stir into the biscuit crumbs. Add the 70g of Maltesers and press into the bottom of a large springform tin. Pop into the fridge (the base, not you).

Now take the cream cheese, the icing sugar and the vanilla and mix it all up with a hand blender or in a food mixer. Pour in the whipping cream and basically whip the bejaysus out of it. You want the mixture really really thick and gloopy:

Pile the mixture onto the biscuit base and chill very well.

Before serving, crush more Maltesers and sprinkle them all over the top. If you’re lucky, when you slice the cheesecake, you’ll cut through some of the Maltesers and it will look like you did this on purpose. Clever, eh?

Recipe Shed

Oh and I’m going to enter this recipe into Reluctant Housedad‘s Recipe Shed. I like Keith. He’s a great laugh on Twitter and his blog is honest, funny and - bonus - full of food! I’m cheating slightly as the theme is cakes and bakes, but hey, cheesecake’s a cake, right?

Right?

Review: The Village Gate, Wendover, Bucks

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I’ve driven past this pub a million times in my lifetime, but it wasn’t until English Dad and the brevren popped in one lunchtime when I was in Dubai that we discovered what a little gem it is. They kept promising to take me and then, finally, when our anniversary came round and we were thinking of somewhere to go for a bit of a celebration, we remembered the Village Gate.

I was seriously impressed. The main dining room is really nice - light and airy with lovely high ceilings, but with a bit of a gentleman’s club vibe about it too:

The menu is compact, but perfect - we had trouble ordering as we couldn’t choose - and they catered incredibly well for the small fussy one who wanted ‘a burger with no salad and no sauce’. In fact, our waitress absolutely made our evening: she was attentive, funny and nothing was too much trouble. We fancied a bit of fizz to celebrate our special occasion and were recommended several affordable options before settling on a lovely sparkling rosé (again, forgot to note the name - slapped wrists!).

My red mullet was absolutely gorgeous, moist and delicate. The prawn risotto cake, although slightly odd sounding, was deliciously crispy on the outside and soft and creamy in the middle and the surrounding sauce was really nicely flavoured:

I also pinched quite a few of these little beauties:

Even though we were stuffed, there was a lovely plum dessert screaming out to be ordered (can’t remember what it was called now, but it was beautiful), and after a small glass of Taylor’s each you could have rolled us out like Violet Beauregarde.

All in all, The Village Gate delivers tasty, creative food without the ponciness or inflated prices of some of our local ‘gastropubs’. Add to that the friendly service and beautiful location and you’re on to a winner. We’ll be back.

The Village Gate, Wendover - tel: 01296 623884

Yo ho yo ho a pirate’s life for me: The Disney Dream (part uno)

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Where to begin?

Well, after champers in the V Room at London Gatwick and an easy flight into Orlando (I love Virgin Atlantic, I do) and the excitement of being picked up by Disney’s VIP service (woo!), we headed to our hotel for the night, the Saratoga Springs Resort & Spa. The place is absolutely vast - 65 acres to be precise - and has an equestrian theme, based on a real place called Saratoga Springs which was famous in New York in the 1800s. The resort is made up of lots of different self-catering villas all set in lush landscapes around a huge lake. It’s just beautiful:

We headed out to Epcot at Walt Disney World to the Hacienda restaurant based in the Mexico part of the park. The food was amazeballs, as you can imagine. And check out the margaritas! The one on the left was mango, blueberry and basil, and mine was an avocado margarita (yes, really) with Tequila, melon liqueur, fresh avocado, agave nectar and fresh lime. It had an amazing Hibiscus salt rim as well. Yummers:

The next morning, after a really lush breakfast, we headed off to Port Canaveral to board the ship (don’t call it a boat, you just upset the crew!). This was our first glimpse:

It really is a huge beast. And by this time we were so excited there was quite a bit of squeaking coming from Liz and I. Through customs, we were welcomed into the foyer by no other than Minnie Mouse:

About the Disney Dream

  • The ship itself takes about 4,500 passengers and weighs 128000 tons.
  • It’s all-inclusive on board, apart from booze and some of the adults only fine dining experiences (oh, the food - I’ve got a lot to tell you about the food). There are 6 restaurants, plus 3 food court areas including a pizza restaurant, fast food joint and ice cream parlour open ALL DAY! So basically you can stuff yourself silly all day (which we did, of course).
  • It’s home to the Aquaduck, the world’s first on-ship ‘water coaster’: a 765ft water ride, a section of which actually goes out over the side of the ship.
  • There are 1,250 staterooms (that’s what you call the cabins, although I managed to show myself up by calling ours a ‘chalet’ on several occasions).
  • There are three pools: an adults-only, two children’s pools - one Mickey-shaped one for tiddlers, plus a lovely splash area for tiddlers with little fountains and jets.
  • There is an amazing adults-only entertainment area with nightclubs, lounges and bars.
  • There are tons of kids clubs, from a nursery for teeny guests (3 months to 3 years), through the Oceaneer Club and Lab (3 to ten years), Edge (for ‘tweens’), right up to the amazing Vibe - an entire area for teenagers 14 - 17, including a club, a great outdoor area with pools, and dedicated entertainment staff. Once registered, teens get a special card which opens the teens-only door - no adults allowed!
  • It’s a cash-free ship. Everything is charged to your ‘Key to the World’ room key, and settled up at the end of the cruise by cash or credit card (but watch out, the shops are fabulous).

The staterooms are certainly compact, but you don’t spend any time in them. There’s one of those beds in the ceiling too which is great fun to sleep in and has a starry ceiling!:

‘Sailing Away’ is absolutely phenomenal. There’s a huge party on deck with a show (and lots of characters, naturally) and loads of people line up on the shore to wave goodbye (including a police car with its lights flashing). As the ship glides out of Port Canaveral the ship’s horn parps the first few notes of ‘When you wish upon a star’. It’s just amazing (we were there with a film crew - this is Paddy the Producer’s ear):

So we were off! LOADS more to tell you, but in the meantime, if you want to see more photos from our Disney Dream trip - check out my Facebook page: facebook.com/englishmumdotcom