Pool, Pizza and Party. Done.

This afternoon after about a month of planning we had Big Boy's birthday party. It was a pool and pizza party with about twenty 4-5 year olds and a few toddlers. It was noisy, chaotic, very wet and frankly madness. It was also - in Big Boy's words - the best day he's ever had.

During the swimming part the kids all seemed to have lots of fun and splashed around. Baby Boy has only been swimming for a few months and loved it. When it came to the food and drink part

Phew ! I was so worried about it all and planned every last thing to make sure it would go well. From ordering the pizzas online last week to making sure that we took plenty of drinks for adults and children. Following a miscalculation last year with goody bags I made up plenty this year and was delighted to find we had a couple left over for my boys to have.

Tonight we had two large pizzas left, all the coleslaw and potato salad that I'd forgotten to put out and lots of drinks as everyone was driving. The reason I'm telling you this is because we are all completely exhausted. I'm so tired that I could sleep for days. Hubbie was so tired he couldn't even finish his food - which is almost unheard of I can tell you !

In a week we will be at the wonderful Coombe Mill where the kids have so much fun and we love staying with Fiona and her fab family. It's been such a tiring time I really want to rest and relax a bit while we're there. Let's hope I get the chance.

For now though, the whole house smells of pizza and the garage is full of drinks. Life ain't so bad :)

Don't ask how many candles on the cake :)

My lovely pampered nails :)

This weekend is that start of my birthday celebration extravaganza. I know it's undignified to make a big deal of your birthday when you're older than about ten, but I love it so shush !

My birthday was always at Whitsun half term so I rarely had to go to school on the day itself. One year - in 6th form - I actually did have school on my birthday as Whitsun was later that year and it was a shock to me. For a start I expected everyone to know it was my birthday and to celebrate it. I kept waiting for the big cake or for everyone to leap out from behind the common room easy chairs and shout 'surprise !' 

When I worked in the Civil Service I discovered that the Queen's official birthday falls around my actual birthday so I'd often get a day's leave. It was like having an official day off for my birthday - how cool is that ? 

So, now I'm far too old to have a birthday party with jelly and ice cream (like we did for my 21st - with Vodka jellies of course) and I'm a mum too, so I can't have anything just for me anyway. It's all about the boys saying things like, "Is that for me Mummy ?" "Where is my cake Mummy ?" "Why is everyone singing to me Mummy ?" Not content to accept this fact, however, I have ensured that I have plenty of fuss around the day I was born. The plan is as follows: 

Saturday: pampering day (hair, nails & facial) and date night 

Sunday: socialising with lovely friends 

Monday: moving the baby into his own room (YAY !!)

Tuesday: Big Bus Tour and river cruise

Wednesday: My actual birthday - there will be cake :)

I may be a little absent for few days so bear with me while I make the most of my birthday celebrations. I promise to save you some cake :)

I'm also taking part in #tkam re-read 

Let them eat cake, by them I mean me :)

I'm pretty sure most people I know think that life is better with cake. Apart from the gluten intolerant ones of course. They can only look at real cake enviously and wonder what a soft sponge is like and why life is so unfair. I kid, it's not funny and there are some pretty awesome gluten free cakes now. In face I'm sure one of the Bake Off challenges has been to make edible and tasty gluten free cakes. The phenomenal success of the Great British Bake Off is proof of our national love of all things cake related. When it's on I tend to be more inspired to bake at home, but I do have a few favourite cake recipes I stick to all the time.

I go through phases of making my own cakes and have been known to make muffins, brownies, banana loaf and used to make a lot of decorative birthday cakes following recipes from a Mary Berry baking book that I borrowed from the library years ago. However, I am also partial to nostalgia cakes and am not at all snobby about buying rather than making them for myself. My joy was stratospheric last week when the postman delivered this pretty parcel. It contained a selection of delicious Mr Kipling cakes including Viennese Whirls, Bakewell Tarts and my favourites - French Fancies.

My love of cake is such that on a semi regular basis me and my lovely friend SJ take in in turns to choose a venue for a posh afternoon tea as a special treat. I arrange childcare (Hubbie takes the boys to watch football usually) and we meet up and spend hours enjoying nice tea and delicious sandwiches and - of course - scrumptious cakes. It is always nice when someone else makes the effort for you. It's enough effort for me to pop a teabag in a mug never mind make a pot of tea so there's a very slim chance that I'd take the time to cut the crusts off sandwiches at home. I do, however, sometimes treat my boys to an 'afternoon tea' at home. I get out the nice cake stands and clear some space on the dining table that is always covered in stuff so we can sit and eat. Hubbie chooses a nice herbal tea, I pick a posh black tea and then we get to the heart of the matter. The star of the show. The reason we are even doing this thing. The cakes !

I've been a fan of Mr Kiplings cakes since I was a child. Theirs was the first apple pie I ever tried and the first bakewell tart. On the rare occasions when my Mum let us have fondant fancies we all had our favourite flavours. When we visited my Mum on Friday I took a box of them with me to share with everyone. My Mum has always been a fan of tea and cake and whenever we go there however much we have eaten for lunch she will still put on the kettle and serve cake before we head home. On this occasion it was a lovely sunny afternoon so we sat outside to take tea in garden with my parents.  I don't let my boys eat cake that often so when I offered these to my older boy he was delighted and he went for a pink one, Hubbie took a chocolate one and I instinctively went for the lemon. My sister laughed and said, "I should have known you would have that one, you always did." It is true and the bane of my life was that you'd never get enough lemon ones in a box so I'd have to ration myself. Can you imagine my delight when I found that you can get a box of only Lemon Fancies ? Now I get to have as many as I want. Don't even get me started on the big fondant fancy cake - I finally tried it last year and it made me very happy indeed.

