Menu Planning Mond...ooops!

Big fat fail on menu planning today, but am delighted to announce that (if you include cooking on a camp stove) that we have lit a grand total of 10 BBQs over the last 8 days!!! So much so that Mr Moo is claiming that he's "BBQ'ed out" and please can he have some pasta or fish. Until I informed him that we could put fish on the outdoor grill; he's still running for the hills....

We have a long term plan to build a wood-fired pizza oven in our garden; there are lots of options to buy one but they are at least a couple of grand a pop. I've found several websites which give you instructions about how to make your own, so watch this space folks, could add a whole new dimension to our outdoor eating habits!

Camping - failure or success?

Well, I finally dragged them all out camping this weekend! The weather was just gorgeous so we took off to Durdle Door on Saturday morning. Let's see what happened;

Failures;
Went to the beach but forgot to take towels, swim cossies etc. And Little Legs decided she needed a wee right in the middle of a beach with absolutely nowhere to hide behind.
Discovered our "new" tent was in fact second-hand, with half the tent pegs bent, the groundsheet full of grass and one of the hooks that holds up the inner room being broken. Me and the Husband had to sleep in the living area.
Our pitch was underneath a row of trees with large numbers of extremely loud birds nesting in them - discovered that ravens start screeching at each other at approximately 4am, non-stop til breakfast time.
The Husband, who was in charge of buying alcoholic supplies, bought me medium-sweet wine to drink. Clearly a disaster.
Mr Moo wasn't feeling on top form; wasn't much fun getting some calpol into him at 2am as he was moaning in his sleep so loudly that I couldn't sleep. Funnily enough the Husband slept through all of that.

Successes;
The kids were coaxed into a very long walk down to a stunning beach; spent a couple of hours paddling in the sea and covering each other with pebbles, then introduced them to Slush Puppies on the walk back, which went down a treat.
Worked out that actually we would have preferred a different tent layout so will get our money back and buy something that is more useful.
The kids generally behaved themselves, only chatted for an hour after being sent to bed, and didn't wake up at silly o'clock.
Discovered after a few glasses of real wine that medium-sweet stuff is *almost* drinkable. Well, it got drunk anyway.
Campsite was great; very quiet with spotless facilities, an excellent playground, and the most amazing location in the Dorset countryside. Oh, and a bar;)

We had a fabulous time, hanging out in the sun, playing cards, flying on the zip-wire (big enough for adults too!), lazing in the sun, eating bacon sarnies and sausage sarnies and copious amounts of ice-cream, chatting without the distractions of phones and laptops, and generally having a great family time! Just gotta wait for another weekend of good weather and we'll be back!

BBQ count...

5 this week so far, with another one this evening. If making bacon sarnies on a camping stove counts, then the tally should be 7 by Sunday morning. And should the weather hold, maybe, just maybe, we'll squeeze another one in before the end of the weekend...

Update on the *squirrel*

Turns out it's not a squirrel after all, but is a rat. Or may be many rats, no way to tell. The ratman came and smelt it before he found the nest, droppings, staining etc. We now have copious amounts of poison in the rafters, spread amongst rice and pasta - has to be both varieties as apparently some rats are fussy about what carbs they eat *rollseyes*.

The only way to tell if it works is if we stop hearing it/them. It could take a while as it may be several days before the poison takes effect, if indeed it's eaten. So far, so bad. The bugger has actually been more active than usual. Call me wicked, but I just hope it's because it has a tummy ache and is on it's way out...

Just as it should look...

BBQ, nicely blackened.

Menu Planning Monday.

It's an easy one this week - after torrential rain and miserable weekends for what seems like months, the sun appeared today and Accuweather tells me it's here to stay for a few days! So, given that I totally forgot to menu plan til about 10 minutes before the Husband wanted a shopping list today, this week looks a little like this;

Monday; BBQ

Tuesday; BBQ

Wednesday; BBQ

Thursday; BBQ

Friday; BBQ

Saturday; BBQ

Sunday; BBQ

He came back with a selection of sausages, pork belly, fish and chicken pieces, along with veg like aubergines (yay for offers in Lidl still!), corn-on-the-cob, peppers and mushrooms. Will just have to top up with some baby new potatoes and finger rolls later in the week, and no doubt a gallon of chilled white wine to see us through...

Tonight we kicked off with whiting, aubergines and mushrooms on the barbie, with some chilli oil and lots of salt and pepper. I just love weeks like this, much healthier too!

As ever, pop over to see what Mrs M has planned!

Coast to Coast.

He did the ride folks! 54 miles throughout Somerset and Dorset's hills, managed a time of 4 hours and 10 minutes riding, top speed of 38 mph. Awesome effort! He started in a group of 5, 2 of them relative youngsters - who surprisingly came in an hour behind the "oldies"! They raised a bob or two for the Somerset and Dorset Air Ambulance too. Well done guys, am very proud of you all, despite Richard attempting to trash my bike and Andy riding in the world's loudest shorts...

