Make, Bake, Sew, Grow

Two weeks into January and it's as if the Christmas holidays never happened. Nothing dramatic, but it's just a head-down, get on with it kind of month. John is working three late shifts a week throughout January and I'm feeling the impact at home, dealing with all the after school clubs, tea time, bed time etc on my own. I'm not feeling sorry for my self exactly, or particularly anxious, just really, really tired. 

Work is good. I like my job very much, to the point where I look forward to going, and I am very thankful for that. Home life muddles along quite happily - weekends over the next few months are filling up rapidly with plans to see friends near and far. We are talking to builders about knocking down walls and looking at kitchens, doing sums and making plans.

Now seems like a good time to revisit my Make Bake Sew Grow posts, my way of cherishing my home comforts when life gets very busy, as it inevitably does. 

{ Make }

I was given a gorgeous little mid-century coffee table, all clean lines and tapered legs, by a colleague. It was found in her garage and kindly passed our way. It's a little stained but fundamentally sound, and it's now in our garage, where I am sanding and varnishing it. 

Just try really hard to look at the table and nothing else in this photo please. Thank you. 

{ Bake }

So much kitchen activity lately! I bought a reduced panettone from Waitrose after Christmas. It was soft, gooey and buttery like brioche. Most of it was sliced and eaten with a cup of coffee or tea and the rest was baked with a creamy custard to make a panettone bread and butter pudding. No photos but trust me, it was good.

New cookery books have been perused, new recipes have been bookmarked. From Simply Nigella we made Sweet Potato Macaroni Cheese.

It's just a really good macaroni cheese made thicker and richer with the addition of mashed sweet potatoes which sounds wrong but is completely delicious. It was a huge hit with the kids too.

There was also Massaman Beef Curry. A bit of a faff initially, as it's supposed to be cooked the day before you eat it and left in the fridge so that the flavours develop, and that's asking an awful lot of organisation and pre-planning from us, let me tell you. Then you add potatoes and heat it again until they are cooked, then stir in loads of coriander. It's not a typical thick-sauced Indian style curry, as the coconut milk base is more Thai, but more of a spicy, fragrant stew which is warming and nourishing.

And there was marmalade cake.

This much-used recipe is from the first Kitchen Diaries book by Nigel Slater. I love to make it every January. 

{ Sew }

I have five things on the go at the moment but all attention is firmly focused on a baby blanket for a friend at school who is due to give birth in the next few weeks.

Simple, classic granny squares edged in white, with a colour combination that is hopefully aimed at either sex.

I am half way through and making good progress, while watching the completely gripping and superb Making a Murderer.

{ Grow }

The bulbs (daffodils, I think) I planted in October are up already, and much too soon. What's going to give me colour in the garden in March if they're up already?

Unimpeded by frost, my geraniums are, amazingly, still growing and flowering. 

But if this current cold snap continues - and I hope it does, I am relishing the cold, clear skies after so much rain - they will need to be covered. Which I'll probably forget to do and then they will die and I'll probably buy some more in the spring. Such is the circle of life in my back garden.