Slice of Cheesecake

There was a request for cheesecake and as we have nothing much planned to do on this long holiday weekend, it seemed like a nice idea.  

It probably could have done with a few more hours setting in the fridge, but it was still tasty...

Dinner, 31/3/13: Roast chicken, roast potatoes, cabbage, gravy

We're having lamb next week when some friends visit, so the slightly-less-traditional Easter Chicken made an appearance. I hope I didn't give all the poor marshmallow peeps nightmares...

More chocolatey goodness

What better for Easter brunch than chocolate chip pancakes? This could be a rhetorical question, mind you...

Attack of the fluorescent peeps

The peeps have journeyed all the way from America to attack Geoff's book on this sunny (but still way too cold) Easter morning...

Seasonal visitors...

Dinner, 30/3/13: Black Bean Burritos

Something we've had several times before - a nice vegetarian Mexican meal...

Dinner, 29/3/13: Ham & Mushroom Turnovers

These were good, although the edges didn't seal well. And there was too much filling, so I will have to buy some more puff pastry to use the rest... What a crisis!

A (brief) walk in the sun

As it was very briefly sunny this morning, and not due to remain so for any length of time, we all quickly got ourselves together and headed out to a local park (Cannizaro Park, Wimbledon) for a stroll in the sun. Even those of us who would normally sleep for a large part of the morning decided to take advantage of the sun while it lasted - which was a fairly short time, as it happened. 

You can see a little sun here in this photo, though not a lot. 

There were some crocuses out, and a very few daffodils, but you can tell it's been a colder than normal spring, as usually by this time of year, there would be swathes of daffodils, and they were pretty thin on the ground (lots of stems, but not many blooming). This was one of the few which was open all the way.

The forsythia was just beginning to bloom, but on the whole, the garden still looked quite wintery, 

with lots of seed heads and old growth.  I quite like that look, but I'm more fond of it in January than in the end of March...

Still, it was nice to get out and have a stroll, and in some cases, climb a few trees

or try on Olivia's sunglasses... (I reckon he should use this as his Facebook profile picture; what do you think?)

Dinner, 28/3/13: Thai Style Mince with Jasmine Rice

As it was Thursday, Sarah cooked tonight - this is a dish we've eaten lots of times before, but her first attempt at it - and lovely it was, too. Two weeks' holiday coming up, which is nice, as we'll have a bit more flexibility about meals - not so many of them that have to be fixed quickly. Though I'm sure there will be some, of course.

Dinner, 27/3/13: Chicken Jalfrezi

From the Hairy Bikers' Cookbook, The Hairy Dieters.  This was great - hot, but not too hot, pretty quick, great combination of textures because you cook the peppers and onions (and some tomatoes) separately at the end.  Yum.

Dinner, 26/3/13: Mixed Bean Goulash, Cornbread

From my cookbook simple titled The Bean Book. With added kidney beans.

Dinner, 24/3/13: Hungarian Goulash with Sauerkraut

 This is a recipe I've cooked before and although I do use this recipe as a basis, I always cook this in the slow cooker.  I also make goulash without sauerkraut, but this is lovely and moist and surprisingly, doesn't taste that strongly of sauerkraut - just enough to make it interesting. Sometimes I serve it with noodles.

Dinner, 23/3/13: Fennel Risotto

Despite the protests of  "Fennel? Really?" this was eaten with no complaints - it doesn't taste strongly fennely, just pleasantly so. A recipe I've cooked a number of times before from 100 Greatest Rice Dishes by Diane Seed.

Bluebird in my window

It may be snowing outside - again - but at least I have this cheerful bluebird in my window to help fool me into thinking spring is on the way...

Spring trip to Kew Gardens

How lovely, you are thinking, a nice spring trip to Kew Gardens with my class.

I think it was about 5 degrees. 

I still love Kew Gardens, but honestly, where's the spring gone?

