What`s for dinner Clarey?: What`s your favourite?My favourite meal is proba...

What`s for dinner Clarey?: What`s your favourite?

My favourite meal is proba...: What`s your favourite? My favourite meal is probably a crab bap and a cold glass of fizz eaten in the sunshine on a Cornish, Yorkshire or ...

What`s your favourite?

My favourite meal is probably a crab bap and a cold glass of fizz eaten in the sunshine on a Cornish, Yorkshire or Manx beach with the sea close by and my family even closer.But with so many people starving in the World I love all my food, we are the lucky ones who have too much of everything.
Mr N is definately a steak and chips kind of guy- all meat and no veg if you catch my drift.Jemima is a mince and poatoes girl, I give her comfort she brings me joy! Jimmy would be a roast chicken dinner with mountains of roasties- he`s the traditionalist followed by Lily`s love of Creme brulee and curry so I guess she`s my spicy one. All of my family are a bit perky and demanding and hungry and usually all of the above all at once but I love them! They are my reason for getting up everyday and staying up late every night trying to juggle school and home life like a hapless juggler in need of a damson gin. My family is not a box of Quality Street - I do not have favourites, no orange creams left in our tin. They are all the Green triangle- they are all my favourites! I find their company, their triumphs and failures equally delicious and I will always be here for them with my arms open wide ready to hug, hold and catch them if they fall. Today is half term - hooray!To all you tired out teachers please slow down, please relax and watch some junk food telly and drink red wine til your teeth are purple. Life is a song and a silly one at that but it can get a bit boring if you always sing the same one. Don`t forget to put your clocks back on Saturday night and snog the face off your truelove on Sunday morning as that extra time is a gift and a precious one at that. So here`s my recipe for love tonight...

Crab and Linguine

Boil up a pan of water and add a pack of linguine and a stock cube. In another pan heat up butter,chilli and garlic and the white meat from a fresh crab.Add a splash of white wine and a pot of double cream and some flat leafed parsley. Mix with the linguine and eat with someone equally delicious! xxtwitter

Ben

As I was growing up our family pet was a rather bouncy golden Labrador called Ben. I think it is safe to say we got him cheap, as he was what is rather cruelly referred to as the "runt" of the litter.  He was very short legged and fat unlike his brothers and sisters, so much so that his mother and father would have possibly appeared on The canine version of the Jeremy Kyle show , if it existed, to undergo a DNA test, just to confirm that his Mum hadn`t been cocking her leg near a Jack Russell!

Anyway, to us he was just bouncy Ben and we loved him. He had a personality disorder unfortunately. Apart from me and my Mum he hated all females. My brother Tim was the best looking boy at school. My friends were probably only my friends so that they could come round and  have tea with Mr Perfect!  Needless to say he had a very long string of girlfriends most of whom Ben bit. My Auntie Wendy who is animal mad and a bit of a Dr Doolittle even got nipped by Ben, yes no finger or skirt was left unragged after Ben had launched himself at you. The recent film Marley and Me could have been a doggy biopic on Benny boy`s life, the similarities were  so startling. When ever I had boy trouble I would walk up Back Lane with him and tell him all my troubles whilst he momentarily would put a wet nose up to mine before tearing off to savage some poor toddler child or old lady.

He used to get drunk eating all the rotten apples in our orchard which had fermented and he could literally pebble dash the wall with Victoria plum stones after gorging himself on them all day whilst we were at school. Once he managed to get his snout round the fridge door and ate a whole ham. He lay on the chaise longue in the conservatory like some Oscar Wilde character looking quite green with debauchery! He even dived through a plate glass window  to catch a rabbit once and then marauded off to pin up one of Tim`s ex girlfriends at our local chippy.Yes Ben was certainly a character.

Sadly my parents divorced when I was at University and my Mum moved into a two up two down.There wasn`t a bedroom for me and certainly no kennel for bouncy Ben. I was living in a student house of girls in Leicester at the time and the landlord said there was no way I could have a psycho pet , even as a guard dog which is how I tried to sell the situation to him. I was demented it was like putting a family member up for adoption and I was utterly powerless to save him. I didn`t brush my hair for a week and cried more (I`m ashamed to say) than I did when my Grandfather died which coincidentally was that same year.

Ben went to a lady in Huddersfield and was adopted through the Labrador rescue scheme. She had recently lost her husband and the letters and Christmas cards she so kindly shared with my family over the next five years painted a very different picture of the rascal we knew and loved.  He was her ever present guardian, pulling her out of bed on days when she was too grief racked to get up. Playing softly with her grandchildren and he was her faithful companion until he died. 

A few years previous I had passed through Huddersfield on the train and a lady and Labrador got off at the station.I wanted to tear down the train  doors  and run to my long lost friend one more time but the train moved on and I don`t know to this day whether the rather podgey affable looking pooch was infact my childhood friend.

It doesn`t really matter though, because he had a lovely life with two masters and families who adored him, even though he was a bit keen, a bit fat and not a thoroughbred at all. I don`t think I could own another dog. He broke my heart you see. 

My idea of Heaven would be Filey beach, walking in the rain with Ben and my beloved Grandpa "Poppa Roy". 

I still have lots of life to live I hope...but one day I dream that I might see  my Ben again.

Meatball curry pilaff

Curry always cheers me up!! Sorry if that one made you cry.Blame it on the curry.

fresh meatballs, (or failing that roll minced beef into tiny balls with a little seasoned flour)

2 jars curry sauce

coriander

2 microwaveable pilau rice packets

1 tin tomato soup

1 tbs brown sugar

1 slug sherry

Fry the meatballs in a little oil until browned add any dry curry spices you have and then pour in the sauces and tomato soup ,sugar and sherry and cook through for 30 mins on a hob. Microwave the rice and fluff up with a knob of butter and mix into the curry mixture. Serve with the chopped fresh coriander, a peshwari nan and some spicy mango chutney. Feed the leftovers to any greedy Labrador you can find.

Cloud 9

The power of Love is such a mighty force. When you are in it, you are sort of elevated from the everyday dullards and although you`re probably not safe to be let out ,as you`ve got your cloud 9 head on ie no common sense whatsoever, it can make the dullest of Mondays shine brightly.

Making the bed for that person or making them a meal (or skipping both and just going to bed)takes on a special quality. The other night I must admit to being a little tipsy and my better half was searching for a midnight feast. So drunk on love and perhaps a very nice bottle of pinot noir I went into the kitchen and flung open the fridge on a mission to make him feel loved up and cared for. What did I find in there? A pint of shelled shrimps from Morecambe bay of course. Well not be deterred by the maggot like little beauties I rustled up something gorgeous even if I was having a serious case of the munchies (whereby a pot noodle might have seemed equally gorgeous!) It was just the intention to be kind that rustled into the pan and onto the plate and made Matty smile.That smile that you know means he likes you even more than chips and just as much as Tranmere rovers (and that`s a lot!)

So here it is my little strawberries of love...

Tipsy Morecambe bay shrimps

1lb shrimps ,shelled

garlic granules

freeze dried parsley

butter

slug of sherry

1tbs chilli jam (how drunk was I to add this but it works!)

Get a big nob of butter and fry the shrimps in it.Add garlic, parsley, chilli jam and a slug of sherry.

Pour into individual pots 2 greedy ones ,or 4 lighter ones.

Pop in the fridge until the butter sets. Smush onto sour dough toast or croissants if your teeth can`t cope with the chewy stuff. Heavenly breakfast in bed with your favourite person.

"If you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely."

Roald Dahl