Hot Stuff!

I thought it was about time that I explained the title of my blog to you! Basically, I am a chilli nut. Addict, freak, devotee, maniac - there are lots of ways to describe it, but whichever way you look at it, I'm hooked!

It must have started in childhood. My mum is Hungarian and always put spices in things like stews as we were growing up. Even though the '70's wasn't a culinary hotspot we still had curries - albeit made with apples, sultanas and a spoonful of mass-produced "curry powder". That was all that was available in those days:(

Then, in the 1980's, an Indian restaurant opened in our village. It was new and adventurous and we loved it, ended up eating there as a family almost every Friday night for at least a decade. I started with chicken Kashmir and the occasional korma, then tried to be a bit more adventurous and ended up thinking a madras gave quite a decent kick!

But my university days firmly cemented my love-affair with curry and chillies. My group of friends loved nothing more than hot food, and we lived in Birmingham so had a vast selection of Indian restaurants to chose from. Needless to say there were beer-fueled incidents where we might have encouraged the consumption of hotter and hotter dishes, and we even devised the term "technical curry" (or TC for short) which was basically a trip to The Dilshad stone-cold sober to taste the food properly. In those days it was definitely a student hangout by the way, nowhere near as posh as it looks now!

And it then evolved. I learnt how to grow chillies, pickle them, dry them; discovered more ways to use them, shared seeds with friends and with the advent of the internet came even more information and chilli-shopping and cooking opportunities. So it's no surprise that 2012 finds me firmly hooked. To the extent that when we got a new kitchen a couple of years ago, we chose the artwork around chillies. I even have a ristra hung on the back of our loo door! It's rare that I go a day without eating chilli in at least 1 meal, and my favourite snack is still a Pataks chilli pickle sandwich.

I'll leave you with a photo of my favourite corner of my kitchen; and next week I'll snap my current stash of chill-related products - if I can get them all in the same shot! Happy chilli-eating folks!

The picture on the left is captioned "Pain is Good" and comes from a limited edition chilli sauce label. On the right is a framed article from The Guardian in 1991, entitled "Blowing hot and a little chilli". And several bottles of chilli oil and sauces somewhere on the middle shelf!






 

Menu Planning Monday.

Blimey, Monday came around pretty quickly this week, doesn't time fly when you're having fun!

In no particular order; this week will hopefully be as follows;

Spicy tomato and lentil soup with ciabatta rolls

Jerk chicken with nutty slaw (although out of jerk seasoning so the Husband has chucked pesto on the chicken instead, the jury is out on this one at the moment)

Green cous-cous salad (with broad beans, peas, peppers and anything else green we can find in the fridge; it was meant to include watercress but he came home from the supermarket with cress instead - I haven't stopped laughing yet although hate cress so it'll better not end up on my plate!)

Lamb kleftiko with lemon roast potatoes

Ham hock and green bean salad (this is the one I'm most looking forward to)

Penne with courgettes, sage and parmesan

The pasta dish will definitely be eaten on Saturday evening as the Husband is doing a 54 mile charity bike ride on Sunday so needs to carbo-load. Am leaving Sunday evening free as he gets a takeaway for his efforts!

Now, let's see what Mrs M has planned for this week...


ETA The pesto-chicken and nutty slaw (minus the peanuts as he forgot to read the recipe) turned out very well in the end...

It's the weekend - is that really the sun?

Well folks, absolutely stunned this weekend - the sun came out on Friday and stayed out all weekend long! Yippee!

We had no plans for a change so things just evolved - started with Mr Moo bringing some friends home from school on Friday and a bit of a party ensuing when the parents came to pick them all up. One couple brought some champagne to celebrate my good news and it got a bit messy after that...ended up with 7 kids running around the garden almost naked whilst all us parents just laughed at them and cracked open another bottle. Had we been sober we might have been a tad concerned that they were too cold but instead it was just plain amusing, especially when some of them started jumping around with garden chairs on their heads and the others manhandled all the scooters and cars up on top of the climbing frame. And that was just the kids, lord knows what the adults would have been capable of had we not been sensible and called it a day before too many tears were shed!

The rest of the weekend was mainly everyday chores like the supermarket, library and washing. I did a good bike ride by myself on Saturday afternoon, 16.5 miles which was a decent effort but nowhere near where I need to be in order to feel comfortable at my epic ride in just 4 weeks time. We are lucky in that we live near the beach, with a great cycle path running along the coast for a few miles; makes for pretty scenery while you're riding, and the headwind creates good resistance training.

