New recipes for you!

Just to let you know that I've added two new recipes under my 'cake' tab at the top of my blog.  Butternut squash and sweet potato soup (yeah, I know, not strictly 'cake') and nana's gingerbread, which doesn't look terribly rock n roll, but which tastes uh-may-zing.

I'd really love to hear from you if you've made any of my recipes (that's if you can still move...) x

Wot a luvverly weekend

I love these little bluebells that middle nut illicitly picked for us when we were out for a walk on Sunday.  He was at great pains to point out that they were for me and daddy to share.  So we both look at them, sitting on our kitchen windowsill looking all pretty.
So....here are the edited highlights of our lovely, long weekend.  Taking the boys to school this morning really was a bit of a shock to the system - we've all still got our holiday heads on.  We've had three weeks of at least some of the family being off school (you might remember me mentioning previously that Mr Nut is a teacher) and what with the weather being so fabulous, it's almost felt like summer!
Food featured prominently for us (scoff scoff):

It had to be a Victoria sponge on Friday, in keeping with the royal theme of the day. Wasn't the wedding just lovely?  I actually cried when she got out of the car - she just looked amazing.  (Sigh)

We went for a picnic with some lovely friends on Monday.  They forgot to bring any actual picnic food with them, but luckily they did have some sweeties.

Phew, thought we were going to go hungry for a moment there...

We had another picnic on Sunday, just us this time.  We went to a beautiful reservoir about an hour away:

The boys made us laugh so much.  They're just the best of friends and really, I can't imagine one without the other.  I can get a bit damp-eyed and squishy just thinking about them messing about together.  Inseparable.

Hmmmm - can you see any rocks to throw in?

Oooh, yep, hang on, I've got one...

Great! Stand back!!!

And now they've got another little buddy to hang out with:

Brilliant x

Eggciting stuff!

I unintentionally got a bit side-tracked yesterday (can you get intentionally side-tracked?) for some reason I got to thinking too much about baby nut's crazy diet, when really what I should have been focusing on was all the loveliness about our day on Sunday.

There was a bit of starry theme to the day with Emma Bridgewater and Cath Kidston both featuring prominently (start brainwashing them at a young age, that's what I say).

 

The birthday bunting got its first official outing:

And I got to test my new apron:

It was a day of spending time with family, playing with the children and generally just unwinding (and, after all, isn't that absolutely what Mother's Day is about?)
The past few weeks have been madly, crazily busy - at times it's felt like we're on a treadmill that's got stuck on full speed.  Imagine my delight, then, when I turned the calendar over to this week's page and found that we have precisely NOTHING planned.  Deep, deep joy.  I really can't explain how great it is to just have a week where I can potter around the house, doing a bit of baking, the odd spot of cleaning (it is about a month since the beds have been changed - really) and just generally enjoying all things domestic.  

I absolutely had to make some of this - it's the yummiest, easiest banana bread ever - and we all love it.  (I really would love to post the recipe for this, I just need to work out how to have a separate page that you can only get to by clicking on a link...)  I actually caught big nut with a knife, cutting slices off this while it was still inside the tin and stuffing them into his mouth.  I told him to leave some for his dad, but this seems to have fallen on deaf ears (I was probably drowned out by his chewing)
And after one of those 'whaaaa....huh?.....nooooo, of course I hadn't forgotten that you had to take a blown, decorated egg into school tomorrow.  What's that you say?  It has to be done in the style of a royal figure from history?  Noooo problem' moments, I sat down with the two bigger nuts to get on with some impromptu egg decoration:

And even if I say so myself, I think the finished results are pretty darn eggcellent.  ho ho ho

I've never blown eggs before.  I actually thought my head was going to burst.  x

Sneaky peek

A little later than promised, but here it is - a sneaky peek at my latest hooky project.  I can't completely reveal this project yet, as it's a housewarming present for a friend who hasn't yet moved.  Don't want to spoil the surprise now...

I found this lovely Rowan Wool Cotton on my recent trip to Dorset.  This is the nicest yarn to work with, it's smooth and soft and feels gorgeous when it's made up and the colours are just lovely (my camera's doing odd things again today - aagh).  For some inexplicable reason, I felt the need to make hexagons:

and the only other thing I can confirm without giving the game away is that I am very proud of my little picot edging, which I tried for the first time:

(Oh, I'm so disappointed with the colour of these photos - what's going on with my camera?  Some days it just won't play ball)
I'm going to end this post today with what Mr Nut called a 'gratuitous bagel shot'.   Now, call me a calorie-addict, but there's nothing gratuitous about bagels in my book...

Particularly when the bagel shot in question is teamed with a gratuitous jam shot:

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm happy days x

Let them eat cake

Today was kitchen kind of day for me.  Faced with an overwhelming amount of housework, I decided to do what any sane person would do.  I retreated to the kitchen and baked.
I was tempted by these beautiful red plums in my local greengrocer's:

so scoured my (rather large) selection of recipe books for a plum-related recipe.  Jamie came up trumps with crumble-stuffed plums.  Anything that calls for these bad boys:

is good in my books!

Bashing up the seeds from these little cardamom pods filled the kitchen with the most amazing smell.  Yum.

That's pudding sorted, then.

I also badly felt the need for lemon cake.  I have discovered Mary Berry's crunchy-topped lemon cake from her Baking Bible (a lovely birthday present in January) and the whole family is now completely addicted.

Tragically, I broke the Number One Rule of baking, whilst I was cooking this cake.  Yes, dear reader, I o-p-e-n-e-d t-h-e o-v-e-n...  That one second mistake turned my beautifully risen, golden cakey delight into a slightly sad little concave baked item.  Sob sob. 

But hey, it didn't stop me eating it, no siree:

After today, the house may well disappear under a cloud of dust, but at least we won't starve.  x