Snowdrops, pancakes and a birthday

I always like February. It brings with it pancake day, half term and my birthday. Even better if my birthday falls in half term (which it did not this year, sadly, but I have already checked and it does in 2025!).

Some of the highlights include beautifully sunny walks, the kind where you forget it's the middle of winter and get overexcited that spring is coming. 

Everything opening up and growing, little flashes of colour here and there.

And then there were walks like this, in which we waded through puddles up to our ankles and everything was soaked and splashed with mud.

Half term was lovely. We did not have to go anywhere in particular so, while we were pretty busy with things at home, there were slow mornings when I was able to go back to bed with a cup of tea and a book. I have just finished this. I enjoyed it overall. I don't read much history and I found it really interesting but at times a little leaden. Lots of facts. 

Pancake day was joyous. We ate them for breakfast with fruit and yogurt (me) chocolate spread and banana (Bella) and drowned in maple syrup (John and Angus). I tried to persuade everyone that we should have stuffed savoury pancakes for dinner but it did not go down well, so we made English style pancakes for dessert instead

There were trips to garden centres

and the pots of the front door step were given a little spruce up. Such a happy sight to pull into the drive way and see cheerful tete-a-tetes and white primulas instead of a dead cyclamen that has been there all winter. 

I always feel such an urge to bring all the greenery and new flowers into the house at this time of year. I think that the last fresh flowers I bought were some sunflowers back in September, and some eucalyptus at Christmas, so it's lovely to buy cheap daffodils and pots of hyacinths. 

Truth be told, I had been waiting for daffodil season to fill this beautiful vase my mum gave me for Christmas.

We bought it at a vintage fair in West Sussex before Christmas and I just love its symmetrical shape and handles. It also contains this clever wire mesh inside, so that you can arrange lots of stems without them all flopping all over the place. 

I really enjoyed being in the house over half term, doing domestic tasks and giving the house a bit of love, imposing a bit of order. I did jobs like sort out all the food cupboards, using up packets of things and auditing the spice situation. Conclusion: we are terrible about checking we have something before buying a new one. No-one needs three jars of star anise and two of saffron. 

I spring cleaned the bedrooms, moving furniture and actually cleaning behind things, rather than running the duster over the surfaces. I refreshed the shelves in our bedroom giving them a late winter/early spring feel. Truly, it is such a pleasure to have the time to do things like this. To have a day where there is no rushing, where all there is to do are some gently domestic tasks which make our home feel a bit more loved, a bit more cared for.

My mum helped me paint our bathroom (more on that later) while my dad helped me hide this horrible corner of the kitchen under some strips of pine stained an oak colour. You can see below where Ziggy chewed the end unit of our kitchen, right at the bottom, when he was a puppy. We've been looking at that for six years.

I had the idea to cover the front with a thin strip of wood, then also along the side. I like it a lot. It adds warmth and texture to our white kitchen, and also hides something ugly. I plan to add more to other corners. 

There were lots of other lovely moments. New hair cuts for Bella and I.

New nails for me.

And lots of time spent crocheting. I finally finished my trio blanket, which I started back in lockdown, I think. I can't remember exactly but I know it was a long time ago. I know I was glad to finish this blanket.

I chose three quite similar shade of yarn (Slice o' cherry pie, Liquorice Yumyum and Caramel Core Blimey) so the colour variations are subtle. It's easier to see when the the blanket is folded rather than laid out.

It looks good draped over the foot of our bed, or on the back of the sofa.

Despite having my birthday on a work day, it was nice and I received some lovely gits, such as this jigsaw, some new books, scented candles, new bags, a voucher for Seasalt and all sorts of lovely bits and bobs.

  

I am so excited to read these two, I have heard such good things about them!

Finally, what was already a nice month ended beautifully with a trip to Unravel Festival with my friend Abigail. Our birthdays are days apart, and the location of the festival easy for both of us to get to, so we've been going over the last couple of years. 

This year, I was certain I would buy nothing, yet came home with some new yarn (from here) which I bought purely because it reminded me of summer and I thought it would make a nice lightweight scarf.

And also the yarn to make this hat - very much my kind of colours. 

The month ended in the best way, with a mantel crammed with plants, cards, flowers and candles. Signs of the seasons, signs of life. 

Cookery Book: Home Cookery Year

It's been over a year since my last Cookery Book Challenge post but my love of cooking and a good cookery book remains as strong as ever. As I am sure I have said many times before, I have little interest in cooking when I am busy on a weeknight after work (thankfully John does most of our weeknight cooking as he usually gets home first) but I love to potter in the kitchen at the weekends and in the school holidays. While I am always looking for new dinner ideas ("What's for dinner?" - worst question ever), it is the pottering kind of baking, the nice lunches and store cupboard cooking I often take most satisfaction from. The "challenge" part was when I used to try and cook from a different book on my shelf every month. It was a good way to make sure they earned their place and to stop meal ideas getting boring. I have acquired a few new books since then, and wondered about starting this up again. A book a month is impossible for me, so perhaps a book every two months? 

So, with that in mind, I decided throughout January and February to cook from the wonderful book Home Cookery Year by Claire Thomson. This has actually become one of my most used books; I would say it is in my top ten all time favourite recipe books, actually, thinking about it. It is covered in post-it notes, a sure sign it is regularly used. Last time I did a post like this, I cooked from the spring and summer sections of the book. This time, of course, it is autumn and winter. 