I've probably established that a love of cake pretty much defines my very existence, but I hope that this last demonstrates that it's not an entirely selfish escapade on my part. Every week I have a standing date for a 'tea and chat' with my lovely neighbour Jill. When we moved into this house our boy was one year old and the lovely retired couple next door were so kind to us. Jill and her late husband Phil noted with delight how he grew, began to walk, learned to talk and became cheekier with every passing week. We would sit in the garden in the summer drinking wine while our boy ran around and would find any excuse to meet up for tea and cake. Phil was such an interesting man and I was so sad when he told me he had been diagnosed with cancer. He went from vibrant, funny and energetic to weaker and reclusive then after a period of illness he passed away. I would still ask Jill if she needed any help with shopping or a lift anywhere (she hates driving) or anything really. She would say she was fine so I'd leave it. I would invite her for tea and cake and she would pop in to see the boy and to have a natter. One day she mentioned that Phil would have loved to see how much our boy has grown and when he was very ill and we didn't see him so often he said he could hear our boy chatting over the garden fence and it made him smile. We call Jill 'spare granny' and she loves it. Once a week I get some nice cakes in and we have a catch up over a cup (or two) of tea. I offer cake and Jill says, "Oh, not for me," but every now and then she will indulge. I can honestly say that even though we'd meet up anyway the cake does make it feel a bit special and I like to make the effort for someone who means so much to us.

Life is definitely better with cake - whether it's indulgence or nostalgia or spending time with someone special.

I'm going to put on the kettle, I'm feeling a bit peckish :)

This post is an entry for #betterwithcake Linky Challenge (http://bit.ly/betterwithcake), sponsored by Mr Kipling. Learn more at  https://www.facebook.com/mrkiplingcakes 

Life is Sweet

You might remember i gave up sugar, sweets, chocolate, cakes and biscuits in January. I said at the time that it didn't take long for me to notice how sweet everything is when I wasn't eating so much sugary stuff. I decided to stop again in the run up to Easter as I knew it would be a bit of a sugar-fest so I hoped that cutting back beforehand would help me to moderate my intake.

Well, a week before Easter I found a cake mix that I had bought a while back at a cake and bake show that needed to be used so I made this:

It's a toffee sponge with maple icing and pecan nut topping. It is very sweet indeed as there are pieces of toffee in the sponge itself. I managed to control myself and not succumb to it and there is still about half of it left in the fridge. 

Then I decided to check what I had for Easter as I'd been buying things over a period of months. You see I am a border of groceries. I shop like armageddon is imminent. My cupboards are unlikely to be bare any time soon and yet I still buy food items as though the next shopping trip will be my last. 

When I saw all of the chocolate laid out like this I realised that it might be a little over the top. Not least as we are still finishing chocolate we were given at Christmas ! 

So, we finally came to Easter weekend and the boys went on an Easter Egg Hunt in the garden where the Easter Bunny had been hard at work hiding small bunnies and small chocolate eggs for them to find. The rest of the haul was put into baskets and kept for them to dip into over the next few months weeks.

While all this madness was happening we received a parcel in the post. It was this lovely box of Mr Kiplings cakes. I may well struggle to stay away from sugar for a while :) 

What do you give the 3 year old who has everything ?

Now I realise he doesn't actually have everything, but it must seem that way to his adoring (and adored) family members who have been asking what to get him for this birthday.

My baby boy will be 3 next Monday. His party is on Sunday and I have been asked what he'd like as a present. From me and Daddy  he is getting a microscooter which he has been promised since he was two as we thought he was too young back then. The list of what he already has is pretty long though, so it's difficult to suggest anything to kind and loving friends and family. Instead I'll tell you what he loves and you can make up your own minds:

• Last weekend Hubbie took the boy to the Metrobus open day in Beddington. He drove a bus and went through the bus wash - which was a bit scary apparently. He had a wonderful time pretending to be a driver and he came home with a poster of buses and a new fridge magnet. That's a good day out in anybody's book isn't it ?

• Hubbie took him to two football matches this weekend and at the second one he was playing with this regular footie buddie Freya who is older than him and often takes him under her wing. It was while they were playing on the stand that he clonked his nose on a metal bar and unleashed a tsunami of blood that sent Hubbie running towards the team physio - Chopper. She assured him that he hadn't broken his nose and was going to be ok. The boy was just very concerned that Daddy's shirt was dirty now. Once patched up and declared fit he ran onto the pitch - his favourite bit of the game.

• On Sunday we all ate pizza for dinner and he had great fun using a pizza cutting wheel for the first time. I remembered I had a toy one that we'd got free with the Cbeebies magazine a while back so I let him have that after dinner. He also enjoyed chomping on the 'noisy' crusts - that must explain why his hair is so curly !!

• He loves singing and dancing. My mum bought him his own 'radio' last year - it's a pretend CD player and he likes to switch it on and dance around the room changing the volume and speed of the tunes on it. It's hilarious to watch and tires him out as well - a win win !!