Postcard display

This is my fabric postcard display unit, which hangs in the living room, on the (closed off) chimney breast. I made it a number of years ago to hold fabric postcards, which I used to trade a lot (they are 4x6") - I accumulated a lot of them, some of which I like very much, so I keep a seasonal (mostly) display of them up in the living room. Sometimes I just put ones I like, with no seasonality to the theme. It had Christmas and winter cards in December and for January, I took out the really Christmassy ones and just kept winter ones in, but I'm getting bored of winter now, so I've put up loads of spring flowers and sunshine, and so on. 

Some May blossom, for instance. 

A vase of flowers on the windowsill. 

A leaf with dragonflies.

Some lovely handpainted dogwood blossom.

And to remind me it's still not quite spring, a little felt snowdrop.

Dinner, 20/3/13: Courgette and Mushroom Tart

This was a perfect getting-back-from-music-lessons-quite-late dinner, because it took very little time to assemble and then gave me 20 minutes of free time to sort stuff out before eating. The recipe is from Good Food Magazine (as is so often the case) and is available on their website.  I made two, and there is some leftover for lunch. I used some mozzarella and some gruyere, and on one tart I used pesto instead of sun-dried tomato paste (I had half a jar of each in the fridge, so it seemed obvious). Both were tasty. And the kids didn't even complain about the mushrooms, which was a bonus.

Dinner, 19/3/13: Penne with olive, chorizo and rocket

An old recipe, this one from Olive magazine. I haven't cooked it in a while, but we've had it on several occasions in the past - it's full of things we like (chorizo, rocket, tapenade) and quick and simple to make.

India YesterDay

Year 5 were having an India day (current topic is India), so Alex borrowed a kurta pyjama from his friend down the road who lived in India for 2 years and went native. Suits him, I think!

A little damp

Our local park is flooded again - must be the torrential rains we keep having... Here's my favourite tree, but a bit waterlogged, poor thing.

Here's just one small bit of the park, showing the standing water. It's deeper in other places.  Have I mentioned I'm really bored of winter?

Dinner, 17/3/13: Spanish Chicken with Chickpeas

and fried courgettes, too, and crusty bread (once again, no photo of the bread - but I didn't make it, so it's not all that interesting!).  Leftovers for lunch this week, too!

Dinner, 16/3/13: Beef Stew

As the Scouts were having their Easter Fair today (postponed from Christmas, for various reasons) I knew I would be out most of the afternoon, and not getting back until 5 or so, so today's meal needed to be something I could stick in the slow cooker for most of the day. I had a request for beef stew, which is fine with me - it's easy...

Dinner, 15/3/13: Bacon Sandwiches

Sometimes, you just have to throw away your best laid dinner plans and have bacon sandwiches (and curly fries) for dinner. Especially on the Friday of a busy week when you are exhausted from a parents' evening the night before and a class assembly on the day, and your husband is away in Glasgow until 11pm anyway...  The chicken will last just fine until Sunday. 

Dinner, 13/3/13: Chickpea and Chorizo Soup

A big hit. I used one tin of butter beans and one of chickpeas as that's what I had, and a bag of curly kale instead of savoy cabbage because I didn't want half a cabbage leftover. And I like kale, anyway. But the soup, which was dead simple to make, was very tasty and a nice, filling, warming meal for a rather chilly evening. Mmm.

Spot the oddity...

nope, not the shape of my shadow (I am wearing a skirt, and a long coat) - it's the fact that Alex and I have shadows at all in the morning on the way to school.  First time we've seen the sun in a while.  It was still cold, mind you, and today's brief sun appearance didn't stop us from getting some sneet (a cross between snow and sleet and yes, I know sleet is already a cross) on the way home from music lessons this afternoon. Roll on spring, I say.

Here's my favourite tree, in the sunshine.

Dinner, 12/3/13: Pasta with roasted squash, rocket and parmesan

This had a lovely combination of flavours. There was chili in it as well. Easy midweek supper, for sure.

Book stack

Haven't posted what we are reading in a while - and yes, I know there are 6 books in the stack, but Sarah is reading two of them (top and bottom) - she's been reading Life of Pi for a while - I hope she'll finish it and not give up - she hasn't even got to the best part yet! The others, you can probably match up to the readers...

My (Mother's) Day in Pictures