A freezing cold day on which we both went back to work called for a good home cooked meal this evening, and I think that's exactly what we had. Once again I called upon one of my favourite, every day, cook books; 101 Cheap Eats. This book, and its partner 101 Simple Suppers, is a key part of after work cooking in our house. Both provide some fantastic simple and tasty recipes that are generally easy enough to do after a day at work and provide us with a good hearty meal.Tonight's dinner was bacon and tomato cobbler. Incredibly simple, especially using my Kenwood to make ... read more
New year snow
Getting up early to go back to work today, I looked out of the bedroom window to be greeted with a light dusting of snow! I know it's been bitterly cold, but I wasn't at all aware that snow was forecast. What a nice surprise. ... read more
Last day of holidays
Mr C and I are back to work properly tomorrow (that bit between Christmas and new year didn't really count) so today has really felt like the last day of the holidays.It's been a pretty day though with lots done. The decorations and tree have come down and been packed away for next year. As a result our living room now feels so much larger again. I tried to use up the last of the mincemeat by making a final batch of mince pies. The jar managed to defeat me though and somehow I've still got more left! Honestly, the jar has started reminding me of Mary Poppins' bag!A batch of ... read more
Finding fenugreek
Mr C and I decided to do another dish from the M&S curry bible that I bought him for Christmas this weekend after the success of the butter chicken. He chose the lamb with cinnamon-scented fenugreek sauce. This just left us with one, rather major question: what is fenugreek and where can you buy it in St Albans.Wikipedia's fenugreek entry helped us to answer the first question. It seems that you can get either fenugreek leaves, which are used as a herb, or fenugreek seeds, which are a spice. For something that I'd never heard of before it seems to have a huge ... read more
Jane Austen’s sock
After a morning and early afternoon viewing houses and shopping for a few bits and pieces in town it was lovely to be able to curl up later this afternoon and have some me time.Back in early December I recorded the tv adaptation of Jane Austen's Mansfield Park on our magic box and this afternoon I curled up with my knitting to watch Billie Piper's interpretation of Fannie Price. Now I have to admit to having not yet read this particular book so my views are very much of it as a stand alone piece of TV drama, rather than a version of the original ... read more
New year’s day walk
After a wonderful night with friends today was a bit of a lazy day. After a fantastically long lie in today's main activity was a walk around St Albans. We started off by wandering across Verulum Park and were somewhat amazed to find the late their frozen. I know it's been cold lately, but I hadn't realised just how cold! The ice looked about an inch thick in parts and quite a few ducks looked confused as they slid along it looking for the water. The River Ver was still flowing on the other side of the footpath and was home to a vast number of ducks, including more ... read more
Farewell to 2008
Here we are already - new year's eve 2008. So much has happened this year that I'm not really sure where to start. The highlight has to be marrying Mr C back in March. A perfect day and quite simply the best of my life. A round the world trip followed for our honeymoon: Los Angeles, New Zealand and Hong Kong. A trip of a life time and an amazing way to start married life. We were able to swim in Blue Lake pictured above and both of us agreed that it was one of the highlights of the trip. Since returning life has really centred around home and work. I also ... read more
Yummy food
It's been a few days of fantastic food here.Firstly, we've been enjoying the contents of the food platter that my sister and her boyfriend gave us for Christmas. The chocolate truffles are particularly good (if you're reading please send me the recipe H!) and the chutney went perfectly with some ham for lunch on Sunday. I then got my hands very messy helping Mr C to make the tandoori chicken part of a butter chicken recipe that was in a book I gave him for Christmas. I have to say that it was one of the most delicious curries I've ever eaten and tasted amazingly fresh, with a ... read more
Emma – Jane Austen
It feels like an age ago that I started reading Jane Austen's Emma. I'm not totally sure why, but it was a very long read. I had a small break in the middle to read a couple of other books and I'm really glad I did as it meant that I came back to the second half of the book refreshed. Somehow I managed to get through my whole schooling without studying any Jane Austen and it was only when I left university that I bought all the set and thought that I ought to read them. I wasn't really sure what to expect with Emma. Other books like Sense and ... read more
All over…
Well there you go, the main part of Christmas is over and Mr C and I are safely back home.The four days we spent up with my parents seemed to fly by without much time to sit still. We had our trip to the seaside, visit to see my Gran, and also a trip up to Wakefield where a clergy friend held a Christingle service on Christmas Eve.Christmas day itself of course brought gifts. Photos will come as soon as I locate the camera, but of particular note were the fantastic binoculars and bird identification videos from my parents and the home made platter of edible gifts from my ... read more