• I cannot accurately convey the look of excitement when he spots Jiggles Bear waiting in his car seat after he's had a fun day at nursery. He adores his first bear so much it is now ragged and smelly from being loved so much - aren't we all ?  They have a snuggle on the sofa at home with the boy sucking his fingers - which he's done since he was born - it's a picture of toddler bliss. I prepare his dinner and they catch up on what they've been doing all day. It's so simple and makes him so happy.

So that's what my boy loves to do. Yes he loves running around outside. He also loves toys and noise and singing at the top of his voice in the back of the car. Cake makes him very happy indeed. It is all part of what makes him so very precious.

As for what you can get him for his birthday - well he does need new shoes actually.

Baker Days wheat and gluten free cake: a review

As I've mentioned more than once our boy is going to be 3 at the end of this month. In anticipation of this I've had a practice run of his birthday cake and have enlisted my wonderful friend Sarah-Jane who makes the most beautiful cupcakes to ensure we have an endless supply for his party. So you can imagine how overjoyed I was when the lovely folks at Baker Days offered us a wheat and gluten free cake to try.

Baker Days can put any design on a cake and it will arrive through your letter box packaged safely and intact. I browsed the designs on the website - of which there are many - but decided to send an image to be put on the cake that I knew my boy (and Hubbie) would love - it's of their non-league football team Fisher FC.




Sure enough within a few weeks the cake arrived in a presentation tin complete with a birthday card, candles and a party blower thing.

The boy was very excited to see his team badge on a cake and we decided that we would have an early birthday cake cutting practice run.





It is quite a small cake - otherwise it wouldn't fit through the letterbox would it ? - but they managed to pack so much into the tin it was a lovely surprise to find the candles and balloons inside.

The cake itself is surprisingly moist, tastes nice and has a pretty good texture, which is not bad for a wheat and gluten free cake at all. The icing was a little overpowering for my taste, but the boys loved the sweetness of it so that's just down to personal preference really.

Overall it's a nice gift item to send someone. It's packaged really well so it arrives intact and with a complete ingredients list to check for any allergies.



As you can see we had a bit of a ceremony with ours and thoroughly enjoyed trying it.

If you place an order using the code BBLG Baker Days will give you a 10% discount - please tell them I sent you :o)

http://www.bakerdays.com/pages/gluten-and-wheat-free-cakes

Disclosure: we were sent this cake to write a honest review.

Polly Styrene I ain't

I always secretly wanted to be a punk. Not in the spitting, shouting, violent way of course. More the fashion really.

My ambition was hampered by not being allowed to cut or colour my hair and not wanting to draw attention to myself by wearing anything that was too unusual - why invite even more reasons to be bullied ?

Instead, over the years I've flirted with the themes of punk in the form of kilt skirts, bondage trousers and in recent years punk motifs on t-shirts.

So imagine my joy in finding out the theme of the latest meet up of my local Clandestine Cake Club. Tomorrow it's all about 'Rebellious cakes.' I wanted to do a test run for my son's birthday cake which I'd planned to make as a rainbow cake. My challenge was to make this into a rebellious version. So here's what I did:






1. To start with I made up the sponge mixture and separated it into different vibrant colours.













2. Then I merged it in the baking tin into a marbled effect.












3. The baked cake is a bit thinner than I'd like, but it is still colourful and when it's cut I hope the colours will all be visible.













4. I've iced it and decorated with what is supposed to look like graffiti and few (inedible) safety pins.







Now I just hope it tastes nice :o)

They don't do Hallmark cards for two and a half do they ?

My boy turned 2 and a half this week. It wasn't greeted with much fanfare, but he did enjoy a Peppa Pig cake at my parents' house on Good Friday and insisted on having candles to blow out. It has become a tradition when we visit that they get him a cake as he loves birthdays so much. We end up having to google whose birthday it is so that we have someone to celebrate for, but it is quite funny and I will enjoy telling him about it when he's a stroppy teenager.

Talking of which this new age and stage has heralded a surprising range of emotions. The tantrums we've already experienced, but now he can go from a standing start to a full blown tornado of anger or upset. He is also speaking fluently and using a lot more words - well I understand him anyway - so it makes for animated conversations when he isn't blowing up because I won't let him drive the car. Today two things happened that made me realise how much my boy is growing up.

Firstly, his small chewy flannel toy (Ellie, the elephant) was lost in the supermarket. I searched all the aisles and at one point had most of the staff looking for her too, but to no avail. A mother pushing a trolley round frantically asking, "where's Ellie ?" often causes concern as people have in the past asked me if she is my daughter. I felt sick in my stomach at the thought that we had lost the toy he'd had since he was born and that he slept with as it smelled comforting. Even though she was filthy and smelly she was also clearly loved by someone very much, so I hoped that she'd get handed in. A while back I bought some spare Ellies as a contingency for this event, so he has once met a replacement when the original was in the wash. Today as I got more and more distressed I told him that Ellie was lost and I was very sorry, he looked at me and said, simply, "new Ellie at home."

Later after lunch I let him have a mini roll as a treat. He hasn't had them before so I wasn't sure if he'd like it, but he seemed to as it was gone pretty sharpish. As I went to take him up for his medicine and nap he asked if he could have some chocolate. I reminded him he'd just had a chocolate covered cake. He went quiet. I said, " you just had one - remember ?" and he looked away from me and said, "No." I laughed and he gave me a very serious look and said, "No" again.

