Dinner, 22/2/15: Mexican Style Salmon

A nice easy salmon dish, with potatoes - the salmon cooks on top of the potatoes (just for a few minutes at the end) - and then you add the salsa on top before you eat it. Tasty!

Book 16: The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, Catherynne M. Valente (re-read, JF, aloud)

This was my bedtime book with Alex, after finishing up Watership Down. I've actually read it before myself, but it was new to him. It's a lovely and strange story, full of quirky fantasy and reminiscent in some ways of those odder bits of children's fantasy such as Alice or  Oz (especially the books, which are odder than the films in many ways). There are at least two more in the series (of which I have read one but not the other), so I imagine we'll be seeing these characters again at bedtime, though not next, as next up is Voyage of the Dawn Treader, as we make our way through the rest of Narnia (four down, three to go).

Book 15: Foolish Mortals, Jennifer Johnston

I always enjoy a Jennifer Johnston, and was pleased to pick this up in a charity shop a while back. A great portrait of a rather disfuntional family in the lead up to Christmas - a very quick read, partly because it's very readable, but also, there's lots of dialogue, which reads quickly. Not much to say about it, except the characters are well drawn and ring true (in a novelistic, slightly over the top, Irish Character way in some cases) and the whole thing, while somewhat High Drama also feels quite real. 

I think I've read 5 or 6 books by Johnston, but there's quite a few more than that listed inside, so perhaps I should check the library and see if they've any more in stock (because I need more books to read!)

Dinner, 21/2/15: Greek Lamb with Orzo

A lovely casserole - really tasty and warming. We've had it before, according to my notes, but not for a while. But very simple and the orzo is fantastic in it....

Dinner, 20/2/15: Chicken Soup with pasta

Using the stock from the roast the other day, plus some of the leftover meat. Can't beat a good chicken soup!

Book 14: Losing Nelson, Barry Unsworth

I'm generally a fan of historical fiction or fiction mixed with history or other things of that ilk, and this book appealed despite my lack of extreme interest in All Things Naval. And for the most part, I enjoyed this story of a man obsessed with Nelson's life and the parallels he sees with his own life. The writing was very good, and I found the main character (often painfully) well drawn; in the end, I did skim a bit in the last third or so, as I just found it a little too much Nelson and naval engagement re-enaction for my taste, but I have another book by the same author on my shelf (not about Nelson!) and I'm looking forward to reading it in due course. 

Dinner, 18/2/15: Roast Chicken, Oven Potatoes, Brussels Sprouts

A roast dinner mid-week? Must be holidays... And I'll make stock with the carcase tonight so that we can have soup on Friday... (Tomorrow I am out all day with Olivia, so I'm not cooking.)

Spring walk

The weather in England is a funny thing - cold, rain, grey skies are often a feature of the winter, but most years, we get at least one sunny day, where it's warm enough for a nice walk outside, during the February half-term holiday (some years, several days, like this year). So of course, we went for a walk - this one was just Alex and me, as the girls both had committments.  The sun is low, but you can see it shining brightly for us, nonetheless!

This is one of our favourite walks - Morden Hall Park - because you can walk through a park, a little wetlands, down to a petting farm, along to an old mill down the Wandle (River) Trail, and then back, via a playground, and end up at  a National Trust teashop. All in the space of an hour and a half or so, depending on how fast you walk (and how long you spend at the little farm - these days, we don't spend long).  You can't beat that - especially not 10 minutes drive from home!

Oh, and you also get to cross a tram line - this is less of a thrill now that my little boy is 12, but when he was about 4, it was one of the highlights of the walk...

Part of the tram line is single track; we got to see them waiting to pass at the double point - very exciting if you are a small boy who loves trains. We are neither of us that any longer, but it was still interesting.

And the best thing was, I put a chicken in the oven to roast (on the timer, so it would turn itself on) before we left, so we came home to the smell of roasting chicken!

A Double Pancake Kind of Day

It's not often that Pancake Day falls during the half term holiday - usually it's during the school year, which means that although we can try to slip in pancakes for dessert, it's hard to have them at breakfast. This year, we had a lucky opportunity, which also meant that we could have both kinds of pancakes: the American kind, which are fluffy  and more cakey - in the UK you'd call these either Scotch pancakes or drop scones, probably; and also, the English kind, which are thin and pliable - what in the US (and France) would be called crepes. So we had the American ones for breakfast with various toppings and the English ones for dessert, with butterscotch sauce. Of course, in our house, we probably won't stop eating fatty, rich foods just because it's Lent. But I doubt there will be any more double pancake days for a while...

