I Think You’re Bonkers

Yesterday was my 40th birthday and the kids made me a cake. They did all the mixing, and the measuring and they iced and decorated it too. The only part I had to do was get it out of the oven and out of the tins. Very nice cake it was too. They also wanted to get me a pasta maker after the home ed group pasta making day - so we did that and spent most of yesterday making pasta, which we shared with Kris and RJ today, well, some of it anyway. That was lovely to, as was more presents.

Poorly chicken seems to be simply moulting and will be fine in time. 

On a low note though, Dino went to check the piggies this morning and found one of them had died overnight. It looked like it was peaceful and the piggy had just gone to sleep and not woken up. Mousse is now buried under a new rosemary bush in the garden. (He’s the brown one on Mimi’s lap and that’s him as a baby, he was old when he died.)

 

"Mum, we want to make flapjack…."

OK, here’s a recipe, off you go. 

Really? We can just go and make it? 

Yup. Just give me a shout when you have to use the cooker. 

I let them loose for the first time with minimal supervision. Dino read the recipe and instructions, Mimi found all the ingredients and they decided on the sizes of mixing bowl, baking tray etc for themselves and weighed everything out. Dino melted the butter and syrup while Mimi mixed the dry stuff and crushed the cornflakes. Dino poured the mix into a lined baking tray (actually my roasting tray but good enough) and I did the in and out of the oven part. Dino washed up afterwards too - so that’s the whole process from start to finish.

They worked well together and produced slightly overcooked and a bit too hard but perfectly edible flapjack! They fancy making muffins next, I think that might happen on Thursday or Friday. Dino can make ace scrambled eggs too and we have enough for lunch tomorrow.

Dino’s been working on knots too and there are bits of string knotted on chairs, to each other and around action man legs all over the place. He’s actually rather good at it. He seems to have got the hang of slip, reef and clove hitch knots and what looks (according to the library book) like a cow hitch.

I think that’s plenty of education for one day and I’ve been surprised at how many areas they’ve covered. I’m quite impressed.

Certainly feels like it with warm, sunny, blue skies…..

A couple of pics ….

 

 

Well, the kids did with the help of another parent at home ed group this morning. I helped with the eating and it was lovely. No doubt there was weighing, mixing and stuff along the way. I did watch both Dino and Mimi rolling out the lasagne sheets over and over again until they were finally thin enough. Other kids were making tagliatelle. Lunch was vege lasagne, tagliatelle with butter, garlic and spinach, garlic bread and some cheese to sprinkle over. Dino loved everything and Mimi at least tried everything and she said the tagliatelle was nice.

There are a couple of pics but I have tog et them off the camera, crop and resize, so, umm, maybe later. 

We do eat a fair few meals with pasta in and I’m wondering about getting us a pasta maker so we can make our own, dry it and use it and maybe even gift it for friends.

We started the day by writing a list of jobs on the chalk board door in the kitchen and crossed each one off when done. That seemed to focus us all nicely, but I still have a couple of things to get done - including Nano.

One of those jobs was to move the hens so they’re closer to the house where it’s a bit more sheltered and not so grotty getting to them in this nasty cold, wet weather. We did that and the hens are now happily scoffing fresh grass, we cleaned their house out at the same time.

Kids did some workbook stuff and seeing as Dino made a single toffee apple at Cubs last night another was demanded for Mimi - so we googled for a toffee recipe, dug out an apple and we made toffee!

 

and both kids have toffee apples…

 

 

I shall be sampling the toffee slab later… 

Well, mostly.

 

• Take home grown veg from the garden - you’ll need an onion, some garlic, a carrot or 2 (depending on size) and a beetroot - I put in a couple of small celery sticks and about half a courgette too.
• Cook beetroot in water until soft enough to peel the skin off and dice. Keep the water.
• Dice the veg and fry until soft in some oil - I like olive but any will do.
• Add a spoon or so of plain flour and stir in to soak up the oil.
• Add in a tin of tomatoes (not home grown but it’s what we had, you could cook some home grown toms if you felt like it I suppose) 
• Top up with water from the beetroot, and a bit more if needed (and a stock cube if you want) and any seasoning you feel might be needed, herbs etc.
• Simmer gently until all veg are soft. 
• Blitz until smooth.
• Serve with bread.

It’s a variation of the Shrek Lava Soup recipe and we liked it. I used the biggest pot I have and kept topping up the water so there was enough to freeze half too. The beetroot makes it really red and changes the flavour away from that sharp tomato that can happen. Was home made bread too.

 

A few red/purple carrots (Dragon), small but the rest can carry on growing a bit, a few very very tiny orange carrots (chantenay) a pile of spuds (kestrel I think - some for tonight and some for tomorrow) then at the end there’s a heap of dill, some to just eat and some to dry if I can.

Any tips on drying dill? Oh and there were a handful of peas but we seem to have eaten them. The purple carrots are the first carrots I’ve ever grown successfully here and that’s thanks to the loo roll tip I got from the Downsizer forums. The loo roll inners are all but gone and the carrots are just WONDERFUL!

Tonight we had chicken cobbler and in the cobbler was…..

Garlic, dill, onion and peas - all home grown. Yummm. 

We were in town, it’s Monday and therefore bill paying day - added to the parcels that needed sending urgently after my soap nuts finally turned up this morning. Anyway, on the way back to the bank to pay the last bills in there and we wandered past the butchers we used to use a lot before the kids decided they’d rather have bland sausages that may as well have no meat in. I think it’s a general part of life now that we’ve forgotten what meat actually tastes like, along with what it looks, smells and feels like.

I adore our little butcher opposite the post office, he has posters of animal breeds and butchering diagrams all over the place and the meat in there is fresh and tasty and locally raised, slaughtered and butchered. He makes basic pork sausages as well as some interesting varieties - the pork and apple is just gorgeous.

So, we were walking past when Mimi pipes up "That looks nice, can we have sausages for tea, from here?"  They’ve chosen some of the basic pork and some lamb and mint. We’re having the lamb and mint with mash and baked beans tonight and they smell lovely. I hope the kids like them as I’d love to go back for meat from him again.