So today I have learned that my boy is mature enough to deal with loss (more than his mother) and that he will lie for chocolate.

I could not be more proud :o)

Foodie Friday: Chocolate on prescription

This post is necessarily short as my little boy is poorly. Even the masses of chocolate he has been given by kindly family and friends for Easter have not shifted his tearful and whiny demeanour. I hope he feels better soon as we have planned an Easter Egg hunt for Sunday morning and as he is an only child he gets to eat all of them himself ! 

I've never truly understood the whole chocolate egg thing at Easter. I mean, I know what hot cross buns are about and now they seem to be in weird and wonderful new flavours so I already have apple and cinnamon, orange and cranberry and - the ultimate treat - chocolate ones from M & S. The link between hot cross buns and Easter I get, the Simnel cake I get, it's just the entire genre of ovoid chocolate that I seem to have missed the relevance of. 

Not that I'm complaining you understand. With my genetic predisposition to sweet foods and chocolate in particular this is my perfect celebration. Of course with my family predisposition to diabetes it probably isn't all that good for me either. 

I have decided this year to embrace the whole Easter theme and we are having an 'Easter afternoon tea' on Sunday with lemon cakes of various varieties to counteract all the chocolate craziness. My son already has enough chocolate to last the remainder of this year and we haven't even given him our gifts yet. I only give him a little bit of chocolate occasionally so he appreciates that it is special. 

After this weekend he might actually think it's one of his five a day ! 

Foodie Friday: Life is all about Chocolate, Chips and Cake.

I met a friend for dinner last week and she reached into her bag before eating so she could check what she was allowed to eat. I asked the obvious questions, 'on a diet ?' 'Pregnant ?' Turns out she has IBS and has been advised to avoid certain foods. Now I am way ahead at this particular party as I had severe problems with food around ten years ago and it took the GP two years of testing to conclude I had stress related IBS. Frustrated by the medical advice to eat charcoal (for real !) I decided to have a food allergy test at a health store to see if there was anything I should be aware of.

Now I know I brought this on myself really and if you have seen a 'nutritionist' or a 'holistic therapist' or spoken to anyone from the world of food health you won't be surprised by what the nice man told me after a highly unscientific test undertaken in the shop. I was advised to avoid: bread, caffeine, chocolate, onions, peppers, cabbage, red wine and red meat. In fact the only cliche he managed to avoid was that he didn't tell me to stop eating dairy.

The world of 'healthy eating' seems to be all about exclusion. We are advised to cut out wheat, sugar, dairy and caffeine. It's supposed to 'detox' the body. Now I don't know about you, but I don't feel toxic when I have a cup of tea. I feel pretty horrific at the thought of custard, but that's a preference thing. I used to feel a bit poorly if I overdid it with the wheat and I haven't drunk real coffee in ten years, but give up sugar and tea ? Give me a break. What's the point of living a long and essentially crappy life ? No cake - no tea - no hot buttered toast ? I realise that some people have genuine allergies to foods and I get that, what I'm talking about here is the self-imposed misery of food exclusion either to lose weight or to stay well.

I tried being a vegan for a few months in my first year at University. It struck me that as I already didn't eat meat I could easily be a vegan if I skipped butter on chappatis, left out the raita with my food and denied myself my beloved boiled egg and soldiers. However, I did struggle with tiredness, terrible skin and I was the most miserable I've ever been. I can see why Morrissey is such a grump most of the time -- hence it was only a shortlived experiment.

If life is about anything surely it is about enjoyment and experiencing and trying new things ? If I didn't eat sugar I'd never have tasted the exquisite chocolates from Rococo in Chelsea (also available online).

If I gave up dairy I'd never enjoy Ben & Jerry's ice cream on a hot day in Clapham Common watching live music and seeing the sheer bliss on my son's face as he scoffs two cones at once.

If I stopped eating wheat I would deny myself the pleasure of eating toast or pancakes or chappatis or cake. Personally I don't see wheat as the enemy, I love it. Most cultures in the world have a wheat based diet be it pasta or chapattis or bread and who am I to fight against those odds ?

This week I've made peanut butter cookies (a bit crumbly, but taste great), chocolate chip cookies (the boy loves these) and honey cookies (wanted to use up a jar of honey, they smell incredible and taste very sweet, but the boys both devour these for breakfast !). The simplicity of these and the happiness they create in my home cannot be overstated. 

All of which is a very long-winded way of saying that I'm going on a bread-making course this weekend. It's with Daniel Stevens who wrote the River Cottage bread handbook and promises 'all the bread you can eat' as well as lunch and wine - sold !!! 

It's a very early birthday present from Hubbie and I'm ridiculously excited about it. I will take photos and tell you all about it next week. 

Foodie Friday: Festive Fare

This year I've been a bit more prepared than I usually am and have been ahead of the curve on the baking front with Christmas food. Of course it helps that I'm at home and therefore able to prepare food while my son is either at nursery or sleeping, rather than after a day at work and a horrid commute. On cold days like these I prefer to be in the kitchen weighing out sugar and rifling through the cupboard for a suitable baking tin to line for delicious fudge.

Which brings me neatly to the first recipe with I found courtesy of a lovely friend who directed me to the BBC food website where I found Sophie Dahl's recipe for Peanut Butter fudge which is really simple and requires very few ingredients, but enough sugar to make you diabetic with one bite !