And it was the start of the BBQ season too - twice this weekend! We just crashed in the garden on both afternoons/early evenings, cracked open a bottle or 2 and watched the kids play while we put the world to rights. Well, started planning our summer holiday which is just as important. Our brains and bank balances weren't in full operating condition so the kid's food was pretty boring stuff like burgers in pitta bread, but I did find some pork steaks in the freezer which BBQ'd up a treat with some really hot salsa, and Lidl had a stonking offer on aubergines - tonight it's steak marinaded in pepper, cider vinegar and tarragon with griddled aubergine slices in chilli oil and lemon juice. Happy days!

Ah, dinner time.

It's meat spring rolls, king prawn Thai green curry and mushroom-fried rice for dinner, washed down with large amounts of Prosecco. And a Hotel Chocolat Eton Mess slab for afters. Yes folks, it was good news at the hospital today - not perfect, but the C-word has been ruled out. I just hope my curry is as hot as they promise! 

We even broke out the posh glasses...

Tune for Today...

There's a Rat in Mi Kitchen - or to be more precise, in my cavity wall, although that doesn't have quite the same ring about it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c42z3LAGyTM&feature=related

To be fair it might be a squirrel, or even a cat - the bloody thing has got very sharp nails and keeps us awake at night with it's scratching, to say nothing of the potential damage it's doing. We think it's coming in from next door's loft, and no way is he in a position to get the party wall totally blocked up. To do it from our side would mean dismantling half my office and I don't think my boss would be chuffed. Help!

On yer bike!

I've always loved cycling - from the day my friends dad taught me how to ride on a Chopper aged about 9, through the many hours I used to cycle around the local park and lake with my sister and other friends in our teens, to the day I met the Husband and discovered he was a bike-aholic! I was rather overweight at the time, and he bought me my first proper bike, with lots of gears and everything, and taught me how to use them properly. At first I struggled to do 2 miles on a flat road, then within a couple of months I'd got up to speed; when we went on our first weekend away as a couple, to Yorkshire, we naturally took our bikes.

Now, as I'm sure you're aware, Yorkshire is rather hilly. And I was a heavy smoker at the time so was not exactly mega-fit. But on the first full day there I plotted out a long circular route and we duly set off. A third of the way round, we stopped at a pub for a drink and a snack; the Husband thought he saw the writing on the wall when I asked for a soft drink rather than a beer! He suggested we turn back then, to make the journey shorter for me. But I was so determined to do it, forced him to carry on, and several hours later we eventually got back to where we were staying. 26 miles of sheer bloody-mindedness and serious hills; I was so proud of myself, and thoroughly deserved the many beers we sank that evening!

Fast-forward a few years and we are currently trying to get our kids hooked on cycling too. Not having a huge amount of success so far; Little Legs has, well, far too little legs, and Mr Moo is lazy so quite happy to stay on his trailgator which I pull and do all the hard work for him. That in itself makes each ride a tad harder for me so burns off more calories! We'll persevere though...

And this leads me to today. Well, to be precise, June 9th. I will be doing a bike ride for a charity that is very close to my heart, Camille's Appeal. A mere 100km through the streets of London. And to make it more fun, it's gonna be overnight! Am thoroughly looking forwards to seeing London at night; it's a circular route so goes all through the City, East End, Covent Garden - past St Pauls, Canary Wharf and the Houses of Parliament - from Crystal Palace to Alexandra Palace and back again. Bear in mind that I've been ill for much of this year including having had surgery, and can count the number of times I've been on my bike on one hand, so I have some serious training to do over the next few weeks. But, like Yorkshire, sheer bloody-mindedness will get me through. Wish me luck folks!

Dinner tonight.

Love it when a plan comes together! Tonight we had part of a dish from Jamie's 30 Minute Meals, and certainly one that will be done again. For the record I rarely follow a recipe to the letter, and find that Jamie's menus are massively over complicated for mid-week meals; the sheer amount of olive oil he adds to everything also puts me off a tad. So tonight was a bastardization of a green chicken curry, plus the Husband made half this afternoon and I made the other half this evening just to shake things up a bit!



Rough recipe then;

Kimchi Slaw;
Whack half a savoy cabbage, a red onion, bunch of spring onions and a few carrots into the food processor on "slice", along with a the juice of a lemon, couple of chillis, knob of sliced ginger and some sesame oil. Not exactly near Jamie's recipe which calls for radishes and Chinese cabbage, but hey that's what was in the fridge and needed eating up.

Crispy Chicken;
In a small blender whizz up a Scotch Bonnet chilli, large knob of ginger, lemon grass stalk, huge bunch of fresh coriander, lots of lemon juice and some dark soy sauce. Marinade the chicken in this for an hour or 2, then pop into a hot frying pan for half an hour, turning every so often. Again was very different from Jamie's version as I left out the sesame seeds and honey, but this version was stonkingly tasty.