This banana and maple granola was a great example of store cupboard cooking: easy to put together but you feel the benefit again and again. This recipe has a mashed very ripe banana mixed in with the wet ingredients before baking, giving the whole thing a banana flavour which is lovely with the maple syrup. 

I follow granola recipes quite loosely, as I like to use up whatever random packets of nuts, seeds and dried fruit I have in the cupboard. Walnuts and dates worked well in this granola. I don't usually eat breakfast on weekdays (too early, too rushed) but would often take some of this to work in a little tub and nibble on it after school or at morning playtime.

More investment cooking came in the form of blackberry and apple hand pies, a delightfully autumnal treat. I like the names "hand pies" - it is evocative of holding a warm pie to warm your cold hands.  For this recipe, you add sour cream to the pastry mix which apparently makes it more crisp and flaky. You cut two discs for each pie, filling them with a spoonful of blackberries and apples mixed with jam, add the lid, crimp with a fork, baste with egg wash then bake. 

They are delicious, especially warm and freshly baked, and I don't know why I didn't manage to take a photo of them cooked. The juice seeps out and they do look quite messy but I think this just adds to their charm. 

I mentioned this cake last time I cooked from the book - caramel apple cake - and loved it. I still love it. It not just for early autumn, but justifies its place in a cake tin all year round.

For lunch one day, we tried these little bacon and egg tarts. The filling is encased in bread, rather than pastry, making it a good use of stale bread. You roll a slice thinly then press it into a muffin tin before filling with the bacon and egg mixture and baking. 

Despite being tricky to get out of the tin and messy to look at, they were good. I don't know if I'd bother to make them again though. 

Another lunch was this Cavolo Nero polenta soup. This is one of those wonderful hearty soups you want when the weather is horrible. You begin my frying diced onions, carrots and celery until soft then adding greens with herbs and garlic. Then you add some stock, and you cook the polenta in the soup. Finally, just before serving, you tip in drained, tinned caneleini beans and warm it all through. The flavours and textures all work so well together and I really liked the polenta as a thickener instead of potato, but it didn't reheat so well. The polenta changed the textures of the soup and seemed to soak up more liquid making it lumpy. But having said all that i would make it again as it was really good, and good for you.

The next lunch is amazing and a favourite now: fried chilli butter sesame eggs with kale on toast. More an assembly job than a recipe, you wilt/fry the kale in sesame oil, soy sauce  and garlic until it is soft. 

Then you melt some butter in a frying pan until it's brown and foamy then add your egg, basting it with the brown butter and sprinkling sesame seeds on top as it cooks. Finally you assemble your wilted kale and fried egg on top of some toast. 

It's not that any of the ingredients are particularly exciting, but there is something about the sesame flavours with the kale and egg on top of the crunchy toast which is lovely. 

Next we have butter beans with spinach, tarragon, bacon and cream. I feel like this is a really fancy beans on toast and I love it. You fry garllc then add tinned, drained butter beans and cream, then some spinach. 

In another pan you fry the bacon until crispy then add it to the beans and spinach, and serve it with crusty bread or toast. It has the consistency of soup or stew and is delicious. Quite a light, week night dinner. 

Leftovers, when reheated, soaked up more of the liquid and it was thicker in consistency so absolute perfect for piling on top of toast. 

Another really good week night dinner recipe was parpadelle with leek and pancetta, although you can use tagliatelle too. You just softly fry a lot of leeks and a bit of bacon for ages until they are really soft, then add creme fraiche and warm it through.

You stir it through the pasta, add a little pasta cooking water to help it all bind together, and serve topped with grated cheese. Probably parmesan but cheddar would also be lovely. The kids prefer cheddar on top of their pasta. 

Our next meal, carbonnade, is more special weekend cooking. Beef and onions are cooked low and slow in black beer, or stout, until the beef is soft. 

It is the best kind of autumn/winter cooking, the kind of hearty food you want in the oven when it is cold. I would normally serve something like this with mashed or baked potatoes but decided to try baked polenta chips. You cook your polenta in the saucepan with stock or water following the packet cooking times  - mine is quick cook so done in five minutes. Then you pour it into a greased baking tray and leave it to cool.

As it cools, it solidifies and becomes rubbery in texture.

You slice the rubbery polenta into chip shapes, or bigger if you like, before putting them back in the oven for ten minutes, dotted with butter to crisp up. You can grate parmesan over them before you serve them, it is really good. Then are slightly crispy on the outside and soft in the middle and delicious. We had these with the carbonade and lots of greens. The kids were not sure about the polenta chips but John and I loved them.

There was a little leftover polenta so, the next day, I made a few more chips for lunch which I had with some greens and poached eggs. I covered the whole thing in Sriracha sauce. Italians would probably be horrified by this way of eating polenta but I loved it. Polenta chips are my new favourite thing. 

There is so much I still want to cook from this book: leftover fruit cake fried in sherry and butter, made-from-scratch Boston baked beans, homemade gnocchi with Cavolo Nero sauce....it's a really good book. An investment cookery book for investment cooking.