The only difficulty was in finding a suitable jar to put it in for gifts, but once I'd located these it was all good. Oh, that was until I discovered that one of my intended recipients has a nut allergy so I've had to rethink that - I mean how selfish is that ?

Homemade sweets are a great luxury item and presented in a lovely glass  jar makes them even more of a treat so I'm dead chuffed that I haven't scoffed the lot as the recipe make a lot of fudge - even for someone as greedy as me !



I had a bit more of a trial with the Christmas cake. I mentioned in a previous foodie post that I bought a mix from Waitrose that I've used twice before - it's been a bit hit and miss for me in the past as it's taken so long, but this time the box said it would take 2-3 hours so I had high hopes - even with an unpredictable oven that I've blamed in the past.

We had a rare night out planned and my sister was coming to babysit so I popped the cake mix into the oven around 2pm thinking it would be done in plenty of time. When it was still soggy 4 hours later I was becoming more than a little concerned that we would have to miss the Idiot Bastard Band to stay in and watch my cake not cooking ! Instead I left the oven on low and gave instructions to switch it off whatever happened after 5 hours had passed.

It did look ok eventually (if a little damp on the bottom, but less said about that the better) so I turned it out onto a board and covered it in marzipan and icing and my traditional snowmen decorations and festive ribbon. All I can do now is hope that when we finally cut into it the middle isn't gruesome !

Then this week I finally got round to making some mince pies and used up the marzipan that was left from the cake as mini stars for the topping of the puff pastry fancies. They're ok, but not quite as neat as I'd hoped they'd look. They taste fine, but I did already buy some fancy ones just in case my homemade ones weren't quite up to scratch. I have a bit of mincemeat left in the jar so I might do some festive palmiers based on the recipe I saw that uses marmalade and brown sugar - I'll let you know how they turn out when I finally get round to them.

So these are the advance guard of the food prep. In a week I'll be making the stuff that won't keep so well. Sausage rolls (meat and veggie) the aforementioned palmiers and the gingerbread stars that I hope my son will help decorate. His budding culinary skills were at the fore today as he created the taste sensation of chow mein with onion bagel (surprisingly good) and then stabbed the leftover bagel half and announced it was a 'helicopter' (propeller).

I may just let him plan our Christmas meal. My lad is a gastro-genius !

Foodie Friday: seasonal baking

Apparently last weekend was the traditional time for baking and setting aside a Christmas pudding. In Hubbie's family it was always Children In Need weekend and I understand that mother-in-law has already made a start on theirs. I don't make my own pudding and besides we still have the Heston hidden clementine pudding from last year so we'll probably crack that open at Christmas. It's just right for us and if my boy wants to try some he might prefer the orangey bit (in a jaffa cake sort of way).

Years ago I used to make my own mince pies and took great pride in sharing them out. Nowadays it seems there are a lot more fussy folks out there as people don't like the mince filling or the pastry or something and with so many types for sale: gluten free, icing topped, puff pastry, etc. I just skip it and if we fancy a mince pie I buy some luxury butter pastry mini ones. I think I might make some with my boy this year. I'm sure he'll love rolling the pastry and spooning out mincemeat. Once I've popped a cute little ribbon on the box they'll be the perfect gift for grandparents complete with teeny tiny fingerprints in the pastry.

In recent years I have, however, taken on the task of baking a Christmas cake as both Hubbie and I do like it. The first year I bought a Delia kit from Waitrose and followed the instructions and it was ok, but massive. The following year I tried the Mary Berry kit from Tesco and it was very good. They also had a kit to make seasonal Mary Berry cupcakes which were sensational so I've kept the recipe to make those again (unless Tesco do a kit again in which case I'm stockpiling those !) I've gone back to Waitrose this year as the kit comes complete with icing and marzipan too - and it was on special offer a few weeks back so it was a bargain.


I've also branched out with the Waitrose gingerbread tree kit complete with icing and edible glitter. When I opened the box I felt like a bit of an amateur as it wasn't even a mix, but an actual bag of dough ready to roll out. Now I'm all for short cuts, but this was a little shorter than I was expecting. If I'm using a kit I like to be involved in some way whether it's to add eggs and butter or to mix a few packets together. Of course baking from scratch gives a genuine homemade taste, but sometimes it's just too tempting to try a kit and see how it goes. I'm going to freestyle it with the gingerbread by using a fabulous intarsia shaped baking mould that I was given by a friend last year. It is meant for shortbread, but I think this kind of crazy renegade behaviour is what makes home baking so exhilarating !

The fridge is packed with ready made pastry; all butter puff, pizza dough, shortcrust, croissant dough and I think I've got some filo somewhere. I spent last Saturday lying on the sofa watching cookery programmes and Lorraine Pascale was making canapes and treats on her show, so I decided that if ready made is good enough for her (and is on special offer) then who am I to argue ?

So I'll post photos as I go. If you want to know how the homemade sausage rolls (meat and veggie), Christmas cake, Christmas cupcakes and gingerbread tree turn out keep tuned to www.twitter.com/SwaziRodgers. Comments appreciated, marks out of ten optional :o)


p.s. this post isn't sponsored by Waitrose, but it would be lovely if it was :o)

I cook, therefore I am

Apparently we're all in love with baking now thanks to the Great British Bake Off. To be honest I think we all watch cooking shows, but very few of us actually do any cooking. I have been inspired by Gordon Ramsey's Ultimate Cookery Course, not to make any of his recipes, but to properly cook from scratch again which I had moved away from doing once my boy was born. The rise of the 'dine in' offer has also scuppered any creativity in preparing meals other than to choose which side dish goes with which main course. So why are we all so fascinated by watching other people cook ?

