All change!

I have a job! Some brave firm has decided to employ me and although some of the details still need to be worked out, I'll be starting pretty soon, 3 days a week!

I'm very excited but very nervous too. I'm worried about having to put the boys in more childcare (especially Zachary - he is not good with changes to his routine, but he's familiar with the nursery we'd be using so hopefully that'll help), whether I've forgotten everything I knew, and also that there'll be an expectation on me to be coming in at a certain level of experience. The last 'new' job I had was as a trainee solicitor, so I wasn't expected to know or be able to do much at all, so this now makes me nervous, but hopefully it will all settle down. Also, a large part of this job will be working to expand the department and undertaking a lot of business development. This is not something that I've led before and although I have some ideas, I'm pretty new at the whole schmoozing game!

I found I was strangely emotional after I had the job offer but having had a bit of a cry and talked through some of my worries, I feel better about things now. But I must still be a bit anxious - had my anxiety dream last night. This is the only dream I have ever had which has recurred and it usually happens when I'm worried about something. In it, basically normal things happen until my teeth start getting wobbly and then fall out. It wasn't as bad as sometimes though, only 4 of my teeth this time!

Dinosaur birthday cake mark II

It's my friend's little girl's birthday party tomorrow and I've made her birthday cake today - quite pleased with the result, although the icing looks a little crumby in some places... But I'm happy with it and I hope the birthday girl is too!

I also made some of Mary Anne's melting moments today. This is my second attempt at them and I used margarine instead of butter to try and keep the mix to be piped a little softer. It worked for that but I forgot the vanilla essence and also I think they ended up slightly undercooked. The tops were golden brown, but they're a little stodgy in the middle which I think is just that my biscuits were too thick - need to use a smaller nozzle.

And yes, I used left-over dinosaur icing to fill them with!

Mud pies anyone??

The boys had some fun in the garden this afternoon whilst Leigh and I fulfilled our stereotypes - I was in the kitchen making a birthday and he was in the garden drilling and being manly!

Bubble painting

Aha, I knew it was about time for another example of my ineptitude as a mother! I thought it would be good to do some bubble painting with the boys the other day - you know, the kind where you blow through a straw into a paint and washing up liquid mixture and then rest some paper on top of the bubbles you produce. It's a really great effect and lots of fun. Mostly.

So I had prepared the first container of paint/water/washing up liquid. I (foolishly) put this in front of Leo and asked him to stir it. Zachary asked a question, I looked at him, looked back at Leo who was then pulling a face of complete disgust and had paint dribbling down his chin!

Aaaargh! He'd swallowed, so I made him drink some water and checked the back of the washing up liquid bottle. "If swallowed, seek medical advice immediately." Hmmm. Leo not vomiting or looking particularly ill so I decided against rushing him to ED, and phoned NHS Direct instead. Spoke to a very pleasant young man (look at me all grown up, describing people as 'young men!') who (while trying not to laugh at me, I think) confirmed that poster paint and washing up liquid are on their low toxicity register - phew! He gave me a bit more advice on what to do if Leo started to feel ill but all has been fine. Lesson learned!

Cutie pie chickens

It feels a little odd putting this directly after the last post, but Leigh took some photos of Rogue and Henrietta peck in the doorway to their house a few evenings ago - cutie pies!

Bye bye Bubbles

Sadly, the other of our original chickens, Bubbles, died over the weekend. She had been ill for a while and despite visits to the vets and some antibiotics, she simply deteriorated slowly and there wasn't anything else we could do. As we have now had 3 chickens die over a fairly short period, the vet offered to make some further investigations for us, so hopefully we can find out what was wrong - and if it's something to do with the living quarters then we can make any changes we need to.

Hello new chickens!

We have 2 new chickens! In fact we've had them for a week and a bit now, but our camera was out being repaired so I've only just caught up with photos.

Here are our new additions - Rogue

and Henrietta Peck.

Hex is still doing really well,

but Bubbles has been poorly for a while now. We're not really sure what it is, antibiotics haven't worked, and although she's eating some, it's not really enough. So we're waiting and seeing...

Peanut butter and white chocolate blondies

These are from Rachel Allen and she says in the intro "Tired of brownies? Try blondies!" They are very easy to make although came out quite heavy and dense (possibly slightly overcooked?). Not so much as to spoil them though!

1. Preheat oven to 170C/150C fan/325F/gas mark 3. Butter the sides of the cake tin and line the base with greaseproof paper.