And that was it! The original meal also included lettuce leaves to wrap the chicken in, a green bean and coconut milk sauce, prawn crackers and a noodle dish, but frankly this was enough for a simple mid-week meal. Enjoy!

Oh, and think I need to work on my photography skills - or maybe get the camera out rather than rely on my phone!

Menu Planning Monday.

Bit of a cheat week coming up. Today is kind of our wedding anniversary ( well, the anniversary of our Church blessing after our Civil wedding ceremony) and we have friends over for a drink or three so will be eating frozen party food from Lidl while the kids have hotdogs and ice-cream.  As we went out to lunch twice last week there are 2 meals leftover (sausages with horseradish mash, and Jamie's green chicken curry) so we'll have them tomorrow and Wednesday. Thursday I get the results from my recent surgery so dinner will either be a celebratory take-away or a bottle of vodka. And Friday we'll play by ear...

Now pop over to Mrs M's Blog for some better planning!

Parenting.

Styles differ don't they? Having spent quite a bit of time recently with various friends and their offspring, it got me thinking about how we have lived up to our ideals - or otherwise. And I don't honestly think there are any real answers, whichever way you look at it.

For example we have one set of friends with 3 kids, all under 7. We were invited for dinner recently; what was meant to be a chilled evening with some lovely food and a bottle or three of wine ended up with one or the other parent spending most of the time running up and down the stairs, trying to settle one kid after another. To be fair there were very good reasons why each kid should be up, but it would have tried my patience within half an hour. But they took it in such good grace that the Husband and I went home marvelling in the sheer love and dedication we saw that night. And all of their kids are exceptionally confident and loved, the effect of their parents efforts are clear to see.

Then we know several families where the kids have been seen as encumbrances. Honestly, why should they have to stay in on a Friday/Saturday night to babysit their own children, or actually have to get up before 9am on weekdays to supply their kids with some sort of breakfast before sending them off to school? Surely an 8 year old is capable of getting himself up in the morning, sorting his school bag out and finding the bus fare to get to school? Lord knows what they would say about the obligation to read with their kids, or instruct them in basic manners, or instill them with the belief that they could actually do well at school and get a job rather than sponging off the state. Sadly these are comments I have heard uttered in genuine belief that life has been harsh to them and that these are unreasonable burdens to place upon a parent.

So, what about me and the Husband? We are both very close to our parents and had very strong ideas as to what we wanted to bring to the party when bringing up our own kids. I was brought up very strictly and was adamant that I would be a lot more lax with my own kids - but have ended up sounding like my mother much of the time and am a lot harsher than I ever imagined. The Husband had a much more relaxed and open childhood and swore he would be the same with our kids - which makes me laugh when he ends up being the strictest disciplinarian. But whatever happens, we make sure our kids know they are loved dearly and we always strive to put them first; we might not always get it right but the intention is there and I'm sure they will grow up feeling secure and happy.

Lunch.

Look what my lovely husband just brought up to my office!

Friends.

They're so important to all of us, right? So why do many of mine seem to live so far away?

The Husband and I moved to our current town just after we got married; he was offered a promotion at work and the thought of living in a seaside town with a lower cost of housing (and therefore more chance of affording a house big enough to put kids in, as well as being able to stay home to look after them!) was just too tempting. We haven't regretted the move for a minute. Even my parents and 1 set of friends have moved to within 30 miles of us since, which is fab.

But there have been casualties along the way. About the same time a good friend of the Husband moved about 150 miles in the opposite direction, and since we now have a family and they don't, the differences in our lifestyles have proved to be disastrous for their friendship. Blokes don't just get on the phone or Facebook to catch up, and the distance is not do-able in a weekend. We did see them last year at a wedding and I think they will always consider themselves as friends, they just don't communicate any more.

And I have spent many months at a time travelling around the world, mainly in the company of a random bunch of strangers, all joined together temporarily in a large truck. Trust me, you make some very very close friends when you live, eat, sleep and pee together every day! Sods law then that most of the ones I remain close to live in Australia, New Zealand, Canada...

But the saddest one is my great friend Michelle. We worked together, drank together, shared our hopes and aspirations together. She was always there when I needed her and I would trust her with my kid's lives. Don't get me wrong, I'm delighted beyond words that she is living the life of her dreams with the man of her dreams, but she didn't have to go and bloody emigrate to New Zealand. I've just been "chatting" with her on Facebook, but it's not the same as being in the pub with her face-to-face. This is exactly why I stash some money away every month, so we can pay for holidays - and when the kids get old enough to either a) appreciate the trip, or b) stay at home alone or with with grandparents, we will be jumping straight on a flight to Christchurch:)))