Food as love

The massive worldwide success of the Come Dine With Me formula suggests that the appeal is not restricted to watching someone prepare food that we can't make. It's about nosing round someone else's kitchen - just ask Hubbie how often I've said "ooh I love that kitchen, I'd like that cooker and island if we had the space."There's also something about seeing how other people cook at home. Let's face it we aren't buying the whole 'I'm at home and this is how I cook for my family' scenario that TV chefs fake for us. It's a well constructed artifice even if it is in their actual home.

Delia was the original and her no nonsense domestic science teacher approach told us how to do the basics which is why her 'how to cook' series is still the go to guide for a lot of amateur cooks. She appeared to be in her own kitchen at home and we all rushed out to get the exact same muffin tray or mixing bowl so that we could cook just like her. Who can forget the famous run on limes when she cooked with one and all the supermarkets were caught off guard.

The polar opposite of Delia was the manic outdoor cooking of Keith Floyd that showed us how to prepare food while drinking wine at the same time - a more realistic depiction of cooking for most of us. If Delia was domestic science then Heston is food technology. He does the actual science bit and the food is pretty secondary to it all. Then we have Jamie who's more home 'eck than anything else. I'm willing to believe that he's at home, but we all know how controversial the whole 'meal in 30 minutes' offering turned out to be. He's far too heavy handed with the olive oil for my liking and when will he give the oven settings in gas marks please ? Also, stop telling us how good it smells eh Jamie ? It's just not on.

I've always given a wide berth to Nigella (no pun intended), but having watched her newest show I can vouch for her being so gorgeous that the cooking is pretty irrelevant. I don't want to watch someone who is so self satisfied with her own cooking that I feel like a voyeur thanks. Nigel Slater is more my thing. His recipes are unfathomable, with a pinch of this and a handful of that, but his soft spoken delivery and clear enjoyment of food are bewitching. I am baffled at the concept of a 'leftover duck breast,' which he cooked this week, but that aside his kitchen garden approach is a winner for me.

This brings me onto the one sticking point I have with TV chefs - eating on camera. I noticed watching Gordon that he doesn't eat his own food. It's refreshing to not have a chef scoff what they've just cooked on screen. If I have to shout 'don't talk with your mouth full !' at Lorraine Pascale again I swear I will get very cross. I realise that part of the Nigella factor is watching her stuff her face, but I don't go to a restaurant to watch the chef eat his own cooking - why would I do that with TV ?

I cook to make people happy. Whether it's a cake for my boys or to thank the neighbours for babysitting. Indian food for Mother-in-law and Brother-in-law when they visit us. Or flapjacks for my friend SJ to stop her having low blood sugar in the afternoons on the way home from work (well that's more a public service really - you don't want to have a crazed hungry woman on your bus home do you ?)

I may not get a TV show out of it, but that's ok… for now.

The one where I confess to a craving for Kitchenaid

I've watched a few Saturday Kitchens in my time - I don't have a thing for James Martin I just love watching people cook and the celebrity Masterchef bits always make me shout "what do you know about food Torode you saddo !" The main thing I love is when they start cooking something and use lots of fabulous gadgets. I have to admit that I have a few of my own: some electric mixers, a lot of spatulas, whisks, beaters, an electric cheese grater (don't ask !) and at one point I had a mushroom brush. A brush to wash mushrooms with in the shape of a mushroom. I have no idea where that went and I miss it.

I am the person who treats the Lakeland brochure like a guilty pleasure and hides it under the sofa cushions when Hubbie walks in. I fold the corners over when I see something I might find useful one day. The banana holder, the wine glass charms, the weights for the corners of tablecloths used outdoors. Yes at some point I've expressed a genuine passion for each of these items, but thankfully I've not purchased any of them. At some point I rationalise that I won't really need them and I already have so many boxed gadgets I don't use. 

Then along came Kitchenaid. It's the machine that Lorraine Pascal uses to mix her lovely cakes and pastries. It's the wondrous item whirring away on the counter whisking eggs while James Martin blathers on about something to the featured sleb on the show. I believe it's also featured in Nigella's kitchen, but I don't think I've seen the beloved Nigel Slater using one. I think I'm actually in love with it.

The issue is that I cannot bring myself to be ok with spending over £400 on a food mixer. Yes it's gorgeous and it probably is better than my humble Breville mixer that judders when it's on and where the paddles don't quite reach the base of the bowl. However, I don't see myself as a high end kitchen gadget user. I once talked myself out of asking for a small blowtorch for Christmas as I reasoned that I don't like creme brulee and what else would I realistically use it for other than to crisp the sugar topping on one ?

It's the same argument I use against having a range cooker. I love them so much, but I don't think my amateur efforts justify spending four figures on something I'd be too scared to use as it cost almost as much as a small family car. Hubbie very sweetly says he'd like to treat me to these luxury goods, something about "the style to which I'd like to become accustomed." I think it's nice to have far flung dreams that are ever so slightly unattainable.

Of course if anyone is offering me my dream kitchen complete with range cooker, enormous Smeg fridge and the entire Kitchenaid range it would be terribly rude to turn it down wouldn't it ?