2. Sift the flour and baking powder into a small bowl and set aside.

3. In a large bowl, cream the butter and peanut butter together until very soft. Add the sugar, egg and vanilla extract and beat until combined. Add the flour, baking powder and the chopped chocolate and mix to form a dough.

4. Place the dough in the prepared tin and bake in the oven for 25-30 mins or until golden brown and almost firm in the centre.

5. Allow to cool in the tin, before removing and cutting into squares.

Birthday party

I took Zachary to a friend's 4th birthday party today at a soft play centre in town. Highlights - the birthday boy being asked to leave the centre because he had been hitting other children (not party guests, and he just had some timeout in the car park) and finding my shoes filled with squash when I needed to put them on (thankfully only Crocs and nothing that could absorb the drink!)!

They come in threes

So, we've had Zachary's illness this week (he's well back to normal now), my sister was induced to have her baby today (although at time of typing we have had no news...!) and thirdly I've had a job interview this week.

I put my CV together and approached a recruitment agency back in January to start looking for work but up till this week I've heard nothing at all. I'd started to think nothing was going to happen, and then as we were driving to the hospital I had a call from the agency about a potential job in Burton-on-Trent! Talk about timing. Had an interview today and it seemed to go well - they've invited me back for a second interview which is great! I've started thinking about the changes this will mean for us and the boys if I was successful, but even if not at least I'm back in the saddle and have got the first interview out of the way. I have skills people want and hopefully can put the horrendous training contract interviews I had (the last time I had a formal job interview - about 10 years ago) out of my mind!!!!

Viral wheeze

We've had an interesting couple of days with Zachary. I took him to the doctor yesterday as he had a cough and was wheezy and a bit breathless - she examined him, put him on a nebuliser and then because his improvement had not been good enough, we were sent straight to the hospital for more tests and monitoring! It all seemed so quick, but young children can deteriorate very fast.

We spent some time in paeds ED with Zachary being alternately nebulised and oxygenised, and then were sent to the children's assessment unit. Ended up having to stay overnight (which did not result in a huge amount of sleep due to machine alarms constantly going off, crying children and middle of the night inhaler administration!), but we're home now and all sorted. Zachary's got an inhaler for today and tomorrow but the hospital seemed confident it was a one-off event. The GP thought he had a chest infection, the first doctor we saw thought it might be due to a cold or hayfever, but the final registrar who saw Zachary this morning said it was a viral wheeze - sounds a bit odd, but apparently it's going around at the moment. Glad to be home and all well.

The only slightly bizarre thing was that each different doctor we saw took us through the whole history of our trips to the GP and hospital, despite (presumably), the previous doctor making notes in Zachary's record. It had the effect of us feeling slightly as though our stories were being checked at each stage and making us feel guilty for not bringing him in earlier ('HOW long did you say he'd been coughing?'!), although I'm sure that wasn't what was intended!

Waistcoats Revisited

So after some searching on the internet I found a good answer to my query - it appeared that I had turned the material inside out once too often. So having unpicked the 5 wrong seams, they have been redone properly and the waistcoats are all turned right way out!

I've made 2 so that I can offer a spare to the nursery and because they're lined, they're reversible too. Aha!

Zachary came home last week and asked whether he was allowed to wear eye make-up as a moustache for the concert - brilliant! (as long as I don't have to apply it anyway!)

Waistcoats

Humpf. Waistcoats. Zachary has been asked to provide one for a costume for his end-of-year concert at school, and after the success of Captain Jubilee and my lovely costume book, I thought I'd make him one. It was all going so well until I got to the instructions for sewing up the sides of the waistcoat - I couldn't really picture what they meant, and the illustrations didn't help! I tried a couple of ways which were definitely wrong and then found something which seemed to work...except I now can't turn the darn thing right way out. Poo. Defeated at the last step.

So, laptop at the ready to see if I can find any internet help, and unpicking tool charged, I am going to sort this out.

Hardwick Hall

Had a free afternoon today and the prospect of the boys running rings round us at home was not appealing, so we ventured forth to Hardwick Hall, making good use of our National Trust membership! It was only about 25 minutes from us so easily somewhere I can take the boys again for an afternoon and was great.

They've recently transformed the old stable block into a 2 shops, a kiosk and a restaurant (moving them from their original positions in the old kitchens of the 'New' Hall) and then there's an Upper and Lower Park to explore as well as the 2 halls. We didn't get to the parks today.

