Good Friday

I love being on holiday and cooking with my children. They have been "washing up" for the last half hour(licking several bowls clean!)
So tonight we have been good Catholics and had no meat but cooked two types of fish curry and made chocolate nests to send the sweetest of Grandmas into a diabetic coma.
My Grandmas were very different and very special to me. My Dad`s  Mum had run a hostel for destitute women and so she was used to feeding the five thousand, My Mum`s mum was a sweetheart darling who let us eat cake whenever we liked!
At Gaggy`s we learned to love soused herrings, homemade brown bread and rock buns.At Nanna`s we helped ourselves to Quality street, Battenberg cake and those 70s minty biscuit legends The Viscount!
My Dad is a hottie and  has always prided himself on being Slim Jim, no wonder I married the bacon butty loving Matty fatty (not really)much more my cup of earl Grey(with sugar!!)So Dad used to disapprove of our   sugar Granny. Memory is seated in the heart and all my memories of my Nanna are sweet. It was always sunny, we could play outside endlessly on the green and " going in " time invariably led to a wash in the washing up bowl next to the gas fire, a game of Rummy and we sizzled as we got into our beds which had electric blankets literally keeping us toastie! We always had a bit of supper at Hudson Crescent , a nice sweet cup of tea and a biccy. Those memories will keep me warm for the rest of my days.

Fish curry
8 fish fillets (we used Basa and cod tonight)
10 oz king prawns
Butter
garlic
fresh green chillis
lime juice
fish sauce
1 can coconut milk
thai green paste
sugar
bunch coriander
handful flat leafed parsley
slosh of maple syrup

This was a throw it all in curry , but they all loved it , especially Matty who was all aglow after going on a steam train today:)
Put two tbs thai green curry paste into a pan , add the fish and prawns (already fried in a little garlic butter)
Then add  the cocnut milk, as many green chillis as you like and the juice of a lime, a good slosh of thai fish sauce and simmer til the fish is cooked through. I add a spoon of sugar and a slosh of maple syrup to balance the salty fish sauce and limes. Then add lots of coriander and flat leafed parsley to finish. Serve in bowls with a spoon on hand, we had sticky rice and popadoms.

Chocolate nests
Rice crispies
6 bags of chocloate buttons
mini eggs galore

It`s so easy but tonight we made a discovery. Melt the chocolate and pour into a bowl of rice crispies. my children were too impatient to wait to decorate the nests with mini eggs so they tipped them in too and they went all melty and added another texture to the nests- faberoony.
Top with more mini eggs to look pretty.
Eat with someone sweet and remember the good old days when you`d never heard the word calories. Remember these will become the good old days for our children...

So glad it`s Friday eat a pie day.

When I was a little girl I used to visit my Grandma or "Gaggy" as she was known to her special ones.She lived in York and we would drive up from London squashed into the back of my dad`s Ford Capri . As soon as we saw the lights of the brewery at Tadcaster we knew we were nearly there , once we smelled the sugar beet from British sugar and then the chocolate from Rowntrees chocolate factory we knew a delicious dinner would be waiting for us. My Mum is the greatest but she wouldn`t mind me saying she`s not the World`s best cook! So the influence my Grandmother had on me was phenomenal. Not a pot noodle or freezer dinner in sight. Instead we marvelled at her pantry full of tins that were brimming with homemade bakewell tarts, lemon curd tarts, rock buns, pots of rum butter and homemade jam, homemade brown bread and soused herrings. I used to dream about that pantry, her house always smelled of furniture polish and fruit. The kitchen was always busy and usually a pan of soup was boiling or a meat pie was in the oven for us. |She used to make fresh cream victoria sandwich cakes , reserved for Auntie Joy. My naughty Dad used to take a massive slice and she would tell him off for snaffling the  cake she had made for Joy, a terrible thing it is to have favourites. When I had my twins the midwife gave me a brilliant bit of advice about the love I would have for them. Love for a child is not like a pie that has to be split into two with half a love for every child-  No,they should get a pie of Love each and they do.
The meat pies my grandma made were fab and even better if accompanied by some buttery mash and shiny Spring greens, so here goes a pie of Love...
Pastry
8oz flour
2oz lard
4oz butter
salt
little water
tin of minced beef
Rub the fat into the flour and add enough water to make a short pastry.
Roll into a baking tray, Top with a tin of minced beef(nice one from M&S) some dried vegetables/onions/herbs, top with pastry and bake in the oven until brown.
This was the 70s when tins were king , but I still can taste the love she put into those pies that we demolished so quickly when we came up to York for sunny  carefree weekends when I was a lass.

Spring time at last...

The dark days are over I hope in more ways than one. I am so sorry that my little blog has been so sadly neglected since January- been a bit busy doing a Nanny Macphee job. Every morning since last week when the sun got his hat on I have bounced out of bed. The ever lengthening days have given everyone a skip in their step and all that new life and the energy of Springtime seems to be buzzing all around me. On those 'good to be alive days' all I want to do is cook for the people that I love. Eating a sandwich on your lap in the back of the car between ballet, ping pong and goalie practice is illegal in our house. Homemade bread with oodles of butter and homemade soup is so quick and easy.Every day when I left for school as a child my Mum would call after me "don`t forget you`re the greatest!"  I have passed this on to my own children like an heirloom mantra that might be total stuff and nonsense but over time it weaves into your subconscious and presents itself as a little inner voice that says "you can do that, all you touch will be a success!"
My dream job is being a mother, encouraging,loving ,protecting and feeding them is my CV for happiness.Like all slummy mummies who choose to work we have to juggle our Nigella days with our domestic slut microwave pinging  days. I think as long as they go to bed with minty toothpaste kisses ,safe in the knowledge that they are your greatest work of art then it`s job well done!xx

Chicken soup

1 chicken carcass
1 pint chicken stock
1 onion
2 cloves garlic
couple of sage leaves fried in butter
1 carrot
1 potato
1 slug of white wine
1 stick celery.

Boil it all up - remove the bones , then blitz in a liquidiser, add seasalt and blackpepper a slug of cream and some flat leafed parsley. Instant sunshine paracetemol substitute for when you have a cold.Serve with real butter on...
Homemade cheese bread
scone based sharing nosh...
8oz SR flour
6oz butter
4oz grated mature cheese
2oz grated parmesan
1 squirt tomato puree
1 pinch mixed herbs
milk
salt

Rub the flour and butter together, stir in the cheeses,pinch of salt puree and herbs, bind with a little milk, make into a round mound bake in oven for 25 mins , medium oven til it looks like a golden cowpat!