Got the cot

Recently we've started getting baby equipment. With approx. 12 weeks to go, time is creeping up fast. My main source of baby paraphenaelia is from eBay so it is important to start now while I still have the energy to go out and pick the stuff up. On Tuesday we got the cot. A really nice lady sold it to us and gave us sheets and other bedding on top of the original cot purchase!
It really does look like someone is going to be moving in now it's set up. Getting very excited indeed.

Just call me Nigella

On Monday I felt inspired to bake. I fancied eating cake and I am rarely satisfied with the shop-bought kind so out came the cookery books. I slightly adapt most recipes that I follow and this one was no exception. I cut the quantity of eggs and added more lemon oil to the cake batter. They turned out pretty well, if I do say so myself!

The best bit about baking is decorating the little darlings. I used royal icing powder which gives a nice sheen to the icing and my sweet little jelly lemon pieces are trashy but also quite cute, in a way.

Spinach from the garden

Yes, more garden produce. This time it's spinach. It looks like a fair sized bunch, but as usual I was fooled. It cooked down to about 3 tbsps! Never mind the quantity, what about the taste? Home-grown spinach is so superior to the shop bought stuff I can't even explain it properly. Basically the shop-bought stuff has little/no flavour, whereas the garden stuff just tasted so much. Yummy.

We had it with garlic and a tiny dash of soy sauce. It made a great sidedish to our rose veal patties with peanut sauce and rice. Yay!!!

Redcurrant Fool

With my massive crop of redcurrants I realised I needed to do something with them. I'd never really cooked redcurrants before as they are quite pricey if you get them from a supermarket. I figured a fool would be easy.

So I cooked up my berries with a little sugar and a tablespoon of water. They looked delicious so I took a sip. YUCK! They were soooo sour. I had to add quite a lot of sugar in the end. Another thing I learned was that redcurrants are mostly skin and pips. When I sieved the mixture I was not left with much!!!

Anyway I added this to greek yogurt and cream whipped together and finally used my posh martini glasses. Hooray! I thought they looked nice decorated like this. Stupidly in my delight I forgot about the sourness of the raw berries and popped one in my mouth. I believe my lips formed what is known as a 'cat's bottom' shape. Nice.

The fool itself was delicious. Now I just need to figure out what to do with the other 2lbs of berries....

Chickens!

Hurrah hurrah am preparing for my lovely new additions to the family: chickens! Finally I've bought a coop which we put together last weekend. I now need to paint it, build a run and get all the other bits of equipment we'll need.
Hubby couldn't complain at the price of the coop as it was a total bargain - £32 off eBay and it's brand new! So I've bought some lovely blue paint and I'm going to paint it, make a sign for the door and add a few other additions and we'll nearly be ready.
Am planning to get the chickens in August as that will give me time to get everything sorted out but the weather should still be fine enough for them to settle in nicely before the winter. Yipee!!!!

Belly button woes

Having complained for months that I wasn't showing any signs of being pregnant, the bump has taken it upon itself to grow rapidly. These photos were taken last week and even since then the little one has grown massively.

I have become quite preoccupied with the state of my belly button and am keeping my fingers and toes crossed that it doesn't 'pop' out. I felt a bit better comparing my bump to my dear hubby's but even his is starting to look pathetic in comparison!

What have we been eating?

It's been a while since I posted a picture of something I've cooked for us to eat. This photo is of our lunch yesterday. It was a 'what needs using up in the fridge' kind of lunch. So I mixed macaroni with ham, roasted peppers, spring onions, parsley (from the garden), creme fraiche and parmesan. This concotion was then piled on top of little gem leaves and topped with a quarter piece of boiled egg. You can never have enough eggs, I say.