The 'Old' Hall is the house where Countess Elizabeth of Shrewsbury (or Bess of Hardwick, formerly one of Queen Elizabeth's ladies in waiting) was born, and the 'New' Hall was built y her during her lifetime and respresents her wealth and success in life. The gardens are lovely too. The Old Hall is partly demolished, but the skeleton remains and you can still climb the great staircase up to the roof. There are also parts of plaster panels left on the walls so you can imagine what the rooms could have looked like. There were reportedly 96 steps in the staircase, although on Zachary's count, he made 116!!

The New Hall is more of a traditional stately home, but being the National Trust, there were quizzes and trails for the boys to follow, a room with colouring pencils and paper, and dressing up opportunities in some of the rooms - Leo and Zachary looked particularly fetching in their ruffs and pearls! What a great afternoon.

Dinosaur cake

I have been asked by a friend to make a cake for her daughter's 5th birthday party. Her daughter is mad on dinosaurs, and searching the internet I found a few ideas (that I thought I could make!) - make a round cake into a dinsoaur face, or use the cake as a body and create a head and tail from icing/sugarpaste. There were lots with plain base cakes and lovely dinosaurs painted or iced onto them, and lots with lovely fondant models on them, but I'm sure my artistic skills are not quite up to that!


So I settled on this one...





It looked well within my skills and I found the template for the head and tail back on the original Betty Crocker website from which I think the recipe originated. There was also a recipe for the cake and frosting which I looked at eagerly, only to discover it suggested you use a Betty Crocker cake mix and ready-made frosting. I want to make my own!


I have had a practise run this evening -- made 4 8" Mary Berry chocolate sponges and sandwiched them together in pairs with white chocolate ganache (yes, not jam! Although I'm pretty sure I overwhipped the ganache at the final stage, which hopefully I can correct  for the final cake). I made my own buttercream frosting to cover the cake with and I think it's come out okay - I need to work on covering the cake a bit more as it's still a little crumby in places, and I found it quite difficult to cover some bits. But doing a 'crumb' layer of frosting and then freezing the cake for half an hour helped with the final covering, and overall I think this cake will work for the final event. I may need to go with 9" cakes to make sure we have enough and I have a focus group (my family and 4 friends!) testing the practice tomorrow for more feed-back. My main worry is that it isn't a 'proper' dinosaur, like a stegosaurus or something but I have sent a copy of this picture to my friend so hopefully she can let me know as well whether it'll be accepted!! Wish me luck!

Tosca Cake

Excited by another of Wotcha's recipes, I tried her Tosca cake today. It was an interesting make, as the cake is made by first melting the butter, then beating the eggs and sugar for at least 5 minutes before folding in the dry ingredients and finally mixing in milk and the melted butter. I think my tin was not really deep enough (despite being a 24cm tin as requested) as my cake rose to basically the top of the tin (and higher in the middle), before I added the caramel topping! I also think that I should have cooked the caramel on a slightly higher heat for a little longer to colour it more. The topping came out nice and golden at the edges but a bit pale in the middle - so actually if I had cooked the caramel for longer, the edges might have been too brown?

Anyway, the cake is lovely (slightly different texture to one of my usual all-in-one sponges) and the topping is delish. Sorry, still dodgy phone photos!

(a couple of days later, the cake is still good, the topping has gone slightly squidgy and chewy - not sure if this is supposed to happen or is an indicator that I didn't cook the caramel quite long enough)

Farewell Emma Frost

Sadly, another chicken has passed to the great henhouse in the sky. Emma Frost had been off her food for a couple of days and looking a bit tired, but we didn't realise how poorly she was. Bubbles had also been looking a bit peaky so we whisked her off to the vet yesterday. Although no definite diagnosis was found, another dose of antibiotics later and she seems to have picked up again - at least she's back to bullying Hex again about food! Hex meanwhile has been her usual self the whole time, honking round the garden, producing dinky little eggs and generally being a massively greedy beggar!

Bye bye Emma Frost (she's the one on the left)

Successful...and not so much!

I have tried another of Mary-Anne's recipes recently - her Apple Crumble Cheesecake bars. They are essentially the raspberry oat slices which I have made previously, but with fruit puree instead of jam and a cheesecake layer in the middle. They are very lovely...although I did manage to use my food processor, blender (for the puree) and Kitchen Aid all in one sitting so pretty heavy on machinery. But that may just be because I'm lazy! Here's her recipe, and my photo...