Kitchen Confidential (or thrills, spills and lentils)

You already know about my unhealthy obsession with Come Dine With Me and food in general. I have also said I'd never do the programme because no one comes out of it looking anything other than grasping and desperate or incompetent and clueless. I have no idea what I'd cook and while I enjoy cooking I don't think I'm especially skilled at it. I also fear a disaster in the kitchen which once on tape would haunt me forever.

True I do sit around thinking about what I'm going to eat next or even tomorrow. If I have a random ingredient to use up I spend a ridiculous amount of time trawling the internet and poring over my cookbooks to find a suitable recipe. Usually I find one that requires yet more ingredients so I end up with even more in the cupboard which I'll need to use up at a later date. This is why I make banana cake so often - we buy a lot of bananas and if they go a bit soft or spotty I won't eat them. The plus side is I don't like cooked bananas so Hubbie and our friend Jan are the main beneficiaries of my baking prowess, so I don't end up piling on the pounds and I appear altruistic.

When Hubbie cooks a special meal for me he will find a recipe that requires at least 12 ingredients (only 4 of which I have in) and I end up with bottles of rose essence, mustard seeds, desiccated coconut and curry leaves to use at a later date. The meal is always delicious and far more inventive than anything I would try, but then it is an annual effort so he does go to town a bit.

Of course cooking almost every day means there will be occasional mishaps and some of them are so bad they put you off that foodstuff for life.

Here - in no particular order - are some of the many disasters I have had in my years of cooking:

1. While rushing around in the world's smallest kitchen preparing food I dropped an entire bowl of homemade potato salad on the floor before a picnic with friends. Only one of them witnessed it and she is no longer in the circle so can't tell anyone when they might have tasted floor food.

2. The options were to steam for 30 minutes or to zap in the microwave for 10 minutes so for ease I did that latter and this meant we had an exploding rice filled lotus leaf with our beautifully marinated and steamed fish.

3. During an experimental phase with fruit and curry I made an ill-judged decision to put grapefruit in chicken curry. To quote Ross and Monica's dad Jack Geller, "it was not good."

4. In an attempt to use up a box of mangos left by my Dad for my son (which he didn't like) I decided to make my own sorbet / ice cream. I managed to do the stirring every few hours bit for most of the day then forgot and left it overnight. Lets just say it needs to be taken out of the freezer a few hours before eating in order to break into it - yes it is a bit too frozen.

5. I had a pot of quark that I had used about one spoonful of and needed to finish so I had the genius idea to make mushroom pate with it instead of greek yoghurt. The taste was pretty good, but it was quite sloppy. Of course my guests were far too polite to comment on the runniness of the starter.

And the ones that I got away with:

When working in the staff kitchen in Sainsburys I managed to seriously burn the sponge pudding so I poured some lemon icing over it and was astounded at the compliments I got for my "treacly citrus pudding." 

I found a load of seeds and nuts that I'd bought while pregnant and not finished so I adapted my usual cookie recipe to include them. The results were not to my taste, but by all accounts they were a hit with Hubbie's work colleagues. 

Only today I halved the quantities in a recipe for cookies, but a miscalculation meant I added double coconut into the mix. We have yet to find out what the consequences of this error are as the mix won't be cooked until it's been in the fridge overnight. 

Fingers crossed it won't be so bad it'll go into the first list !

All creatures great and small

At the weekend two horses died as a result of taking part in the Grand National - a race generally seen as very hard on both riders and horses. Once again people have raised issues of safety and animal welfare in a sport where horses have a 'shelf life' just as the dogs in greyhound racing do. For me this raises the ugly question of whether we have the right as humans to use animals for our entertainment.

Of course as someone who shares their house with a cat we have plenty of entertainment of the feline kind. Only yesterday Hubbie was looking out of the kitchen window and said "who is that at the end of the garden ?" He meant the tabby cat who is a newcomer to our garden, but I thought he meant the fox that was tiptoeing his way towards the cat. We scrambled to get outdoor shoes on to chase off the fox and I quipped that if I had a red coat and a horse we wouldn't have this problem. In the early days of our courtship me and Hubbie took part in a debate about fox hunting where we took opposite points of view. It's not the first time I've had that discussion and I still cannot fathom how anyone can see fox hunting as a fun day out rather than a brutal 'sport.' I don't see the appeal of chasing a fox using a pack of dogs and surely being drunk in charge of a horse is just irresponsible ?

I have the same problem with zoos, so not taking my son to see the animals is something I will have to explain to him when he is older. In the same way I'm sure he will want to know why Mummy doesn't eat meat. I stopped eating meat in my teens mostly as I read an interview with Madonna where she said that vegetarians are thinner and paler (yes at the age of 13 I cared what she said !) but also as I was horrified by how animals were kept and cared for in order to be eaten. Battery farming especially made me very distressed so seeing the free range hens that live a few doors away makes my heart sing every morning.

About 15 years later I went through an experimental phase with meat. I had been struggling with IBS for a few years and took advice to get some tests to see if it was the food I was eating. The testing was pretty dubious and I was told I was 'intolerant' to wheat, caffeine, peppers, onions, cabbage, red wine, etc. The usual rubbish that you get when you go for a non medical or 'natural' explanation is to cut out wheat, dairy and sugar, ie. all the nice foods. As a veggie I pretty much lived on pasta and potatoes so to be told that my staple foods were off the menu came as something of a shock and left me with few options (or so I thought). I started to eat some chicken then slowly reintroduced other foods that I hadn't eaten for over a decade. To be honest I found meat really uninteresting and dull. It didn't inspire creativity and frankly I'd have preferred to just be able to eat toast. A few years ago I decided again that I prefer not to eat meat and as it is so much more normal now than it was when I first became veggie and the choices are better.