Alex helped make the American ones for breakfast.

I did most of the making for the English kind, though Alex did practice his flipping skills. No photo of that, unfortunately!

Dinner, 16/2/15: Pasta Bake with Garlic Bread

We've had this so many times I probably don't have to say anything about it at all any more... It's one of our go-to recipes...

Books in

Well, I know I said I'd try not to buy books this year, but as we were having a poke around charity shops yesterday, I couldn't resist these two - the Anne Tyler I've read, and actually won't count in my unread stack as I will shelve it with the rest of my Anne Tyler (I've actually read all of them, but only own some - however, as they are something I might well read again, I do pick them up when I see ones I don't have in the charity shops (especially at 90p, the price on this one!) - same is true of a few other authors...).  The Fannie Flagg, however, will go in the To Be Read pile (which isn't really a pile, it's more of a windowsill).  Still, one book in and a number out, so it's not too bad!  And I resisted several others which I normally would have bought without thinking about it. So far this year, that's 7 out of the TBR and only one in, so I'm not doing too badly...

Dinner, 15/2/15: Beef Burgundy

One for the slow-cooker, with shallots instead of small onions. Makes the house smell gorgeous all day, as well!

Dinner, 14/2/15: Baked Bean Cassoulet

From a cook book called The Bean Book - this was tasty and very easy. I used Heinz 5 Beans instead of the regular baked beans as I thought it would taste nicer...

Book 13: Let it Snow (Compilation, YA, re-read)

Got to thinking about this book the other day due to several conversations about Waffle House, and decided to pick it up again and have a quick read (it's three long stories/short novellas which are inter-twined, though focus on different groups of people) - it was just what I needed to decompress. Yes, I really did read it in the course of one evening, after finishing off my previous book. It's the sort of book where you can do that. But even knowing where some of the events of the stories are going, it was fun to watch it all unfold again. All three are quite funny as well, though not in an over-the-top way. I'm sure Young Adult fiction is a lot better these days than when I was a teenager - or maybe there's just a lot more of it!

Book 12: The Distant Hours, Kate Morton

This was a higly readable, compelling story, weaving the lives of a modern young woman, her mother and the family with whom her mother spent time while evacuated as a child during World War II. It also involves a famous (fictional) novel and its inspiration, a castle, and number love affairs, both successful and not - though mostly not. I've read both of Morton's other novels and also found them gripping reads; this was no exception - well drawn characters and not too bizare or unrealistic (though perhaps a bit overly dramatic). 

Dinner, 13/2/15: Thai Green Chicken Curry

This is a dish I used to make a lot, but haven't made much recently. Tonight's version was tasty, though not very spicy - I think the curry paste I have is unusually mild. Guess I'll have to go back to one of the oriental shops and buy some proper Thai curry paste... I do (loosely) use a recipe, but it's annoyingly long to scan as it's one of those with step-by-step photos, so I'm not going to share it. Sorry!

Dinner, 11/2/15: Bacon, Spinach and Gorgonzola Pasta

Yum. 'Nuff said.

Dinner, 9/2/15: Teriyaki Pork & Noodles with Oriental Vegetables

Such a busy weekend, I didn't even realise until Sunday evening that I hadn't really got anything for dinner Monday or Tuesday.  Luckily, there was enough chicken leftover from Sunday's meal to make another meal, but the other day - today - needed sorting. Some pork steaks from the freezer, a couple of tins of oriental vegetables, a few slightly sorry looking courgettes and some soba noodles, slung together with some teriyaki marinade/sauce and hey presto - dinner!

Book 11: A Gate at the Stairs, Lorrie Moore

A new to me author - apparently very well known for her short stories.  [Short stories are one of those things in my life which I find myself not liking as well as I somehow ought to given other factors about myself - (Elvis Costello being another example of this phenomenon) - I've just never quite been able to really get into short stories, even good ones.] 

This book was very good, I thought - a moving portrait - odd in places, but in a way that rang true - of family life, of being a college student who doesn't quite fit in, of marriage, perhaps of being a sibling. The author has an eye for detail and a nice turn of phrase and while I could feel a sense of some sort of doom hanging over the story from the start, how or where that doom was going to manifest wasn't certain until one got there.

Birthday Cake

Then, in the excitement of eating the birthday cake, I totally forgot to take a photo of it - I made it, but Alex decorated it (he asked to and as it was his birthday, it seemed only fair). This is what's left (and three small slices already boxed up in tupperware to go in the kids' lunches tomorrow). Yum.  There was homemade vanilla ice cream as well...