You will see that her bars appear to have a thinner layer of cheesecake than mine...I put this down to her using her favourite 20cmx25cm tin, whereas I stuck to my 20cmx20cm tin...

Then today I tried out a new couple of dishes for dinner. Now my boys (my sons that is, I am not including Leigh in this!) are not the most adventurous of eaters - that is, they like what they know and they know what they like! Leo has always been better at trying new things than Zachary and it has taken us a good while to expand our usual run of dinners out from beans on toast, homemade chicken burgers and homemade fish cakes. There are now a reasonable variety of dinners which we can all share and don't make Leigh and I feel as though we're eating the same 7 dinners every week (although toad in the hole and tuna pasta bake feature quite frequently!).

This has led to us not really trying new dinners any more, or at least if they are new, basing them around a staple which the boys like and will eat readily. So the Good Food magazines we get each month are mainly used by us for the cakes and treats, and sometimes bread. I regularly tell myself that I will try to cook one new dinner each week and I regularly fail at this. But tonight I took the bull by the horns and we had sweetcorn and sweet potato burgers with courgette fritters; the reasoning being that the boys like sweetcorn and they can eat the burger buns if the burgers are not popular, and they like pancakes - the fritters are basically just savoury pancakes with courgette in them.

Well, the burgers tasted great (thanks to Leigh who put them together yesterday) but were still an incredibly soft consistency even after being in the fridge overnight so it was a bit like eating mashed potato in a bun. But not a disaster, and the fritters were good too (despite the fact I forgot to season them...sweet chilli dipping sauce anyone?).

Leo managed a fritter (admittedly it was with a BBQ sauce dip...) and a couple of mouthfuls of the burger, although he did announce when he saw it that he didn't like potatoes. Our usual tactic with this is to tell them that it's just the middle of chips and that has had some limited success. Not tonight. Zachary wore his "I'm only eating this because there might be some pudding in the offing if I do" face for the entire meal (except when he was eating the bread), rubbing his eyes constantly as if to emphasise the effort he was making with a dinner which was really not all that nice. He had a couple of bites, but pretty much gave up when he heard there was to be no pudding tonight. Oh well, at least he's getting past the stage where he tries something new, claims to like it and then when he's presented with it a second time, looks really pained at having to eat it!

So, fritters worth a go for a second time (Leigh and me only!), burgers probably not so - tasted good, but consistency just too soft. Onwards and upwards!

Cake and Muffins

My 3-cheese muffins (which are best day of baking!)

And a football birthday cake for my step-father (the space at the end was deliberate - for candles!)

3-Cheese Muffins :

150ml sunflower oil, plus extra for greasing

1 large egg

284ml carton of buttermilk, made up to 350ml with milk

500g self-raising flour

1 tsp English mustard powder

140g mature cheddar, grated

1 bunch spring onions, sliced

small bunch chives, chopped

25g Parmesan, grated

200g full-fat soft cheese, gently diced into 2cm cubes

1. Heat oven to 200C/180C fan/gas 6 and oil a 12-hole muffin tin. Whisk the oil, egg and buttermilk. In a mixing bowl, mix the flour, 1 tsp salt, and mustard powder, then stir in the cheddar, spring onions, chives and half the Parmesan.

2. Use a large spoon to gently fold the wet ingredients into the dry - don't overmix, just lightly combine. With the final few folds, mix in the soft cheese cubes. Spoon the mixture between the holes in the tin (they will be quite full), scatter with the remaining Parmesan and bake for 25 mins.

Cheese muffins

I have just made a batch of 3-cheese and chive (ahem - should have been with spring onions too...but least said, soonest mended!) muffins. These were a little bizarre going in - I usually expect a muffin mix to be basically runny, but this was pretty stiff, almost like a soft dough. I don't know whether it was to do with the consistency or I'm not generous enough, but what was supposed to yield a batch of 12 regular muffins has given me 12 regular muffins and 15 mini muffins. Nice. Leigh suggested that they might not rise beyond the shape they were in the oven and he was right! Just sampled one - very nice, although the third cheese (soft cheese like Philadelphia) gives the inside a slightly strange texture and it's difficult to tell whether they're properly cooked because the soft cheese is keeping everything nice and moist. Oh well, just have to see what the troops think of them at lunchtime!