I still vacillate on the decision about whether or not to eat fish and it is one that vexes me as I am always  on the brink of giving it up. I do really enjoy fish though and despite my high minded ideals there has to be space for enjoyment in life doesn't there ?  Speaking of which I did try being a vegan at university (didn't we all ?) and was exhausted, spotty and pale as well as very hungry all the time. I mean who can live without a piece of cake and a cup of tea (no soy or rice milk just doesn't cut it I'm afraid). I admire those who can eat well on a limited diet, but frankly my body was built on chocolate, chips and cheese. Oh, and the occasional piece of buttery toast.

My mother's daughter

As I was half listening to Radio 4 yesterday I heard that a report had found that mothers who work are less likely to become depressed than women who stay at home with their children. One of the women commenting on this report stated that she would be bored senseless if she stayed at home with nothing to do but look after children and going to work gave her purpose and meaning in life.

Having been at home for over a year looking after my boy I noticed that recently I had become resentful of not having any time to myself in a day and waited with impatience for Hubbie to get home so that I could go and do something other than be with my beloved offspring. I was a seething mass of unexplained anger and found that being by myself with my son was appealing for only so many hours of the day. I don't know many people in the area where we live and the ones I do have mostly returned to work or are pregnant again so I don't even see them much. The weekly routine of playgroups and activities gets us both out of the house and I make sure that we do something constructive every day even if it's just a walk to the park. Coupled with an insane paranoia about leaving the house because of a spate of burglaries in our local area I've become a bit reluctant to go too far or out for too long. This is no way to live I was aware that if I didn't pull myself together I was going to become agoraphobic.

I finally opened up about this to a few friends and they concluded that I needed to go back to work as I was bored and underachieving at home. So in the last month I have returned to working a few days a week at a job that is not far from home. I was absolutely miserable for the first few weeks. I missed my son terribly and couldn't bear being in an office on my own for a whole day with only the scale filled kettle in the finance office to lure me out for the occasional cup of tea. It was, however, lovely to come home to hear all about what my boy had been doing and to see his smiling face and acknowledge that he hadn't been irreparably harmed by me not being there to tend to his every whim.

I'm still not entirely sure that this is the dream job for me, but I do know that when my son waves me off in the morning he's in good hands all day. I enjoy going for a walk at lunchtime and I like using my brain for something other than planning meals for my family and deciding if the bookcase should stay where it is or be moved a few feet to the left. Ok so I don't get to bake as much - which is completely overrated as a pastime by the way - and I'm sure the cat will lose some weight without me giving in to his plaintive cries for biscuits every time I go anywhere near the kitchen.

My Mum worked full time most of my life and didn't have a choice about it. She still cooked a meal for us every evening and managed the household budget as well as ensuring we were all doing well at school. In my mind that is the gold standard of what I should be aiming for and anything less is just me being lazy or not trying hard enough.

Trying to be a yummy mummy is pretty demoralising stuff. From comparing how much slimmer every other mum appears to be, to feeling guilty for sitting on the sofa watching mindless telly while the baby naps it all adds up to not being the woman who "has it all." Which brings us back to where I came in and the Radio 4 piece about the myth of women wanting it all when actually we just want to not be bored or depressed or taken for granted. Being pregnant again would be a pretty sweet bonus too if anyone is asking :o) 

Happy Sister's Day

In a year of celebrations from the Olympics to the Queen's diamond jubilee we've just had Mother's Day and in June it'll be Father's Day. We also now have grandparents day, nurses day and all manner of celebratory days to mark the special relationships we have with people. There are some glaring omissions though and one that I feel especially aggrieved by is the lack of a day to celebrate siblings.

As the oldest of four children I have a few of them and have been blessed with some great kindness that I think is worth a mention. In particular I have one sister who has been through some hardship in recent years and has still remained a kind and loving person.

When she was a young child she was always looking out for everyone. If I went out for the evening (I didn't have a wild social life, despite what my Mother thinks) no matter how late it was I'd get home to see her sitting on the top stair usually fast asleep waiting for me to get home safe before she would go to bed herself.

When I returned home having left my first husband none of my family questioned why or what happened. On the first night my sister came into the room I was staying in and asked if I wanted her to stay with me. She sat by the bed in the dark, quietly, just keeping me company until I fell asleep. I had no idea what I needed, but it was the kindest and most selfless gesture.

When I was in labour and had to go into hospital because our son was having trouble being born my sister was the go-between with my family checking on how we were doing and helping hubbie keep calm. She was the first to visit her nephew and offered to help me have a wash as I felt so skanky in the hospital.

Since then she has been invaluable in caring for my son and by association me. She would tell me to go and lie down and even took my son out in his pram without me for the first time. Last week she took him for his first happy meal and I expect she will be his favourite auntie all his life for that alone !

Just writing this has made me tearful, so I'm going to stop, but not before I say thank you to my sister. There isn't enough cake or chocolate in the world to thank you for being such a kind and loving person, but you will always get both whenever you are here.

Oh and I'm working on getting you Jessie Pavelka dipped in chocolate :o)